1249	----	None 
24259	----	None 
30630	----	THE MATERIAL FOR THIS BOOK WAS COLLECTED DIRECTLY FROM NATURE AT GREAT PERSONAL RISK BY THE AUTHOR [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] A GUIDE TO MEN A BACHELOR'S LIFE IS ONE LONG SOLO--USUALLY A HYMN OF THANKSGIVING A GUIDE TO MEN BEING ENCORE REFLECTIONS OF A BACHELOR GIRL _by_ HELEN ROWLAND [Illustration] PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK BY DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY, NEW YORK To FANNIE HURST Who has discovered the secret of how to be happy, though wedded to an art and to a man at the same time. [Illustration] CONTENTS Foreword _by_ Fannie Hurst 13 Overture 17 _Prelude_ 19 _Refrain_ 21 Bachelors 23 _First Interlude_ 27 True Love--How to know it 35 _Variations_ 38 Blondes 42 _Cymbals & Kettle-drums_ 44 What Every Woman Wonders 50 _Second Interlude_ 58 Brides 63 _Syncopations_ 66 Divorces 73 _Third Interlude_ 75 Widows 81 _Improvisations_ 83 Widowers 89 _Fourth Interlude_ 92 Second Marriages 99 _Intermezzo_ 102 Woman & Her Infinite Variety 109 Maxims of Cleopatra 112 _Finale_ 118 Curtain 125 ILLUSTRATIONS . . . and interrupts him. 23 Places him on a pedestal . . . 35 Married to a human being . . . 63 In remembrance. 73 Half a love . . . 81 You may polish him up . . . 89 A brand new sensation . . . 99 A man just crawls away . . . 109 [Illustration] FOREWORD A SMALL phial, I doubt not, could contain the attar of the epigrammatic literature of all time. Few of the perfumes of this diminutive form of wit and satire have survived. Pretty and scented vaporings, most of the thousands and thousands of them, that have died on the air of the foibles of their day. Yet how the pungent ones can persist! The racy old odors, which are as new as _now_, that still hover about the political and amorous quips of the Greeks. The nose-crinkling ones of the French, more vinegar-acrid than perfumed, although a seventeenth-century proverb calls France "a monarchy tempered by epigrams." The didactic Teutonic ones, sharply corrosive. The greatest evaporative of course of this form of _bon mot_ is mere cleverness. Wit is the attar which endures. The wit of Pope and Catullus, Landor, Voltaire, Rousseau and Wilde. That is what Rapin must have had in mind when he said that a man ought to be content if he succeeded in writing one really good epigram. Helen Rowland stands pleasantly impeached for writing many. She has a whizz to her swiftly cynical arrow that entitles her to a place in the tournament. She is not merely anagrammatical, scorns the couplet for the mere sake of the couplet, and has little time for the smiting word at any price. In the entire history of epigrammatic expression there are few if any whose fame rests solely upon the brittle structure of the _bon mot_. Martial, about whose brilliant brevities can scarcely be said to hover the odor of sanctity, is, I suppose, remembered solely as a wielder of the barbed word. Miss Rowland is balanced skilfully upon that same slender trapeze, doing a very deft bow-and-arrow act, her archery of a high order. She wields a wicked bow, a kindly bow, a swift, a sure, a ductile bow. Matrimony is her favorite target (so was it Bombo's and Herrick's and even political Parnell had his shot at it) and her little winged arrows are often bitingly pointed with philosophy, satire, wit and sometimes just a touch of good old home-brew American hokum. For this wise woman with the high-spirited bow behind her arrow, these little pages speak eloquently. FANNIE HURST. [Illustration] OVERTURE Would you your sweetheart's secret seek to spell? There are so many little ways to tell! A hair, perhaps, shall prove him false or true-- A single hair upon his coat lapel! [Illustration] PRELUDE THE sweetest part of a kiss is the moment just before taking. Love is misery--sweetened with imagination, salted with tears, spiced with doubt, flavored with novelty, and swallowed with your eyes shut. Marriage is the miracle that transforms a kiss from a pleasure into a duty, and a lie from a luxury into a necessity. A husband is what is left of a lover, after the nerve has been extracted. A man's heart is like a barber shop in which the cry is always, "NEXT!" The discovery of rice-powder on his coat-lapel makes a college-boy swagger, a bachelor blush, and a married man tremble. It takes one woman twenty years to make a man of her son--and another woman twenty minutes to make a fool of him. By the time a man has discovered that he is in love with a woman, she is usually so fagged out waiting for the phenomenon, that she is ready to topple right over into his arms from sheer exhaustion. A man always asks for "just one kiss"--because he knows that, if he can get that, the rest will come without asking. Somehow, the moment a man has surrendered the key of his heart to a woman, he begins to think about changing the lock. There are only two ages, at which a man faces the altar without a shudder; at twenty when he doesn't know what's happening to him--and at eighty when he doesn't care. [Illustration] THE REFRAIN [Illustration] THERE'S so much saint in the worst of them, And so much devil in the best of them, That a woman who's married to one of them, Has nothing to learn of the rest of them. SOMEHOW, JUST AT THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT WHEN A BACHELOR FANCIES THAT HE IS GOING TO DIE FOR LOVE OF A WOMAN, ANOTHER WOMAN ALWAYS COMES ALONG AND INTERRUPTS HIM [Illustration: . . . and interrupts him.] BACHELORS THE modern bachelor is like a blotting pad; he can soak up all the sentiment and flattery a woman has to offer him, without ever spilling a drop. A confirmed bachelor is so sure of his ability to dodge, that he is willing to amuse every pretty girl he meets, by handing her a rope and daring her to catch him. A bachelor is a large body of egotism, completely surrounded by caution and fortified at all points by suspicion. His chief products are wild oats and cynicism; his chief industry is dodging matrimony; his undeviating policy "Protection!" and his watch-word, "Give me liberty or give me death!" The average bachelor is so afraid of falling into matrimony, nowadays, that he sprinkles the path of love with ashes instead of with roses. The care with which a bachelor chaperones himself would inspire even the duenna of a fashionable boarding school with envy. A bachelor's idea of "safety first" consists in getting tangled up with a lot of women in order to avoid getting tied up to one. He is an altruist who refrains from devoting himself to one woman in order that he may scatter sweetness and light amongst the multitude. There is nothing quite so intriguing to a bachelor as flirting with the "_idea of marriage_"--with his fingers crossed. He just loves to "consider marrying" in the abstract and to go about pitying himself for being so "lonely." There are three kinds of bachelors: the kind that must be driven into matrimony with a whip; the kind that must be coaxed with sugar; and the kind that must be blindfolded and backed into the shafts. If you want to be chosen to brighten a bachelor's life, first make it dark and dreary; so long as women are willing to make his existence one long sweet song, naturally he isn't anxious to exchange it for a lullaby. When a man actually asks a girl to marry him in these days of bachelor comforts and the deification of single-blessedness, she has a revelation of human unselfishness that stands as the eighth wonder of the world. That tired expression on a bachelor's face is not so often the result of brain-fag from an overworked mind as of heart-fag from overworking the emotions. Lovers look at life through rose-colored curtains; old bachelors see it through a fog. Somehow, a bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty and a boy forever! A bachelor fancies that it is his wonderful sixty-horse will-power that keeps him from marrying, whereas it is nothing but his little one-horse _won't-power_. One consolation in marrying a bachelor over forty is that he has fought so long and so hard to escape the hook that there is no more fight left in him. Never give up hope as long as a bachelor declares definitely, "No woman can _get_ me!" Wait until he is so sure of his immunity that he sighs regretfully, "No woman will _have_ me!" The "vicious circle" in a bachelor's opinion, is the platinum one on a woman's third finger. A Bachelor of Arts is one who makes love to a lot of women, and yet has the art to remain a bachelor. [Illustration] FIRST INTERLUDE IN the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns--and turns--and turns! There are lots of "sure cures" for love, but the quickest and surest is--_another love_. If there were only two women and one man in the world, the man would marry the brunette and then spend the rest of his life peeping over her shoulder and trying to flirt with the blonde. A woman always embalms the corpse of a dead love; a man wisely cremates it, and plants a new love in the ashes. A fool and her money are soon courted. A woman's pity for a man who loves her against her will may be akin to love; but a man's pity for a woman who loves him without his permission is a twin brother to boredom. Marriage is the miracle which affords a woman a chance to gratify her vanity, pacify her family, mortify her rivals, and electrify her friends, all at the same time. Marriage is sweet! Love is what incites the caveman to drag a woman around by the hair and makes the civilized man permit a woman to drag _him_ around by the nose. The heart of a woman is a secret sanctuary where she is constantly burning incense and candles before a succession of idols of clay. Nowadays, a man's faith in women and heaven seems to disappear with his milk-teeth and to reappear again with his false teeth. To most men "repentance" is merely the interval between the headache and the next temptation. Most bachelors regard the "flower of love" as a species of poison ivy. Even Satan could find a woman to call him "Dearie," if he would simply tell her that all he needed was "a beautiful woman's uplifting influence." A man may be guilty of stealing a girl's heart, but he always feels hurt and indignant if she refuses to take it back again after he has finished with it. Woman's love--a mirror in which a man beholds himself glorified, magnified and deified. Always try to be the "guiding star" of a man's life, but never make the mistake of fancying that you are his whole planetary system. A woman must keep her conscience, her complexion and her reputation snow-white. But a man is satisfied if he can just manage to keep his so that they comply with the pure food laws. Art is inspiring, but you can't run your fingers through its hair; a career is absorbing, but you can't tie ribbons on the curls of your brain-children; work is ennobling, but, alas, it hasn't got a shoulder to cry on! When a girl refuses to kiss a man he is never disconcerted; he is merely astonished that she could be so blind to her own feelings. A summer resort is a place where a girl spends half her time in making herself alluring--and the other half in yearning for something to "lure." When a girl marries a man she is sadly aware that all his old sweethearts are wondering _how_ she did it, and that all her old sweethearts are wondering _why_. Marriage will never be safe until we stop making it an "ideal" and begin trying to make it a square deal. Just before marriage a man's coat lapel acquires that grayish look which comes from the constant contact with face powder, but it's wonderful how soon it brightens up and gets back its natural color after the wedding. Love is like appendicitis; you never know when nor how it is going to strike you--the only difference being that, after one attack of appendicitis, your curiosity is perfectly satisfied. No matter how many men have tried to flirt with her, a girl will step cheerfully up to the altar in the firm belief that she has found the one perfect human being in trousers who will never look at another woman. After marriage, a woman's sight becomes so keen that she can see right through her husband without looking at him, and a man's so dull that he can look right through his wife without seeing her. A man recuperates so much more quickly from his remorse than a woman does from her indignation that by the time she has forgiven him he is tired of being good and ready to sin again. Before marriage, a man will go home and lie awake all night thinking about something you said; after marriage, he'll go to sleep before you finish saying it. A man can never understand how a woman gets so much joy out of leading him all the way to the threshold of love and then sweetly closing the door in his face. Solitaire--the married woman's game. A man's greatest conquest is self-conquest; his greatest possession, self-possession; and his greatest love--Oh, well, you fill in the rest. Why does a man take it for granted that a girl who flirts with him wants him to kiss her--when, nine times out of ten, she only wants him to _want_ to kiss her? Plunging into a hasty marriage in order to escape from a foolish entanglement is like rushing under a trolley car in order to escape from a taxicab. Nowadays a girl's favorite way of committing suicide for love of a man, is to marry him and worry herself to death over him. A good wife is always her husband's "guide, philosopher and friend"; also his guardian, digestion, conscience, time-table and valet. A man never knows how to say goodby; a woman never knows _when_ to say it. A woman's greatest "right" is the right husband. A woman might forgive a man for all his sins; it's that stained-glass attitude with which he decides to "give them up" when he is tired of them that exasperates her so. [Illustration] A MAN DOESN'T WANT A WIFE WHO PLACES HIM ON A PEDESTAL OR KEEPS HIM ON A FOOTSTOOL, BUT ONE WHO WILL TAKE HIM AS A MERE MAN--AND LET HIM GO ON BEING "MERE" [Illustration: Places him on a pedestal . . .] TRUE LOVE--HOW TO KNOW IT TRUE LOVE is nothing but friendship, highly intensified, flavored with sentiment, spiced with passion, and sprinkled with the stardust of romance. True Love can be no deeper than your capacity for friendship, no higher than your ideals, and no broader than the scope of your vision. True Love, in the cave man, is expressed by a desire to beat a woman, and to pull her around by the hair. True Love, in the Broadwayite, is expressed by an insatiable craving to _buy things_ for a woman. True Love, in a husband, is expressed by his willingness to give his wife anything, from the tenderest piece of steak to a divorce, if it will make her happy. True Love, in any man, is the essence of unselfishness; and the most selfish thing in the world. It is the selfishness that transcends selfishness; the vanity that puts egotism in the shade. True Love, in a bachelor, is exemplified by his willingness to marry a woman--against all his instincts, his sense of self-preservation, and his better judgment. True Love, in a born flirt, is evidenced by his inability to think of any _other woman_, while he is kissing a particular one. True Love, in an author, is demonstrated by his self-restraint, in refusing to make "copy" out of a love affair. True Love, in a college boy, is expressed by his ability to think of somebody besides himself for a whole hour at a time. It is the flash of light, by which one sees clearly that to do for another, give to another, and sacrifice for another, will get one the most happiness out of life. True Love, in the poet, is expressed in soul kisses, and by his inability to do any work for days at a time. We speak of "falling in love," as though it were a pit or an abyss; but True Love is the light on the mountain-top, to which we must eternally climb. True Love is a relic of the Victorian Age. It still exists, here and there, like the buffalo; but in the face of eugenics, feminism, and the growing masculine determination not to marry, it may some day have to take a place beside the Dinosaurus in the Public Museum. [Illustration] VARIATIONS FLIRTATION is a duel in which the combatants cross lies, sighs and eyes--and the coolest heart wins. Falling in love consists merely in uncorking the imagination and bottling the common-sense. In the medley of love a man's soul sings a sonata, while his heart plays a waltz and his pulse beats to rag-time. Better be a strong man's "rib" than a weak man's "backbone." True love isn't the kind that endures through long years of absence, but the kind that endures through long years of propinquity. A man seldom thinks of marrying when he meets his ideal woman; he waits until he gets the marrying fever and then idealizes the first woman he happens to meet. Love is what tempts a man to tell foolish lies to a woman and a woman to tell the fool truth to a man. It took seven hundred guesses for Solomon to find out what kind of a wife he wanted; and even then he seems to have had his doubts. The only thing more astonishing than the length of time a man's love will subsist on nothing is the celerity with which it is surfeited the moment it has any encouragement to feed on. Even when a man knows that he wants to marry a woman, she has to prove it to him with a diagram before he is really convinced of it. A man is so apt to mistake his love of experiment for love of a woman that half the time he doesn't know which is which. Why is it that a man never thinks he has tasted the cup of joy unless he has splashed it all over himself, as though it were his morning bath? A man is so versatile that he can read his newspaper with one set of brain-cells while he carries on a conversation with his wife with another set. A girl hides her emotions under a veil of modesty, a spinster under a cloak of cynicism, a wife under a mantle of tact, and a widow under a cloud of mystery--and then women wonder why they are "misunderstood." Proposing is a sort of acrobatic feat, in which a man must hang on to his nerve with one hand and to the girl with the other. If he lets go of either, he is lost. In love, as in poker, men play just to _play_--and then proceed to throw away what has been easily won, without any thought of its value. Thus gamblers so often die in poverty and Lotharios in loneliness. Nowadays, a truly chivalrous girl will "lie like a lady" in order to protect a trusting man's vanity. The woman who fascinates a man is not the one who looks up to him as the sun of her existence, but the one who merely looks down on him as one of the footlights. Don't doubt a man when he says, "I never loved like _this_ before." Each time a man falls in love with so much more ease and facility that he doesn't recognize it as the same old emotion at all. The first time a man lies to his wife he is surprised to discover how easy it is to do it. After that he is surprised to find out how hard it is _not_ to do it. A man always speaks of having "given" his heart to a woman as though he had done something generous and noble; whereas, nine times out of ten, she probably had to wrench it from him. About the only things in connection with his wife for which a man shows any respect after a few years of marriage are her reputation and her toothbrush. [Illustration] BLONDES NEXT to a mouse or a rich widow, there is nothing on earth that a normal girl dreads so much as a blonde. No matter how many brunettes a man may have married from time to time you can always be perfectly sure that there has been a blonde in his life. A woman with dark hair and eyes may make men admire her, but in order to make one of them _propose_ she must blondine her temperament down to the roots. The dusky Cleopatra may have succeeded in making fools of a few men, but it took a dizzy little blonde like Helen of Troy to make a lot of men make fools of _themselves_. In order to be popular with men, in these days, a brunette must be either brilliant, interesting, rich or beautiful; but a blonde doesn't have to be anything but a _blonde_. You may fight a brunette, dearie, as woman to woman, but when you fight a blonde you fight a cherished masculine tradition. Why is it that in all the novels and motion picture plays the vampires and adventuresses have dark hair and black eyes, while the innocent, persecuted angels are all blondes--whereas in real life it is always the other way 'round. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of blondes: blondes by birth and blondes by preference. These are subdivided into golden blondes, diamond blondes, strawberry blondes--and undecided blondes; that is, those who have not yet decided on their favorite shade. Sometimes illness turns a woman's hair gray, and sometimes it merely turns it dark at the roots. A little peroxide is a treacherous thing! All this talk about the "yellow peril" is nonsense. There is no more danger in permitting your husband to employ a pretty blonde stenographer than there is in throwing a lighted match into the wastebasket. When love flies out of the window the tame cat and the sympathetic blonde tip-toe in by opposite doors. CYMBALS AND KETTLE-DRUMS THIS is the great masculine question: Whether it is better to marry and live in the constant fear of one woman's frown or to stay single and live in deadly fear of every woman's smile. "Conscience doth make cowards of us all"--but not until we've emptied the bottle, tired of the flirtation and gotten our money's worth out of the game. Marriage--A souvenir of love. Wanted: A wife who can broil a steak with one hand, powder her nose with the other, rock the cradle with her foot and accompany herself on the harp. (_Signed_) EVERYMAN. When the girls admire him a young man takes it as a matter of course; but when a widow selects him for her attention he thrills with the knowledge that he is being stamped with the approval of a connoisseur. Before marriage, a man declares that he would lay down his life to serve you; after marriage, he won't even lay down his newspaper to talk to you. If Achilles' only vulnerable spot was in his heel, then his vanity must have gone to his feet, instead of to his head. You can't expect a woman to accomplish much in this life, since she is busy every minute of it either trying to _get_ some man, trying to _get along with_ one, or trying to _get rid of_ one. A man's wife is something like his teeth: He never thinks of her unless she happens to bother him. Life is a tale that is "told": the monk tells his beads, the seer tells fortunes, the lover tells lies--and a woman tells everything. To collect books is a sign of culture, to collect jewels a sign of wealth, but to collect husbands is a sign of paresis. A modern bachelor makes love with his hand on his pulse and his eye on the clock. Oh yes, there is a vast difference between the savage and the civilized man, but it is never apparent to their wives until after breakfast. A sympathetic woman is like a rose which a man wears over his heart; a stupid woman is like a cabbage which he keeps in his kitchen; but a merely "clever" woman is like a dahlia--he knows he ought to admire her, but he had just as lief do so from a distance. While a woman is weeping over the ghost of a dead love in the graveyard of memory, a man is usually off pursuing a lot of little new loves in the garden of forgetfulness. Life is like a poem or a story; the most important thing about it is not that it should be long, but that it should be beautiful and interesting. The older a woman gets the more trusting she becomes; at twenty a man can feed her only diluted flattery; but at forty she can swallow it, straight, without a quiver. No girl who is going to marry need bother to win a college degree; she just naturally becomes a "Master of Arts" and a "Doctor of Philosophy" after catering to an ordinary man for a few years. The average man takes all the natural taste out of his food by covering it with ready-made sauces, and all the personality out of a woman by covering her with his ready-made ideals. Heaven is _not_ a mythical place. It can be found right down in the heart of the man who has found the work he loves and the woman he loves. An ideal lover is one with such a keen dramatic instinct that he can convince himself of his sincerity--even when he knows that he is lying. Love is a matter of chance; matrimony a matter of money, and divorce--a matter of course. Adam was the first man to "misunderstand" a woman. A man is like a park squirrel; if you fling your favors or your charms at his head he will never come up and eat out of your hand. What a man calls his "conscience" is merely the mental action that follows a sentimental reaction after too much wine or love. In the School of Love, a man is forever just taking up a brand new "study" and discovering that all the old loves were nothing but "preparatory practice." The eugenic idea of choosing a husband would be perfectly lovely, only that a husband isn't a matter of choice, but of chance, accident or blind luck. Love is woman's eternal spring, man's eternal fall. It isn't beauty, and it isn't cleverness, and it isn't clothes that make a particular woman fascinating. It is just a sort of magnetic current which seems to run around her and set her eyes a-twinkling--and a man's heart tingling. It is utterly useless to tell a man the honest truth. That is the last thing on earth which a man ever tells a woman--so of course it's the last thing on earth which he ever expects to hear from her. The average man, like "all Gaul," is divided into three parts: his vanity, his digestion and his ambition. Cater to the first, guard the second and stimulate the third--and his love will take care of itself. There is no such tonic for a man's nerve as a capricious wife and no such softener for his backbone as a self-sacrificing one. A man can sit in the moonlight and talk "New Thought" to a pretty girl and at the same time look right into her eyes with all the old, old ones. Bohemia is an oasis in the desert of life where only the rich-in-dreams may go and only the poor-in-purse may stay. There is no way of two people really knowing each other until after they are married and have to share the same dollar, the same table, the same newspaper and the same chiffonier. [Illustration] WHAT EVERY WOMAN WONDERS THERE are gardens full of flowers that I feared to pluck. There are eyes full of promises that I dared not believe. There are lips full of sweetness, from which I turned away. I wonder if Paradise holds anything for me, one-half so beautiful As the joys I have renounced for its sake! A man's life is like a musical comedy; there is always one woman in it who is the star--but it takes ninety-nine others to make up the "ensemble." Nothing so annoys a man as to have a woman "cheer him up," when he is enjoying the exquisite luxury of feeling sorry for himself. The modern girl's "perfect candor" has taken the sin out of sincerity--and most of the sweet scent out of the flower of sentiment. Without the Serpent, the Garden of Eden would seem a dull old place to most men. Love is neither a bonfire, nor a kitchen-fire; but an altar-fire, to be kept burning forever with prayer and reverence. In the language of love, "Forever!" means for quite a little while and "Never!" means not until next season. "A fool there was, and he made his prayer"--to two women on the same party wire. Love is a matter of give and take--marriage, a matter of misgive and mistake. Even a fool knows enough to laugh at a man's joke--but only a born Siren knows enough to hang onto his coat-lapel and beg him to "Tell it again!" Some men are born for matrimony, some achieve matrimony--but most of them are merely poor dodgers. There are many times when a woman would gladly drop her husband, if she did not feel morally certain that some other woman would come right along and pick him up. Alas! In choosing a husband, it seems that you've always got to decide between something tame and uninteresting, like a gold-fish, and something wild and fascinating, like a mountain goat. Perhaps the first time a young man actually realizes that he is married is when he catches himself looking at other women with that strange, new, wistful sort of interest. It is at once the mission and the punishment of the flirt to go through life tapping the hearts of men, that they may overflow--for other women. The sweetest things in a woman's life are her "yesterdays"--the sweetest things in a man's life are his "tomorrows." The man who is fondly looking for a perfect angel almost invariably ends by marrying some little devil who knows how to persuade him that her horns are merely the signs of a budding halo. Woman is to most men what "heart-failure" is to the doctors--something that it is always convenient to blame any old thing on. "The mind has a thousand eyes--the heart but one!"--and that usually goes fast asleep, after marriage. Philosophy is the only kind of "sweetening" with which to make life palatable. Estimated from a wife's experience, the average man spends fully one-quarter of his life in looking for his shoes. An "idealist" is a man who is content to worship a woman from afar--and let some gross, unselfish materialist marry her and support her. Changing husbands is about as satisfactory as changing a bundle from one hand to the other; it gives you only temporary relief. France may claim the happiest marriages in the world, but the happiest divorces in the world are "made in America." No doubt, even Solomon told each of his 700 wives that he had merely _thought_ he loved the others, but that _she_ was the only girl he "ever really cared for" in just that way. Love is what makes a man appear blissfully happy, when a woman is mussing up the precious wisp of hair across his bald spot. Love is what makes a woman laugh delightedly when a man is telling her for the second time, a story which she knew by heart before he told it to her the first time. All this "sex-antagonism" must have started when Adam brought in the first rabbit and ordered Eve to make it into Chicken-a-la-King. When a man takes a notion to marry, he doesn't start following it up--he merely stops running away. A woman is young until the light dies out of her last lover's eyes. Whenever a pretty girl runs her fingers through his hair, a cautious bachelor can't help thinking of what happened to Samson. Success in flirtation, as in gambling, consists in "getting out of the game" at the psychological moment before your luck begins to turn. Being a husband's "economic equal" may be awfully noble and advanced; but it usually means being all of his ribs and most of his vertebrae. Men have been classified as "what women marry." They have two feet, two hands and sometimes two wives--but never more than one collar-button or one idea at a time. When a man says, "Nobody understands me," don't fancy he is suffering. He is merely trying to let you know, in a modest way, that he is a profound, fascinating mystery. A man snatches the first kiss, pleads for the second, demands the third, takes the fourth, accepts the fifth--and endures all the rest of them. After two years, an engagement doesn't need to be broken; it just naturally sags in the middle and comes apart. Eve had as much choice in the matter of a husband as any other woman. She merely accepted what fate sent her, and pretended to have gotten her "ideal." It is not much comfort to be able to keep your husband's material body in the house evenings, when his astral body keeps wandering off to the club, every few minutes. In love, sweet are the uses of diversity! A woman's love "bursts into flower," but judging from the time it takes him to discover it, a man's love must be developed by the wearisome process of geological formation. If a man and a diamond are big and brilliant enough, one doesn't mind a few flaws in them; but, for some reason, Heaven knows why, a woman and a pearl are expected to be absolutely perfect. When Fate places a laurel wreath on the brow of a genius she hitches a plough to his shoulders and holds a Tantalus cup to his lips. It isn't the man who paints his virtues in three colors and begs her to marry him, but the one who paints his sins in vermilion and begs her to "save" him who usually wins the girl. If you want a man to propose don't try to make your family coddle him. Make them hate him, because a man never really "takes hold" until somebody begins to pull the other way. The man who falls in love at first sight never knows what has struck him, and therefore mercifully escapes all the agonizing slow-torture of feeling himself sink, inch by inch, into the quicksands of matrimony. Never believe that justice is all you owe your husband; what every man needs, from the woman who loves him, is faith, hope and charity--and above all, _mercy_. Even a coquette can be loyal to one man--until she prefers another; but a man's heart is like a ferry-boat--always going backward and forward, and never staying "docked." Soft, sweet things with a lot of fancy dressing--that is what a little boy loves to eat and a grown man prefers to marry. SECOND INTERLUDE TO find your mate--that is luck; to know him when you find him--that is inspiration; to win him when you know him--that is art; and to keep him when you've won him--that is a _miracle_. A woman wastes more time in dreaming over a past flirtation than it would take a man to start a half dozen new ones. Flattery affects a man like any other sort of "dope." It stimulates and exhilarates him for the moment, but usually ends by going to his head and making him act foolish. The only way to be happy in this world is to take men and flirtations as they come--and _let them go_ as they go. Almost any straight path of devotion will lead to a woman's heart. It's this zigzagging from sentiment to cold fear and from adoration to self-preservation, that makes the way so long and dangerous for the average man. Solomon may have been the most famous _husband_ who ever lived, but as a _hero_ he isn't in it with the man who manages to get along happily and contentedly all through life with just _one_ wife! Woman! The peg on which the wit hangs his jest, the preacher his text, the cynic his grouch, and the sinner his justification! Everybody seems to be going through life at automobile speed nowadays; but alas, there are no sentimental garages by Life's wayside at which we may obtain a fresh supply of emotions, purchase a new thrill or patch up an exploded ideal. A man's work lasts from sun to sun, but his excuses for staying late at the office are never done. Every man wants a woman to appeal to his better side, his nobler instincts and his higher nature--and another woman to help him forget them. Never rush into a love affair. Love is a waiting game, which requires nerve, concentration, and a poker face. The average man marries one woman just in order to escape from a lot of others--and then flirts with a lot of others just in order to forget that he is married to one. Once a girl's heart beat faster at the sound of her sweetheart's footstep on the garden path; but now it requires the hum of a twelve-cylinder motor-car to rouse her from her lassitude. The one thing about love-making that the modern man simply can't understand is that, in order to make it thrilling and interesting, he must really put a little _love_ in it. In the war of the sexes a woman hides her scars of battle beneath a smile and a coat of rouge. A man goes about displaying his as proudly as though they were medals. Occasionally one meets a man who plunges into a love affair as he plunges into the surf, but most of them just sit back lazily on the beach and let the waves of emotion splash harmlessly over them. [Illustration] THE GREATEST SHOCK A TEMPERAMENTAL WOMAN CAN RECEIVE IS TO WAKE UP AND FIND THAT SHE IS MARRIED TO A HUMAN BEING INSTEAD OF AN IDEAL [Illustration: Married to a human being . . .] BRIDES "NEVERS" FOR THE "RIB." NEVER ask him to kiss you. Make your kisses a privilege, not a duty; a luxury, not a morning and evening "chore." Never refuse to kiss him--but sometimes keep him waiting a little while. Love thrives so much better on the stimulant of suspense than on the anaesthetic of memory. Never question him about his past love affairs. It is not the women he _has loved_, but those he _has not yet loved_, who will bother you. Never fling your old flames in his face. If you do he will soon cease to be jealous of the men you "might have married" and begin to _envy_ them. Never accuse him of being less ardent than he was before he married you. Many a husband would never discover that he was no longer madly in love, if his wife did not keep constantly reminding him of it. Never chide him for the same fault more than once. A man can become so accustomed to the thought of his own faults that he will begin to cherish them as charming little "personal characteristics." Never refer to your own defects. A man always accepts a woman at her own valuation; and he doesn't prize anything that advertises herself as a "second." Never laugh at him. Woman is supposed to be the only human joke and man the only laughing animal--except the hyena. Never _cry_ before him. A woman's tears soon wash all the color out of a man's love; after the third deluge they have no power to move him--except to move him out of the house. Never threaten him, scold him nor argue with him. _Act!_ A woman's arguments affect a man as water does a cat. He simply waits for them to dry up--and then he goes out and does as he pleases. Never doubt his word--even when you _know_ he is _lying_. A husband is like religion: to give you any real comfort, he must be taken with blind faith. Never put him on a leash. The dog or the husband that has to be tied is always the one that eventually has to be advertised in the "lost" columns. Never forget that marriage should be a privilege, not a prison; home a refectory, not a reformatory; and wives jolliers, and not jailers. [Illustration] SYNCOPATIONS A "SOUL-MATE" is seldom the siren who manages to drive a man to distraction, but just the sympathetic little thing who always happens to come along when he is _looking for distraction_. Hanging on a man's word may flatter him, but hanging on his neck merely frightens him. Every gay dog has his day--after. One may be loved forever! It is the vain desire to go on being a "heart-breaker" after one's flirting days are over that constitutes the real tragedy of age. A man regards a woman's love first as an unattainable dream, then as a boon, then as a blessing, then as a right, then as a matter-of-course--and, last, as a punishment. A man's idea of "preserving the unities" is to find out what side of an argument his wife is on, and then take the other side, in order to keep it from sagging. After a bachelor's heart has been patched up, cut down and remodeled to fit the romantic ideal of one girl after another, there is seldom enough of it left to go all the way around the honeymoon. There is no question of degree in matrimony. You can be a little bit in love or a little bit ill; but you can't be a little bit married or a little bit dead. Telling lies is a fault in a boy, an art in a lover, an accomplishment in a bachelor, and second-nature in a married man. If your husband is wrapped up in his work from 9 A.M. to 6 P.M. you needn't bother to investigate his morals. Satan wouldn't waste his talents trying to tempt a man with so little time and energy for the devil's business. You can't argue, frighten or nag a man into loving you just because he "ought to"--because, dearie, love is not exactly a man's feeling for a thought-censor, a creditor or a critic-on-the-hearth. There are more ways of killing a man's love than by strangling it to death--but that's the usual way. In matters of the heart most men are still in a state of barbarism, slightly tempered by woman. A man is never old until his spirit is worn out, his rosy hopes have turned gray, his illusions have faded and he has wrinkles on his heart. An optimist is merely an ex-pessimist with his pockets full of money, his digestion in good condition and his wife in the country. Every time a man hits a woman's vanity he makes a dent in her love. A man's first lie wounds a woman's heart, the second breaks it, the third mends it, and all the rest simply harden it. Dissimulation is the price of peace--but it's awfully hard for a married woman to preserve the peace by deceiving her husband into thinking that he is deceiving her, every time he tries. Of course men are not so suspicious as women. A woman in love would be jealous of a store dummy; but how can a man possibly suspect that any girl on whom he may bestow himself could ever think of anybody else? A good woman inspires a man, a brilliant woman interests him, a beautiful woman fascinates him--but the considerate woman _gets_ him. There never was a man too nearsighted to see the look of admiration in a pretty woman's eyes. WIFE: The woman from whom a man failed to escape and to whom he complacently refers as "the little woman _I married_." MARRIAGE: The intermission between the wedding and the divorce. WEDDING: The point at which a man stops toasting a woman and begins roasting her. Most girls, nowadays, would give a lot for a few solid vows, a few unshrinkable signs of devotion and a really convincing kiss. It isn't a husband's disinclination to listen to his wife's conversation, but that "I-am-ready-to-bear-with-you" expression with which he does it that grates on her nerves so. The average man has so much heart that he apparently thinks it a pity to waste it all on one woman. Alas! Why is it that when your cup of happiness is full _somebody_ always jogs your elbow! Never judge a man's love by the ardor of his first kiss, nor by the tenderness of his second, but by the eagerness with which he seeks the third. When it comes to making love, a girl can always listen so much faster than a man can talk. If nothing but their heart-strings became entangled, people would not find the marriage tie so binding; it is a man's purse-strings and a woman's apron-strings that really form the Gordian knot. In love, a man loses first his head, then his vanity, then his poise--and, last of all, his heart. It is much more comfortable to be considered a "little devil" and get a credit mark every time you do anything right, than to be considered an "angel" and get a black mark every time you do anything human. Love is a game at which a woman must play against stacked cards, and without the slightest inkling of the trump. A woman's last resort is henna--a man's Gehenna. To a woman marriage is the beginning of life; to a man it is the end of "liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Perfect wife: That which a married man always fancies he might have gotten if he had kept on experimenting a little longer. Why is it that, no matter how much a man thinks of one girl, he can't help thinking of a lot of others at the same time? Don't waste time trying to break a man's heart; be satisfied if you can just manage to chip it in a brand new place. IT IS QUITE CORRECT TO SEND YOUR FORMER HUSBAND A GIFT ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF YOUR DIVORCE, IN REMEMBRANCE OF "THE MANY HAPPY DAYS WHICH YOU HAVE SPENT--APART" [Illustration: In remembrance.] DIVORCES LOVE, the quest; marriage, the conquest; divorce, the inquest. Most marriages, nowadays, seem built for speed rather than for endurance. A divorcée is one who has graduated from the Correspondence School of Experience. Marriage, according to the merry Widow-reno, is a "perfectly lovely experience to have _had_!" Grass Widow: The angel whom a man loved, the human being he married, and the devil he divorced. Most actresses are married--now and then; most literary women--off and on; most society women--from time to time. In olden days, the lover cried, in burning words and brave, "Oh darling, be my Queen, my Bride--and let me be your slave!" But nowadays, he murmurs, over cigarette and tea, "Say, when you get your _next_ divorce, will you (puff) marry me?" When a woman obtains her second divorce, one hardly knows whether to class her as a good loser, a bad chooser, or just a "poor sport." Why is it that when a man hears that a woman has had a "past," he is always so anxious to brighten up her present? Many a woman's sole reason for getting a divorce is because she is tired of holding onto heaven with one hand and onto a man with the other. When two people decide to get a divorce, it isn't a sign that they "don't understand" one another, but a sign that they have, at last, begun to. That "just-after-the-divorce" feeling is not the exhilarating thing many people imagine it. It is more like the mingled sensation of pain and relief that comes the moment after you have removed a tight slipper and before the ache has subsided. Divorce is the Great Divide, over which most men expect to pass into the Happy Hunting Grounds. Reno! The land of the free and the grave of the home! THIRD INTERLUDE IN the abstract a man admires nobility and intelligence in a woman; but in the concrete he always prefers a bird of Paradise to a wren, a decoration to an inspiration and incense to common sense. "Intuition" is what a man calls a girl's ability to see through him, before marriage; "suspicion" is what he calls it, after marriage. Satan, himself, could no doubt make any woman love him, if he took the trouble to convince her that it was "her beauty that drove him to Hades." Of course, polygamy is dreadful; but, at least, an Oriental wife can come within four or five guesses of knowing where her husband spends his evenings. Take care of a woman's vanity--and her love will take care of itself. Ever since Eve started it all by offering Adam the apple, woman's punishment has been to have to supply a man with food and then suffer the consequences when it disagrees with him. The wings of love are not clipped by marriage; they merely _molt_ for lack of exercise. All love is 99.44 per cent pure: pure imagination, pure vanity, pure curiosity, pure folly or whatever else it happens to be. Don't waste your tears on the girls a heart-breaker _should_ have married and didn't; save them for the girl he _will_ marry and _shouldn't_. It requires a little moisture to make a postage stamp stick and a little cold water of indifference to make a sweetheart stick. There are only two kinds of perfectly faultless men--the dead and the deadly. In order to see a man in his most interesting colors a woman always has to scrape off a lot of unnecessary whitewashing. Marriage is a discord that turns "Love's Old Sweet Song" from a eulogy into an elegy. The height of the average girl's ambition is just about six feet. You can always cure a man of love-sickness with "mental suggestion" merely by suggesting to him that the girl is trying to marry him. Marriage is the operation by which a woman's vanity and a man's egotism are extracted without an anaesthetic. Jealousy is the false alarm that wakes us up from love's young dream. The most successful men are not those who have been inspired by a wise woman's love, but those who have perspired in order to gratify a foolish woman's whims. It is easier to keep half a dozen lovers guessing than to keep one lover after he has stopped guessing. A man's soul lies so close to his digestion that when he looks blue and downhearted, a woman never knows whether to offer him a kiss, a meal, a dose of philosophy or a dyspepsia tablet. A woman is so complex that she can prove to a man by every possible convincing argument that she feels nothing but platonic friendship for him, at the same time that she is thinking how she would like to run her fingers through his hair. One reason why a man's life is so much fuller than a woman's is because he spends nearly three-quarters of it in hunting up things for a woman to do. Oh yes, a woman always looks up to a brave, strong man whom she can respect--and then nine times out of ten, goes and marries some pallid weakling whom she can "mother." A man spends his boyhood struggling against an education, his youth struggling against matrimony and his middle-age struggling against embonpoint; but sooner or later he succumbs to all of them. No man wants an "equal" but an angel. If Satan himself should decide to marry he wouldn't go around looking for a congenial little Satanette, but for a paragon who had a pull with St. Peter. [Illustration] HALF A LOVE IS BETTER THAN NONE [Illustration: Half a love . . .] WIDOWS A WIDOW is a fascinating being with the flavor of maturity, the spice of experience, the piquancy of novelty, the tang of practiced coquetry, and the halo of one man's approval. Second mourning is that interesting period, at which a widow continues to weep with one eye while she begins to flirt with the other. When a widow comes in at the door, a debutante's chances fly out of the window. No matter how many wrinkles a widow may have in her face, she always has enough at her fingertips to offset them. Even a dead husband gives a widow some advantage over a spinster; the very debts her husband left afford her something to boast about to the unmarried woman who has only her own board bills to pay. A girl takes a man for better or for worse--but a widow merely takes him for granted. Girls are the milk and honey which sweeten a man's life; widows, the caviare and wine which relieve its flatness and give it spice and piquancy. A girl knows exactly what kind of man she wants to marry; but a widow knows all the kinds she _doesn't_ want to marry, and usually makes a safe selection by the wise process of elimination. A widow's chief consolation in remarrying is probably that she finds it less exhausting to sit up and wait for one man to come home evenings, than to sit up and wait for a lot of them to go home. Widows have all the honor and glory without any of the trials of matrimony; a live husband may be a necessity, but a dead one is a luxury. Matrimony is the price of love--widowhood, the rebate. IMPROVISATIONS SPRING flowers are like spring love, so sweet and tender, but doomed to fade quickly; it's in the autumn of life, or of the year, that we get the hardy variety of either. A man may honestly admire a superior woman; but when it comes to marrying, he usually looks about for something far enough beneath him to enjoy being ordered about and patted on the head. A girl's heart is like her dressing-table--crowded with tenderly cherished little souvenirs of love; a man's, like his pipe, is carefully cleaned and emptied after each flame has gone out. A man doesn't ask a girl to "name the day" any more; he merely pleads guilty to loving her and then closes his eyes while she passes sentence on him and decide when he shall begin "serving time." When a woman reforms she bleaches her conscience down to the roots as she does her hair; a man simply gives his a coat of whitewashing so that he will have a nice, clean space in which to begin all over again. When a bachelor sniffs through his letters before opening them in the morning, it is not a sign that he is looking for dynamite, but that he is looking for a note bearing a brand of sachet which he has mistaken for some girl's "sweet personality." At the awakening from love's young dream the woman's first thought is, "How can I break his heart?" The man's, "How can I break away?" A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her imagination, and then they both speak of it as an affair of "the heart." No, Clarice, a man's idea of being loved isn't exactly being followed around with a hot water bottle, a box of pills and the eternal question: "Do you love me as much as ever?" One grass widow doesn't make a summer resort--but she can always make it interesting. When a man has baggy trousers nowadays it is from falling on his knees to an automobile--not to a girl. A black lie always shows up against the dazzling background of truth; it's all the little white ones a man keeps telling you that can't be spotted or distinguished from the rest of his conversation. The only time when a sense of humor profits a woman anything is when she can laugh at herself for having tried to charm a man by dazzling him with it. Most men fall in love with a sudden jolt, and wake up to find that they are married to an "impulse." It's a lame love that has to be carried through the honeymoon in a three-thousand-dollar touring car. In the mathematics of a bachelor one kiss makes a flirtation, two kisses make one conquest, three kisses make a love-affair and four kisses make one tired. There are "chain-smokers" who light one cigarette from the dying end of another--and there are also "chain lovers" who light one flame from the dying embers of another. Eve had one advantage over all the rest of her sex. In his wildest moments of rage Adam never could accuse her of being "just like her _mother_!" Every woman has a different notion of an ideal husband; but every woman's ideal lover is the same impossible combination of saint and devil, brute and baby, hero and mollycoddle, that never is seen anywhere off the stage or outside the pages of a "best thriller." Love is a voyage of discovery, marriage the goal--and divorce the relief expedition. A man never can comprehend why a woman can't understand how he can be dead in love with one girl and acutely alive to the charms of a lot of others at the same time. Jealousy is the tie that binds--and binds--and binds. It is not the fear of being shipwrecked that keeps a bachelor from embarking on the sea of matrimony; it is the awful horror of being becalmed. Nowadays most women grow old gracefully; most men, disgracefully. A man can forgive a woman for having made a fool of herself over any man on earth--except himself. Eternity: The interval between the time when a woman discovers that a man is in love with her and the time when he finds it out himself and tells her about it. The follies which a man regrets the most, in his life, are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity. In the average man's opinion the command, "Thou shalt not steal," does not apply to a kiss, a heart, an umbrella, an hotel or an after-dinner story. To a woman the first kiss is just the end of the beginning; to a man, it is the beginning of the end. The qualities a man seeks in a bride no more resemble those he will want in a wife than a cabaret rag-ditty resembles a lullaby, but two years ahead is farther than any man can see when he is looking into a pretty girl's eyes. YOU MAY GROOM, YOU MAY POLISH HIM UP AS YOU WILL, BUT THE MARK OF THE "M A R R I E D M A N" CLINGS TO HIM STILL. [Illustration: You may polish him up . . .] WIDOWERS THE tenderest, most impressionable thing on earth is the heart of a yearling widower. Of course it is easier to marry a widower than a bachelor. A man who has been through the Armageddon of _one_ marriage has no spirit of battle left in him. When a widow begins curling her hair, again, or a widower begins worrying about his thinness on top, Cupid chuckles and gets out his arrows and Satan smiles behind his hand. In the matrimonial market a seasoned bachelor is just a shop-worn remnant; a divorcé is a cast-off, second-hand article; but a widower is a treasured heirloom inherited only through death. After his wedding day, a man usually tucks all the flattering adjectives and tender nothings in his vocabulary away in a pigeon-hole and marks them "Not to be opened until widowerhood." Perhaps there may not be so much excitement in marrying a widower; but there is a lot more comfort in getting something that another woman has broken to double harness than in lashing yourself to a bucking bronco fresh from the wild. No matter how unhappy a man may have been with his first wife nothing on earth will make him flatter her successor by acknowledging that she was not a combination of Circe, St. Cecilia and the Venus di Milo. The girl who marries a widower may be a sort of "second edition," but the girl who marries a seasoned bachelor is apt to be a forty-second edition. When a widower vows he will "never marry again," listen for the wedding bells! The "Never-agains" are the easiest fruit in the Garden of Love. It's the "Never-at-alls!" who are harder than a newsboy's conscience, colder than yesterday's kiss, and less impressionable than a boarding-house steak. If a woman could foresee how irresistible her husband would look with a bereaved expression on his face and a black band on his coat sleeve, it would give her the strength to live forever. Some widowers _are_ bereaved--others, relieved. A man may forget all about how to make love during ten years of matrimony, but it's wonderful how quickly he can brush up on the fine points again after he becomes a widower. [Illustration] FOURTH INTERLUDE A MAN always looks at a woman through either the right or the wrong end of a telescope, and thus always sees her as a divinity or a devil--never as a human being. Business girl's motto: "Better marry and be a poor man's slave than stay single and be a rich man's stenographer." When a clever girl lets fly the arrows of wit she should be careful to see that a man's vanity is not the bull's eye. It is difficult for a man to reconcile a girl's absorbing interest in picture-hats, pearl powder, and Paquin models with real brains; but somehow his own enthusiasm for baseball and golf never seems to him incompatible with superior intelligence. Don't fancy your husband has ceased to love you merely because he no longer seems to notice your presence around the house; wait until he gets so that he doesn't even notice your absence. A good husband is one who will get up and lift the ice off the dumbwaiter instead of lying back and lifting his voice to tell you how to do it without "hurting your itsy bitsy fingers." The shallower a man's love, the more it bubbles over into eloquence. When his emotions go deep, words stick in his throat, and have to be hauled out of him with a derrick. To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little; to be happy with a woman you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all. A man with _savoir faire_ may scintillate in a crowd, but it takes a "bashful man" to shine in a dim cozy corner. Every bride fancies that she married the original "cave-man" until she tries to persuade him to go out and argue with the furniture-movers. What a man calls his conscience in a love affair is merely a pain in his vanity, the moral ache that accompanies a headache, or the mental action that follows a sentimental reaction. It never pays to compromise! Cheap clothes, cheap literature, cheap sports, cheap flirtations--a life filled with these is nothing but an electric flash, advertising "something just as good." Just at first, every man seems to fancy that it takes nothing but brute force and determination to run an automobile or a wife; after the smash-up he changes his mind. Brains and beauty are an impossible combination in a woman--not necessarily impossible to _find_, but impossible to _live with_. When a woman looks at a man in evening dress, she sometimes can't help wondering why he wants to blazon his ancestry to the world by wearing a coat with a long tail to it. When a man says he loves you don't ask him "Why," because by the time he has found his reason he will undoubtedly have lost his enthusiasm. Pshaw! It is no more reasonable to expect a man to love you tomorrow because he loves you today, than it is to assume that the sun will be shining tomorrow because the weather is pleasant today. Sending a man a sentimental note, just after he has spent the evening with you, has about the same thrilling effect as offering him a sandwich, immediately after dinner. A "good woman," according to Mrs. Grundy, is one who would scorn to sacrifice society for the sake of a man but will cheerfully sacrifice the man she marries for the sake of society. The flower of a man's love is not an immortelle, but a morning-glory; which fades the moment the sun of a woman's smiles becomes too intense and glowing. The sweetest part of a love affair is just before the confession when you begin discussing love in the abstract and gazing concretely into one another's eyes. Marriage is a photogravure made from the glowing illusions which Love has painted on the canvas of the heart. A woman may have to reach heaven before she tastes supernal joy; but to taste supreme punishment she has only to watch the love-mist die out of a man's eyes. Nothing frightens a man like a woman's stony silence. Somehow in spite of his lack of intuition, he has a subconscious premonition that her love is _dead_ when she is too weary and disinterested to "_answer back_." The satisfaction in flattering a man consists in the fact that, whether you lay it on thick or thin, rough or smooth, a little of it is always bound to stick. Love is a furnace in which the man builds the fire, and forever afterward expects the woman to keep it glowing, by supplying all the fuel. The gods must love summer flirtations--they die so young. A man may have heart enough to love more than one woman at a time, but unless he is a fatalist he should have brains enough not to try it. When love dies a wise married couple give its ashes a respectful burial, and hang a good photograph of it on the wall for the benefit of the public. [Illustration] EVERY TIME A MAN FALLS IN LOVE HE FANCIES THAT HE HAS JUST DISCOVERED A BRAND NEW SENSATION; BUT, ALAS, IT ALWAYS TURNS OUT, LIKE THE HOTEL SOUP, TO BE JUST THE SAME OLD "STOCK" WITH A DIFFERENT FLAVORING [Illustration: A brand new sensation . . .] SECOND MARRIAGES HINTS ON HOW TO CONDUCT ENCORE PERFORMANCES OF THE CEREMONY A BRIDE at her second wedding does not wear a veil. She wants to _see_ what she is getting. Always send your former husband a notice of your marriage; true politeness consists in giving pleasure to others. If you meet your ex-husband's fiancée, treat her with sympathetic courtesy. Remember that she is more to be pitied than scorned. If the bridegroom does not show up, marry the best man. After a few weeks you will not be able to notice the difference between them. Either will make you the same old excuses, tell you the same stories and give you the same "stock" kisses in the morning. When your second husband begins to speak wistfully of your first husband, do not chide him; remember that misery loves company, and perhaps it is a comfort to him to think that some one else has been as foolish as he has. Never consider your wedding a settled thing until you have gotten the man to the altar. The primary rule for marrying is "First catch your husband!" Besides, there's many a slip 'twixt the license and the certificate--and you may let him slip. In selecting husbands, always consider that it is quality, not quantity, that counts. One or two marriages, like one or two drinks, may not have any visible effect upon you. But don't make it a custom. A woman marries the first time, you know, for love, the second time for companionship, the third time for a support--and the rest of the time just from habit. When marrying a second time refrain from asking your friends what they think about it. Remember that they all think you are a fool. [Illustration] INTERMEZZO A MAN'S kisses are first reverent, then rapturous, then tender, then casual, and last--charitable. The hardest thing in life is to discover the exact geographical location of a man's grouch--whether it is in his tooth, his vanity or his digestion, or is just a chronic condition of the whole system. Being in love is like a fascinating spin at will in an automobile; being married, like a trolley trip on rails, with somebody ringing the bell at you every few minutes. A woman's love is composed of maternal tenderness, childlike inconsistency, torturing jealousy and sublime unselfishness--and how is a man ever going to comprehend a mixture like that? Alas, why is it that the most popular and fascinating women are so often the last to marry, and then nearly always pluck either a broken stick from the tide of life or a brand from the burning? Some women can be fooled all of the time, and all women can be fooled some of the time, but the same woman can't be fooled by the same man in the same way more than half of the time. A woman always wants her photograph to flatter her, but a man is perfectly satisfied if he gets one that looks as fascinating and impressive as he thinks he does. A jealous husband can put two and two together--and make fourteen. When a man hesitates to propose to a girl he is never quite sure whether it is the fear of being "turned down" or the fear of being "taken up" which paralyzes him. Spring is the time of the year when the eternal monotony of the daily grind gives a man brain-fag--and the eternal monotony of any one girl appears to give him heart-fag. A wise woman puts a grain of sugar into everything she says to a man and takes a grain of salt with everything he says to her. Of course, a girl hates to wound a man; but sometimes, after a painful parting, it would seem so much more artistic if he would only _remain_ "wounded" just a little longer. Making a man promise to drop a woman simply excites his sympathy for her, so that, before he has fairly cut the string, he is anxious to tie a knot in it again. The hardest task of a girl's life, nowadays, is to prove to a man that his intentions are serious. Love, without faith, illusions and trust, is--Lord forgive us--cinders, ashes and dust! A man who strays for love of a woman may sometimes be reclaimed; but the man who strays for love of amusement or love or novelty will never "stay put" for any girl. Most girls, nowadays, would give almost as much for a little genuine sentiment and a really convincing kiss, as for a genuine "old master" and a really convincing novel. There are a hundred things that the cleverest man in the world never _can_ understand--and ninety-nine of them are women. Many a man who is too tender-hearted to pour salt on an oyster will pour sarcasm all over his wife's vanity and then wonder why she always shrivels up in her shell at the sight of him. A grub may become a butterfly, but the man who marries a butterfly, expecting to turn her into a grub, should remember that nature never works that way. A married man's hardest cross is not to be able to brag to his wife about the women who "tried to flirt with him." Plato has lured more men into matrimony than Cupid. A man can _see_ an arrow coming and dodge it, but platonic friendship strikes him in the back. Many a man has started out to "string" a girl, and gotten so tangled up, that the string ended in a marriage tie. Habit is the cement which holds the links of matrimony together when the ties of romance have crumbled. He that telleth a secret unto a married man may prepare himself for a lot of free advertising; for, lo, the conjugal pillow is the root of all gossip. To make a man perfectly happy tell him he works too hard, that he spends too much money, that he is "misunderstood" or that he is "different;" none of this is necessarily complimentary, but it will flatter him infinitely more than merely telling him that he is brilliant, or noble, or wise, or good. After a woman has lain awake half the night in order to be able to call her husband in time to catch his train it's rather hard to be hated for it, just like an alarm clock. A man expects a woman to laugh at all his jokes, admire all his bon mots, agree with all his opinions, and be blind to all his faults--and then he scornfully wonders why women are so "hypocritical." A diamond and a lump of coal are merely two varieties of carbon; but they are as different as the two things which the right wife and the wrong wife can make of the same man. Sometimes man proposes--and then keeps the girl waiting until the Lord kindly interposes. [Illustration] A WOMAN FLEES FROM TEMPTATION, BUT A MAN JUST _CRAWLS_ AWAY FROM IT IN THE CHEERFUL HOPE THAT IT MAY OVERTAKE HIM [Illustration: A man just crawls away . . .] WOMAN--AND HER INFINITE VARIETY (A LEAF FROM ADAM'S DICTIONARY.) WOMAN--A divine creation for the comfort and amusement of mankind. RIB--That part of man's self of which he thinks the least and brags the most. WIFE (The Inferior Fraction)--The excuse for all a man's sins, the cause of all his failings, the keeper of his conscience, the guardian of his digestion, and the repository of his grouches. BETTER-HALF--The half that is always left at home. COQUETTE--Any woman who is so unreasonable as not to return a man's affections. FLIRT--Any woman, over whom a man has insisted on making a fool of himself. OLD MAID--An unmarried woman with more wrinkles than money. BACHELOR GIRL--An unmarried woman with more money than wrinkles. KITTEN--Any woman under sixty for whom a man feels a temporary tenderness. QUEEN--A pretty woman whom a man has not yet kissed. "IDEAL"--The particular woman, to whom a man happens to be making love. CLINGING VINE--A woman who allows her husband to think that he is having his own way. HELPMATE--A combination of playmate, soul-mate, and light-running domestic. GODDESS--An impossible woman, who exists only in novels and in a man's imagination. PARAGON--The kind of woman a man ought to marry, wants to marry, intends to marry--and never does. PESSIMISM IS A MAN'S NATURAL REACTION AFTER TOO MUCH OF ANYTHING--WINE, LOVE, FOOD, FLIRTATION OR OPTIMISM MAXIMS OF CLEOPATRA 1 THESE three things Man feareth: Oysters out of season, A Babe that plays with fire, and a Woman who can _reason_! 2 Last year's sandals and yesterday's fish, Last night's kisses and last week's wish Are, to a Man, things gone and past; Likewise _the woman before the last_! 3 The soul of a man is white--or black, or yellow, or dun; But a woman's soul is a rainbow and a Roman sash in one. 4 Empty the words of the prayer, when the Pharisee prayeth aloud; Empty the words of love, when he praiseth thee in a crowd. Yet, he that is cold in the crowd, but seeketh thine ear when alone, In the land of the Great God Isis by the name of "Cad" shall be known. 5 As the pearl that I dropped in the glass can never again be mine, So many a pearl of woman's love hath a man dissolved--in wine. 6 Geese walk not alone; sheep will follow sheep; So this little maxim I would have ye keep: Would ye conquer _all_ men, make a fool of _one_-- The rest will turn toward thee, as lilies to the sun. 7 The young man calleth for wine, the old for crystal water. Seek not to enslave a _boy_ till thou art thirty, Daughter. 8 When the game is over, vain the loser's sigh. To thy parting lover, wave a gay good-by! 'Neath the storm-cloud bending, see the lily laugh. If Love's reign be ending--write his epitaph! Deck his grave with iris; blot away his name. Isis and Osiris, make thy Daughter _game_! 9 Flatter him boldly, Daughter, be he old or wise or callow; For there is no meed of flattery that a man will fail to swallow. Yet, after a time, desist; lest perchance, in his vanity, He wonder why such a demi-god should stoop to a worm like thee! 10 Call the bald man, "Boy;" make the sage thy toy; Greet the youth with solemn face; praise the fat man for his grace. WHERE IS THE SWEET, OLD-FASHIONED WIFE WHO USED TO GET UP AT 6 O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING AND COOK HER HUSBAND'S BREAKFAST? GONE, GONE, ALAS, WITH THE SWEET OLD-FASHIONED HUSBAND WHO USED TO COME HOME AT 6 O'CLOCK IN THE EVENING AND _STAY THERE_ FINALE ALL the love routes lead to a kiss--but some men make love with the directness of an express train, some as haltingly as a local and some with the charm, smoothness and variation of a "special." When a man complains of the girls who "pursue" him, don't forget that the mark of a real "girl-charmer" is his dead silence concerning all women except the one to whom he happens to be talking. A man's idea of displaying "resolution" appears to be first to find out what a woman wants him to do, and then to proceed "resolutely" not to do it. Presence of mind in love making is a sure sign of absence of heart; no man begins to be serious until he begins to be foolish. The girl a man marries is never the one he ought to marry or intended to marry, but just some "innocent bystander" who happened to be in the way at the psychological moment. A woman's heart is like a frame, which holds only one picture at a time; a man's is more like a cinemetograph. A man's love is not actually dead until he begins subconsciously to think of his wife as the person who makes him wear his rubbers, mow the lawn, put up the fly-screens, and explain where he has been all Saturday afternoon. The average man is so busy backing away from the girls he ought to marry that he usually backs right into the arms of the one woman under Heaven that he _ought not_ to marry. A man is like a motor-car which always balks on the trolley-tracks and runs at top speed down hill; a wife is the human brake that prevents him from going to destruction. When a girl refuses a man his greatest emotion is not disappointment, but astonishment that she should be so blind to her own luck. Nothing bores a man so much as for a woman to give him _all_ her love--when he wanted only a _little_ of it. Solomon was the only man who ever had six hundred and ninety-nine alibis when one of his wives detected the fragrance of another woman's sachet on his coat lapel. Every man "rocks the boat" of happiness at least once during a love affair--usually by trying to leap out of it before it lands in the port of Matrimony. All a man needs in order to win any woman is a little audacity, a little mendacity and plenty of pertinacity. The only chain that can bind love is an endless chain of compliments. When a woman doesn't marry it is usually because she has never met the man with whom she could be perfectly happy; but when a man remains single it is usually because he has never met the woman _without_ whom he could _not_ be perfectly happy. Most men expect to "reform" between the last dose of medicine and the last breath. Speaking of the modern advance in the "arts and crafts" it requires more art to get a husband and more craft to keep one nowadays, than it ever did. A frank man may be the noblest work of God, but he is as much of a nuisance in feminine society as a woman on a fishing trip. There is always a chance that a man may escape from the bonds of matrimony; but an old bachelor is wedded by all the bonds of nature to a collection of habits from which nothing but death can divorce him. By the time he marries, a bachelor's heart has been pressed, cleaned and mended so often that it will barely hold together through the honeymoon. It seems so unreasonable of man to expect a woman to think straight, walk straight, or talk straight, considering that she was made from his rib--the crookedest bone in his body. Motto for a married man's den: "Others love your wife, why not _you_?" A man's idea of being perfectly loyal to a woman is to "think of her always"--even when he is kissing another woman. Love is just a glittering illusion with which we gild the hard, cold facts of life--until all the world seems bright and shining! Most men are so busy dodging one love affair that they step right back under the wheels of another, and are fatally mangled. A brave man is always ready to "face the music"--provided it isn't that old tune from Lohengrin. If married couples would show as much respect for one another's personal liberty, habits and preferences as they do for one another's toothbrushes, love's young dream would not so often turn into a nightmare. It is the Siamese twin existence they impose on themselves that drives them to distraction or destruction. A man kills time with a golf stick; a woman with a lip-stick. It is foolish to fancy that a man is thinking of proposing to you; a man never proposes to any woman, until he has gotten past "thinking." If a man would employ a little more commonsense before marriage and a little more _incense_ afterwards, matrimony would be more of an inspiration and less of a visitation. Never trust a husband too far, nor a bachelor too near. The man who takes a kiss "for granted" doesn't stand a chance beside the man who takes it before it is granted. Husband: A miniature volcano, constantly smoking, usually grumbling, and always liable to violent and unexpected eruptions. On the journey of matrimony, there are no garages where punctured illusions can be patched up, shattered ideals mended, and empty hearts refilled. Of course a man is not as jealous as a woman--because it's so hard for him to believe that a girl on whom he bestows himself could possibly wish for anything better. The making of a husband out of a mere man is not a sinecure; it's one of the highest plastic arts known to civilization. Before marriage a woman says sweetly, "I understand you!" After marriage she says coldly, "I see through you!" Oh, what is so stupid as last year's song, So foolish as last year's fashion, So completely forgotten as last year's girl, And so dead as a last year's passion? CURTAIN [Illustration] OTHER BOOKS BY HELEN ROWLAND THE SAYINGS OF MRS. SOLOMON Being the confessions of the 700th wife. A book that is much appreciated and is destined to entertain Helen Rowland's fast growing audience for years to come. "Yet whichever he weddeth, he regretteth it all the days of his life." From the Sayings of Mrs. Solomon REFLECTIONS OF A BACHELOR GIRL Clever, cynical and witty, with a philosophical trend that will entertain men and woman alike--the older ones--the younger ones. Read this book for a mirror likeness to yourself. Border decorations in color size 5 � 7-1/2. A Laugh on Every Page THE WIDOW (TO SAY NOTHING OF THE MAN) Here is a little book of delightful love stories, brimful of clever, witty epigrams. The Widow is--well, say that she is lovable--only more so; and the Man--read, know and love both. Illustrated bound in boards 4-1/2 � 7-1/4. RUBAIYAT OF A BACHELOR An exceedingly clever parody both in verses and illustrations. Every yearning, timorous bachelor should read and ponder; so, too, each damsel, read and--"then, in your mercy, Friend, forbear to smile." Illustrations and border decorations by Harold Speakman, attractively bound in cloth with inlay in color size 5-3/4 � 7-1/2. A Laugh on Every Page [Illustration] * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Page 7, "discoverd" changed to "discovered" (Who has discovered) Page 32, extraneous closing quote removed from text. Original read: "guide," philosopher and friend" Page 73, "Corespondence" changed to "Correspondence" (from the Correspondence) Text uses both caveman and cave-man, commonsense and common-sense, goodby and good-by. 
61217	----	ONE MILLION FOUR HUNDRED NINETY TWO THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED THIRTY THREE MARLON BRANDOS BY VANCE AANDAHL She liked the Brando type. The more there was of it, the better! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Chester McRae. Good old Chet, best man in Accounting. Six feet tall, brown hair, brown eyes. Full of vim and vigor, that was good old Chet. "God!" he screamed. "They're strangling me, the skunks!" He rose from bed, his face dripping with sweat and his hands trembling like a frightened child's. "They're killing me!" He ran to the bathroom and vomited. His wife was standing by the door when he finished, but he walked past her as if she didn't exist. "Why, Chester! What's the matter with you?" she asked, trailing him into the bedroom. "I've never heard you talk like that before!" For a moment she stood watching him in numb silence. "For goodness' sake, Chester, why are you getting dressed at three o'clock in the morning?" "None of your business," he mumbled, setting a firm upper lip and gazing at her with lizard-cold Marlon Brando eyes. He picked up his tie, laughed at it with careless ease and threw it across the room. "See you around, baby," he hissed, zipping up his trousers and walking past her. "Chester McRae! Where are you going at this time of night? You've got to go to work tomorrow! Don't you love me any more? Chester...." But her words echoed emptily through Chester McRae's pleasant little suburban home. Chester was no longer present. * * * * * Bartholomew Oliver. Good old Barth, best man on a duck hunt since the guy who invented shotguns. Five foot ten, weak chin, gambler's mustache. Good man with small-town girls, too. "Hey, Thelma," he said. "You know what I think?" "Go to sleep." "I think it'd be funnier than hell if I left you flat." "What kind of wisecrack is that? And what do you think you're doing?" "I'm getting dressed...." "It's three o'clock in the morning." "So? I don't give a damn." "You'll come back. Drunken louse." He laughed softly and smiled at her in the darkness with ice-white Marlon Brando teeth. Then he was gone. * * * * * Oswald Williams. Good old Ozzie, best man in the whole philosophy department. Five foot two, one hundred and seven pounds, milky eyes. Wrote an outstanding paper on the inherent fallacies of logical positivism. "Louise," he whispered, "I feel uneasy. Very uneasy." His wife lifted her fatty head and gazed happily down at Oswald. "Go to sleep," she said. "If you'll excuse me, I think that I shall take a walk." "But, Oswald, it's three o'clock in the morning!" "Don't be irrational," he whispered. "If I want to take a walk, I shall take a walk." "Well! I don't think you ought to, or you might catch a cold." He rose and dressed, donning a tee-shirt and tweed trousers. With snake-swift Marlon Brando hands, he tossed his plaid scarf in her face. "Excuse me, Louise," he whispered, "but I gotta make it...." Then, laughing softly, he strode from the room. * * * * * At three o'clock in the morning, even a large city is quiet and dark and almost dead. At times, the city twitches in its sleep; occasionally it rolls over or mutters to itself. But only rarely is its slumber shattered by a scream.... "Johnny! Hey, Johnny!" cries Chester McRae, his eyes as dull and poisonous as two tiny toads. "Let's make it, man ... let's split...." whispers Bartholomew Oliver, one finger brushing his nose like a rattler nosing a dead mouse. "I don make no move without my boys," says Oswald Williams, his hands curled like scorpion tails. Together they walk down the street, moving with slow insolence, their lips curled in snarls or slack with indifference, their eyes glittering with hidden hatreds. But they are not alone in the city. The college boys are coming, in their dirty jeans and beer-stained tee-shirts; so too are the lawyers, in dusty jackets and leather pants; so come the doctors and the businessmen, on stolen motorcycles; the bricklayers and gas station attendants, the beatniks and dope pushers, the bankers and lifesaving instructors, the butchers, the bakers, the candlestick makers... they are all coming, flocking into the city for reasons not their own, wandering in twos and threes and twenties, all of them sullen and quiet, all of them shuffling beneath darkly-hued clouds of ill intent, all of them proud and deadly and virile, filling the streets by the thousands now, turning the streets into rivers of flesh.... "Hey, Johnny," says Chester, "let's cool this dump." "Man, let's make it with the skirts," says Bartholomew. "I don see no skirts," says Chester. "You pig," snarls Ozzie. The mob is monstrous now, like a pride of lion cubs, beyond count in their number, without equal in their leonine strength, above the common quick in their immortal pride, milling through the hot black veldt, swarming in the city streets. Millions of them, more than the eye can see or the mind can bear. It seems that no man sleeps, that every male in the great city must walk tonight. "Johnny," says Chester, "I don dig no chicks on the turf." "Eeee, colay. What a drag," whispers Bartholomew. "You goddam logical positivist," snarls Ozzie. * * * * * An uneasy sound ripples through the mob, like the angry hiss of an injured ego, moving from street to street and swelling upward in a sudden, angry roar ... they want their women, the dance-hall girls, the young waitresses, the nowhere chicks in five dollar dresses, the Spanish girls with eyes as dark as the Spanish night. And then, as though by accident, one man looks up at the starry sky and sees _her_--sees her standing on a balcony far above them, twenty stories above them, up where the wind can blow her hair and billow her blue dress like an orchid of the night. She laughs gently, without fear, gazing down at the mindless mob of rebels. They laugh too, just as gently, their quiet eyes crawling over the sight of her body, far above. "Thass my chick," whispers Chester. "Cool it, daddy," says Bartholomew, slipping into a pair of dark glasses and touching his lips with the tip of his tongue. "That skirt is private property." "You boys may walk and talk," says Ozzie, "but you don play. You don play with Rio's girl." Suddenly, angry words and clenched fists erupt from the proud, quiet millions that flood the streets. Suddenly, a roar like the roar of lions rises up and buffets the girl in blue, the girl on the balcony. She laughs again, for she knows that they are fighting for her. A figure appears on the balcony, next to the girl. The figure is a man, and he too is dressed in blue. Suddenly, just as suddenly as it began, the fighting ceases. "My God," whispers Chester, his cheeks gone pale, "what am I doing out here?" "Maybe I got the D.T.s," whispers Bartholomew, "but maybe I don't...." He sits down on the curb and rubs his head in disbelief. Oswald does not speak. His shame is the greatest. He slinks into the darkness of an alley and briefly wishes for an overcoat. The pride of lion cubs has been routed, and now they scatter, each one scrambling for his private den of security, each one lost in a wild and nameless fear. In twos and threes and twenties they rush back to their homes, their wives, their endless lives. Far above, in the apartment with the balcony, a man in blue is chiding a girl in blue. "That was scarcely reasonable, Dorothy." "But Daddy, you promised to let me have them for the entire night!" "Yes, but...." "I wasn't really going to let them hurt themselves! Really, I wasn't!" "But, Dorothy--you know these things can get out of hand." "Oh, but Daddy, you know how I adore strong, quiet, proud men. Rebellious men like Marlon." "Yes, and you know how _I_ adore order and peace. There shall be _no_ more riots! And tomorrow our little puppets shall go back to their 'dull' lives, as you so wittily put it, and everything shall be as I wish." * * * * * Three hours later, Chester McRae arose at the sound of the alarm, dressed in a stupor and stumbled into his kitchen for breakfast. "My goodness, Chester," said his wife, who had already arisen, "you look grouchier than usual! Ha, ha!" He smiled wanly and opened the morning paper. Halfway across town, Bartholomew Oliver was still asleep, casually lost in the pleasures of an erotic dream. But Professor Oswald Williams, his tiny jaw unshaven and his eager eyes shot through with fatigue, had been hard at work for three hours, scribbling down his latest exposure of the logical positivists. 
12106	----	Proofreading Team. [Illustration: Exchanging the grip of the third degree] OLD GORGON GRAHAM More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son _by_ George Horace Lorimer _With pictures by F.R. Gruger and Martin Justice_ 1903 FROM A SON TO HIS FATHER CONTENTS I. From John Graham, head of the house of Graham & Company, pork packers, in Chicago, familiarly known on 'Change as Old Gorgon Graham, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards. _The old man is laid up temporarily for repairs, and Pierrepont has written asking if his father doesn't feel that he is qualified now to relieve him of some of the burden of active management_ II. From John Graham, at the Schweitzerkasenhof, Carlsbad, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. _The head of the lard department has died suddenly, and Pierrepont has suggested to the old man that there is a silver lining to that cloud of sorrow_ III. From John Graham, at the Schweitzerkasenhof, Carlsbad, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. _A friend of the young man has just presented a letter of introduction to the old man, and has exchanged a large bunch of stories for a small roll of bills_ IV. From John Graham, at the Hotel Cecil, London, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. _The old man has just finished going through the young man's first report as manager of the lard department, and he finds it suspiciously good_ V. From John Graham, at the Waldorf-Astoria, New York, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. _The young man has hinted vaguely of a quarrel between himself and Helen Heath, who is in New York with her mother, and has suggested that the old man act as peacemaker_ VI. From John Graham, at the Waldorf-Astoria, New York, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. _The young man has written describing the magnificent wedding presents that are being received, and hinting discreetly that it would not come amiss if he knew what shape the old man's was going to take, as he needs the money_ VII. From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, at Yemassee-on-the-Tallahassee. _The young man is now in the third quarter of the honeymoon, and the old man has decided that it is time to bring him fluttering down to earth_ VIII. From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, at Yemassee-on-the-Tallahassee. _In replying to his father's hint that it is time to turn his thoughts from love to lard, the young man has quoted a French sentence, and the old man has been both pained and puzzled by it_ IX. From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, care of Graham & Company's brokers, Atlanta. _Following the old man's suggestion, the young man has rounded out the honeymoon into a harvest moon, and is sending in some very satisfactory orders to the house_ X. From John Graham, at Mount Clematis, Michigan, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. _The young man has done famously during the first year of his married life, and the old man has decided to give him a more important position_ XI. From John Graham, at Mount Clematis, Michigan, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. _The young man has sent the old man a dose of his own medicine, advice, and he is proving himself a good doctor by taking it_ XII. From John Graham, at Magnolia Villa, on the Florida Coast, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. _The old man has started back to Nature, but he hasn't gone quite far enough to lose sight of his business altogether_ XIII. From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, care of Graham & Company, Denver. _The young man has been offered a large interest in a big thing at a small price, and he has written asking the old man to lend him the price_ XIV. From John Graham, at the Omaha branch of Graham & Company, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. _The old man has been advised by wire of the arrival of a prospective partner, and that the mother, the son, and the business are all doing well_ No. 1 From John Graham, head of the house of Graham & Company, pork packers, in Chicago, familiarly known on 'Change as Old Gorgon Graham, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards. The old man is laid up temporarily for repairs, and Pierrepont has written asking if his father doesn't feel that he is qualified now to relieve him of some of the burden of active management. I CARLSBAD, October 4, 189-. _Dear Pierrepont_: I'm sorry you ask so many questions that you haven't a right to ask, because you put yourself in the position of the inquisitive bull-pup who started out to smell the third rail on the trolley right-of-way--you're going to be full of information in a minute. In the first place, it looks as if business might be pretty good this fall, and I'm afraid you'll have your hands so full in your place as assistant manager of the lard department that you won't have time to run my job, too. Then I don't propose to break any quick-promotion records with you, just because you happened to be born into a job with the house. A fond father and a fool son hitch up into a bad team, and a good business makes a poor family carryall. Out of business hours I like you better than any one at the office, but in them there are about twenty men ahead of you in my affections. The way for you to get first place is by racing fair and square, and not by using your old daddy as a spring-board from which to jump over their heads. A man's son is entitled to a chance in his business, but not to a cinch. It's been my experience that when an office begins to look like a family tree, you'll find worms tucked away snug and cheerful in most of the apples. A fellow with an office full of relatives is like a sow with a litter of pigs--apt to get a little thin and peaked as the others fat up. A receiver is next of kin to a business man's relatives, and after they are all nicely settled in the office they're not long in finding a job for him there, too. I want you to get this firmly fixed in your mind, because while you haven't many relatives to hire, if you ever get to be the head of the house, you'll no doubt marry a few with your wife. For every man that the Lord makes smart enough to help himself, He makes two who have to be helped. When your two come to you for jobs, pay them good salaries to keep out of the office. Blood is thicker than water, I know, but when it's the blood of your wife's second cousin out of a job, it's apt to be thicker than molasses--and stickier than glue when it touches a good thing. After you have found ninety-nine sound reasons for hiring a man, it's all right to let his relationship to you be the hundredth. It'll be the only bad reason in the bunch. I simply mention this in passing, because, as I have said, you ain't likely to be hiring men for a little while yet. But so long as the subject is up, I might as well add that when I retire it will be to the cemetery. And I should advise you to anchor me there with a pretty heavy monument, because it wouldn't take more than two such statements of manufacturing cost as I have just received from your department to bring me back from the graveyard to the Stock Yards on the jump. And until I do retire you don't want to play too far from first base. The man at the bat will always strike himself out quick enough if he has forgotten how to find the pitcher's curves, so you needn't worry about that. But you want to be ready all the time in case he should bat a few hot ones in your direction. Some men are like oak leaves--they don't know when they're dead, but still hang right on; and there are others who let go before anything has really touched them. Of course, I may be in the first class, but you can be dead sure that I don't propose to get into the second, even though I know a lot of people say I'm an old hog to keep right along working after I've made more money than I know how to spend, and more than I could spend if I knew how. It's a mighty curious thing how many people think that if a man isn't spending his money their way he isn't spending it right, and that if he isn't enjoying himself according to their tastes he can't be having a good time. They believe that money ought to loaf; I believe that it ought to work. They believe that money ought to go to the races and drink champagne; I believe that it ought to go to the office and keep sober. When a man makes a specialty of knowing how some other fellow ought to spend his money, he usually thinks in millions and works for hundreds. There's only one poorer hand at figures than these over-the-left financiers, and he's the fellow who inherits the old man's dollars without his sense. When a fortune comes without calling, it's apt to leave without asking. Inheriting money is like being the second husband of a Chicago grass-widow--mighty uncertain business, unless a fellow has had a heap of experience. There's no use explaining when I'm asked why I keep on working, because fellows who could put that question wouldn't understand the answer. You could take these men and soak their heads overnight in a pailful of ideas, and they wouldn't absorb anything but the few loose cuss-words that you'd mixed in for flavoring. They think that the old boys have corralled all the chances and have tied up the youngsters where they can't get at them; when the truth is that if we all simply quit work and left them the whole range to graze over, they'd bray to have their fodder brought to them in bales, instead of starting out to hunt the raw material, as we had to. When an ass gets the run of the pasture he finds thistles. I don't mind owning up to you, though, that I don't hang on because I'm indispensable to the business, but because business is indispensable to me. I don't take much stock in this indispensable man idea, anyway. I've never had one working for me, and if I had I'd fire him, because a fellow who's as smart as that ought to be in business for himself; and if he doesn't get a chance to start a new one, he's just naturally going to eat up yours. Any man can feel reasonably well satisfied if he's sure that there's going to be a hole to look at when he's pulled up by the roots. I started business in a shanty, and I've expanded it into half a mile of factories; I began with ten men working for me, and I'll quit with 10,000; I found the American hog in a mud-puddle, without a beauty spot on him except the curl in his tail, and I'm leaving him nicely packed in fancy cans and cases, with gold medals hung all over him. But after I've gone some other fellow will come along and add a post-graduate course in pork packing, and make what I've done look like a country school just after the teacher's been licked. And I want you to be that fellow. For the present, I shall report at the office as usual, because I don't know any other place where I can get ten hours' fun a day, year in and year out. After forty years of close acquaintance with it, I've found that work is kind to its friends and harsh to its enemies. It pays the fellow who dislikes it his exact wages, and they're generally pretty small; but it gives the man who shines up to it all the money he wants and throws in a heap of fun and satisfaction for good measure. A broad-gauged merchant is a good deal like our friend Doc Graver, who'd cut out the washerwoman's appendix for five dollars, but would charge a thousand for showing me mine--he wants all the money that's coming to him, but he really doesn't give a cuss how much it is, just so he gets the appendix. I've never taken any special stock in this modern theory that no fellow over forty should be given a job, or no man over sixty allowed to keep one. Of course, there's a dead-line in business, just as there is in preaching, and fifty's a good, convenient age at which to draw it; but it's been my experience that there are a lot of dead ones on both sides of it. When a man starts out to be a fool, and keeps on working steady at his trade, he usually isn't going to be any Solomon at sixty. But just because you see a lot of bald-headed sinners lined up in the front row at the show, you don't want to get humorous with every bald-headed man you meet, because the first one you tackle may be a deacon. And because a fellow has failed once or twice, or a dozen times, you don't want to set him down as a failure--unless he takes failing too easy. No man's a failure till he's dead or loses his courage, and that's the same thing. Sometimes a fellow that's been batted all over the ring for nineteen rounds lands on the solar plexus of the proposition he's tackling in the twentieth. But you can have a regiment of good business qualities, and still fail without courage, because he's the colonel, and he won't stand for any weakening at a critical time. I learned a long while ago not to measure men with a foot-rule, and not to hire them because they were young or old, or pretty or homely, though there are certain general rules you want to keep in mind. If you were spending a million a year without making money, and you hired a young man, he'd be apt to turn in and double your expenses to make the business show a profit, and he'd be a mighty good man; but if you hired an old man, he'd probably cut your expenses to the bone and show up the money saved on the profit side; and he'd be a mighty good man, too. I hire both and then set the young man to spending and the old man to watching expenses. Of course, the chances are that a man who hasn't got a good start at forty hasn't got it in him, but you can't run a business on the law of averages and have more than an average business. Once an old fellow who's just missed everything he's sprung at gets his hooks in, he's a tiger to stay by the meat course. And I've picked up two or three of these old man-eaters in my time who are drawing pretty large salaries with the house right now. Whenever I hear any of this talk about carting off old fellows to the glue factory, I always think of Doc Hoover and the time they tried the "dead-line-at-fifty" racket on him, though he was something over eighty when it happened. After I left Missouri, Doc stayed right along, year after year, in the old town, handing out hell to the sinners in public, on Sundays, and distributing corn-meal and side-meat to them on the quiet, week-days. He was a boss shepherd, you bet, and he didn't stand for any church rows or such like nonsense among his sheep. When one of them got into trouble the Doc was always on hand with his crook to pull him out, but let an old ram try to start any stampede-and-follow-the-leader-over-the-precipice foolishness, and he got the sharp end of the stick. There was one old billy-goat in the church, a grocer named Deacon Wiggleford, who didn't really like the Elder's way of preaching. Wanted him to soak the Amalekites in his sermons, and to leave the grocery business alone. Would holler Amen! when the parson got after the money-changers in the Temple, but would shut up and look sour when he took a crack at the short-weight prune-sellers of the nineteenth century. Said he "went to church to hear the simple Gospel preached," and that may have been one of the reasons, but he didn't want it applied, because there wasn't any place where the Doc could lay it on without cutting him on the raw. The real trouble with the Deacon was that he'd never really got grace, but only a pretty fair imitation. Well, one time after the Deacon got back from his fall trip North to buy goods, he tried to worry the Doc by telling him that all the ministers in Chicago were preaching that there wasn't any super-heated hereafter, but that each man lived through his share of hell right here on earth. Doc's face fell at first, but he cheered up mightily after nosing it over for a moment, and allowed it might be so; in fact, that he was sure it was so, as far as those fellows were concerned--they lived in Chicago. And next Sunday he preached hell so hot that the audience fairly sweat. He wound up his sermon by deploring the tendency to atheism which he had noticed "among those merchants who had recently gone up with the caravans to Babylon for spices" (this was just his high-toned way of describing Deacon Wiggleford's trip to Chicago in a day-coach for groceries), and hoped that the goods which they had brought back were better than the theology. Of course, the old folks on the mourners' bench looked around to see how the Deacon was taking it, and the youngsters back on the gigglers' bench tittered, and everybody was happy but the Deacon. He began laying for the Doc right there. And without meaning to, it seems that I helped his little game along. Doc Hoover used to write me every now and then, allowing that hams were scarcer in Missouri and more plentiful in my packing-house than they had any right to be, if the balance of trade was to be maintained. Said he had the demand and I had the supply, and he wanted to know what I was going to do about it. I always shipped back a tierce by fast freight, because I was afraid that if I tried to argue the point he'd come himself and take a car-load. He made a specialty of seeing that every one in town had enough food and enough religion, and he wasn't to be trifled with when he discovered a shortage of either. A mighty good salesman was lost when Doc got religion. Well, one day something more than ten years ago he wrote in, threatening to make the usual raid on my smoke-house, and when I answered, advising him that the goods were shipped, I inclosed a little check and told him to spend it on a trip to the Holy Land which I'd seen advertised. He backed and filled over going at first, but finally the church took it out of his hands and arranged for a young fellow not long out of the Theological Seminary to fill the pulpit, and Doc put a couple of extra shirts in a grip and started off. I heard the rest of the story from Si Perkins next fall, when he brought on a couple of car-loads of steers to Chicago, and tried to stick me half a cent more than the market for them on the strength of our having come from the same town. It seems that the young man who took Doc's place was one of these fellows with pink tea instead of red blood in his veins. Hadn't any opinions except your opinions until he met some one else. Preached pretty, fluffy little things, and used eau de Cologne on his language. Never hit any nearer home than the unspeakable Turk, and then he was scared to death till he found out that the dark-skinned fellow under the gallery was an Armenian. (The Armenian left the church anyway, because the unspeakable Turk hadn't been soaked hard enough to suit him.) Didn't preach much from the Bible, but talked on the cussedness of Robert Elsmere and the low-downness of Trilby. Was always wanting everybody to lead the higher life, without ever really letting on what it was, or at least so any one could lay hold of it by the tail. In the end, I reckon he'd have worked around to Hoyle's games--just to call attention to their wickedness, of course. The Pillars of the church, who'd been used to getting their religion raw from Doc Hoover, didn't take to the bottle kindly, and they all fell away except Deacon Wiggleford. He and the youngsters seemed to cotton to the new man, and just before Doc Hoover was due to get back they called a special meeting, and retired the old man with the title of pastor emeritus. They voted him two donation parties a year as long as he lived, and elected the Higher Lifer as the permanent pastor of the church. Deacon Wiggleford suggested the pastor emeritus extra. He didn't quite know what it meant, but he'd heard it in Chicago, and it sounded pretty good, and as if it ought to be a heap of satisfaction to a fellow who was being fired. Besides, it didn't cost anything, and the Deacon was one of those Christians who think that you ought to be able to save a man's immortal soul for two bits. The Pillars were mighty hot next day when they heard what had happened, and were for calling another special meeting; but two or three of them got together and decided that it was best to lay low and avoid a row until the Doc got back. He struck town the next week with a jugful of water from the River Jordan in one hand and a gripful of paper-weights made of wood from the Mount of Olives in the other. He was chockful of the joy of having been away and of the happiness of getting back, till they told him about the Deacon's goings on, and then he went sort of gray and old, and sat for a minute all humped up. Si Perkins, who was one of the unregenerate, but a mighty good friend of the Doc's, was standing by, and he blurted right out: "You say the word, Doc, and we'll make the young people's society ride this rooster out of town on a rail." That seemed to wake up the Elder a bit, for he shook his head and said, "No nonsense now, you Si"; and then, as he thought it over, he began to bristle and swell up; and when he stood it was to his full six feet four, and it was all man. You could see that he was boss of himself again, and when a man like old Doc Hoover is boss of himself he comes pretty near being boss of every one around him. He sent word to the Higher Lifer by one of the Pillars that he reckoned he was counting on him to preach a farewell sermon the next Sunday, and the young man, who'd been keeping in the background till whatever was going to drop, dropped, came around to welcome him in person. But while the Doc had been doing a heap of praying for grace, he didn't propose to take any chances, and he didn't see him. And he wouldn't talk to any one else, just smiled in an aggravating way, though everybody except Deacon Wiggleford and the few youngsters who'd made the trouble called to remonstrate against his paying any attention to their foolishness. The whole town turned out the next Sunday to see the Doc step down. He sat beside the Higher Lifer on the platform, and behind them were the six deacons. When it came time to begin the services the Higher Lifer started to get up, but the Doc was already on his feet, and he whispered to him: "Set down, young man"; and the young man sat. The Doc had a way of talking that didn't need a gun to back it up. The old man conducted the services right through, just as he always did, except that when he'd remembered in his prayer every one in America and had worked around through Europe to Asia Minor, he lingered a trifle longer over the Turks than usual, and the list of things which he seemed to think they needed brought the Armenian back into the fold right then and there. [Illustration: "We'll make the young people's society ride this rooster out of town on a rail"] By the time the Doc got around to preaching, Deacon Wiggleford was looking like a fellow who'd bought a gold brick, and the Higher Lifer like the brick. Everybody else felt and looked as if they were attending the Doc's funeral, and, as usual, the only really calm and composed member of the party was the corpse. "You will find the words of my text," Doc began, "in the revised version of the works of William Shakespeare, in the book--I mean play--of Romeo and Juliet, Act Two, Scene Two: 'Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say good-night till it be morrow,'" and while the audience was pulling itself together he laid out that text in four heads, each with six subheads. Began on partings, and went on a still hunt through history and religion for them. Made the audience part with Julius Caesar with regret, and had 'em sniffling at saying good-by to Napoleon and Jeff Davis. Made 'em feel that they'd lost their friends and their money, and then foreclosed the mortgage on the old homestead in a this-is-very-sad-but-I-need-the-money tone. In fact, when he had finished with Parting and was ready to begin on Sweet Sorrow, he had not only exhausted the subject, but left considerable of a deficit in it. They say that the hour he spent on Sweet Sorrow laid over anything that the town had ever seen for sadness. Put 'em through every stage of grief from the snuffles to the snorts. Doc always was a pretty noisy preacher, but he began work on that head with soft-pedal-tremolo-stop preaching and wound up with a peroration like a steamboat explosion. Started with his illustrations dying of consumption and other peaceful diseases, and finished up with railroad wrecks. He'd been at it two hours when he got through burying the victims of his last illustration, and he was just ready to tackle his third head with six subheads. But before he took the plunge he looked at his watch and glanced up sort of surprised: "I find," he said, "that we have consumed more time with these introductory remarks than I had intended. We would all, I know, like to say good-by till to-morrow, did our dear young brother's plans permit, but alas! he leaves us on the 2:17. Such is life; to-day we are here, to-morrow we are in St. Louis, to which our young friend must return. Usually, I don't approve of traveling on the Sabbath, but in a case like this, where the reasons are very pressing, I will lay aside my scruples, and with a committee of deacons which I have appointed see our pastor emeritus safely off." The Doc then announced that he would preach a series of six Sunday night sermons on the six best-selling books of the month, and pronounced the benediction while the Higher Lifer and Deacon Wiggleford were trying to get the floor. But the committee of deacons had 'em by the coat-tails, and after listening to their soothing arguments the Higher Lifer decided to take the 2:17 as per schedule. When he saw the whole congregation crowding round the Doc, and the women crying over him and wanting to take him home to dinner, he understood that there'd been a mistake somewhere and that he was the mistake. Of course the Doc never really preached on the six best-selling books. That was the first and last time he ever found a text in anything but the Bible. Si Perkins wanted to have Deacon Wiggleford before the church on charges. Said he'd been told that this pastor emeritus business was Latin, and it smelt of popery to him; but the Doc wouldn't stand for any foolishness. Allowed that the special meeting was illegal, and that settled it; and he reckoned they could leave the Deacon's case to the Lord. But just the same, the small boys used to worry Wiggleford considerably by going into his store and yelling: "Mother says she doesn't want any more of those pastor emeritus eggs," or, "She'll send it back if you give us any more of that dead-line butter." If the Doc had laid down that Sunday, there'd probably have been a whole lot of talk and tears over his leaving, but in the end, the Higher Lifer or some other fellow would have had his job, and he'd have become one of those nice old men for whom every one has a lot of respect but no special use. But he kept right on, owning his pulpit and preaching in it, until the Great Call was extended to him. I'm a good deal like the Doc--willing to preach a farewell sermon whenever it seems really necessary, but some other fellow's. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. No. 2 From John Graham, at the Schweitzerkasenhof, Carlsbad, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The head of the lard department has died suddenly, and Pierrepont has suggested to the old man that there is a silver lining to that cloud of sorrow. II CARLSBAD, October 20, 189-. _Dear Pierrepont_: I've cabled the house that you will manage the lard department, or try to, until I get back; but beyond that I can't see. Four weeks doesn't give you much time to prove that you are the best man in the shop for the place, but it gives you enough to prove that you ain't. You've got plenty of rope. If you know how to use it you can throw your steer and brand it; if you don't, I suppose I won't find much more than a grease-spot where the lard department was, when I get back to the office. I'm hopeful, but I'm a good deal like the old deacon back in Missouri who thought that games of chance were sinful, and so only bet on sure things--and I'm not betting. Naturally, when a young fellow steps up into a big position, it breeds jealousy among those whom he's left behind and uneasiness among those to whom he's pulled himself up. Between them he's likely to be subjected to a lot of petty annoyances. But he's in the fix of a dog with fleas who's chasing a rabbit--if he stops to snap at the tickling on his tail, he's going to lose his game dinner. Even as temporary head of the lard department you're something of a pup, and where there's dog there's fleas. You've simply got to get used to them, and have sense enough to know that they're not eating you up when they're only nibbling a little at your hide. And you don't want to let any one see that a flea-bite can worry you, either. A pup that's squirming and wriggling and nosing around the seat of the trouble whenever one of his little friends gets busy, is kicked out into the cold, sad night in the end. But a wise dog lies before the fire with a droop in his ear and a dreamy look in his eyes until it gets to the point where he can't stand 'em any longer. Then he sneaks off under the dining-room table and rolls them out into the carpet. There are two breeds of little things in business--those that you can't afford to miss and those that you can't afford to notice. The first are the details of your own work and those of the men under you. The second are the little tricks and traps that the envious set around you. A trick is always so low that a high-stepper can walk right over it. When a fellow comes from the outside to an important position with a house he generally gets a breathing-space while the old men spar around taking his measure and seeing if he sizes up to his job. They give him the benefit of the doubt, and if he shows up strong and shifty on his feet they're apt to let him alone. But there isn't any doubt in your case; everybody's got you sized up, or thinks he has, and those who've been over you will find it hard to accept you as an equal, and those who've been your equals will be slow to regard you as a superior. When you've been Bill to a man, it comes awkward for him to call you mister. He may do it to your face, but you're always Bill again when you've turned the corner. Of course, everybody's going to say you're an accident. Prove it. Show that you're a regular head-on collision when anything gets in your way. They're going to say that you've got a pull. Prove it--by taking up all the slack that they give you. Back away from controversy, but stand up stubborn as a mule to the fellow who's hunting trouble. I believe in ruling by love, all right, but it's been my experience that there are a lot of people in the world whom you've got to make understand that you're ready to heave a brick if they don't come when you call them. These men mistake kindness for weakness and courtesy for cowardice. Of course, it's the exception when a fellow of this breed can really hurt you, but the exception is the thing that you always want to keep your eye skinned for in business. When it's good growing weather and the average of the crop is ninety-five, you should remember that old Satan may be down in Arizona cooking up a sizzler for the cornbelt; or that off Cuba-ways, where things get excited easy, something special in the line of tornadoes may be ghost-dancing and making ready to come North to bust you into bits, if it catches you too far away from the cyclone cellar. When a boy's face shines with soap, look behind his ears. Up to this point you've been seeing business from the seat of the man who takes orders; now you're going to find out what sort of a snap the fellow who gives them has. You're not even exchanging one set of worries for another, because a good boss has to carry all his own and to share those of his men. He must see without spying; he must hear without sneaking; he must know without asking. It takes a pretty good guesser to be a boss. The first banana-skin which a lot of fellows step on when they're put over other men is a desire to be too popular. Of course, it's a nice thing to have everyone stand up and cheer when your name is mentioned, but it's mighty seldom that that happens to any one till he's dead. You can buy a certain sort of popularity anywhere with soft soap and favors; but you can't buy respect with anything but justice, and that's the only popularity worth having. You'll find that this world is so small, and that most men in it think they're so big, that you can't step out in any direction without treading on somebody's corns, but unless you keep moving, the fellow who's in a hurry to get somewhere is going to fetch up on your bunion. Some men are going to dislike you because you're smooth, and others because you have a brutal way of telling the truth. You're going to repel some because they think you're cold, and others will cross the street when they see you coming because they think you slop over. One fellow won't like you because you're got curly hair, and another will size you up as a stiff because you're bald. Whatever line of conduct you adopt you're bound to make some enemies, but so long as there's a choice I want you to make yours by being straightforward and just. You'll have the satisfaction of knowing that every enemy you make by doing the square thing is a rascal at heart. Don't fear too much the enemy you make by saying No, nor trust too much the friend you make by saying Yes. Speaking of being popular naturally calls to mind the case of a fellow from the North named Binder, who moved to our town when I was a boy, and allowed that he was going into the undertaking business. Absalom Magoffin, who had had all the post-mortem trade of the town for forty years, was a queer old cuss, and he had some mighty aggravating ways. Never wanted to talk anything but business. Would buttonhole you on the street, and allow that, while he wasn't a doctor, he had had to cover up a good many of the doctor's mistakes in his time, and he didn't just like your symptoms. Said your looks reminded him of Bill Shorter, who' went off sudden in the fifties, and was buried by the Masons with a brass band. Asked if you remembered Bill, and that peculiar pasty look about his skin. Naturally, this sort of thing didn't make Ab any too popular, and so Binder got a pretty warm welcome when he struck town. He started right out by saying that he didn't see any good reason why an undertaker should act as if he was the next of kin. Was always stopping people on the streets to tell them the latest, and yelling out the point in a horse-laugh. Everybody allowed that jolly old Binder had the right idea; and that Magoffin might as well shut up shop. Every one in town wanted to see him officiate at a funeral, and there was a lot of talk about encouraging new enterprises, but it didn't come to anything. No one appeared to have any public spirit. Seemed as if we'd never had a healthier spring than that one. Couldn't fetch a nigger, even. The most unpopular man in town, Miser Dosher, came down with pneumonia in December, and every one went around saying how sad it was that there was no hope, and watching for Binder to start for the house. But in the end Dosher rallied and "went back on the town," as Si Perkins put it. Then the Hoskins-Bustard crowds took a crack at each other one court day, but it was mighty poor shooting. Ham Hoskins did get a few buckshot in his leg, and that had to come off, but there were no complications. By this time Binder, though he still laughed and cracked his jokes, was beginning to get sort of discouraged. But Si Perkins used to go round and cheer him up by telling him that it was bound to come his way in the end, and that when it did come it would come with a rush. Then, all of a sudden, something happened--yellow jack dropped in from down New Orleans way, and half the people in town had it inside a week and the other half were so blamed scared that they thought they had it. But through it all Binder never once lost his merry, cheery ways. Luckily it was a mild attack and everybody got well; but it made it mighty easy for Doc Hoover to bring sinners tinder conviction for a year to come. When it was all over Binder didn't have a friend in town. Leaked out little by little that as soon as one of the men who'd been cheering for jolly old Binder got yellow jack, the first thing he did was to make his wife swear that she'd have Magoffin do the planting. You see, that while a man may think it's all foolishness for an undertaker to go around solemn and sniffling, he'll be a little slow about hiring a fellow to officiate at his funeral who's apt to take a sense of humor to it. Si Perkins was the last one to get well, and the first time he was able to walk as far as the store he made a little speech. Wanted to know if we were going to let a Connecticut Yankee trifle with our holiest emotions. Thought he ought to be given a chance to crack his blanked New England jokes in Hades. Allowed that the big locust in front of Binder's store made an ideal spot for a jolly little funeral. Of course Si wasn't exactly consistent in this, but, as he used to say, it's the consistent men who keep the devil busy, because no one's ever really consistent except in his cussedness. It's been my experience that consistency is simply a steel hoop around a small mind--it keeps it from expanding. Well, Si hadn't more than finished before the whole crowd was off whooping down the street toward Binder's. As soon as they got in range of the house they began shooting at the windows and yelling for him to come out if he was a man, but it appeared that Binder wasn't a man--leastways, he didn't come out--and investigation showed that he was streaking it back for Connecticut. I simply mention this little incident as an example of the fact that popularity is a mighty uncertain critter and a mighty unsafe one to hitch your wagon to. It'll eat all the oats you bring it, and then kick you as you're going out of the stall. It's happened pretty often in my time that I've seen a crowd pelt a man with mud, go away, and, returning a few months or a few years later, and finding him still in the same place, throw bouquets at him. But that, mark you, was because first and last he was standing in the right place. It's been my experience that there are more cases of hate at first sight than of love at first sight, and that neither of them is of any special consequence. You tend strictly to your job of treating your men square, without slopping over, and when you get into trouble there'll be a little bunch to line up around you with their horns down to keep the wolves from cutting you out of the herd. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. No. 3 From John Graham, at the Schweitzerkasenhof, Carlsbad, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. A friend of the young man has just presented a letter of introduction to the old man, and has exchanged a large bunch of stories for a small roll of bills. III CARLSBAD, October 24, 189-. _Dear Pierrepont_: Yesterday your old college friend, Clarence, blew in from Monte Carlo, where he had been spending a few days in the interests of science, and presented your letter of introduction. Said he still couldn't understand just how it happened, because he had figured it out by logarithms and trigonometry and differential calculus and a lot of other high-priced studies that he'd taken away from Harvard, and that it was a cinch on paper. Was so sure that he could have proved his theory right if he'd only had a little more money that it hardly seemed worth while to tell him that the only thing he could really prove with his system was old Professor Darwin's theory that men and monkeys began life in the same cage. It never struck me before, but I'll bet the Professor got that idea while he was talking with some of his students. Personally, I don't know a great deal about gambling, because all I ever spent for information on the subject was $2.75--my fool horse broke in the stretch--and that was forty years ago; but first and last I've heard a lot of men explain how it happened that they hadn't made a hog-killing. Of course, there must be a winning end to gambling, but all that these men have been able to tell about is the losing end. And I gather from their experiences that when a fellow does a little gambling on the side, it's usually on the wrong side. The fact of the matter is, that the race-horse, the faro tiger, and the poker kitty have bigger appetites than any healthy critter has a right to have; and after you've fed a tapeworm, there's mighty little left for you. Following the horses may be pleasant exercise at the start, but they're apt to lead you to the door of the poorhouse or the jail at the finish. To get back to Clarence; he took about an hour to dock his cargo of hard luck, and another to tell me how strange it was that there was no draft from his London bankers waiting to welcome him. Naturally, I haven't lived for sixty years among a lot of fellows who've been trying to drive a cold-chisel between me and my bank account, without being able to smell a touch coming a long time before it overtakes me, and Clarence's intentions permeated his cheery conversation about as thoroughly as a fertilizer factory does a warm summer night. Of course, he gave me every opportunity to prove that I was a gentleman and to suggest delicately that I should be glad if he would let me act as his banker in this sudden emergency, but as I didn't show any signs of being a gentleman and a banker, he was finally forced to come out and ask me in coarse commercial words to lend him a hundred. Said it hurt him to have to do it on such short acquaintance, but I couldn't see that he was suffering any real pain. Frankly, I shouldn't have lent Clarence a dollar on his looks or his story, for they both struck me as doubtful collateral, but so long as he had a letter from you, asking me to "do anything in my power to oblige him, or to make his stay in Carlsbad pleasant," I let him have the money on your account, to which I have written the cashier to charge it. Of course, I hope Clarence will pay you back, but I think you will save bookkeeping by charging it off to experience. I've usually found that these quick, glad borrowers are slow, sad payers. And when a fellow tells you that it hurts him to have to borrow, you can bet that the thought of having to pay is going to tie him up into a bow-knot of pain. Right here I want to caution you against giving away your signature to every Clarence and Willie that happens along. When your name is on a note it stands only for money, but when it's on a letter of introduction or recommendation it stands for your judgment of ability and character, and you can't call it in at the end of thirty days, either. Giving a letter of introduction is simply lending your name with a man as collateral, and if he's no good you can't have the satisfaction of redeeming your indorsement, even; and you're discredited. The first thing that a young merchant must learn is that his brand must never appear on a note, or a ham, or a man that isn't good. I reckon that the devil invented the habit of indorsing notes and giving letters to catch the fellows he couldn't reach with whisky and gambling. Of course, letters of introduction have their proper use, but about nine out of ten of them are simply a license to some Clarence to waste an hour of your time and to graft on you for the luncheon and cigars. It's getting so that a fellow who's almost a stranger to me doesn't think anything of asking for a letter of introduction to one who's a total stranger. You can't explain to these men, because when you try to let them down easy by telling them that you haven't had any real opportunity to know what their special abilities are, they always come back with an, "Oh! that's all right--just say a word and refer to anything you like about me." I give them the letter then, unsealed, and though, of course, they're not supposed to read it, I have reason to think that they do, because I've never heard of one of those letters being presented. I use the same form on all of them, and after they've pumped their thanks into me and rushed around the corner, they find in the envelope: "This will introduce Mr. Gallister. While I haven't had the pleasure of any extended acquaintance with Mr. Gallister, I like his nerve." It's a mighty curious thing, but a lot of men who have no claim on you, and who wouldn't think of asking for money, will panhandle both sides of a street for favors that mean more than money. Of course, it's the easy thing and the pleasant thing not to refuse, and after all, most men think, it doesn't cost anything but a few strokes of the pen, and so they will give a fellow that they wouldn't ordinarily play on their friends as a practical joke, a nice sloppy letter of introduction to them; or hand out to a man that they wouldn't give away as a booby prize, a letter of recommendation in which they crack him up as having all the qualities necessary for an A1 Sunday-school superintendent and bank president. Now that you are a boss you will find that every other man who comes to your desk is going to ask you for something; in fact, the difference between being a sub and a boss is largely a matter of asking for things and of being asked for things. But it's just as one of those poets said--you can't afford to burn down the glue factory to stimulate the demand for glue stock, or words to that effect. Of course, I don't mean by this that I want you to be one of those fellows who swell out like a ready-made shirt and brag that they "never borrow and never lend." They always think that this shows that they are sound, conservative business men, but, as a matter of fact, it simply stamps them as mighty mean little cusses. It's very superior, I know, to say that you never borrow, but most men have to at one time or another, and then they find that the never-borrow-never-lend platform is a mighty inconvenient one to be standing on. Be just in business and generous out of it. A fellow's generosity needs a heap of exercise to keep it in good condition, and the hand that writes out checks gets cramped easier than the hand that takes them in. You want to keep them both limber. While I don't believe in giving with a string tied to every dollar, or doing up a gift in so many conditions that the present is lost in the wrappings, it's a good idea not to let most people feel that money can be had for the asking. If you do, they're apt to go into the asking business for a living. But these millionaires who give away a hundred thousand or so, with the understanding that the other fellow will raise another hundred thousand or so, always remind me of a lot of boys coaxing a dog into their yard with a hunk of meat, so that they can tie a tin can to his tail--the pup edges up licking his chops at the thought of the provisions and hanging his tail at the thought of the hardware. If he gets the meat, he's got to run himself to death to get rid of the can. While we're on this subject of favors I want to impress on you the importance of deciding promptly. The man who can make up his mind quick, makes up other people's minds for them. Decision is a sharp knife that cuts clear and straight and lays bare the fat and the lean; indecision, a dull one that hacks and tears and leaves ragged edges behind it. Say yes or no--seldom perhaps. Some people have such fertile imaginations that they will take a grain of hope and grow a large definite promise with bark on it overnight, and later, when you come to pull that out of their brains by the roots, it hurts, and they holler. When a fellow asks for a job in your department there may be reasons why you hate to give him a clear-cut refusal, but tell him frankly that you see no possibility of placing him, and while he may not like the taste of the medicine, he swallows it and it's down and forgotten. But you say to him that you're very sorry your department is full just now, but that you think a place will come along later and that he shall have the first call on it, and he goes away with his teeth in a job. You've simply postponed your trouble for a few weeks or months. And trouble postponed always has to be met with accrued interest. Never string a man along in business. It isn't honest and it isn't good policy. Either's a good reason, but taken together they head the list of good reasons. Of course, I don't mean that you want to go rampaging along, trampling on people's feelings and goring every one who sticks up a head in your path. But there's no use shilly-shallying and doddering with people who ask questions and favors they have no right to ask. Don't hurt any one if you can help it, but if you must, a clean, quick wound heals soonest. When you can, it's better to refuse a request by letter. In a letter you need say only what you choose; in a talk you may have to say more than you want to say. With the best system in the world you'll find it impossible, however, to keep a good many people who have no real business with you from seeing you and wasting your time, because a broad-gauged merchant must be accessible. When a man's office is policed and every one who sees him has to prove that he's taken the third degree and is able to give the grand hailing sign, he's going to miss a whole lot of things that it would be mighty valuable for him to know. Of course, the man whose errand could be attended to by the office-boy is always the one who calls loudest for the boss, but with a little tact you can weed out most of these fellows, and it's better to see ten bores than to miss one buyer. A house never gets so big that it can afford to sniff at a hundred-pound sausage order, or to feel that any customer is so small that it can afford not to bother with him. You've got to open a good many oysters to find a pearl. You should answer letters just as you answer men--promptly, courteously, and decisively. Of course, you don't ever want to go off half-cocked and bring down a cow instead of the buck you're aiming at, but always remember that game is shy and that you can't shoot too quick after you've once got it covered. When I go into a fellow's office and see his desk buried in letters with the dust on them, I know that there are cobwebs in his head. Foresight is the quality that makes a great merchant, but a man who has his desk littered with yesterday's business has no time to plan for to-morrow's. The only letters that can wait are those which provoke a hot answer. A good hot letter is always foolish, and you should never write a foolish thing if you can say it to the man instead, and never say it if you can forget it. The wisest man may make an ass of himself to-day, over to-day's provocation, but he won't tomorrow. Before being used, warm words should be run into the cooling-room until the animal heat is out of them. Of course, there's no use in a fool's waiting, because there's no room in a small head in which to lose a grievance. Speaking of small heads naturally calls to mind a gold brick named Solomon Saunders that I bought when I was a good deal younger and hadn't been buncoed so often. I got him with a letter recommending him as a sort of happy combination of the three wise men of the East and the nine muses, and I got rid of him with one in which I allowed that he was the whole dozen. I really hired Sol because he reminded me of some one I'd known and liked, though I couldn't just remember at the time who it was; but one day, after he'd been with me about a week, it came to me in a flash that he was the living image of old Bucker, a billy-goat I'd set aheap of store by when I was a boy. That was a lesson to me on the foolishness of getting sentimental in business. I never think of the old homestead that echo doesn't answer, "Give up!"; or hear from it without getting a bill for having been born there. Sol had started out in life to be a great musician. Had raised the hair for the job and had kept his finger-nails cut just right for it, but somehow, when he played "My Old Kentucky Home," nobody sobbed softly in the fourth row. You see, he could play a piece absolutely right and meet every note just when it came due, but when he got through it was all wrong. That was Sol in business, too. He knew just the right rule for doing everything and did it just that way, and yet everything he did turned out to be a mistake. Made it twice as aggravating because you couldn't consistently find fault with him. If you'd given Sol the job of making over the earth he'd have built it out of the latest text-book on "How to Make the World Better," and have turned out something as correct as a spike-tail coat--and every one would have wanted to die to get out of it. Then, too, I never saw such a cuss for system. Other men would forget costs and prices, but Sol never did. Seemed he ran his memory by system. Had a way when there was a change in the price-list of taking it home and setting it to poetry. Used "Ring Out, Wild Bells," by A. Tennyson, for a bull market--remember he began it "Ring Off, Wild Bulls"--and "Break, Break, Break," for a bear one. It used to annoy me considerable when I asked him the price of pork tenderloins to have him mumble through two or three verses till he fetched it up, but I didn't have any real kick coming till he got ambitious and I had to wait till he'd hummed half through a grand opera to get a quotation on pickled pigs' feet in kits. I felt that we had reached the parting of the ways then, but I didn't like to point out his way too abruptly, because the friend who had unloaded him on us was pretty important to me in my business just then, and he seemed to be all wrapped up in Sol's making a hit with us. It's been my experience, though, that sometimes when you can't kick a man out of the back door without a row, you can get him to walk out the front way voluntarily. So when I get stuck with a fellow that, for some reason, it isn't desirable to fire, I generally promote him and raise his pay. Some of these weak sisters I make the assistant boss of the machine-shop and some of the bone-meal mill. I didn't dare send Sol to the machine-shop, because I knew he wouldn't have been there a week before he'd have had the shop running on Götterdämmerung or one of those other cuss-word operas of Wagner's. But the strong point of a bone-meal mill is bone-dust, and the strong point of bone-dust is smell, and the strong point of its smell is its staying qualities. Naturally it's the sort of job for which you want a bald-headed man, because a fellow who's got nice thick curls will cheat the house by taking a good deal of the product home with him. To tell the truth, Sol's hair had been worrying me almost as much as his system. When I hired him I'd supposed he'd finally molt it along with his musical tail-feathers. I had a little talk with him then, in which I hinted at the value of looking clear-cut and trim and of giving sixteen ounces to the pound, but the only result of it was that he went off and bought a pot of scented vaseline and grew another inch of hair for good measure. It seemed a pity now, so long as I was after his scalp, not to get it with the hair on. Sol had never seen a bone-meal mill, but it flattered him mightily to be promoted into the manufacturing end, "where a fellow could get ahead faster," and he said good-by to the boys in the office with his nose in the air, where he kept it, I reckon, during the rest of his connection with the house. If Sol had stuck it out for a month at the mill I'd have known that he had the right stuff in him somewhere and have taken him back into the office after a good rub-down with pumice-stone. But he turned up the second day, smelling of violet soap and bone-meal, and he didn't sing his list of grievances, either. Started right in by telling me how, when he got into a street-car, all the other passengers sort of faded out; and how his landlady insisted on serving his meals in his room. Almost foamed at the mouth when I said the office seemed a little close and opened the window, and he quoted some poetry about that being "the most unkindest cut of all." Wound up by wanting to know how he was going to get it out of his hair. I broke it to him as gently as I could that it would have to wear out or be cut out, and tried to make him see that it was better to be a bald-headed boss on a large salary than a curly-headed clerk on a small one; but, in the end, he resigned, taking along a letter from me to the friend who had recommended him and some of my good bone-meal. I didn't grudge him the fertilizer, but I did feel sore that he hadn't left me a lock of his hair, till some one saw him a few days later, dodging along with his collar turned up and his hat pulled down, looking like a new-clipped lamb. I heard, too, that the fellow who had given him the wise-men-muses letter to me was so impressed with the almost exact duplicate of it which I gave Sol, and with the fact that I had promoted him so soon, that he concluded he must have let a good man get by him, and hired him himself. Sol was a failure as a musician because, while he knew all the notes, he had nothing in himself to add to them when he played them. It's easy to learn all the notes that make good music and all the rules that make good business, but a fellow's got to add the fine curves to them himself if he wants to do anything more than beat the bass-drum all his life. Some men think that rules should be made of cast iron; I believe that they should be made of rubber, so that they can be stretched to fit any particular case and then spring back into shape again. The really important part of a rule is the exception to it. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. P.S.--Leave for home to-morrow. No. 4 From John Graham, at the Hotel Cecil, London, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The old man has just finished going through the young man's first report as manager of the lard department, and he finds it suspiciously good. IV LONDON, December 1, 189-. _Dear Pierrepont_: Your first report; looks so good that I'm a little afraid of it. Figures don't lie, I know, but that's, only because they can't talk. As a matter of fact, they're just as truthful as the man who's behind them. It's been my experience that there are two kinds of figures--educated and uneducated ones--and that the first are a good deal like the people who have had the advantage of a college education on the inside and the disadvantage of a society finish on the outside--they're apt to tell you only the smooth and the pleasant things. Of course, it's mighty nice to be told that the shine of your shirt-front is blinding the floor-manager's best girl; but if there's a hole in the seat of your pants you ought to know that, too, because sooner or later you've got to turn your back to the audience. Now don't go off half-cocked and think I'm allowing that you ain't truthful; because I think you are--reasonably so--and I'm sure that everything you say in your report is true. But is there anything you don't say in it? A good many men are truthful on the installment plan--that is, they tell their boss all the good things in sight about their end of the business and then dribble out the bad ones like a fellow who's giving you a list of his debts. They'll yell for a week that the business of their department has increased ten per cent., and then own up in a whisper that their selling cost has increased twenty. In the end, that always creates a worse impression than if both sides of the story had been told at once or the bad had been told first. It's like buying a barrel of apples that's been deaconed--after you've found that the deeper you go the meaner and wormier the fruit, you forget all about the layer of big, rosy, wax-finished pippins which was on top. I never worry about the side of a proposition that I can see; what I want to get a look at is the side that's out of sight. The bugs always snuggle down on the under side of the stone. The best year we ever had--in our minds--was one when the superintendent of the packing-house wanted an increase in his salary, and, to make a big showing, swelled up his inventory like a poisoned pup. It took us three months, to wake up to what had happened, and a year to get over feeling as if there was sand in our eyes when we compared the second showing with the first. An optimist is as bad as a drunkard when he comes to figure up results in business--he sees double. I employ optimists to get results and pessimists to figure them up. After I've charged off in my inventory for wear and tear and depreciation, I deduct a little more just for luck--bad luck. That's the only sort of luck a merchant can afford to make a part of his calculations. The fellow who said you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear wasn't on to the packing business. You can make the purse and you can fill it, too, from the same critter. What you can't do is to load up a report with moonshine or an inventory with wind, and get anything more substantial than a moonlight sail toward bankruptcy. The kittens of a wildcat are wildcats, and there's no use counting on their being angoras. Speaking of educated pigs naturally calls to mind Jake Solzenheimer and the lard that he sold half a cent a pound cheaper than any one else in the business could make it. That was a long time ago, when the packing business was still on the bottle, and when the hogs that came to Chicago got only a common-school education and graduated as plain hams and sides and lard and sausage. Literature hadn't hit the hog business then. It was just Graham's hams or Smith's lard, and there were no poetical brands or high-art labels. Well, sir, one day I heard that this Jake was offering lard to the trade at half a cent under the market, and that he'd had the nerve to label it "Driven Snow Leaf." Told me, when I ran up against him on the street, that he'd got the name from a song which began, "Once I was pure as the driven snow." Said it made him feel all choky and as if he wanted to be a better man, so he'd set out to make the song famous in the hope of its helping others. Allowed that this was a hard world, and that it was little enough we could do in our business life to scatter sunshine along the way; but he proposed that every can which left his packing-house after this should carry the call to a better life into some humble home. I let him lug that sort of stuff to the trough till he got tired, and then I looked him square in the eye and went right at him with: "Jake, what you been putting in that lard?" because I knew mighty well that there was something in it which had never walked on four feet and fattened up on fifty-cent corn and then paid railroad fare from the Missouri River to Chicago. There are a good many things I don't know, but hogs ain't one of them. Jake just grinned at me and swore that there was nothing in his lard except the pure juice of the hog; so I quit fooling with him and took a can of "Driven Snow" around to our chemist. It looked like lard and smelt like lard--in fact, it looked better than real lard: too white and crinkly and tempting on top. And the next day the chemist came down to my office and told me that "Driven Snow" must have been driven through a candle factory, because it had picked up about twenty per cent. of paraffin wax somewhere. Of course, I saw now why Jake was able to undersell us all, but it was mighty important to knock out "Driven Snow" with the trade in just the right way, because most of our best customers had loaded up with it. So I got the exact formula from the chemist and had about a hundred sample cans made up, labeling each one "Wandering Boy Leaf Lard," and printing on the labels: "This lard contains twenty per cent. of paraffin." I sent most of these cans, with letters of instruction, to our men through the country. Then I waited until it was Jake's time to be at the Live Stock Exchange, and happened in with a can of "Wandering Boy" under my arm. It didn't take me long to get into conversation with Jake, and as we talked I swung that can around until it attracted his attention, and he up and asked: "What you got there, Graham?" "Oh, that," I answered, slipping the can behind my back--"that's a new lard we're putting out--something not quite so expensive as our regular brand." Jake stopped grinning then and gave me a mighty sharp look. "Lemme have a squint at it," says he, trying not to show too keen an interest in his face. I held back a little; then I said: "Well, I don't just know as I ought to show you this. We haven't regularly put it on the market, and this can ain't a fair sample of what we can do; but so long as I sort of got the idea from you I might as well tell you. I'd been thinking over what you said about that lard of yours, and while they were taking a collection in church the other day the soprano up and sings a mighty touching song. It began, 'Where is my wandering boy to-night?' and by the time she was through I was feeling so mushy and sobby that I put a five instead of a one into the plate by mistake. I've been thinking ever since that the attention of the country ought to be called to that song, and so I've got up this missionary lard"; and I shoved the can of "Wandering Boy" under his eyes, giving him time to read the whole label. "H--l!" he said. "Yes," I answered; "that's it. Good lard gone wrong; but it's going to do a great work." [Illustration: "That's it--good lard gone wrong"] Jake's face looked like the Lost Tribes--the whole bunch of 'em--as the thing soaked in; and then he ran his arm through mine and drew me off into a corner. "Graham," said he, "let's drop this cussed foolishness. You keep dark about this and we'll divide the lard trade of the country." I pretended not to understand what he was driving at, but reached out and grasped his hand and wrung it. "Yes, yes, Jake," I said; "we'll stand shoulder to shoulder and make the lard business one grand sweet song," and then I choked him off by calling another fellow into the conversation. It hardly seemed worth while to waste time telling Jake what he was going to find out when he got back to his office--that there wasn't any lard business to divide, because I had hogged it all. You see, my salesmen had taken their samples of "Wandering Boy" around to the buyers and explained that it was made from the same formula as "Driven Snow," and could be bought at the same price. They didn't sell any "Boy," of course--that wasn't the idea; but they loaded up the trade with our regular brand, to take the place of the "Driven Snow," which was shipped back to Jake by the car-lot. Since then, when anything looks too snowy and smooth and good at the first glance, I generally analyze it for paraffin. I've found that this is a mighty big world for a square man and a mighty small world for a crooked one. I simply mention these things in a general way. I've confidence that you're going to make good as head of the lard department, and if, when I get home, I find that your work analyzes seventy-five per cent, as pure as your report I shall be satisfied. In the meanwhile I shall instruct the cashier to let you draw a hundred dollars a week, just to show that I haven't got a case of faith without works. I reckon the extra twenty-five per will come in mighty handy now that you're within a month of marrying Helen. I'm still learning how to treat an old wife, and so I can't give you many pointers about a young one. For while I've been married as long as I've been in business, and while I know all the curves of the great American hog, your ma's likely to spring a new one on me tomorrow. No man really knows anything about women except a widower, and he forgets it when he gets ready to marry again. And no woman really knows anything about men except a widow, and she's got to forget it before she's willing to marry again. The one thing you can know is that, as a general proposition, a woman is a little better than the man for whom she cares. For when a woman's bad, there's always a man at the bottom of it; and when a man's good, there's always a woman at the bottom of that, too. The fact of the matter is, that while marriages may be made in heaven, a lot of them are lived in hell and end in South Dakota. But when a man has picked out a good woman he holds four hearts, and he needn't be afraid to draw cards if he's got good nerve. If he hasn't, he's got no business to be sitting in games of chance. The best woman in the world will begin trying out a man before she's been married to him twenty-four hours; and unless he can smile over the top of a four-flush and raise the ante, she's going to rake in the breeches and keep them. The great thing is to begin right. Marriage is a close corporation, and unless a fellow gets the controlling interest at the start he can't pick it up later. The partner who owns fifty-one per cent. of the stock in any business is the boss, even if the other is allowed to call himself president. There's only two jobs for a man in his own house--one's boss and the other's office-boy, and a fellow naturally falls into the one for which he's fitted. Of course, when I speak of a fellow's being boss in his own home, I simply mean that, in a broad way, he's going to shape the policy of the concern. When a man goes sticking his nose into the running of the house, he's apt to get it tweaked, and while he's busy drawing _it_ back out of danger he's going to get his leg pulled, too. You let your wife tend to the housekeeping and you focus on earning money with which she can keep house. Of course, in one way, it's mighty nice of a man to help around the place, but it's been my experience that the fellows who tend to all the small jobs at home never get anything else to tend to at the office. In the end, it's usually cheaper to give all your attention to your business and to hire a plumber. You don't want to get it into your head, though, that because your wife hasn't any office-hours she has a soft thing. A lot of men go around sticking out their chests and wondering why their wives have so much trouble with the help, when they are able to handle their clerks so easy. If you really want to know, you lift two of your men out of their revolving-chairs, and hang one over a forty-horse-power cook-stove that's booming along under forced draft so that your dinner won't be late, with a turkey that's gobbling for basting in one oven, and a cake that's gone back on you in a low, underhand way in another, and sixteen different things boiling over on top and mixing up their smells. And you set the other at a twelve-hour stunt of making all the beds you've mussed, and washing all the dishes you've used, and cleaning all the dust you've kicked up, and you boss the whole while the baby yells with colic over your arm--you just try this with two of your men and see how long it is before there's rough-house on the Wabash. Yet a lot of fellows come home after their wives have had a day of this and blow around about how tired and overworked they are, and wonder why home isn't happier. Don't you ever forget that it's a blamed sight easier to keep cool in front of an electric fan than a cook-stove, and that you can't subject the best temper in the world to 500 degrees Fahrenheit without warming it up a bit. And don't you add to your wife's troubles by saying how much better you could do it, but stand pat and thank the Lord you've got a snap. I remember when old Doc Hoover, just after his wife died, bought a mighty competent nigger, Aunt Tempy, to cook and look after the house for him. She was the boss cook, you bet, and she could fry a chicken into a bird of paradise just as easy as the Doc could sizzle a sinner into a pretty tolerable Christian. The old man took his religion with the bristles on, and he wouldn't stand for any Sunday work in his house. Told Tempy to cook enough for two days on Saturday and to serve three cold meals on Sunday. Tempy sniffed a little, but she'd been raised well and didn't talk back. That first Sunday Doc got his cold breakfast all right, but before he'd fairly laid into it Tempy trotted out a cup of hot coffee. That made the old man rage at first, but finally he allowed that, seeing it was made, there was no special harm in taking a sup or two, but not to let it occur again. A few minutes later he called back to Tempy in the kitchen and asked her if she'd been sinful enough to make two cups. Doc's dinner was ready for him when he got back from church, and it was real food--that is to say, hot food, a-sizzling and a-smoking from the stove. Tempy told around afterward that the way the old man went for her about it made her feel mighty proud and set-up over her new master. But she just stood there dripping perspiration and good nature until the Doc had wound up by allowing that there was only one part of the hereafter where meals were cooked on Sunday, and that she'd surely get a mention on the bill of fare there as dark meat, well done, if she didn't repent, and then she blurted out: "Law, chile, you go 'long and 'tend to yo' preaching and I'll 'tend to my cookin'; yo' can't fight the debbil with snow-balls." And what's more, the Doc didn't, not while Aunt Tempy was living. There isn't any moral to this, but there's a hint in it to mind your own business at home as well as at the office. I sail to-morrow. I'm feeling in mighty good spirits, and I hope I'm not going to find anything at your end of the line to give me a relapse. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. No. 5 From John Graham, at the Waldorf-Astoria, New York, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The young man has hinted vaguely of a quarrel between himself and Helen Heath, who is in New York with her mother, and has suggested that the old man act as peacemaker. V NEW YORK, December 8, 189-. _Dear Pierrepont_: I've been afraid all along that you were going to spoil the only really sensible thing you've ever done by making some fool break, so as soon as I got your letter I started right out to trail down Helen and her ma. I found them hived up here in the hotel, and Miss Helen was so sweet to your poor old pa that I saw right off she had a stick cut for his son. Of course, I didn't let on that I knew anything about a quarrel, but I gradually steered the conversation around to you, and while I don't want to hurt your feelings, I am violating no confidence when I tell you that the mention of your name aroused about the same sort of enthusiasm that Bill Bryan's does in Wall Street--only Helen is a lady and so she couldn't cuss. But it wasn't the language of flowers that I saw in her eyes. So I told her that she must make allowances for you, as you were only a half-baked boy, and that, naturally, if she stuck a hat-pin into your crust she was going to strike a raw streak here and there. She sat up a little at that, and started in to tell me that while you had said "some very, very cruel, cruel things to her, still--" But I cut her short by allowing that, sorry as I was to own it, I was afraid you had a streak of the brute in you, and I only hoped that you wouldn't take it out on her after you were married. Well, sir, the way she flared up, I thought that all the Fourth of July fireworks had gone off at once. The air was full of trouble--trouble in set pieces and bombs and sizzy rockets and sixteen-ball Roman candles, and all pointed right at me. Then it came on to rain in the usual way, and she began to assure me between showers that you were so kind and gentle that it hurt you to work, or to work at my horrid pig-sticking business, I forget which, and I begged her pardon for having misjudged you so cruelly, and then the whole thing sort of simmered off into a discussion of whether I thought you'd rather she wore pink or blue at breakfast. So I guess you're all right. Only you'd better write quick and apologize. I didn't get at the facts of the quarrel, but you're in the wrong. A fellow's always in the wrong when he quarrels with a woman, and even if he wasn't at the start he's sure to be before he gets through. And a man who's decided to marry can't be too quick learning to apologize for things he didn't say and to be forgiven for things he didn't do. When you differ with your wife, never try to reason out who's in the wrong, because you'll find that after you've proved it to her shell still have a lot of talk left that she hasn't used. Of course, it isn't natural and it isn't safe for married people, and especially young married people, not to quarrel a little, but you'll save a heap of trouble if you make it a rule never to refuse a request before breakfast and never to grant one after dinner. I don't know why it is, but most women get up in the morning as cheerful as a breakfast-food ad., while a man will snort and paw for trouble the minute his hoofs touch the floor. Then, if you'll remember that the longer the last word is kept the bitterer it gets, and that your wife is bound to have it anyway, you'll cut the rest of your quarrels so short that she'll never find out just how much meanness there is in you. Be the silent partner at home and the thinking one at the office. Do your loose talking in your sleep. Of course, if you get a woman who's really fond of quarreling there isn't any special use in keeping still, because she'll holler if you talk back and yell if you don't. The best that you can do is to pretend that you've got a chronic case of ear-ache, and keep your ears stuffed with cotton. Then, like as not, she'll buy you one of these things that you hold in your mouth so that you can hear through your teeth. I don't believe you're going to draw anything of that sort with Helen, but this is a mighty uncertain world, especially when you get to betting on which way the kitten is going to jump--you can usually guess right about the cat--and things don't always work out as planned. While there's no sure rule for keeping out of trouble in this world, there's a whole set of them for getting into it. I remember a mighty nice, careful mother who used to shudder when slang was used in her presence. So she vowed she'd give _her_ son a name that the boys couldn't twist into any low, vulgar nick-name. She called him Algernon, but the kid had a pretty big nose, and the first day he was sent to school with his long lace collar and his short velvet pants the boys christened him Snooty, and now his parents are the only people who know what his real name is. After you've been married a little while you're going to find that there are two kinds of happiness you can have--home happiness and fashionable happiness. With the first kind you get a lot of children and with the second a lot of dogs. While the dogs mind better and seem more affectionate, because they kiss you with their whole face, I've always preferred to associate with children. Then, for the first kind of happiness you keep house for yourself, and for the second you keep house for the neighbors. You can buy a lot of home happiness with a mighty small salary, but fashionable happiness always costs just a little more than you're making. You can't keep down expenses when you've got to keep up appearances--that is, the appearance of being something that you ain't. You're in the fix of a dog chasing his tail--you can't make ends meet, and if you do it'll give you such a crick in your neck that you won't get any real satisfaction out of your gymnastics. You've got to live on a rump-steak basis when you're alone, so that you can appear to be on a quail-on-toast basis when you have company. And while they're eating your quail and betting that they're cold-storage birds, they'll be whispering to each other that the butcher told their cook that you lived all last week on a soup-bone and two pounds of Hamburger steak. Your wife must hog it around the house in an old wrapper, because she's got to have two or three of those dresses that come high on the bills and low on the shoulders, and when she wears 'em the neighbors are going to wonder how much you're short in your accounts. And if you've been raised a shouting Methodist and been used to hollering your satisfaction in a good hearty Glory! or a Hallelujah! you've got to quit it and go to one of those churches where the right answer to the question, "What is the chief end of man?" is "Dividend," and where they think you're throwing a fit and sick the sexton on to you if you forget yourself and whoop it up a little when your religion gets to working. Then, if you do have any children, you can't send them to a plain public school to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic, because they've got to go to a fashionable private one to learn hog-Latin, hog-wash, and how much the neighbors are worth. Of course, the rich children are going to say that they're pushing little kids, but they've got to learn to push and to shove and to butt right in where they're not wanted if they intend to herd with the real angora billy-goats. They've got to learn how to bow low to every one in front of them and to kick out at every one behind them. It's been my experience that it takes a good four-year course in snubbing before you can graduate a first-class snob. Then, when you've sweat along at it for a dozen years or so, you'll wake up some morning and discover that your appearances haven't deceived any one but yourself. A man who tries that game is a good deal like the fellow who puts on a fancy vest over a dirty shirt--he's the only person in the world who can't see the egg-spots under his chin. Of course, there isn't any real danger of your family's wearing a false front while I'm alive, because I believe Helen's got too much sense to stand for anything of the sort; but if she should, you can expect the old man around with his megaphone to whisper the real figures to your neighbors. I don't care how much or how little money you make--I want you to understand that there's only one place in the world where you can live a happy life, and that's inside your income. A family that's living beyond its means is simply a business that's losing money, and it's bound to go to smash. And to keep a safe distance ahead of the sheriff you've got to make your wife help. More men go broke through bad management at home than at the office. And I might add that a lot of men who are used to getting only one dollar's worth of food for a five-dollar bill down-town, expect their wives to get five dollars' worth of food for a one-dollar bill at the corner grocery, and to save the change toward a pair of diamond earrings. These fellows would plant a tin can and kick because they didn't get a case of tomatoes. Of course, some women put their husband's salaries on their backs instead of his ribs; but there are a heap more men who burn up their wives' new sealskin sacques in two-bit cigars. Because a man's a good provider it doesn't always mean that he's a good husband--it may mean that he's a hog. And when there's a cuss in the family and it comes down to betting which, on general principles the man always carries my money. I make mistakes at it, but it's the only winning system I've ever been able to discover in games of chance. You want to end the wedding trip with a business meeting and talk to your wife quite as frankly as you would to a man whom you'd taken into partnership. Tell her just what your salary is and then lay it out between you--so much for joint expenses, the house and the housekeeping, so much for her expenses, so much for yours, and so much to be saved. That last is the one item on which you can't afford to economize. It's the surplus and undivided profits account of your business, and until the concern accumulates a big one it isn't safe to move into offices on Easy Street. A lot of fool fathers only give their fool daughters a liberal education in spending, and it's pretty hard to teach those women the real facts about earning and saving, but it's got to be done unless you want to be the fool husband of a fool wife. These girls have an idea that men get money by going to a benevolent old party behind some brass bars and shoving a check at him and telling him that they want it in fifties and hundreds. You should take home your salary in actual money for a while, and explain that it's all you got for sweating like a dog for ten hours a day, through six long days, and that the cashier handed it out with an expression as if you were robbing the cash-drawer of an orphan asylum. Make her understand that while those that have gets, when they present a check, those that haven't gets it in the neck. Explain that the benevolent old party is only on duty when papa's daughter has a papa that Bradstreet rates AA, and that when papa's daughter's husband presents a five-dollar check with a ten-cent overdraft, he's received by a low-browed old brute who calls for the bouncer to put him out. Tell her right at the start the worst about the butcher, and the grocer, and the iceman, and the milkman, and the plumber, and the gas-meter--that they want their money and that it has to come out of that little roll of bills. Then give her enough to pay them, even if you have to grab for your lunch from a high stool. I used to know an old Jew who said that the man who carved was always a fool or a hog, but you've got to learn not to divide your salary on either basis. Make your wife pay cash. A woman never really understands money till she's done that for a while. I've noticed that people rarely pay down the money for foolish purchases--they charge them. And it's mighty seldom that a woman's extravagant unless she or her husband pays the bills by check. There's something about counting out the actual legal tender on the spot that keeps a woman from really wanting a lot of things which she thinks she wants. When I married your ma, your grandpa was keeping eighteen niggers busy seeing that the family did nothing. She'd had a liberal education, which, so far as I've been able to find out, means teaching a woman everything except the real business that she's going into--that is, if she marries. But when your ma swapped the big house and the eighteen niggers for me and an old mammy to do the rough work, she left the breakfast-in-bed, fine-lady business behind her and started right in to get the rest of the education that belonged to her. She did a mighty good job, too, all except making ends meet, and they were too elastic for her at first--sort of snapped back and left a deficit just when she thought she had them together. She was mighty sorry about it, but she'd never heard of any way of getting money except asking papa for it, and she'd sort of supposed that every one asked papa when they wanted any, and, why didn't I ask papa? I finally made her see that I couldn't ask my papa, because I hadn't any, and that I couldn't ask hers, because it was against the rules of the game as I played it, and that was her first real lesson in high finance and low finances. I gave her the second when she came to me about the twentieth of the month and kissed me on the ear and sent a tickly little whisper after it to the effect that the household appropriation for the month was exhausted and the pork-barrel and the meal-sack and the chicken-coop were in the same enfeebled condition. I didn't say anything at first, only looked pretty solemn, and then I allowed that she'd have to go into the hands of a receiver. Well, sir, the way she snuggled up to me and cried made me come pretty close to weakening, but finally I told her that I reckoned I could manage to be appointed by the court and hush up the scandal so the neighbors wouldn't hear of it. I took charge of her little books and paid over to myself her housekeeping money each month, buying everything myself, but explaining every move I made, until in the end I had paid her out of debt and caught up with my salary again. Then I came home on the first of the month, handed out her share of the money, and told her that the receiver had been discharged by the court. My! but she was pleased. And then she paid me out for the scare I'd given her by making me live on side-meat and corn-bread for a month, so she'd be sure not to get the sheriff after her again. Of course, I had to tell her all about it in the end, and though she's never forgotten what she learned about money during the receivership, she's never quite forgiven the receiver. Speaking of receiving, I notice the receipts of hogs are pretty light. Hold your lard prices up stiff to the market. It looks to me as if that Milwaukee crowd was getting under the February delivery. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. P.S.--You've got to square me with Helen. No. 6 From John Graham, at the Waldorf-Astoria, New York, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The young man has written describing the magnificent wedding presents that are being received, and hinting discreetly that it would not come amiss if he knew what shape the old man's was going to take, as he needs the money. VI NEW YORK, December 12, 189-. _Dear Pierrepont_: These fellows at the branch house here have been getting altogether too blamed refined to suit me in their ideas of what's a fair day's work, so I'm staying over a little longer than I had intended, in order to ring the rising bell for them and to get them back into good Chicago habits. The manager started in to tell me that you couldn't do any business here before nine or ten in the morning--and I raised that boy myself! We had a short season of something that wasn't exactly prayer, but was just as earnest, and I think he sees the error of his ways. He seemed to feel that just because he was getting a fair share of the business I ought to be satisfied, but I don't want any half-sports out gunning with me. It's the fellow that settles himself in his blind before the ducks begin to fly who gets everything that's coming to his decoys. I reckon we'll have to bring this man back to Chicago and give him a beef house where he has to report at five before he can appreciate what a soft thing it is to get down to work at eight. I'm mighty glad to hear you're getting so many wedding presents that you think you'll have enough to furnish your house, only you don't want to fingermark them looking to see it a hundred-thousand-dollar check from me ain't slipped in among them, because it ain't. I intend to give you a present, all right, but there's a pretty wide margin for guessing between a hundred thousand dollars and the real figures. And you don't want to feel too glad about what you've got, either, because you're going to find out that furnishing a house with wedding presents is equivalent to furnishing it on the installment plan. Along about the time you want to buy a go-cart for the twins, you'll discover that you'll have to make Tommy's busted old baby-carriage do, because you've got to use the money to buy a tutti-frutti ice-cream spoon for the young widow who sent you a doormat with "Welcome" on it. And when she gets it, the young widow will call you that idiotic Mr. Graham, because she's going to have sixteen other tutti-frutti ice-cream spoons, and her doctor's told her that if she eats sweet things she'll have to go in the front door like a piano--sideways. Then when you get the junk sorted over and your house furnished with it, you're going to sit down to dinner on some empty soap-boxes, with the soup in cut-glass finger-bowls, and the fish on a hand-painted smoking-set, and the meat on dinky, little egg-shell salad plates, with ice-cream forks and fruit knives to eat with. You'll spend most of that meal wondering why somebody didn't send you one of those hundred and sixteen piece five-dollar-ninety-eight-marked-down-from-six sets of china. While I don't mean to say that the average wedding present carries a curse instead of a blessing, it could usually repeat a few cuss-words if it had a retentive memory. Speaking of wedding presents and hundred-thousand-dollar checks naturally brings to mind my old friend Hamilton Huggins--Old Ham they called him at the Yards--and the time he gave his son, Percival, a million dollars. Take him by and large, Ham was as slick as a greased pig. Before he came along, the heft of the beef hearts went into the fertilizer tanks, but he reasoned out that they weren't really tough, but that their firmness was due to the fact that the meat in them was naturally condensed, and so he started putting them out in his celebrated condensed mincemeat at ten cents a pound. Took his pigs' livers, too, and worked 'em up into a genuine Strasburg pâté de foie gras that made the wild geese honk when they flew over his packing-house. Discovered that a little chopped cheek-meat at two cents a pound was a blamed sight healthier than chopped pork at six. Reckoned that by running twenty-five per cent. of it into his pork sausage he saved a hundred thousand people every year from becoming cantankerous old dyspeptics. Ham was simply one of those fellows who not only have convolutions in their brains, but kinks and bow-knots as well, and who can believe that any sort of a lie is gospel truth just so it is manufactured and labeled on their own premises. I confess I ran out a line of those pigs' liver pâtés myself, but I didn't do it because I was such a patriot that I couldn't stand seeing the American flag insulted by a lot of Frenchmen getting a dollar for a ten-cent article, and that simply because geese have smaller livers than pigs. For all Old Ham was so shrewd at the Yards, he was one of those fellows who begin losing their common-sense at the office door, and who reach home doddering and blithering. Had a fool wife with the society bug in her head, and as he had the one-of-our-leading-citizens bug in his, they managed between them to raise a lovely warning for a Sunday-school superintendent in their son, Percival. Percy was mommer's angel boy with the sunny curls, who was to be raised a gentleman and to be "shielded from the vulgar surroundings and coarse associations of her husband's youth," and he was proud popper's pet, whose good times weren't going to be spoiled by a narrow-minded old brute of a father, or whose talents weren't going to be smothered in poverty, the way the old man's had been. No, sir-ee, Percy was going to have all the money he wanted, with the whisky bottle always in sight on the sideboard and no limit on any game he wanted to sit in, so that he'd grow up a perfect little gentleman and know how to use things instead of abusing them. I want to say right here that I've heard a good deal of talk in my time about using whisky, and I've met a good many thousand men who bragged when they were half loaded that they could quit at any moment, but I've never met one of these fellows who would while the whisky held out. It's been my experience that when a fellow begins to brag that he can quit whenever he wants to, he's usually reached the point where he can't. Naturally, Percy had hardly got the pap-rag out of his mouth before he learned to smoke cigarettes, and he could cuss like a little gentleman before he went into long pants. Took the four-years' sporting course at Harvard, with a postgraduate year of draw-poker and natural history--observing the habits and the speed of the ponies in their native haunts. Then, just to prove that he had paresis, Old Ham gave him a million dollars outright and a partnership in his business. Percy started in to learn the business at the top--absorbing as much of it as he could find room for between ten and four, with two hours out for lunch--but he never got down below the frosting. The one thing that Old Ham wouldn't let him touch was the only thing about the business which really interested Percy--the speculating end of it. But everything else he did went with the old gentleman, and he was always bragging that Percy was growing up into a big, broad-gauged merchant. He got mighty mad with me when I told him that Percy was just a ready-made success who was so small that he rattled round in his seat, and that he'd better hold in his horses, as there were a good many humps in the road ahead of him. Old Ham was a sure-thing packer, like myself, and let speculating alone, never going into the market unless he had the goods or knew where he could get them; but when he did plunge into the pit, he usually climbed out with both hands full of money and a few odd thousand-dollar bills sticking in his hair. So when he came to me one day and pointed out that Prime Steam Lard at eight cents for the November delivery, and the West alive with hogs, was a crime against the consumer, I felt inclined to agree with him, and we took the bear side of the market together. Somehow, after we had gone short a big line, the law of supply and demand quit business. There were plenty of hogs out West, and all the packers were making plenty of lard, but people seemed to be frying everything they ate, and using lard in place of hair-oil, for the Prime Steam moved out as fast as it was made. The market simply sucked up our short sales and hollered for more, like a six-months shoat at the trough. Pound away as we would, the November option moved slowly up to 8-1/2, to 9, to 9-1/2. Then, with delivery day only six weeks off, it jumped overnight to 10, and closed firm at 12-1/4. We stood to lose a little over a million apiece right there, and no knowing what the crowd that was under the market would gouge us for in the end. As soon as 'Change closed that day, Old Ham and I got together and gave ourselves one guess apiece to find out where we stood, and we both guessed right--in a corner. We had a little over a month to get together the lard to deliver on our short sales or else pay up, but we hadn't had enough experience in the paying-up business to feel like engaging in it. So that afternoon we wired our agents through the West to start anything that looked like a hog toward Chicago, and our men in the East to ship us every tierce of Prime Steam they could lay their hands on. Then we made ready to try out every bit of hog fat, from a grease spot up, that we could find in the country. And all the time the price kept climbing on us like a nigger going up a persimmon tree, till it was rising seventeen cents. So far the bull crowd had managed to keep their identity hidden, and we'd been pretty modest about telling the names of the big bears, because we weren't very proud of the way we'd been caught napping, and because Old Ham was mighty anxious that Percy shouldn't know that his safe old father had been using up the exception to his rule of no speculation. It was a near thing for us, but the American hog responded nobly--and a good many other critters as well, I suspect--and when it came on toward delivery day we found that we had the actual lard to turn over on our short contracts, and some to spare. But Ham and I had lost a little fat ourselves, and we had learned a whole lot about the iniquity of selling goods that you haven't got, even when you do it with the benevolent intention of cheapening an article to the consumer. We got together at his office in the Board of Trade building to play off the finals with the bull crowd. We'd had inspectors busy all night passing the lard which we'd gathered together and which was arriving by boat-loads and train-loads. Then, before 'Change opened, we passed the word around through our brokers that there wasn't any big short interest left, and to prove it they pointed to the increase in the stocks of Prime Steam in store and gave out the real figures on what was still in transit. By the time the bell rang for trading on the floor we had built the hottest sort of a fire under the market, and thirty minutes after the opening the price of the November option had melted down flat to twelve cents. We gave the bulls a breathing space there, for we knew we had them all nicely rounded up in the killing-pens, and there was no hurry. But on toward noon, when things looked about right, we jumped twenty brokers into the pit, all selling at once and offering in any sized lots for which they could find takers. It was like setting off a pack of firecrackers--biff! bang! bang! our brokers gave it to them, and when the smoke cleared away the bits of that busted corner were scattered all over the pit, and there was nothing left for us to do but to pick up our profits; for we had swung a loss of millions over to the other side of the ledger. Just as we were sending word to our brokers to steady the market so as to prevent a bad panic and failures, the door of the private office flew open, and in bounced Mr. Percy, looking like a hound dog that had lapped up a custard pie while the cook's back was turned and is hunting for a handy bed to hide under. Had let his cigarette go out--he wore one in his face as regularly as some fellows wear a pink in their buttonhole--and it was drooping from his lower lip, instead of sticking up under his nose in the old sporty, sassy way. "Oh, gov'ner!" he cried as he slammed the door behind him; "the market's gone to hell." "Quite so, my son, quite so," nodded Old Ham approvingly; "it's the bottomless pit to-day, all right, all right." I saw it coming, but it came hard. Percy sputtered and stuttered and swallowed it once or twice, and then it broke loose in: "And oh! gov'ner, I'm caught--in a horrid hole--you've got to help me out!" "Eh! what's that!" exclaimed the old man, losing his just-after-a-hearty-meal expression. "What's that--caught--speculating, after what I've said to you! Don't tell me that you're one of that bull crowd--Don't you dare do it, sir." "Ye-es," and Percy's voice was scared back to a whisper; "yes; and what's more, I'm the whole bull crowd--the Great Bull they've all been talking and guessing about." Great Scott! but I felt sick. Here we'd been, like two pebbles in a rooster's gizzard, grinding up a lot of corn that we weren't going to get any good of. I itched to go for that young man myself, but I knew this was one of those holy moments between father and son when an outsider wants to pull his tongue back into its cyclone cellar. And when I looked at Ham, I saw that no help was needed, for the old man was coming out of his twenty-five-years' trance over Percy. He didn't say a word for a few minutes, just kept boring into the young man with his eyes, and though Percy had a cheek like brass, Ham's stare went through it as easy as a two-inch bit goes into boiler-plate. Then, "Take that cigaroot out of your mouth," he bellered. "What d'ye mean by coming into my office smoking cigareets?" Percy had always smoked whatever he blamed pleased, wherever he blamed pleased before, though Old Ham wouldn't stand for it from any one else. But because things have been allowed to go all wrong for twenty-five years, it's no reason why they should be allowed to go wrong for twenty-five years and one day; and I was mighty glad to see Old Ham rubbing the sleep out of his eyes at last. "But, gov'ner," Percy began, throwing the cigarette away, "I really--" "Don't you but me; I won't stand it. And don't you call me gov'ner. I won't have your low-down street slang in my office. So you're the great bull, eh? you bull-pup! you bull in a china shop! The great bull-calf, you mean. Where'd you get the money for all this cussedness? Where'd you get the money? Tell me that. Spit it out--quick--I say." [Illustration: "Tried to bust your poor old father"] "Well, I've got a million dollars," Percy dribbled out. "Had a million dollars, and it was my good money," the old man moaned. "And an interest in the business, you know." "Yep; I oughter. I s'pose you hocked that." "Not exactly; but it helped me to raise a little money." "You bet it helped you; but where'd you get the rest? Where'd you raise the money to buy all this cash lard and ship it abroad? Where'd you get it? You tell me that." "Well, ah--the banks--loaned--me--a---good deal." "On your face." "Not exactly that--but they thought--inferred--that you were interested with me--and without--" Percy's tongue came to a full stop when he saw the old man's face. "Oh! they did, eh! they did, eh!" Ham exploded. "Tried to bust your poor old father, did you! Would like to see him begging his bread, would you, or piking in the bucket-shops for five-dollar bills! Wasn't satisfied with soaking him with his own million! Couldn't rest when you'd swatted him with his own business! Wanted to bat him over the head with his own credit! And now you come whining around--" "But, dad--" "Don't you dad me, dad-fetch you--don't you try any Absalom business on me. You're caught by the hair, all right, and I'm not going to chip in for any funeral expenses." Right here I took a hand myself, because I was afraid Ham was going to lose his temper, and that's one thing you can't always pick up in the same place that you left it. So I called Ham off, and told Percy to come back in an hour with his head broker and I'd protect his trades in the meanwhile. Then I pointed out to the old man that we'd make a pretty good thing on the deal, even after we'd let Percy out, as he'd had plenty of company on the bull side that could pay up; and anyway, that the boy was a blamed sight more important than the money, and here was the chance to make a man of him. We were all ready for Mister Percy when he came back, and Ham got right down to business. "Young man, I've decided to help you out of this hole," he began. Percy chippered right up. "Thank you, sir," he said. "Yes, I'm going to help you," the old man went on. "I'm going to take all your trades off your hands and assume all your obligations at the banks." "Thank you, sir." "Stop interrupting when I'm talking, I'm going to take up all your obligations, and you're going to pay me three million dollars for doing it. When the whole thing's cleaned up that will probably leave me a few hundred thousand in the hole, but I'm going to do the generous thing by you." Percy wasn't so chipper now. "But, father," he protested, "I haven't got three million dollars; and you know very well I can't possibly raise any three million dollars." "Yes, you can," said Ham. "There's the million I gave you: that makes one. There's your interest in the business; I'll buy it back for a million: that makes two. And I'll take your note at five per cent, for the third million. A fair offer, Mr. Graham?" "Very liberal, indeed, Mr. Huggins," I answered. "But I won't have anything to live on, let alone any chance to pay you back, if you take my interest in the business away," pleaded Percy. "I've thought of that, too," said his father, "and I'm going to give you a job. The experience you've had in this campaign ought to make you worth twenty-five dollars a week to us in our option department. Then you can board at home for five dollars a week, and pay ten more on your note. That'll leave you ten per for clothes and extras." Percy wriggled and twisted and tried tears. Talked a lot of flip-flap flub-doodle, but Ham was all through with the proud-popper business, and the young man found him as full of knots as a hickory root, and with a hide that would turn the blade of an ax. Percy was simply in the fix of the skunk that stood on the track and humped up his back at the lightning express--there was nothing left of him except a deficit and the stink he'd kicked up. And a fellow can't dictate terms with those assets. In the end he left the room with a ring in his nose. After all, there was more in Percy than cussedness, for when he finally decided that it was a case of root hog or die with him, he turned in and rooted. It took him ten years to get back into his father's confidence and a partnership, and he was still paying on the million-dollar note when the old man died and left him his whole fortune. It would have been cheaper for me in the end if I had let the old man disinherit him, because when Percy ran that Mess Pork corner three years ago, he caught me short a pretty good line and charged me two dollars a barrel more than any one else to settle. Explained that he needed the money to wipe out the unpaid balance of a million-dollar note that he'd inherited from his father. I simply mention Percy to show why I'm a little slow to regard members of my family as charitable institutions that I should settle endowments on. If there's one thing I like less than another, it's being regarded as a human meal-ticket. What is given to you always belongs to some one else, and if the man who gave it doesn't take it back, some fellow who doesn't have to have things given to him is apt to come along and run away with it. But what you earn is your own, and apt to return your affection for it with interest--pretty good interest. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. P.S.--I forgot to say that I had bought a house on Michigan Avenue for Helen, but there's a provision in the deed that she can turn you out if you don't behave. No. 7 From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, at Yemassee-on-the-Tallahassee. The young man is now in the third quarter of the honeymoon, and the old man has decided that it is time to bring him fluttering down to earth. VII CHICAGO, January 17, 189-. _Dear Pierrepont_: After you and Helen had gone off looking as if you'd just bought seats on 'Change and been baptized into full membership with all the sample bags of grain that were handy, I found your new mother-in-law out in the dining-room, and, judging by the plates around her, she was carrying in stock a full line of staple and fancy groceries and delicatessen. When I struck her she was crying into her third plate of ice cream, and complaining bitterly to the butler because the mould had been opened so carelessly that some salt had leaked into it. Of course, I started right in to be sociable and to cheer her up, but I reckon I got my society talk a little mixed--I'd been one of the pall-bearers at Josh Burton's funeral the day before--and I told her that she must bear up and eat a little something to keep up her strength, and to remember that our loss was Helen's gain. Now, I don't take much stock in all this mother-in-law talk, though I've usually found that where there's so much smoke there's a little fire; but I'm bound to say that Helen's ma came back at me with a sniff and a snort, and made me feel sorry that I'd intruded on her sacred grief. Told me that a girl of Helen's beauty and advantages had naturally been very, very popular, and greatly sought after. Said that she had been received in the very best society in Europe, and might have worn strawberry leaves if she'd chosen, meaning, I've since found out, that she might have married a duke. [Illustration: Crying into her third plate of ice cream] I tried to soothe the old lady, and to restore good feeling by allowing that wearing leaves had sort of gone out of fashion with the Garden of Eden, and that I liked Helen better in white satin, but everything I said just seemed to enrage her the more. Told me plainly that she'd thought, and hinted that she'd hoped, right up to last month, that Helen was going to marry a French nobleman, the Count de Somethingerino or other, who was crazy about her. So I answered that we'd both had a narrow escape, because I'd been afraid for a year that I might wake up any morning and find myself the father-in-law of a Crystal Slipper chorus-girl. Then, as it looked as if the old lady was going to bust a corset-string in getting out her answer, I modestly slipped away, leaving her leaking brine and acid like a dill pickle that's had a bite taken out of it. Good mothers often make bad mothers-in-law, because they usually believe that, no matter whom their daughters marry, they could have gone farther and fared better. But it struck me that Helen's ma has one of those retentive memories and weak mouths--the kind of memory that never loses anything it should forget, and the kind of mouth that can't retain a lot of language which it shouldn't lose. Of course, you want to honor your mother-in-law, that your days may be long in the land; but you want to honor this one from a distance, for the same reason. Otherwise, I'm afraid you'll hear a good deal about that French count, and how hard it is for Helen to have to associate with a lot of mavericks from the Stock Yards, when she might be running with blooded stock on the other side. And if you glance up from your morning paper and sort of wonder out loud whether Corbett or Fitzsimmons is the better man, mother-in-law will glare at you over the top of her specs and ask if you don't think it's invidious to make any comparisons if they're both striving, to lead earnest, Christian lives. Then, when you come home at night, you'll be apt to find your wife sniffing your breath when you kiss her, to see if she can catch that queer, heavy smell which mother has noticed on it; or looking at you slant-eyed when she feels some letters in your coat, and wondering if what mother says is true, and if men who've once taken chorus-girls to supper never really recover from the habit. On general principles, it's pretty good doctrine that two's a company and three's a crowd, except when the third is a cook. But I should say that when the third is Helen's ma it's a mob, out looking for a chance to make rough-house. A good cook, a good wife and a good job will make a good home anywhere; but you add your mother-in-law, and the first thing you know you've got two homes, and one of them is being run on alimony. You want to remember that, beside your mother-in-law, you're a comparative stranger to your wife. After you and Helen have lived together for a year, you ought to be so well acquainted that she'll begin to believe that you know almost as much as mamma; but during the first few months of married life there are apt to be a good many tie votes on important matters, and if mother-in-law is on the premises she is generally going to break the tie by casting the deciding vote with daughter. A man can often get the best of one woman, or ten men, but not of two women, when one of the two is mother-in-law. When a young wife starts housekeeping with her mother too handy, it's like running a business with a new manager and keeping the old one along to see how things go. It's not in human nature that the old manager, even with the best disposition in the world, shouldn't knock the new one a little, and you're Helen's new manager. When I want to make a change, I go about it like a crab--get rid of the old shell first, and then plunge right in and begin to do business with the new skin. It may be a little tender and open to attack at first, but it doesn't take long to toughen up when it finds out that the responsibility of protecting my white meat is on it. You start a woman with sense to making mistakes and you've started her to learning common-sense; but you let some one else shoulder her natural responsibilities and keep her from exercising her brain, and it'll be fat-witted before she's forty. A lot of girls find it mighty handy to start with mother to look after the housekeeping and later to raise the baby; but by and by, when mamma has to quit, they don't understand that the butcher has to be called down regularly for leaving those heavy ends on the steak or running in the shoulder chops on you, and that when Willie has the croup she mustn't give the little darling a stiff hot Scotch, or try to remove the phlegm from his throat with a button-hook. There are a lot of women in this world who think that there's only one side to the married relation, and that's their side. When one of them marries, she starts right out to train her husband into kind old Carlo, who'll go downtown for her every morning and come home every night, fetching a snug little basketful of money in his mouth and wagging his tail as he lays it at her feet. Then it's a pat on the head and "Nice doggie." And he's taught to stand around evenings, retrieving her gloves and handkerchief, and snapping up with a pleased licking of his chops any little word that she may throw to him. But you let him start in to have a little fun scratching and stretching himself, or pawing her, and it's "Charge, Carlo!" and "Bad doggie!" Of course, no man ever believes when he marries that he's going to wind up as kind Carlo, who droops his head so that the children can pull his ears, and who sticks up his paw so as to make it easier for his wife to pull his leg. But it's simpler than you think. As long as fond fathers slave and ambitious mothers sacrifice so that foolish daughters can hide the petticoats of poverty under a silk dress and crowd the doings of cheap society into the space in their heads which ought to be filled with plain, useful knowledge, a lot of girls are going to grow up with the idea that getting married means getting rid of care and responsibility instead of assuming it. A fellow can't play the game with a girl of this sort, because she can't play fair. He wants her love and a wife; she wants a provider, not a lover, and she takes him as a husband because she can't draw his salary any other way. But she can't return his affection, because her love is already given to another; and when husband and wife both love the same person, and that person is the wife, it's usually a life sentence at hard labor for the husband. If he wakes up a little and tries to assert himself after he's been married a year or so, she shudders and sobs until he sees what a brute he is; or if that doesn't work, and he still pretends to have a little spirit, she goes off into a rage and hysterics, and that usually brings him to heel again. It's a mighty curious thing how a woman who has the appetite and instincts of a turkey--buzzard will often make her husband believe that she's as high-strung and delicate as a canary-bird! It's been my experience that both men and women can fool each other before marriage, and that women can keep right along fooling men after marriage, but that as soon as the average man gets married he gets found out. After a woman has lived in the same house with a man for a year, she knows him like a good merchant knows his stock, down to any shelf-worn and slightly damaged morals which he may be hiding behind fresher goods in the darkest corner of his immortal soul. But even if she's married to a fellow who's so mean that he'd take the pennies off a dead man's eyes (not because he needed the money, but because he hadn't the change handy for a two-cent stamp), she'll never own up to the worst about him, even to herself, till she gets him into a divorce court. I simply mention these things in a general way. Helen has shown signs of loving you, and you've never shown any symptoms of hating yourself, so I'm not really afraid that you're going to get the worst of it now. So far as I can see, your mother-in-law is the only real trouble that you have married. But don't you make the mistake of criticizing her to Helen or of quarrelling with her. I'll attend to both for the family. You simply want to dodge when she leads with the right, take your full ten seconds on the floor, and come back with your left cheek turned toward her, though, of course, you'll yank it back out of reach just before she lands on it. There's nothing like using a little diplomacy in this world, and, so far as women are concerned, diplomacy is knowing when to stay away. And a diplomatist is one who lets the other fellow think he's getting his way, while all the time _he's_ having his own. It never does any special harm to let people have their way with their mouths. What you want to do is to keep mother-in-law from mixing up in your family affairs until after she gets used to the disgrace of having a pork-packer for a son-in-law, and Helen gets used to pulling in harness with you. Then mother'll mellow up into a nice old lady who'll brag about you to the neighbors. But until she gets to this point, you've got to let her hurt your feelings without hurting hers. Don't you ever forget that Helen's got a mother-in-law, too, and that it's some one you think a heap of. Whenever I hear of a fellow's being found out by his wife, it always brings to mind the case of Dick Hodgkins, whom I knew when I was a young fellow, back in Missouri. Dickie was one of a family of twelve, who all ran a little small any way you sized them up, and he was the runt. Like most of these little fellows, when he came to match up for double harness, he picked out a six-footer, Kate Miggs. Used to call her Honeybunch, I remember, and she called him Doodums. Honeybunch was a good girl, but she was as strong as a six-mule team, and a cautious man just naturally shied away from her. Was a pretty free stepper in the mazes of the dance, and once, when she was balancing partners with Doodums, she kicked out sort of playful to give him a love pat and fetched him a clip with her tootsey that gave him water on the kneepan. It ought to have been a warning to Doodums, but he was plumb infatuated, and went around pretending that he'd been kicked by a horse. After that the boys used to make Honeybunch mighty mad when she came out of dark corners with Doodums, by feeling him to see if any of his ribs were broken. Still he didn't take the hint, and in the end she led him to the altar. We started in to give them a lovely shivaree after the wedding, beginning with a sort of yell which had been invented by the only fellow in town who had been to college. As I remember, it ran something like this: _Hun, hun, hunch! Bun, bun, bunch! Funny, funny! Honey, honey! Funny Honeybunch!_ But as soon as we got this off, and before we could begin on the dishpan chorus, Honeybunch came at us with a couple of bed-slats and cleaned us all out. Before he had married, Doodums had been one of half a dozen half-baked sports who drank cheap whisky and played expensive poker at the Dutchman's; and after he'd held Honeybunch in his lap evenings for a month, he reckoned one night that he'd drop down street and look in on the boys. Honeybunch reckoned not, and he didn't press the matter, but after they'd gone to bed and she'd dropped off to sleep, he slipped into his clothes and down the waterspout to the ground. He sat up till two o'clock at the Dutchman's, and naturally, the next morning he had a breath like a gasoline runabout, and looked as if he'd been attending a successful coon-hunt in the capacity of the coon. Honeybunch smelt his breath and then she smelt a mouse, but she wasn't much of a talker and she didn't ask any questions--of him. But she had brother Jim make some inquiries, and a few days later, when Doodums complained of feeling all petered out and wanted to go to bed early, she was ready for him. Honeybunch wasn't any invalid, and when she went to bed it was to sleep, so she rigged up a simple little device in the way of an alarm and dropped off peacefully, while Doodums pretended to. When she began to snore in her upper register and to hit the high C, he judged the coast was clear, and leaped lightly out of bed. Even before he'd struck the floor he knew there'd been a horrible mistake somewhere, for he felt a tug as if he'd hooked a hundred-pound catfish. There was an awful ripping and tearing sound, something fetched loose, and his wife was sitting up in bed blinking at him in the moonlight. It seemed that just before she went to sleep she'd pinned her nightgown to his with a safety pin, which wasn't such a bad idea for a simple, trusting, little village maiden. "Was you wantin' anything, Duckie Doodums?" she asked in a voice like the running of sap in maple-sugar time. "N-n-nothin' but a drink of water, Honeybunch sweetness," he stammered back. [Illustration: "N-n-nothin' but a drink of water"] "You're sure you ain't mistook in your thirst and that it ain't a suddint cravin' for licker, and that you ain't sort of p'intin' down the waterspout for the Dutchman's, Duckie Doodums?" "Shorely not, Honeybunch darlin'," he finally fetched up, though he was hardly breathing. "Because your ma told me that you was given to somnambulasticatin' in your sleep, and that I must keep you tied up nights or you'd wake up some mornin' at the foot of a waterspout with your head bust open and a lot of good licker spilt out on the grass." "Don't you love your Doodums anymore?" was all Dickie could find to say to this; but Honeybunch had too much on her mind to stop and swap valentines just then. "You wouldn't deceive your Honeybunch, would you, Duckie Doodums?" "I shorely would not." "Well, don't you do it, Duckie Doodums, because it would break my heart; and if you should break my heart I'd just naturally bust your head. Are you listenin', Doodums?" Doodums was listening. "Then you come back to bed and stay there." Doodums never called his wife Honeybunch after that. Generally it was Kate, and sometimes it was Kitty, and when she wasn't around it was usually Kitty-cat. But he minded better than anything I ever met on less than four legs. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. P.S.--You might tear up this letter. No. 8 From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, at Yemassee-on-the-Tallahassee. In replying to his father's hint that it is time to turn his thoughts from love to lard, the young man has quoted a French sentence, and the old man has been both pained and puzzled by it. VIII CHICAGO, January 24, 189-. _Dear Pierrepont_: I had to send your last letter to the fertilizer department to find out what it was all about. We've got a clerk there who's an Oxford graduate, and who speaks seven languages for fifteen dollars a week, or at the rate of something more than two dollars a language. Of course, if you're such a big thinker that your ideas rise to the surface too fast for one language to hold 'em all, it's a mighty nice thing to know seven; but it's been my experience that seven spread out most men so thin that they haven't anything special to say in any of them. These fellows forget that while life's a journey, it isn't a palace-car trip for most of us, and that if they hit the trail packing a lot of weight for which they haven't any special use, they're not going to get very far. You learn men and what men should do, and how they should do it, and then if you happen to have any foreigners working for you, you can hire a fellow at fifteen per to translate hustle to 'em into their own fool language. It's always been my opinion that everybody spoke American while the tower of Babel was building, and that the Lord let the good people keep right on speaking it. So when you've got anything to say to me, I want you to say it in language that will grade regular on the Chicago Board of Trade. Some men fail from knowing too little, but more fail from knowing too much, and still more from knowing it all. It's a mighty good thing to understand French if you can use it to some real purpose, but when all the good it does a fellow is to help him understand the foreign cuss-words in a novel, or to read a story which is so tough that it would make the Queen's English or any other ladylike language blush, he'd better learn hog-Latin! He can be just the same breed of yellow dog in it, and it don't take so much time to pick it up. Never ask a man what he knows, but what he can do. A fellow may know everything that's happened since the Lord started the ball to rolling, and not be able to do anything to help keep it from stopping. But when a man can do anything, he's bound to know something worth while. Books are all right, but dead men's brains are no good unless you mix a live one's with them. It isn't what a man's got in the bank, but what he's got in his head, that makes him a great merchant. Rob a miser's safe and he's broke; but you can't break a big merchant with a jimmy and a stick of dynamite. The first would have to start again just where he began--hoarding up pennies; the second would have his principal assets intact. But accumulating knowledge or piling up money, just to have a little more of either than the next fellow, is a fool game that no broad-gauged man has time enough to sit in. Too much learning, like too much money, makes most men narrow. I simply mention these things in a general way. You know blame well that I don't understand any French, and so when you spring it on me you are simply showing a customer the wrong line of goods. It's like trying to sell our Pickled Luncheon Tidbits to a fellow in the black belt who doesn't buy anything but plain dry-salt hog in hunks and slabs. It makes me a little nervous for fear you'll be sending out a lot of letters to the trade some day, asking them if their stock of Porkuss Americanuss isn't running low. The world is full of bright men who know all the right things to say and who say them in the wrong place. A young fellow always thinks that if he doesn't talk he seems stupid, but it's better to shut up and seem dull than to open up and prove yourself a fool. It's a pretty good rule to show your best goods last. Whenever I meet one of those fellows who tells you all he knows, and a good deal that he doesn't know, as soon as he's introduced to you, I always think of Bill Harkness, who kept a temporary home for broken-down horses--though he didn't call it that--back in Missouri. Bill would pick up an old critter whose par value was the price of one horse-hide, and after it had been pulled and shoved into his stable, the boys would stand around waiting for crape to be hung on the door. But inside a week Bill would be driving down Main Street behind that horse, yelling Whoa! at the top of his voice while it tried to kick holes in the dashboard. Bill had a theory that the Ten Commandments were suspended while a horse-trade was going on, so he did most of his business with strangers. Caught a Northerner nosing round his barn one day, and inside of ten minutes the fellow was driving off behind what Bill described as "the peartest piece of ginger and cayenne in Pike County." Bill just made a free gift of it to the Yankee, he said, but to keep the transaction from being a piece of pure charity he accepted fifty dollars from him. The stranger drove all over town bragging of his bargain, until some one casually called his attention to the fact that the mare was stone-blind. Then he hiked back to Bill's and went for him in broken Bostonese, winding up with: "What the skip-two-and-carry-one do you mean, you old hold-your-breath-and-take-ten-swallows, by stealing my good money. Didn't you know the horse was blind? Why didn't you tell me?" "Yep," Bill bit off from his piece of store plug; "I reckon I knew the hoss was blind, but you see the feller I bought her of"--and he paused to settle his chaw--"asked me not to mention it. You wouldn't have me violate a confidence as affected the repertashun of a pore dumb critter, and her of the opposite sect, would you?" And the gallant Bill turned scornfully away from the stranger. There were a good many holes in Bill's methods, but he never leaked information through them; and when I come across a fellow who doesn't mention it when he's asked not to, I come pretty near letting him fix his own salary. It's only a mighty big man that doesn't care whether the people whom he meets believe that he's big; but the smaller a fellow is, the bigger he wants to appear. He hasn't anything of his own in his head that's of any special importance, so just to prove that he's a trusted employee, and in the confidence of the boss, he gives away everything he knows about the business, and, as that isn't much, he lies a little to swell it up. It's a mighty curious thing how some men will lie a little to impress people who are laughing at them; will drink a little in order to sit around with people who want to get away from them; and will even steal a little to "go into society" with people who sneer at them. The most important animal in the world is a turkey-cock. You let him get among the chickens on the manure pile behind the barn, with his wings held down stiff, his tail feathers stuck up starchy, his wish-bone poked out perky, and gobbling for room to show his fancy steps, and he's a mighty impressive fowl. But a small boy with a rock and a good aim can make him run a mile. When you see a fellow swelling up and telling his firm's secrets, holler Cash! and you'll stampede him back to his hall bedroom. I dwell a little on this matter of loose talking, because it breaks up more firms and more homes than any other one thing I know. The father of lies lives in Hell, but he spends a good deal of his time in Chicago. You'll find him on the Board of Trade when the market's wobbling, saying that the Russians are just about to eat up Turkey, and that it'll take twenty million bushels of our wheat to make the bread for the sandwich; and down in the street, asking if you knew that the cashier of the Teenth National was leading a double life as a single man in the suburbs and a singular life for a married man in the city; and out on Prairie Avenue, whispering that it's too bad Mabel smokes Turkish cigarettes, for she's got such pretty curly hair; and how sad it is that Daisy and Dan are going to separate, "but they do say that he--sh! sh! hush; here she comes." Yet, when you come to wash your pan of dirt, and the lies have all been carried off down the flume, and you've got the color of the few particles of solid, eighteen-carat truth left, you'll find it's the Sultan who's smoking Turkish cigarettes; and that Mabel is trying cubebs for her catarrh; and that the cashier of the Teenth National belongs to a whist club in the suburbs and is the superintendent of a Sunday-school in the city; and that Dan has put Daisy up to visiting her mother to ward off a threatened swoop down from the old lady; and that the Czar hasn't done a blame thing except to become the father of another girl baby. It's pretty hard to know how to treat a lie when it's about yourself. You can't go out of your way to deny it, because that puts you on the defensive; and sending the truth after a lie that's got a running start is like trying to round up a stampeded herd of steers while the scare is on them. Lies are great travellers, and welcome visitors in a good many homes, and no questions asked. Truth travels slowly, has to prove its identity, and then a lot of people hesitate to turn out an agreeable stranger to make room for it. About the only way I know to kill a lie is to live the truth. When your credit is doubted, don't bother to deny the rumors, but discount your bills. When you are attacked unjustly, avoid the appearance of evil, but avoid also the appearance of being too good--that is, better than usual. A man can't be too good, but he can appear too good. Surmise and suspicion feed on the unusual, and when a man goes about his business along the usual rut, they soon fade away for lack of nourishment. First and last every fellow gets a lot of unjust treatment in this world, but when he's as old as I am and comes to balance his books with life and to credit himself with the mean things which weren't true that have been said about him, and to debit himself with the mean things which were true that people didn't get on to or overlooked, he'll find that he's had a tolerably square deal. This world has some pretty rotten spots on its skin, but it's sound at the core. There are two ways of treating gossip about other people, and they're both good ways. One is not to listen to it, and the other is not to repeat it. Then there's young Buck Pudden's wife's way, and that's better than either, when you're dealing with some of these old heifers who browse over the range all day, stuffing themselves with gossip about your friends, and then round up at your house to chew the cud and slobber fake sympathy over you. Buck wasn't a bad fellow at heart, for he had the virtue of trying to be good, but occasionally he would walk in slippery places. Wasn't very sure-footed, so he fell down pretty often, and when he fell from grace it usually cracked the ice. Still, as he used to say, when he shot at the bar mirrors during one of his periods of temporary elevation, he paid for what he broke--cash for the mirrors and sweat and blood for his cussedness. Then one day Buck met the only woman in the world--a mighty nice girl from St. Jo--and she was hesitating over falling in love with him, till the gossips called to tell her that he was a dear, lovely fellow, and wasn't it too bad that he had such horrid habits? That settled it, of course, and she married him inside of thirty days, so that she could get right down to the business of reforming him. I don't, as a usual thing, take much stock in this marrying men to reform them, because a man's always sure of a woman when he's married to her, while a woman's never really afraid of losing a man till she's got him. When you want to teach a dog new tricks, it's all right to show him the biscuit first, but you'll usually get better results by giving it to him after the performance. But Buck's wife fooled the whole town and almost put the gossips out of business by keeping Buck straight for a year. She allowed that what he'd been craving all the time was a home and family, and that his rare-ups came from not having 'em. Then, like most reformers, she overdid it--went and had twins. Buck thought he owned the town, of course, and that would have been all right if he hadn't included the saloons among his real estate. Had to take his drinks in pairs, too, and naturally, when he went home that night and had another look at the new arrivals, he thought they were quadruplets. Buck straightened right out the next day, went to his wife and told her all about it, and that was the last time he ever had to hang his head when he talked to her, for he never took another drink. You see, she didn't reproach him, or nag him--simply said that she was mighty proud of the way he'd held on for a year, and that she knew she could trust him now for another ten. Man was made a little lower than the angels, the Good Book says, and I reckon that's right; but he was made a good while ago, and he hasn't kept very well. Yet there are a heap of women in this world who are still right in the seraphim class. When your conscience doesn't tell you what to do in a matter of right and wrong, ask your wife. Naturally, the story of Buck's final celebration came to the gossips like a thousand-barrel gusher to a drilling outfit that's been finding dusters, and they went one at a time to tell Mrs. Buck all the dreadful details and how sorry they were for her. She would just sit and listen till they'd run off the story, and hemstitched it, and embroidered it, and stuck fancy rosettes all over it. Then she'd smile one of those sweet baby smiles that women give just before the hair-pulling begins, and say: "Law, Mrs. Wiggleford"--the deacon's wife was the one who was condoling with her at the moment--"people will talk about the best of us. Seems as if no one is safe nowadays. Why, they lie about the deacon, even. I know it ain't true, and you know it ain't true, but only yesterday somebody was trying to tell me that it was right strange how a professor and a deacon got that color in his beak, and while it might be inflammatory veins or whatever he claimed it was, she reckoned that, if he'd let some one else tend the alcohol barrel, he wouldn't have to charge up so much of his stock to leakage and evaporation." Of course, Mrs. Buck had made up the story about the deacon, because every one knew that he was too mean to drink anything that he could sell, but by the time Buck's wife had finished, Mrs. Wiggleford was so busy explaining and defending him that she hadn't any further interest in Buck's case. And each one that called was sent away with a special piece of home scandal which Mrs. Buck had invented to keep her mind from dwelling on her neighbor's troubles. She followed up her system, too, and in the end it got so that women would waste good gossip before they'd go to her with it. For if the pastor's wife would tell her "as a true friend" that the report that she had gone to the theatre in St. Louis was causing a scandal, she'd thank her for being so sweetly thoughtful, and ask if nothing was sacred enough to be spared by the tongue of slander, though she, for one, didn't believe that there was anything in the malicious talk that the Doc was cribbing those powerful Sunday evening discourses from a volume of Beecher's sermons. And when they'd press her for the name of her informant, she'd say: "No, it was a lie; she knew it was a lie, and no one who sat under the dear pastor would believe it; and they mustn't dignify it by noticing it." As a matter of fact, no one who sat under Doc Pottle would have believed it, for his sermons weren't good enough to have been cribbed; and if Beecher could have heard one of them he would have excommunicated him. Buck's wife knew how to show goods. When Buck himself had used up all the cuss-words in Missouri on his conduct, she had sense enough to know that his stock of trouble was full, and that if she wanted to get a hold on him she mustn't show him stripes, but something in cheerful checks. Yet when the trouble-hunters looked her up, she had a full line of samples of their favorite commodity to show them. I simply mention these things in a general way. Seeing would naturally be believing, if cross-eyed people were the only ones who saw crooked, and hearing will be believing when deaf people are the only ones who don't hear straight. It's a pretty safe rule, when you hear a heavy yarn about any one, to allow a fair amount for tare, and then to verify your weights. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. P.S.--I think you'd better look in at a few of the branch houses on your way home and see if you can't make expenses. No. 9 From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, care of Graham & Company's brokers, Atlanta. Following the old man's suggestion, the young man has rounded out the honeymoon into a harvest moon, and is sending in some very satisfactory orders to the house. IX CHICAGO, February 1, 189-. _Dear Pierrepont_: Judging from the way the orders are coming in, I reckon that you must be lavishing a little of your surplus ardor on the trade. So long as you are in such good practise, and can look a customer in the eye and make him believe that he's the only buyer you ever really loved, you'd better not hurry home too fast. I reckon Helen won't miss you for a few hours every day, but even if she should it's a mighty nice thing to be missed, and she's right there where you can tell her every night that you love her just the same; while the only way in which you can express your unchanged affection for the house is by sending us lots of orders. If you do that you needn't bother to write and send us lots of love. The average buyer is a good deal like the heiress to a million dollars who's been on the market for eight or ten years, not because there's no demand for her, but because there's too much. Most girls whose capital of good looks is only moderate, marry, and marry young, because they're like a fellow on 'Change who's scalping the market--not inclined to take chances, and always ready to make a quick turn. Old maids are usually the girls who were so homely that they never had an offer, or so good-looking that they carried their matrimonial corner from one option to another till the new crop came along and bust them. But a girl with a million dollars isn't a speculative venture. She can advertise for sealed proposals on her fiftieth birthday and be oversubscribed like an issue of 10 per cent. Government bonds. There's no closed season on heiresses, and, naturally, a bird that can't stick its head up without getting shot at becomes a pretty wary old fowl. A buyer is like your heiress--he always has a lot of nice young drummers flirting and fooling around him, but mighty few of them are so much in earnest that they can convince him that their only chance for happiness lies in securing his particular order. But you let one of these dead-in-earnest boys happen along, and the first thing you know he's persuaded the heiress that he loves her for herself alone or has eloped from town with an order for a car-load of lard. A lot of young men start off in business with an idea that they must arm themselves with the same sort of weapons that their competitors carry. There's nothing in it. Fighting the devil with fire is all foolishness, because that's the one weapon with which he's more expert than any one else. I usually find that it's pretty good policy to oppose suspicion with candor, foxiness with openness, indifference with earnestness. When you deal squarely with a crooked man you scare him to death, because he thinks you're springing some new and extra-deep game on him. A fellow who's subject to cramps and chills has no business in the water, but if you start to go in swimming, go in all over. Don't be one of those chappies who prance along the beach, shivering and showing their skinny shapes, and then dabble their feet in the surf, pour a little sand in their hair, and think they've had a bath. You mustn't forget, though, that it's just as important to know when to come out as when to dive in. I mention this because yesterday some one who'd run across you at Yemassee told me that you and Helen were exchanging the grip of the third degree under the breakfast-table, and trying to eat your eggs with your left hands. Of course, this is all very right and proper if you can keep it up, but I've known a good many men who would kiss their wives on the honeymoon between swallows of coffee and look like an ass a year later when she chirruped out at the breakfast-table, "Do you love me, darling?" I'm just a little afraid that you're one of those fellows who wants to hold his wife in his lap during the first six months of his married life, and who, when she asks him at the end of a year if he loves her, answers "Sure." I may be wrong about this, but I've noticed a tendency on your part to slop over a little, and a pail that slops over soon empties itself. It's been my experience that most women try to prove their love by talking about it, and most men by spending money. But when a pocketbook or a mouth is opened too often nothing but trouble is left in it. Don't forget the little attentions due your wife, but don't hurt the grocer's feelings or treat the milkman with silent contempt in order to give them to her. You can hock your overcoat before marriage to buy violets for a girl, but when she has the run of your wardrobe you can't slap your chest and explain that you stopped wearing it because you're so warm-blooded. A sensible woman soon begins to understand that affection can be expressed in porterhouse steaks as well as in American beauties. But when Charlie, on twenty-five a week, marries a fool, she pouts and says that he doesn't love her just the same because he takes her to the theatre now in the street-cars, instead of in a carriage, as he used to in those happy days before they were married. As a matter of fact, this doesn't show that she's losing Charlie's love, but that he's getting his senses back. It's been my experience that no man can really attend to business properly when he's chased to the office every morning by a crowd of infuriated florists and livery-men. Of course, after a girl has spent a year of evenings listening to a fellow tell her that his great ambition is to make her life one grand, sweet song, it jars her to find the orchestra grunting and snoring over the sporting extra some night along six months after the ceremony. She stays awake and cries a little over this, so when he sees her across the liver and bacon at breakfast, he forgets that he's never told her before that she could look like anything but an angel, and asks, "Gee, Mame, what makes your nose so red?" And that's the place where a young couple begins to adjust itself to life as it's lived on Michigan Avenue instead of in the story-books. There's no rule for getting through the next six months without going back to mamma, except for the Brute to be as kind as he knows how to be and the Angel as forgiving as she can be. But at the end of that time a boy and girl with the right kind of stuff in them have been graduated into a man and a woman. It's only calf love that's always bellering about it. When love is full grown it has few words, and sometimes it growls them out. I remember, when I was a youngster, hearing old Mrs. Hoover tell of the trip she took with the Doc just after they were married. Even as a young fellow the Doc was a great exhorter. Knew more Scripture when he was sixteen than the presiding elder. Couldn't open his mouth without losing a verse. Would lose a chapter when he yawned. Well, when Doc was about twenty-five, he fell in love with a mighty sweet young girl, Leila Hardin, who every one said was too frivolous for him. But the Doc only answered that it was his duty to marry her to bring her under Christian influences, and they set off down the river to New Orleans on their honeymoon. Mrs. Hoover used to say that he hardly spoke to her on the trip. Sat around in a daze, scowling and rolling his eyes, or charged up and down the deck, swinging his arms and muttering to himself. Scared her half to death, and she spent all her time crying when he wasn't around. Thought he didn't love her any more, and it wasn't till the first Sunday after she got home that she discovered what had ailed him. Seemed that in the exaltation produced by his happiness at having got her, he'd been composing a masterpiece, his famous sermon on the Horrors of Hell, that scared half of Pike County into the fold, and popularized dominoes with penny points as a substitute for dollar-limit draw-poker among those whom it didn't quite fetch. Curious old cuss, the Doc. Found his wife played the piano pretty medium rotten, so when he wanted to work himself into a rage about something he'd sit down in the parlor and make her pound out "The Maiden's Prayer." It's a mighty lucky thing that the Lord, and not the neighbors, makes the matches, because Doc's friends would have married him to Deacon Dody's daughter, who was so chuck full of good works that there was no room inside her for a heart. She afterward eloped with a St. Louis drummer, and before he divorced her she'd become the best lady poker player in the State of Missouri. But with Leila and the Doc it was a case of give-and-take from the start--that is, as is usual with a good many married folks, she'd give and he'd take. There never was a better minister's wife, and when you've said that you've said the last word about good wives and begun talking about martyrs, because after a minister's wife has pleased her husband she's got to please the rest of the church. I simply mention Doc's honeymoon in passing as an example of the fact that two people can start out in life without anything in common apparently, except a desire to make each other happy, and, with that as a platform to meet on, keep coming closer and closer together until they find that they have everything in common. It isn't always the case, of course, but then it's happened pretty often that before I entered the room where an engaged couple were sitting I've had to cough or whistle to give them a chance to break away; and that after they were married I've had to keep right on coughing or whistling for the same couple to give them time to stop quarreling. There are mighty few young people who go into marriage with any real idea of what it means. They get their notion of it from among the clouds where they live while they are engaged, and, naturally, about all they find up there is wind and moonshine; or from novels, which always end just before the real trouble begins, or if they keep on, leave out the chapters that tell how the husband finds the rent and the wife the hired girls. But if there's one thing in the world about which it's possible to get all the facts, it's matrimony. Part of them are right in the house where you were born, and the neighbors have the rest. It's been my experience that you've got to have leisure to be unhappy. Half the troubles in this world are imaginary, and it takes time to think them up. But it's these oftener than the real troubles that break a young husband's back or a young wife's heart. A few men and more women can be happy idle when they're single, but once you marry them to each other they've got to find work or they'll find trouble. Everybody's got to raise something in this world, and unless people raise a job, or crops, or children, they'll raise Cain. You can ride three miles on the trolley car to the Stock Yards every morning and find happiness at the end of the trip, but you may chase it all over the world in a steam yacht without catching up with it. A woman can find fun from the basement to the nursery of her own house, but give her a license to gad the streets and a bunch of matinée tickets and shell find discontent. There's always an idle woman or an idle man in every divorce case. When the man earns the bread in the sweat of his brow, it's right that the woman should perspire a little baking it. There are two kinds of discontent in this world--the discontent that works and the discontent that wrings its hands. The first gets what it wants, and the second loses what it has. There's no cure for the first but success; and there's no cure at all for the second, especially if a woman has it; for she doesn't know what she wants, and so you can't give it to her. Happiness is like salvation--a state of grace that makes you enjoy the good things you've got and keep reaching out, for better ones in the hereafter. And home isn't what's around you, but what's inside you. I had a pretty good illustration of this whole thing some years ago when a foolish old uncle died and left my cellar boss, Mike Shaughnessy, a million dollars. I didn't bother about it particularly, for he'd always been a pretty level-headed old Mick, and I supposed that he'd put the money in pickle and keep right along at his job. But one morning, when he came rooting and grunting into my office in a sort of casual way, trying to keep a plug hat from falling off the back of his head, I knew that he was going to fly the track. Started in to tell me that his extensive property interests demanded all his attention now, but I cut it short with: "Mike, you've been a blamed good cellar boss, but you're going to make a blamed bad millionaire. Think it over." Well, sir, I'm hanged if that fellow, whom I'd raised from the time he was old enough to poke a barrel along the runways with a pointed stick, didn't blow a cloud of cigar smoke in my face to show that he was just as big as I was, and start tight in to regularly cuss me out. But he didn't get very far. I simply looked at Mm, and said sudden, "Git, you Mick," and he wilted back out of the office just as easy as if he hadn't had ten cents. I heard of him off and on for the next year, putting up a house on Michigan Avenue, buying hand-painted pictures by the square foot and paying for them by the square inch--for his wife had decided that they must occupy their proper station in society--and generally building up a mighty high rating as a good thing. As you know, I keep a pretty close eye on the packing house, but on account of my rheumatism I don't often go through the cellars. But along about this time we began to get so many complaints about our dry salt meats that I decided to have a little peek at our stock for myself, and check up the new cellar boss. I made for him and his gang first, and I was mightily pleased, as I came upon him without his seeing me, to notice how he was handling his men. No hollering, or yelling, or cussing, but every word counting and making somebody hop. I was right upon him before I discovered that it wasn't the new foreman, but Mike, who was bossing the gang. He half ducked behind a pile of Extra Short Clears when he saw me, but turned, when he found that it was too late, and faced me bold as brass. "A nice state you've let things get in while I was away, sorr," he began. It was Mike, the cellar boss, who knew his job, and no longer Mr. Shaughnessy, the millionaire, who didn't know his, that was talking, so I wasn't too inquisitive, and only nodded. "Small wonder," he went on, "that crime's incr'asing an' th' cotton crop's decreasing in the black belt, when you're sendin' such mate to the poor naygurs. Why don't you git a cellar man that's been raised with the hogs, an' 'll treat 'em right when they're dead?" "I'm looking for one," says I. "I know a likely lad for you," says he. "Report to the superintendent," says I; and Mike's been with me ever since. I found out when I looked into it that for a week back he'd been paying the new cellar boss ten dollars a day to lay around outside while he bossed his job. Mike sold his old masters to a saloon-keeper and moved back to Packingtown, where he invested all his money in houses, from which he got a heap of satisfaction, because, as his tenants were compatriots, he had plenty of excitement collecting his rents. Like most people who fall into fortunes suddenly, he had bought a lot of things, not because he needed them or really wanted them, but because poorer people couldn't have them. Yet in the end he had sense enough to see that happiness can't be inherited, but that it must be earned. Being a millionaire is a trade like a doctor's--you must work up through every grade of earning, saving, spending and giving, or you're no more fit to be trusted with a fortune than a quack with human life. For there's no trade in the world, except the doctor's, on which the lives and the happiness of so many people depend as the millionaire's; and I might add that there's no other in which there's so much malpractice. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. No. 10 From John Graham, at Mount Clematis, Michigan, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The young man has done famously during the first year of his married life, and the old man has decided to give him a more important position. X MOUNT CLEMATIS, January 1, 1900. _Dear Pierrepont_: Since I got here, my rheumatism has been so bad mornings that the attendant who helps me dress has had to pull me over to the edge of the bed by the seat of my pajamas. If they ever give way, I reckon I'll have to stay in bed all day. As near as I can figure out from what the doctor says, the worse you feel during the first few days you're taking the baths, the better you really are. I suppose that when a fellow dies on their hands they call it a cure. I'm by the worst of it for to-day, though, because I'm downstairs. Just now the laugh is on an old boy with benevolent side-whiskers, who's sliding down the balusters, and a fat old party, who looks like a bishop, that's bumping his way down with his feet sticking out straight in front of him. Shy away from these things that end in an ism, my boy. From skepticism to rheumatism they've an ache or a pain in every blamed joint. Still, I don't want to talk about my troubles, but about your own. Barton leaves us on the first, and so we shall need a new assistant general manager for the business. It's a ten-thousand-dollar job, and a nine-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-dollar man can't fill it. From the way in which you've handled your department during the past year, I'm inclined to think that you can deliver that last dollar's worth of value. Anyway, I'm going to try you, and you've got to make good, because if you should fail it would be a reflection on my judgment as a merchant and a blow to my pride as a father. I could bear up under either, but the combination would make me feel like firing you. As a matter of fact, I can't make you general manager; all I can do is to give you the title of general manager. And a title is like a suit of clothes--it must fit the man who tries to wear it. I can clothe you in a little brief authority, as your old college friend, Shakespeare, puts it, but I can't keep people from laughing at you when they see you swelling around in your high-water pants. It's no use demanding respect in this world; you've got to command it. There's old Jim Wharton, who, for acting as a fourth-class consul of a fifth-class king, was decorated with the order of the garter or the suspender or the eagle of the sixth class--the kind these kings give to the cook when he gets just the right flavor of garlic in a fancy sauce. Jim never did a blame thing in his life except to inherit a million dollars from a better man, who happened to come over on the Cunard Line instead of the Mayflower, but he'd swell around in our best society, with that ribbon on his shirt-front, thinking that he looked like Prince Rupert by Louis the Fourteenth and Lady Clara Vere de Vere, instead of the fourth assistant to the floor manager at the Plumbers' ball. But you take Tom Lipton, who was swelled up into Sir Thomas because he discovered how to pack a genuine Yorkshire ham in Chicago, and a handle looks as natural on him as on a lard pail. A man is a good deal like a horse--he knows the touch of a master, and no matter how lightly the reins are held over him, he understands that he must behave. But let a fellow who isn't quite sure of himself begin sawing on a horse's mouth, and the first thing you know the critter bucks and throws him. You've only one pair of eyes with which to watch 10,000 men, so unless they're open all the time you'll be apt to overlook something here and there; but you'll have 10,000 pairs of eyes watching you all the time, and they won't overlook anything. You mustn't be known as an easy boss, or as a hard boss, but as a just boss. Of course, some just men lean backward toward severity, and some stoop down toward mercy. Both kinds may make good bosses, but I've usually found that when you hold the whip hand it's a great thing not to use the whip. It looks like a pretty large contract to know what 10,000 men are doing, but, as a matter of fact, there's nothing impossible about it. In the first place, you don't need to bother very much about the things that are going all right, except to try to make them go a little better; but you want to spend your time smelling out the things that are going all wrong and laboring with them till you've persuaded them to lead a better life. For this reason, one of the most important duties of your job is to keep track of everything that's out of the usual. If anything unusually good happens, there's an unusually good man behind it, and he ought to be earmarked for promotion; and if anything unusually bad happens, there's apt to be an unusually bad man behind that, and he's a candidate for a job with another house. A good many of these things which it's important for you to know happen a little before beginning and a little after quitting time; and so the real reason why the name of the boss doesn't appear on the time-sheet is not because he's a bigger man than any one else in the place, but because there shouldn't be any one around to take his time when he gets down and when he leaves. You can tell a whole lot about your men from the way in which they come in and the way in which they go home; but because a fellow is in the office early, it doesn't always mean that he's panting to begin work; it may mean that he's been out all night. And when you see a fellow poring over his books after the others have quit, it doesn't always follow that he's so wrapped up in his work that he can't tear himself away from it. It may mean that during business hours he had his head full of horse-racing instead of figures, and that he's staying to chase up the thirty cents which he's out in his balance. You want to find out which. The extra-poor men and the extra-good men always stick their heads up above the dead-level of good-enough men; the first to holler for help, and the second to get an extra reach. And when your attention is attracted to one of these men, follow him up and find out just what sort of soil and fertilizer he needs to grow fastest. It isn't enough to pick likely stock; you've got to plant it where the conditions are right to develop its particular possibilities. A fellow who's got the making of a five-thousand-dollar office man in him may not sell enough lard to fry a half-portion of small potatoes if you put him on the road. Praise judiciously given may act on one man like an application of our bone-meal to a fruit tree, and bring out all the pippins that are in the wood; while in the other it may simply result in his going all to top. You mustn't depend too much on the judgment of department heads and foremen when picking men for promotion. Take their selection if he is the best man, but know for yourself that he is the best man. Sometimes a foreman will play a favorite, and, as any fellow who's been to the races knows, favorites ain't always winners. And sometimes, though not often, he'll try to hold back a good man through jealousy. When I see symptoms of a foreman's being jealous of a man under him, that fellow doesn't need any further recommendation to me. A man's never jealous of inferiority. It's a mighty valuable asset for a boss, when a vacancy occurs in a department, to be able to go to its head when he recommends Bill Smith for the position, and show that he knows all about Bill Smith from his number-twelve socks up to his six-and-a-quarter hat, and to ask: "What's the matter with Tom Jones for the job?" When you refuse to take something just as good in this world, you'll usually find that the next time you call the druggist has the original Snicker's Sassafras Sneezer in stock. It's mighty seldom, though, that a really good man will complain to you that he's being held down, or that his superior is jealous of him. It's been my experience that it's only a mighty small head that so small an idea as this can fill. When a fellow has it, he's a good deal like one of those girls with the fatal gift of beauty in her imagination, instead of her face--always believing that the boys don't dance with her because the other girls tell them spiteful things about her. Besides always having a man in mind for any vacancy that may occur, you want to make sure that there are two men in the office who understand the work of each position in it. Every business should be bigger than any one man. If it isn't, there's a weak spot in it that will kill it in the end. And every job needs an understudy. Sooner or later the star is bound to fall sick, or get the sulks or the swelled head, and then, if there's no one in the wings who knows her lines, the gallery will rotten-egg the show and howl for its money back. Besides, it has a mighty chastening and stimulating effect on the star to know that if she balks there's a sweet young thing in reserve who's able and eager to go the distance. Of course, I don't mean by this that you want to play one man against another or try to minimize to a good man his importance to the house. On the contrary, you want to dwell on the importance of all positions, from that of office-boy up, and make every man feel that he is a vital part of the machinery of the business, without letting him forget that there's a spare part lying around handy, and that if he breaks or goes wrong it can be fitted right in and the machine kept running. It's good human nature to want to feel that something's going to bust when you quit, but it's bad management if things are fixed so that anything can. In hiring new men, you want to depend almost altogether on your own eyes and your own judgment. Remember that when a man's asking for a job he's not showing you himself, but the man whom he wants you to hire. For that reason, I never take on an applicant after a first interview. I ask him to call again. The second time he may not be made up so well, and he may have forgotten some of his lines. In any event, hell feel that he knows you a little better, and so act a little easier and talk a little freer. Very often a man whom you didn't like on his first appearance will please you better on his second, because a lot of people always appear at their worst when they're trying to appear at their best. And again, when you catch a fellow off guard who seemed all right the first time, you may find that he deaconed himself for your benefit, and that all the big strawberries were on top. Don't attach too much importance to the things which an applicant has a chance to do with deliberation, or pay too much attention to his nicely prepared and memorized speech about himself. Watch the little things which he does unconsciously, and put unexpected questions which demand quick answers. If he's been working for Dick Saunders, it's of small importance what Dick says of him in his letter of recommendation. If you want Dick's real opinion, get it in some other way than in an open note, of which the subject's the bearer. As a matter of fact, Dick's opinion shouldn't carry too much weight, except on a question of honesty, because if Dick let him go, he naturally doesn't think a great deal of him; and if the man resigned voluntarily, Dick is apt to feel a little sore about it. But your applicant's opinion of Dick Saunders is of very great importance to you. A good man never talks about a real grievance against an old employer to a new one; a poor man always pours out an imaginary grievance to any one who will listen. You needn't cheer in this world when you don't like the show, but silence is louder than a hiss. Hire city men and country men; men who wear grandpa's Sunday suit; thread-bare men and men dressed in those special four-ninety-eight bargains; but don't hire dirty men. Time and soap will cure dirty boys, but a full-grown man who shrinks from the use of water externally is as hard to cure as one who avoids its use internally. It's a mighty curious thing that you can tell a man his morals are bad and he needs to get religion, and hell still remain your friend; but that if you tell him his linen's dirty and he needs to take a bath, you've made a mortal enemy. Give the preference to the lean men and the middleweights. The world is full of smart and rich fat men, but most of them got their smartness and their riches before they got their fat. Always appoint an hour at which you'll see a man, and if he's late a minute don't bother with him. A fellow who can be late when his own interests are at stake is pretty sure to be when yours are. Have a scribbling pad and some good letter paper on a desk, and ask the applicant to write his name and address. A careful and economical man will use the pad, but a careless and wasteful fellow will reach for the best thing in sight, regardless of the use to which it's to be put. Look in a man's eyes for honesty; around his mouth for weakness; at his chin for strength; at his hands for temperament; at his nails for cleanliness. His tongue will tell you his experience, and under the questioning of a shrewd employer prove or disprove its statements as it runs along. Always remember, in the case of an applicant from another city, that when a man says he doesn't like the town in which he's been working it's usually because he didn't do very well there. You want to be just as careful about hiring boys as men. A lot of employers go on the theory that the only important thing about a boy is his legs, and if they're both fitted on and limber they hire him. As a matter of fact, a boy is like a stick of dynamite, small and compact, but as full of possibilities of trouble as a car-load of gunpowder. One bad boy in a Sunday-school picnic can turn it into a rough-house outfit for looting orchards, and one little cuss in your office can demoralize your kids faster than you can fire them. I remember one boy who organized a secret society, called the Mysterious League. It held meetings in our big vault, which they called the donjon keep, and, naturally, when one of them was going on, boys were scarcer around the office than hen's teeth. The object of the league, as I shook it out of the head leaguer by the ear, was to catch the head bookkeeper, whom the boys didn't like, and whom they called the black caitiff, alone in the vault some night while he was putting away his books, slam the door, and turn the combination on him. Tucked away in a corner of the vault, they had a message for him, written in red ink, on a sheep's skull, telling him to tremble, that he was in the hands of the Mysterious League, and that he would be led at midnight to the torture chamber. I learned afterward that when the bookkeeper had reached in his desk to get a pen, a few days before, he had pulled out a cold, clammy, pickled pig's foot, on which was printed: "Beware! first you will lose a leg!" I simply mention the Mysterious League in passing. Of course, boys will be boys, but you mustn't let them be too cussed boyish during business hours. A slow boy can waste a lot of the time of a five-thousand-dollar man whose bell he's answering; and a careless boy can mislay a letter or drop a paper that will ball up the work of the most careful man in the office. It's really harder to tell what you're getting when you hire a boy than when you hire a man. I found that out for keeps a few years ago, when I took on the Angel Child. He was the son of rich parents, who weren't quite rich enough to buy chips and sit in the game of the no-limit millionaires. So they went in for what they called the simple life. I want to say right here that I'm a great believer in the simple life, but some people are so blamed simple about it that they're idiotic. The world is full of rich people who talk about leading the simple life when they mean the stingy life. They are the kind that are always giving poorer people a chance to chip in an even share with them toward defraying the expenses of the charities and the entertainments which they get up. They call it "affording those in humbler walks an opportunity to keep up their self-respect," but what they really mean is that it helps them to keep down their own expenses. The Angel Child's mother was one of these women who talk to people that aren't quite so rich as she in the tone of one who's commending a worthy charity; but who hangs on the words of a richer woman like a dog that hopes a piece of meat is going to be thrown at it, and yet isn't quite sure that it won't get a kick instead. As a side-line, she made a specialty of trying to uplift the masses, and her husband furnished the raw material for the uplifting, as he paid his men less and worked 'em harder than any one else in Chicago. Well, one day this woman came into my office, bringing her only son with her. He was a solemn little cuss, but I didn't get much chance to size him up, because his ma started right in to explain how he'd been raised--no whipping, no--but I cut it short there, and asked her to get down to brass tacks, as I was very busy trying to see that 70,000,000 people were supplied with their daily pork. So she explained that she wanted me to give the Angel Child a job in my office during his summer vacation, so that he could see how the other half lived, and at the same time begin to learn self-reliance. I was just about to refuse, when it occurred to me that if he had never really had a first-class whipping it was a pity not to put him in the way of getting one. So I took him by the hand and led him to headquarters for whippings, the bench in the shipping department, where a pretty scrappy lot of boys were employed to run errands, and told the boss to take him on. I wasn't out of hearing before one kid said, "I choose him," and another, whom they called the Breakfast-Food Baby, because he was so strong, answered, "Naw; I seen him first." I dismissed the matter from my mind then, but a few days later, when I was walking through the shipping department, it occurred to me that I might as well view the remains of the Angel Child, if they hadn't been removed to his late residence. I found him sitting in the middle of the bench, looking a little sad and lonesome, but all there. The other boys seemed to be giving him plenty of room, and the Breakfast-Food Baby, with both eyes blacked, had edged along to the end of the bench. I beckoned to the Angel Child to follow me to my private office. "What does this mean, young man?" I asked, when he got there. "Have you been fighting?" "Yes, sir," he answered, sort of brightening up. "Which one?" "Michael and Patrick the first day, sir." "Did you lick 'em?" "I had rather the better of it," he answered, as precise as a slice of cold-boiled Boston. "And the second?" "Why, the rest of 'em, sir." "Including the Breakfast-Food--er, James?" He nodded. "James is very strong, sir, but he lacks science. He drew back as if he had a year to hit me, and just as he got good and ready to strike, I pasted him one in the snoot, and followed that up with a left jab in the eye." I hadn't counted on boxing lessons being on the bill of fare of the simple life, and it raised my hopes still further to see from that last sentence how we had grafted a little Union Stock Yards on his Back Bay Boston. In fact, my heart quite warmed to the lad; but I looked at him pretty severely, and only said: "Mark you, young man, we don't allow any fighting around here; and if you can't get along without quarrelling with the boys in the shipping department, I'll have to bring you into these offices, where I can have an eye on your conduct." There were two or three boys in the main office who were spoiling for a thrashing, and I reckoned that the Angel Child would attend to their cases; and he did. He was cock of the walk in a week, and at the same time one of the bulliest, daisiest, most efficient, most respectful boys that ever worked for me. He put a little polish on the other kids, and they took a little of the extra shine off him. He's in Harvard now, but when he gets out there's a job waiting for him, if he'll take it. That was a clear case of catching an angel on the fly, or of entertaining one unawares, as the boy would have put it, and it taught me not to consider my prejudices or his parents in hiring a boy, but to focus my attention on the boy himself, when he was the one who would have to run the errands. The simple life was a pose and pretense with the Angel Child's parents, and so they were only a new brand of snob; but the kid had been caught young and had taken it all in earnest; and so he was a new breed of boy, and a better one than I'd ever hired before. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. No. 11 From John Graham, at Mount Clematis, Michigan, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The young man has sent the old man a dose of his own medicine, advice, and he is proving himself a good doctor by taking it. XI MOUNT CLEMATIS, January 25, 1900. _Dear Pierrepont_: They've boiled everything out of me except the original sin, and even that's a little bleached, and they've taken away my roll of yellow-backs, so I reckon they're about through with me here, for the present. But instead of returning to the office, I think I'll take your advice and run down to Florida for a few weeks and have a "try at the tarpon," as you put it. I don't really need a tarpon, or want a tarpon, and I don't know what I could do with a tarpon if I hooked one, except to yell at him to go away; but I need a burned neck and a peeled nose, a little more zest for my food, and a little more zip about my work, if the interests of the American hog are going to be safe in my hands this spring. I don't seem to have so much luck as some fellows in hooking these fifty-pound fish lies, but I always manage to land a pretty heavy appetite and some big nights' sleep when I strike salt water. Then I can go back to the office and produce results like a hen in April with eggs at eleven cents a dozen. [Illustration: I don't really need a tarpon ... but I need a burned neck and a peeled nose] Health is like any inheritance--you can spend the interest in work and play, but you mustn't break into the principal. Once you do, and it's only a matter of time before you've got to place the remnants in the hands of a doctor as receiver; and receivers are mighty partial to fees and mighty slow to let go. But if you don't work with him to get the business back on a sound basis there's no such thing as any further voluntary proceedings, and the remnants become remains. It's a mighty simple thing, though, to keep in good condition, because about everything that makes for poor health has to get into you right under your nose. Yet a fellow'll load up with pie and buckwheats for breakfast and go around wondering about his stomach-ache, as if it were a put-up job that had been played on him when he wasn't looking; or he'll go through his dinner pickling each course in a different brand of alcohol, and sob out on the butler's shoulder that the booze isn't as pure as it used to be when he was a boy; or he'll come home at midnight singing "The Old Oaken Bucket," and act generally as if all the water in the world were in the well on the old homestead, and the mortgage on that had been foreclosed; or from 8 P.M. to 3 G.X. he'll sit in a small game with a large cigar, breathing a blend of light-blue cigarette smoke and dark-blue cuss-words, and next day, when his heart beats four and skips two, and he has that queer, hopping sensation in the knees, he'll complain bitterly to the other clerks that this confining office work is killing him. Of course, with all the care in the world, a fellow's likely to catch things, but there's no sense in sending out invitations to a lot of miscellaneous microbes and pretending when they call that it's a surprise party. Bad health hates a man who is friendly with its enemies--hard work, plain food, and pure air. More men die from worry than from overwork; more stuff themselves to death than die of starvation; more break their necks falling down the cellar stairs than climbing mountains. If the human animal reposed less confidence in his stomach and more in his legs, the streets would be full of healthy men walking down to business. Remember that a man always rides to his grave; he never walks there. When I was a boy, the only doubt about the food was whether there would be enough of it; and there wasn't any doubt at all about the religion. If the pork barrel was full, father read a couple of extra Psalms at morning prayers, to express our thankfulness; and if it was empty, he dipped into Job for half an hour at evening prayers, to prove that we were better off than some folks. But you don't know what to eat these days, with one set of people saying that only beasts eat meat, and another that only cattle eat grain and green stuff; or what to believe, with one crowd claiming that there's nothing the matter with us, as the only matter that we've got is in our minds; and another crowd telling us not to mind what the others say, because they've got something the matter with their minds. I reckon that what this generation really needs is a little less pie and a little more piety. I dwell on this matter of health, because when the stomach and liver ain't doing good work, the brain can't. A good many men will say that it's none of your business what they do in their own time, but you want to make it your business, so long as it affects what they do in your time. For this reason, you should never hire men who drink after office hours; for it's their time that gets the effects, and your time that gets the after-effects. Even if a boss grants that there's fun in drinking, it shouldn't take him long to discover that he's getting the short end of it, when all the clerks can share with him in the morning is the head and the hangover. I might add that I don't like the effects of drinking any more than the after-effects; and for this reason you should never hire men who drink during business hours. When a fellow adds up on whisky, he's apt to see too many figures; and when he subtracts on beer, he's apt to see too few. It may have been the case once that when you opened up a bottle for a customer he opened up his heart, but booze is a mighty poor salesman nowadays. It takes more than a corkscrew to draw out a merchant's order. Most of the men who mixed their business and their drinks have failed, and the new owners take their business straight. Of course, some one has to pay for the drinks that a drummer sets up. The drummer can't afford it on his salary; the house isn't really in the hospitality business; so, in the end, the buyer always stands treat. He may not see it in his bill for goods, but it's there, and the smart ones have caught on to it. After office hours, the number of drinks a fellow takes may make a difference in the result to his employer, but during business hours the effect of one is usually as bad as half a dozen. A buyer who drinks hates a whisky breath when he hasn't got one himself, and a fellow who doesn't drink never bothers to discover whether he's being talked to by a simple or a compound breath. He knows that some men who drink are unreliable, and that unreliable men are apt to represent unreliable houses and to sell unreliable goods, and he hasn't the time or the inclination to stop and find out that this particular salesman has simply had a mild snort as an appetizer and a gentle soother as a digester. So he doesn't get an order, and the house gets a black eye. This is a very, very busy world, and about the only person who is really interested in knowing just how many a fellow has had is his wife, and she won't always believe him. Naturally, when you expect so much from your men, they have a right to expect a good deal from you. If you want them to feel that your interests are theirs, you must let them see that their interests are yours. There are a lot of fellows in the world who are working just for glory, but they are mostly poets, and you needn't figure on finding many of them out at the Stock Yards. Praise goes a long way with a good man, and some employers stop there; but cash goes the whole distance, and if you want to keep your growing men with you, you mustn't expect them to do all the growing. Small salaries make slow workers and careless clerks; because it isn't hard to get an underpaid job. But a well-paid man sticketh closer than a little brother-in-law-to-be to the fellow who brings the candy. For this reason, when I close the books at the end of the year, I always give every one, from the errand boys up, a bonus based on the size of his salary and my profits. There's no way I've ever tried that makes my men take an interest in the size of my profits like giving them a share. And there's no advertisement for a house like having its men going around blowing and bragging because they're working for it. Again, if you insist that your men shan't violate the early-closing ordinance, you must observe one yourself. A man who works only half a day Saturday can usually do a day and half's work Monday. I'd rather have my men hump themselves for nine hours than dawdle for ten. Of course, the world is full of horses who won't work except with the whip, but that's no reason for using it on those who will. When I get a critter that hogs my good oats and then won't show them in his gait, I get rid of him. He may be all right for a fellow who's doing a peddling business, but I need a little more speed and spirit in mine. A lot of people think that adversity and bad treatment is the test of a man, and it is--when you want to develop his strength; but prosperity and good treatment is a better one when you want to develop his weakness. By keeping those who show their appreciation of it and firing those who don't, you get an office full of crackerjacks. While your men must feel all the time that they've got a boss who can see good work around a corner, they mustn't be allowed to forget that there's no private burying-ground on the premises for mistakes. When a Western town loses one of its prominent citizens through some careless young fellow's letting his gun go off sudden, if the sheriff buys a little rope and sends out invitations to an inquest, it's apt to make the boys more reserved about exchanging repartee; and if you pull up your men sharp when you find them shooting off their mouths to customers and getting gay in their correspondence, it's sure to cut down the mortality among our old friends in the trade. A clerk's never fresh in letters that the boss is going to see. The men who stay in the office and plan are the brains of your business; those who go out and sell are its arms; and those who fill and deliver the orders are its legs. There's no use in the brains scheming and the arms gathering in, if the legs are going to deliver the goods with a kick. That's another reason why it's very important for you to be in the office early. You can't personally see every order filled, and tell whether it was shipped promptly and the right goods sent, but when the telegrams and letters are opened, you can have all the kicks sorted out, and run through them before they're distributed for the day. That's where you'll meet the clerk who billed a tierce of hams to the man who ordered a box; the shipper who mislaid Bill Smith's order for lard, and made Bill lose his Saturday's trade through the delay; the department head who felt a little peevish one morning and so wrote Hardin & Co., who buy in car-lots, that if they didn't like the smoke of the last car of Bacon Short Clears they could lump it, or words to that effect; and that's where you'll meet the salesman who played a sure thing on the New Orleans track and needs twenty to get to the next town, where his check is waiting. Then, a little later, when you make the rounds of the different departments to find out how it happened, the heads will tell you all the good news that was in the morning's mail. Of course, you can keep track of your men in a sneaking way that will make them despise you, and talk to them in a nagging spirit that will make them bristle when they see you. But it's your right to know and your business to find out, and if you collect your information in an open, frank manner, going at it in the spirit of hoping to find everything all right, instead of wanting to find something all wrong; and if you talk to the responsible man with an air of "here's a place where we can get together and correct a weakness in our business"--not my business--instead of with an "Ah! ha! I've-found-you-out" expression, your men will throw handsprings for your good opinion. Never nag a man tinder any circumstances; fire him. A good boss, in these days when profits are pared down to the quick, can't afford to have any holes, no matter how small, in his management; but there must be give enough in his seams so that every time he stoops down to pick up a penny he won't split his pants. He must know how to be big, as well as how to be small. Some years ago, I knew a firm who did business under the name of Foreman & Sowers. They were a regular business vaudeville team--one big and broad-gauged in all his ideas; the other unable to think in anything but boys' and misses' sizes. Foreman believed that men got rich in dollars; Sowers in cents. Of course, you can do it in either way, but the first needs brains and the second only hands. It's been my experience that the best way is to go after both the dollars and the cents. Well, sir, these fellows launched a specialty, a mighty good thing, the Peep o' Daisy Breakfast Food, and started in to advertise. Sowers wanted to use inch space and sell single cases; Foreman kicked because full pages weren't bigger and wanted to sell in car-lots, leaving the case trade to the jobbers. Sowers only half-believed in himself, and only a quarter in the food, and only an eighth in advertising. So he used to go home nights and lie awake with a living-picture exhibit of himself being kicked out of his store by the sheriff; and out of his house by the landlord; and, finally, off the corner where he was standing with his hat out for pennies, by the policeman. He hadn't a big enough imagination even to introduce into this last picture a sport dropping a dollar bill into his hat. But Foreman had a pretty good opinion of himself, and a mighty big opinion of the food, and he believed that a clever, well-knit ad. was strong enough to draw teeth. So he would go home and build steam-yachts and country places in his sleep. Naturally, the next morning, Sowers would come down haggard and gloomy, and grow gloomier as he went deeper into the mail and saw how small the orders were. But Foreman would start out as brisk and busy as a humming-bird, tap the advertising agent for a new line of credit on his way down to the office, and extract honey and hope from every letter. Sowers begged him, day by day, to stop the useless fight and save the remains of their business. But Foreman simply laughed. Said there wouldn't be any remains when he was ready to quit. Allowed that he believed in cremation, anyway, and that the only way to fix a brand on the mind of the people was to burn it in with money. Sowers worried along a few days more, and then one night, after he had been buried in the potter's field, he planned a final stroke to stop Foreman, who, he believed, didn't know just how deep in they really were. Foreman was in a particular jolly mood the next morning, for he had spent the night bidding against Pierrepont Morgan at an auction sale of old masters; but he listened patiently while Sowers called off the figures in a sort of dirge-like singsong, and until he had wailed out his final note of despair, a bass-drum crash, which he thought would bring Foreman to a realizing sense of their loss, so to speak. "That," Sowers wound up, "makes a grand total of $800,000 that we have already lost." Foreman's head drooped, and for a moment he was deep in thought, while Sowers stood over him, sad, but triumphant, in the feeling that he had at last brought this madman to his senses, now that his dollars were gone. "Eight hundred thou!" the senior partner repeated mechanically. Then, looking up with a bright smile, he exclaimed: "Why, old man, that leaves us two hundred thousand still to spend before we hit the million mark!" They say that Sowers could only gibber back at him; and Foreman kept right on and managed some way to float himself on to the million mark. There the tide turned, and after all these years it's still running his way; and Sowers, against his better judgment, is a millionaire. I simply mention Foreman in passing. It would be all foolishness to follow his course in a good many situations, but there's a time to hold on and a time to let go, and the limit, and a little beyond, is none too far to play a really good thing. But in business it's quite as important to know how to be a good quitter as a good fighter. Even when you feel that you've got a good thing, you want to make sure that it's good enough, and that you're good enough, before you ask to have the limit taken off. A lot of men who play a nice game of authors get their feelings hurt at whist, and get it in the neck at poker. You want to have the same principle in mind when you're handling the trade. Sometimes you'll have to lay down even when you feel that your case is strong. Often you'll have to yield a point or allow a claim when you know you're dead right and the other fellow all wrong. But there's no sense in getting a licking on top of a grievance. Another thing that helps you keep track of your men is the habit of asking questions. Your thirst for information must fairly make your tongue loll out. When you ask the head of the canning department what we're netting for two-pound Corned Beef on the day's market for canners, and he has to say, "Wait a minute and I'll figure it out," or turn to one of his boys and ask, "Bill, what are twos netting us?" he isn't sitting close enough to his job, and, perhaps, if Bill were in his chair, he'd be holding it in his lap; or when you ask the chief engineer how much coal we burned this month, as compared with last, and why in thunder we burned it, if he has to hem and haw and say he hasn't had time to figure it out yet, but he thinks they were running both benches in the packing house most of the time, and he guesses this and reckons that, he needs to get up a little more steam himself. In short, whenever you find a fellow that ought to know every minute where he's at, but who doesn't know what's what, he's pretty likely to be _It_. When you're dealing with an animal like the American hog, that carries all its profit in the tip of its tail, you want to make sure that your men carry all the latest news about it on the tip of the tongue. It's not a bad plan, once in a while, to check up the facts and figures that are given you. I remember one lightning calculator I had working for me, who would catch my questions hot from the bat, and fire back the answers before I could get into position to catch. Was a mighty particular cuss. Always worked everything out to the sixth decimal place. I had just about concluded he ought to have a wider field for his talents, when I asked him one day how the hams of the last week's run had been averaging in weight. Answered like a streak; but it struck me that for hogs which had been running so light they were giving up pretty generously. So I checked up his figures and found 'em all wrong. Tried him with a different question every day for a week. Always answered quick, and always answered wrong. Found that he was a base-ball rooter and had been handing out the batting averages of the Chicagos for his answers. Seems that when I used to see him busy figuring with his pencil he was working out where Anson stood on the list. He's not in Who's Who in the Stock Yards any more, you bet. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. No. 12 From John Graham, at Magnolia Villa, on the Florida Coast, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The old man has started back to Nature, but he hasn't gone quite far enough to lose sight of his business altogether. XII MAGNOLIA VILLA, February 5, 1900. _Dear Pierrepont_: Last week I started back to Nature, as you advised, but at the Ocean High Roller House I found that I had to wear knee-breeches, which was getting back too far, or creases in my trousers, which wasn't far enough. So we've taken this little place, where there's nothing between me and Nature but a blue shirt and an old pair of pants, and I reckon that's near enough. I'm getting a complexion and your ma's losing hers. Hadn't anything with her but some bonnets, so just before we left the hotel she went into a little branch store, which a New York milliner runs there, and tried to buy a shade hat. "How would this pretty little shepherdess effect do?" asked the girl who was showing the goods, while she sized me up to see if the weight of my pocketbook made my coat sag. "How much is it?" asked your ma. "Fifty dollars," said the girl, as bright and sassy as you please. "I'm not such a simple little shepherdess as that," answered your ma, just a little brighter and a little sassier, and she's going around bareheaded. She's doing the cooking and making the beds, because the white girls from the North aren't willing to do "both of them works," and the native niggers don't seem to care a great deal about doing any work. And I'm splitting the wood for the kitchen stove, and an occasional fish that has committed suicide. This morning, when I was casting through the surf, a good-sized drum chased me up on shore, and he's now the star performer in a chowder that your ma has billed for dinner. They call this place a villa, though it's really a villainy; and what I pay for it rent, though it's actually a robbery. But they can have the last bill in the roll if they'll leave me your ma, and my appetite, and that tired feeling at night. It's the bulliest time we've had since the spring we moved into our first little cottage back in Missouri, and raised climbing-roses and our pet pig, Toby. It's good to have money and the things that money will buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven't lost the things that money won't buy. When a fellow's got what he set out for in this world, he should go off into the woods for a few weeks now and then to make sure that he's still a man, and not a plug-hat and a frock-coat and a wad of bills. You can't do the biggest things in this world unless you can handle men; and you can't handle men if you're not in sympathy with them; and sympathy begins in humility. I don't mean the humility that crawls for a nickel in the street and cringes for a thousand in the office; but the humility that a man finds when he goes gunning in the woods for the truth about himself. It's the sort of humility that makes a fellow proud of a chance to work in the world, and want to be a square merchant, or a good doctor, or an honest lawyer, before he's a rich one. It makes him understand that while life is full of opportunities for him, it's full of responsibilities toward the other fellow, too. That doesn't mean that you ought to coddle idleness, or to be slack with viciousness, or even to carry on the pay-roll well-meaning incompetence. For a fellow who mixes business and charity soon finds that he can't make any money to give to charity; and in the end, instead of having helped others, he's only added himself to the burden of others. The kind of sympathy I mean holds up men to the bull-ring without forgetting in its own success the hardships and struggles and temptations of the fellow who hasn't got there yet, but is honestly trying to. There's more practical philanthropy in keeping close to these men and speaking the word that they need, or giving them the shove that they deserve, than in building an eighteen-hole golf course around the Stock Yards for them. Your force can always find plenty of reasons for striking, without your furnishing an extra one in the poor quality of the golf-balls that you give them. So I make it a rule that everything I hand out to my men shall come in the course of business, and be given on a business basis. When profits are large, they get a large bonus and a short explanation of the business reasons in the office and the country that have helped them to earn it; when profits are small, the bonus shrinks and the explanation expands. I sell the men their meats and give them their meals in the house restaurant at cost, but nothing changes hands between us except in exchange for work or cash. If you want a practical illustration of how giving something for nothing works, pick out some one who has no real claim on you--an old college friend who's too strong to work, or a sixteenth cousin who's missed connections with the express to Fortune--and say: "You're a pretty good fellow, and I want to help you; after this I'm going to send you a hundred dollars the first of every month, until you've made a new start." He'll fairly sicken you with his thanks for that first hundred; he'll call you his generous benefactor over three or four pages for the second; he'll send you a nice little half-page note of thanks for the third; he'll write, "Yours of the first with inclosure to hand--thanks," for the fourth; he'll forget to acknowledge the fifth; and when the sixth doesn't come promptly, he'll wire collect: "Why this delay in sending my check--mail at once." And all the time he won't have stirred a step in the direction of work, because he'll have reasoned, either consciously or unconsciously: "I can't get a job that will pay me more than a hundred a month to start with; but I'm already drawing a hundred without working; so what's the use?" But when a fellow can't get a free pass, and he has any sort of stuff in him, except what hoboes are made of, he'll usually hustle for his car fare, rather than ride through life on the bumpers of a freight. The only favor that a good man needs is an opportunity to do the best work that's in him; and that's the only present you can make him once a week that will be a help instead of a hindrance to him. It's been my experience that every man has in him the possibility of doing well some one thing, no matter how humble, and that there's some one, in some place, who wants that special thing done. The difference between a fellow who succeeds and one who fails is that the first gets out and chases after the man who needs him, and the second sits around waiting to be hunted up. When I was a boy, we were brought up to believe that we were born black with original sin, and that we bleached out a little under old Doc Hoover's preaching. And in the church down Main Street they taught that a lot of us were predestined to be damned, and a few of us to be saved; and naturally we all had our favorite selections for the first bunch. I used to accept the doctrine of predestination for a couple of weeks every year, just before the Main Street church held its Sunday-school picnic, and there are a few old rascals in the Stock Yards that make me lean toward it sometimes now; but, in the main, I believe that most people start out with a plenty of original goodness. The more I deal in it, the surer I am that human nature is all off the same critter, but that there's a heap of choice in the cuts. Even then a bad cook will spoil a four-pound porterhouse, where a good one will take a chuck steak, make a few passes over it with seasoning and fixings, and serve something that will line your insides with happiness. Circumstances don't make men, but they shape them, and you want to see that those under you are furnished with the right set of circumstances. Every fellow is really two men--what he is and what he might be; and you're never absolutely sure which you're going to bury till he's dead. But a man in your position can do a whole lot toward furnishing the officiating clergyman with beautiful examples, instead of horrible warnings. The great secret of good management is to be more alert to prevent a man's going wrong than eager to punish him for it. That's why I centre authority and distribute checks upon it. That's why I've never had any Honest Old Toms, or Good Old Dicks, or Faithful Old Harrys handling my good money week-days and presiding over the Sabbath-school Sundays for twenty years, and leaving the old man short a hundred thousand, and the little ones short a superintendent, during the twenty-first year. It's right to punish these fellows, but a suit for damages ought to lie against their employers. Criminal carelessness is a bad thing, but the carelessness that makes criminals is worse. The chances are that, to start with, Tom and Dick were honest and good at the office and sincere at the Sunday-school, and that, given the right circumstances, they would have stayed so. It was their employers' business to see that they were surrounded by the right circumstances at the office and to find out whether they surrounded themselves with them at home. A man who's fundamentally honest is relieved instead of aggrieved by having proper checks on his handling of funds. And the bigger the man's position and the amount that he handles, the more important this is. A minor employee can take only minor sums, and the principal harm done is to himself; but when a big fellow gets into you, it's for something big, and more is hurt than his morals and your feelings. I dwell a little on these matters, because I want to fix it firmly in your mind that the man who pays the wages must put more in the weekly envelope than money, if he wants to get his full money's worth. I've said a good deal about the importance of little things to a boss; don't forget their importance to your men. A thousand-dollar clerk doesn't think with a ten-thousand-dollar head; a fellow whose view is shut in by a set of ledgers can't see very far, and so stampedes easier than one whose range is the whole shop; a brain that can't originate big things can't forget trifles so quick as one in which the new ideas keep crowding out the old annoyances. Ten thousand a year will sweeten a multitude of things that don't taste pleasant, but there's not so much sugar in a thousand to help them down. The sting of some little word or action that wouldn't get under your skin at all, is apt to swell up one of these fellows' bump of self-esteem as big as an egg-plant, and make it sore all over. It's always been my policy to give a little extra courtesy and consideration to the men who hold the places that don't draw the extra good salaries. It's just as important to the house that they should feel happy and satisfied as the big fellows. And no man who's doing his work well is too small for a friendly word and a pat on the back, and no fellow who's doing his work poorly is too big for a jolt that will knock the nonsense out of him. You can't afford to give your men a real grievance, no matter how small it is; for a man who's got nothing to occupy thin but his work can accomplish twice as much as one who's busy with his work and a grievance. The average man will leave terrapin and champagne in a minute to chew over the luxury of feeling abused. Even when a man isn't satisfied with the supply of real grievances which life affords, and goes off hunting up imaginary ones, like a blame old gormandizing French hog that leaves a full trough to root through the woods for truffles, you still want to be polite; for when you fire a man there's no good reason for doing it with a yell. Noise isn't authority, and there's no sense in ripping and roaring and cussing around the office when things don't please you. For when a fellow's given to that, his men secretly won't care a cuss whether he's pleased or not. They'll jump when he speaks, because they value their heads, not his good opinion. Indiscriminate blame is as bad as undiscriminating praise--it only makes a man tired. I learned this, like most of the sense I've got--hard; and it was only a few years ago that I took my last lesson in it. I came down one morning with my breakfast digesting pretty easy, and found the orders fairly heavy and the kicks rather light, so I told the young man who was reading the mail to me, and who, of course, hadn't had anything special to do with the run of orders, to buy himself a suit of clothes and send the bill to the old man. Well, when the afternoon mail came in, I dipped into that, too, but I'd eaten a pretty tony luncheon, and it got to finding fault with its surroundings, and the letters were as full of kicks as a drove of Missouri mules. So I began taking it out on the fellow who happened to be handiest, the same clerk to whom I had given the suit of clothes in the morning. Of course, he hadn't had anything to do with the run of kicks either, but he never put up a hand to defend himself till I was all through, and then he only asked: "Say, Mr. Graham, don't you want that suit of clothes back?" [Illustration: "Say, Mr. Graham, don't you want that suit of clothes back?"] Of course, I could have fired him on the spot for impudence, but I made it a suit and an overcoat instead. I don't expect to get my experience on free passes. And I had my money's worth, too, because it taught me that it's a good rule to make sure the other fellow's wrong before you go ahead. When you jump on the man who didn't do it, you make sore spots all over him; and it takes the spring out of your leap for the fellow who did it. One of the first things a boss must lose is his temper--and it must stay lost. There's about as much sense in getting yourself worked up into a rage when a clerk makes a mistake as there is in going into the barn and touching off a keg of gunpowder under the terrier because he got mixed up in the dark and blundered into a chicken-coop instead of a rat-hole. Fido may be an all-right ratter, in spite of the fact that his foot slips occasionally, and a cut now and then with a switch enough to keep him in order; but if his taste for chicken develops faster than his nose for rats, it's easier to give him to one of the neighbors than to blow him off the premises. Where a few words, quick, sharp, and decisive, aren't enough for a man, a cussing out is too much. It proves that he's unfit for his work, and it unfits you for yours. The world is full of fellows who could take the energy which they put into useless cussing of their men, and double their business with it. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. No. 13 From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, care of Graham & Company, Denver. The young man has been offered a large interest in a big thing at a small price, and he has written asking the old man to lend him the price. XIII CHICAGO, June 4, 1900. _Dear Pierrepont_: Judging from what you say about the Highfaluting Lulu, it must be a wonder, and the owner's reason for selling--that his lungs are getting too strong to stand the climate--sounds perfectly good. You can have the money at 5 per cent, as soon as you've finally made up your mind that you want it, but before you plant it in the mine for keeps, I think you should tie a wet towel around your head, while you consider for a few minutes the bare possibility of having to pay me back out of your salary, instead of the profits from the mine. You can't throw a stone anywhere in this world without hitting a man, with a spade over his shoulder, who's just said the last sad good-byes to his bank account and is starting out for the cemetery where defunct flyers are buried. While you've only asked me for money, and not for advice, I may say that, should you put a question on some general topic like, "What are the wild waves saying, father?" I should answer, "Keep out of watered stocks, my son, and wade into your own business a little deeper." Though, when you come to think of it, these continuous-performance companies, that let you in for ten, twenty, and thirty cents a share, ought to be a mighty good thing for investors after they've developed their oil and gold properties, because a lot of them can afford to pay 10 per cent. before they've developed anything but suckers. So long as gold-mining with a pen and a little fancy paper continues to be such a profitable industry, a lot of fellows who write a pretty fair hand won't see any good reason for swinging a pick. They'll simply pass the pick over to the fellow who invests, and start a new prospectus. While the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, they're something after all; but the walls along the short cuts to Fortune are papered with only the prospectuses of good intentions--intentions to do the other fellow good and plenty. I don't want to question your ability or the purity of your friends' intentions, but are you sure you know their business as well as they do? Denver is a lovely city, with a surplus of climate and scenery, and a lot of people there go home from work every night pushing a wheelbarrow full of gold in front of them, but at the same time there is no surplus of _that_ commodity, and most of the fellows who find it have cut their wisdom teeth on quartz. It isn't reasonable to expect that you're going to buy gold at fifty cents on the dollar, just because it hasn't been run through the mint yet. I simply mention these things in a general way. There are two branches in the study of riches--getting the money and keeping it from getting away. When a fellow has saved a thousand dollars, and every nickel represents a walk home, instead of a ride on a trolley; and every dollar stands for cigars he didn't smoke and for shows he didn't see--it naturally seems as if that money, when it's invested, ought to declare dividends every thirty days. But almost any scheme which advertises that it will make small investors rich quick is like one of these Yellowstone geysers that spouts up straight from Hades with a boom and a roar--it's bound to return to its native brimstone sooner or later, leaving nothing behind it but a little smoke, and a smell of burned money--your money. If a fellow would stop to think, he would understand that when money comes in so hard, it isn't reasonable to expect that it can go out and find more easy. But the great trouble is that a good many small investors don't stop to think, or else let plausible strangers do their thinking for them. That's why most young men have tucked away with their college diploma and the picture of their first girl, an impressive deed to a lot in Nowhere-on-the-Nothingness, or a beautiful certificate of stock in the Gushing Girlie Oil Well, that has never gushed anything but lies and promises, or a lovely receipt for money invested in one of these discretionary pools that are formed for the higher education of indiscreet fools. While I reckon that every fellow has one of these certificates of membership in The Great Society of Suckers, I had hoped that you would buy yours for a little less than the Highfaluting Lulu is going to cost you. Young men are told that the first thousand dollars comes hard and that after that it comes easier. So it does--just a thousand dollars plus interest easier; and easier through all the increased efficiency that self-denial and self-control have given you, and the larger salary they've made you worth. It doesn't seem like much when you take your savings' bank book around at the end of the year and get a little thirty or forty dollars interest added, or when you cash in the coupon on the bond that you've bought; yet your bank book and your bond are still true to you. But if you'd had your thousand in one of these 50 per cent. bleached blonde schemes, it would have lit out long ago with a fellow whose ways were more coaxing, leaving you the laugh and a mighty small lock of peroxide gold hair. If you think that saving your first thousand dollars is hard, you'll find that saving the second, after you've lost the first, is hell and repeat. You can't too soon make it a rule to invest only on your own _know_ and never on somebody else's say so. You may lose some profits by this policy, but you're bound to miss a lot of losses. Often the best reason for keeping out of a thing is that everybody else is going into it. A crowd's always dangerous; it first pushes prices up beyond reason and then down below common sense. The time to buy is before the crowd comes in or after it gets out. It'll always come back to a good thing when it's been pushed up again to the point where it's a bad thing. It's better to go slow and lose a good bargain occasionally than to go fast and never get a bargain. It's all right to take a long chance now and then, when you've got a long bank account, but it's been my experience that most of the long chances are taken by the fellows with short bank accounts. You'll meet a lot of men in Chicago who'll point out the corner of State and Madison and tell you that when they first came to the city they were offered that lot for a hundred dollars, and that it's been the crowning regret of their lives that they didn't buy it. But for every genuine case of crowning regret because a fellow didn't buy, there are a thousand because he did. Don't let it make you feverish the next time you see one of those Won't-you-come-in-quick-and-get-rich-sudden ads. Freeze up and on to your thousand, and by and by you'll get a chance to buy a little stock in the concern for which you're working and which you know something about; or to take that thousand and one or two more like it, and buy an interest in a nice little business of the breed that you've been grooming and currying for some other fellow. But if your money's tied up in the sudden--millionaire business, you'll have to keep right on clerking. A man's fortune should grow like a tree, in rings around the parent trunk. It'll be slow work at first, but every ring will be a little wider and a little thicker than the last one, and by and by you'll be big enough and strong enough to shed a few acorns within easy reaching distance, and so start a nice little nursery of your own from which you can saw wood some day. Whenever you hear of a man's jumping suddenly into prominence and fortune, look behind the popular explanation of a lucky chance. You'll usually find that these men manufactured their own luck right on the premises by years of slow preparation, and are simply realizing on hard work. Speaking of manufacturing luck on the premises, naturally calls to mind the story of old Jim Jackson, "dealer in mining properties," and of young Thornley Harding, graduate of Princeton and citizen of New York. Thorn wasn't a bad young fellow, but he'd been brought up by a nice, hard-working, fond and foolish old papa, in the fond belief that his job in life was to spend the income of a million. But one week papa failed, and the next week he died, and the next Thorn found he had to go to work. He lasted out the next week on a high stool, and then he decided that the top, where there was plenty of room for a bright young man, was somewhere out West. Thorn's life for the next few years was the whole series of hard-luck parables, with a few chapters from Job thrown in, and then one day he met old Jim. He seemed to cotton to Thorn from the jump. Explained to him that there was nothing in this digging gopher holes in the solid rock and eating Chinaman's grub for the sake of making niggers' wages. Allowed that he was letting other fellows dig the holes, and that he was selling them at a fair margin of profit to young Eastern capitalists who hadn't been in the country long enough to lose their roll and that trust in Mankind and Nature which was Youth's most glorious possession. Needed a bright young fellow to help him--someone who could wear good clothes and not look as if he were in a disguise, and could spit out his words without chewing them up. Would Thorn join him on a grub, duds, and commission basis? Would Thorn surprise his skin with a boiled shirt and his stomach with a broiled steak? You bet he would, and they hitched up then and there. They ran along together for a year or more, selling a played-out mine now and then or a "promising claim," for a small sum. Thorn knew that the mines which they handled were no Golcondas, but, as he told himself, you could never absolutely swear that a fellow wouldn't strike it rich in one of them. There came a time, though, when they were way down on their luck. The run of young Englishmen was light, and visiting Easterners were a little gun-shy. Almost looked to Thorn as if he might have to go to work for a living, but he was a tenacious cuss, and stuck it out till one day when Jim came back to Leadville from a near-by camp, where he'd been looking at some played-out claims. Jim was just boiling over with excitement. Wouldn't let on what it was about, but insisted on Thorn's going back with him then and there. Said it was too big to tell; must be taken in by all Thorn's senses, aided by his powers of exaggeration. It took them only a few hours to make the return trip. When Jim came within a couple of miles of the camp, he struck in among some trees and on to the center of a little clearing. There he called Thorn's attention to a small, deep spring of muddy water. "Thorn," Jim began, as impressive as if he were introducing him to an easy millionaire, "look at thet spring. Feast yer eyes on it and tell me what you see." "A spring, you blooming idiot," Thorn replied, feeling a little disappointed. "You wouldn't allow, Thorn, to look at it, thet thar was special pints about thet spring, would you?" he went on, slow and solemn. "You wouldn't be willin' to swar thet the wealth of the Hindoos warn't in thet precious flooid which you scorn? Son," he wound up suddenly, "this here is the derndest, orneriest spring you ever see. Thet water is rich enough to be drunk straight." Thorn began to get excited in earnest now. "What is it? Spit it out quick?" "Watch me, sonny," and Jim hung his tin cup in the spring and sat down on a near-by rock. Then after fifteen silent minutes had passed, he lifted the cup from the water and passed it over. Thorn almost jumped out of his jack-boots with surprise. "Silver?" he gasped. "Generwine," Jim replied. "Down my way, in Illinois, thar used to be a spring thet turned things to stone. This gal gives 'em a jacket of silver." After Thorn had kicked and rolled and yelled a little of the joy out of his system, he started to take a drink of the water, but Jim stopped him with: "Taste her if you wanter, but she's one of them min'rul springs which leaves a nasty smack behind." And then he added: "I reckon she's a winner. We'll christen her the Infunt Fernomerner, an' gin a lib'rul investor a crack at her." The next morning Thorn started back, doing fancy steps up the trail. He hadn't been in Leadville two days before he bumped into an old friend of his uncle's, Tom Castle, who was out there on some business, and had his daughter, a mighty pretty girl, along. Thorn sort of let the spring slide for a few days, while he took them in hand and showed them the town. And by the time he was through, Castle had a pretty bad case of mining fever, and Thorn and the girl were in the first stages of something else. Castle showed a good deal of curiosity about Thorn's business and how he was doing, so he told 'em all about how he'd struck it rich, and in his pride showed a letter which he had received from Jim the day before. It ran: "_Dere Thorn_: The Infunt Fernomerner is a wunder and the pile groes every day. I hav 2 kittles, a skilit and a duzzen cans in the spring every nite wich is awl it wil hold and days i trys out the silver frum them wich have caked on nites. This is to dern slo. we nede munny so we kin dril and get a bigger flo and tanks and bilers and sech. hump yoursel and sell that third intrest. i hav to ten the kittles now so no mor frum jim." "You see," Thorn explained, "we camped beside the spring one night, and a tin cup, which Jim let fall when he first tasted the water, discovered its secret. It's just the same principle as those lime springs that incrust things with lime. This one must percolate through a bed of ore. There's some quality in the water which acts as a solvent of the silver, you know, so that the water becomes charged with it." Now, Thorn hadn't really thought of interesting Castle as an investor in that spring, because he regarded his Western business and his Eastern friends as things not to be mixed, and he wasn't very hot to have Castle meet Jim and get any details of his life for the past few years. But nothing would do Castle but that they should have a look at The Infant, and have it at once. Well, sir, when they got about a mile from camp they saw Jim standing in the trail, and smiling all over his honest, homely face. He took Castle for a customer, of course, and after saying "Howdy" to Thorn, opened right up: "I reckon Thorn hev toted you up to see thet blessid infunt as I'm mother, father and wet-nuss to. Thar never was sich a kid. She's jest the cutest little cuss ever you see. Eh, Thorn?" "Do you prefer to the er--er--Infant Phenomenon?" asked Castle, all eagerness. "The same precious infunt. She's a cooin' to herself over thar in them pines," Jim replied, and he started right in to explain: "As you see, Jedge, the precious flooid comes from the bowels of the earth, as full of silver as sody water of gas; and to think thet water is the mejum. Nacher's our silent partner, and the blessid infunt delivers the goods. No ore, no stamps, no sweatin', no grindin', and crushin', and millin', and smeltin'. Thar you hev the pure juice, and you bile it till it jells. Looky here," and Jim reached down and pulled out a skillet. "Taste it! Smell it! Bite it! Lick it! An' then tell me if Sollermun in all his glory was dressed up like this here!" Castle handled that skillet like a baby, and stroked it as if he just naturally loved children. Stayed right beside the spring during the rest of the day, and after supper he began talking about it with Jim, while Thorn and Kate went for a stroll along the trail. During the time they were away Jim must have talked to pretty good purpose, for no sooner were the partners alone for the night than Jim said to Thorn: "I hev jest sold the Jedge a third intrest in the Fernomerner fur twenty thousand dollars." "I'm not so sure about that," answered Thorn, for he still didn't quite like the idea of doing business with one of his uncle's friends. "The Infant looks good and I believe she's a wonder, but it's a new thing, and twenty thousand's a heap of money to Castle. If it shouldn't pan out up to the first show-down, I'd feel deucedly cut up about having let him in. I'd a good deal rather refuse to sell Castle and hunt up a stranger." "Don't be a dern fool, son," Jim replied. "He knew we was arter money to develop, and when he made thet offer I warn't goin' to be sich a permiscuss Charley-hoss as to refuse. It'd be a burnin' crime not to freeze to this customer. It takes time to find customers, even for a good thing like this here, and it's bein' a leetle out of the usual run will make it slower still." "But my people East. If Castle should get stuck he'll raise an awful howl." Jim grinned: "He'd holler, would he? In course; it might help his business. Yer the orneriest ostrich fur a man of yer keerful eddication! Did you hear thet Boston banker what bought the Cracker-jack from us a-hollerin'? He kept so shet about it, I'll bet, thet you couldn't a-blasted it outer him." They argued along until after midnight, but Jim carried his point; and two weeks later Thorn was in Denver, saying good-by to Kate, and listening to her whisper, "But it won't be for long, as you'll soon be able to leave business and come back East," and to Castle yelling from the rear platform to "Push the Infant and get her sizzling." Later, as Jim and Thorn walked back to the hotel, the old scoundrel turned to his partner with a grin and said: "I hev removed the insides from the Infunt and stored 'em fur future ref'rence. Meanin', in course," he added, as Thorn gaped up at him like a chicken with the pip, "the 'lectro-platin' outfit. P'r'aps it would be better to take a leetle pasear now, but later we can come back and find another orphant infunt and christen her the Phoenix, which is Greek fur sold agin." It took Thorn a full minute to comprehend the rascality in which he'd been an unconscious partner, but when he finally got it through his head that Jim had substituted the child of a base-born churl for the Earl's daughter, he fairly raged. Threatened him with exposure and arrest if he didn't make restitution to Castle, but Jim simply grinned and asked him whether he allowed to sing his complaint to the police. Wound up by saying that, even though Thorn had rounded on him, old Jim was a square man, and he proposed to divide even. Thorn was simply in the fix of the fellow between the bull and the bulldog--he had a choice, but it was only whether he would rather be gored or bitten, so he took the ten thousand, and that night Jim faded away on a west-bound Pullman, smoking two-bit cigars and keeping the porter busy standing by with a cork-screw. Thorn took his story and the ten thousand back to his uncle in the East, and after a pretty solemn interview with the old man, he went around and paid Castle in full and resumed his perch on top of the high stool he'd left a few years before. He never got as far as explaining to the girl in person, because Castle told him that while he didn't doubt his honesty, he was afraid he was too easy a mark to succeed in Wall Street. Yet Thorn did work up slowly in his uncle's office, and he's now in charge of the department that looks after the investments of widows and orphans, for he is so blamed conservative that they can't use him in any part of the business where it's necessary to take chances. I simply speak of Thorn as an example of why I think you should have a cool head before you finally buy the Lulu with my money. After all, it seems rather foolish to pay railroad fares to the West and back for the sake of getting stuck when there are such superior facilities for that right here in the East. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. No. 14 From John Graham, at the Omaha branch of Graham & Company, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. The old man has been advised by wire of the arrival of a prospective partner, and that the mother, the son, and the business are all doing well. XIV OMAHA, October 6, 1900. _Dear Pierrepont_: I'm so blame glad it's a boy that I'm getting over feeling sorry it ain't a girl, and I'm almost reconciled to it's not being twins. Twelve pounds, bully! maybe that doesn't keep up the Graham reputation for giving good weight! But I'm coming home on the run to heft him myself, because I never knew a fellow who wouldn't lie a little about the weight of number one, and then, when you led him up to the hay scales, claim that it's a well-known scientific principle that children shrink during the first week like a ham in smoke. Allowing for tare, though, if he still nets ten I'll feel that he's a credit to the brand. It's a great thing to be sixty minutes old, with nothing in the world except a blanket and an appetite, and the whole fight ahead of you; but it's pretty good, too, to be sixty years old, and a grandpop, with twenty years of fight left in you still. It sort of makes me feel, though, as if it were almost time I had a young fellow hitched up beside me who was strong enough to pull his half of the load and willing enough so that he'd keep the traces taut on his side. I don't want any double-team arrangement where I have to pull the load and the other horse, too. But you seem strong, and you act willing, so when I get back I reckon we'll hitch for a little trial spin. A good partner ought to be like a good wife--a source of strength to a man. But it isn't reasonable to tie up with six, like a Mormon elder, and expect that you're going to have half a dozen happy homes. They say that there are three generations between shirt-sleeves and shirt-sleeves in a good many families, but I don't want any such gap as that in ours. I hope to live long enough to see the kid with us at the Stock Yards, and all three of us with our coats off hustling to make the business hum. If I shouldn't, you must keep the boy strong in the faith. It makes me a little uneasy when I go to New York and see the carryings-on of some of the old merchants' grandchildren. I don't think it's true, as Andy says, that to die rich is to die disgraced, but it's the case pretty often that to die rich is to be disgraced afterward by a lot of light-weight heirs. Every now and then some blame fool stops me on the street to say that he supposes I've got to the point now where I'm going to quit and enjoy myself; and when I tell him I've been enjoying myself for forty years and am going to keep right on at it, he goes off shaking his head and telling people I'm a money-grubber. He can't see that it's the fellow who doesn't enjoy his work and who quits just because he's made money that's the money-grubber; or that the man who keeps right on is fighting for something more than a little sugar on his bread and butter. When a doctor reaches the point where he's got a likely little bunch of dyspeptics giving him ten dollars apiece for telling them to eat something different from what they have been eating, and to chew it--people don't ask him why he doesn't quit and live on the interest of his dyspepsia money. By the time he's gained his financial independence, he's lost his personal independence altogether. For it's just about then that he's reached the age where he can put a little extra sense and experience into his pills; so he can't turn around without some one's sticking out his tongue at him and asking him to guess what he had for dinner that disagreed with him. It never occurs to these people that he will let his experience and ability go to waste, just because he has made money enough to buy a little dyspepsia of his own, and it never occurs to him to quit for any such foolish reason. You'll meet a lot of first-class idiots in this world, who regard business as low and common, because their low and common old grandpas made money enough so they don't have to work. And you'll meet a lot of second-class fools who carry a line of something they call culture, which bears about the same relation to real education that canned corned beef does to porterhouse steak with mushrooms; and these fellows shudder a little at the mention of business, and moan over the mad race for wealth, and deplore the coarse commercialism of the age. But while they may have no special use for a business man, they always have a particular use for his money. You want to be ready to spring back while you're talking to them, because when a fellow doesn't think it's refined to mention money, and calls it an honorarium, he's getting ready to hit you for a little more than the market price. I've had dealings with a good many of these shy, sensitive souls who shrink from mentioning the dollar, but when it came down to the point of settling the bill, they usually tried to charge a little extra for the shock to their refinement. The fact of the matter is, that we're all in trade when we've got anything, from poetry to pork, to sell; and it's all foolishness to talk about one fellow's goods being sweller than another's. The only way in which he can be different is by making them better. But if we haven't anything to sell, we ain't doing anything to shove the world along; and we ought to make room on it for some coarse, commercial cuss with a sample-case. I've met a heap of men who were idling through life because they'd made money or inherited it, and so far as I could see, about all that they could do was to read till they got the dry rot, or to booze till they got the wet rot. All books and no business makes Jack a jack-in-the-box, with springs and wheels in his head; all play and no work makes Jack a jackass, with bosh in his skull. The right prescription for him is play when he really needs it, and work whether he needs it or not; for that dose makes Jack a cracker-jack. Like most fellows who haven't any too much of it, I've a great deal of respect for education, and that's why I'm sorry to see so many men who deal in it selling gold-bricks to young fellows who can't afford to be buncoed. It would be a mighty good thing if we could put a lot of the professors at work in the offices and shops, and give these canned-culture boys jobs in the glue and fertilizer factories until a little of their floss and foolishness had worn off. For it looks to an old fellow, who's taking a bird's-eye view from the top of a packing house, as if some of the colleges were still running their plants with machinery that would have been sent to the scrap-heap, in any other business, a hundred years ago. They turn out a pretty fair article as it is, but with improved machinery they could save a lot of waste and by-products and find a quicker market for their output. But it's the years before our kid goes to college that I'm worrying about now. For I believe that we ought to teach a boy how to use his hands as well as his brain; that he ought to begin his history lessons in the present and work back to B.C. about the time he is ready to graduate; that he ought to know a good deal about the wheat belt before he begins loading up with the list of Patagonian products; that he ought to post up on Abraham Lincoln and Grover Cleveland and Thomas Edison first, and save Rameses Second to while away the long winter evenings after business hours, because old Rameses is embalmed and guaranteed to keep anyway; that if he's inclined to be tonguey he ought to learn a living language or two, which he can talk when a Dutch buyer pretends he doesn't understand English, before he tackles a dead one which in all probability he will only give decent interment in his memory. Of course, it's a fine thing to know all about the past and to have the date when the geese cackled in Rome down pat, but life is the present and the future. The really valuable thing which we get from the past is experience, and a fellow can pick up a pretty fair working line of that along La Salle Street. A boy's education should begin with to-day, deal a little with to-morrow, and then go back to day before yesterday. But when a fellow begins with the past, it's apt to take him too long to catch up with the present. A man can learn better most of the things that happened between A.D. 1492 and B.C. 5000 after he's grown, for then he can sense their meaning and remember what's worth knowing. But you take the average boy who's been loaded up with this sort of stuff, and dig into him, and his mind is simply a cemetery of useless dates from the tombstones of those tough and sporty old kings, with here and there the jaw-bone of an ass who made a living by killing every one in sight and unsettling business for honest men. Some professors will tell you that it's good training anyway to teach boys a lot of things they're going to forget, but it's been my experience that it's the best training to teach them things they'll remember. I simply mention these matters in a general way. I don't want you to underestimate the value of any sort of knowledge, and I want you to appreciate the value of other work besides your own--music and railroading, ground and lofty tumbling and banking, painting pictures and soap advertising; because if you're not broad enough to do this you're just as narrow as those fellows who are running the culture corner, and your mind will get so blame narrow it will overlap. I want to raise our kid to be a poor man's son, and then, if it's necessary, we can always teach him how to be a rich one's. Child nature is human nature, and a man who understands it can make his children like the plain, sensible things and ways as easily as the rich and foolish ones. I remember a nice old lady who was raising a lot of orphan grandchildren on a mighty slim income. They couldn't have chicken often in that house, and when they did it was a pretty close fit and none to throw away. So instead of beginning with the white meat and stirring up the kids like a cage full of hyenas when the "feeding the carnivora" sign is out, she would play up the pieces that don't even get a mention on the bill-of-fare of a two-dollar country hotel. She would begin by saying in a please-don't-all-speak-at-once tone, "Now, children, who wants this dear little neck?" and naturally they all wanted it, because it was pretty plain to them that it was something extra sweet and juicy. So she would allot it as a reward of goodness to the child who had been behaving best, and throw in the gizzard for nourishment. The nice old lady always helped herself last, and there was nothing left for her but white meat. It isn't the final result which the nice old lady achieved, but the first one, that I want to commend. A child naturally likes the simple things till you teach him to like the rich ones; and it's just as easy to start him with books and amusements that hold sense and health as those that are filled with slop and stomach-ache. A lot of mothers think a child starts out with a brain that can't learn anything but nonsense; so when Maudie asks a sensible question they answer in goo-goo gush. And they believe that a child can digest everything from carpet tacks to fried steak, so whenever Willie hollers they think he's hungry, and try to plug his throat with a banana. You want to have it in mind all the time while you're raising this boy that you can't turn over your children to subordinates, any more than you can your business, and get good results. Nurses and governesses are no doubt all right in their place, but there's nothing "just as good" as a father and mother. A boy doesn't pick up cuss-words when his mother's around or learn cussedness from his father. Yet a lot of mothers turn over the children, along with the horses and dogs, to be fed and broken by the servants, and then wonder from which side of the family Isobel inherited her weak stomach, and where she picked up her naughty ways, and why she drops the h's from some words and pronounces others with a brogue. But she needn't look to Isobel for any information, because she is the only person about the place with whom the child ain't on free and easy terms. I simply mention these things in passing. Life is getting broader and business bigger right along, and we've got to breed a better race of men if we're going to keep just a little ahead of it. There are a lot of problems in the business now--trust problems and labor problems--that I'm getting old enough to shirk, which you and the boy must meet, though I'm not doing any particular worrying about them. While I believe that the trusts are pretty good things in theory, a lot of them have been pretty bad things in practice, and we shall be mighty slow to hook up with one. The trouble is that too many trusts start wrong. A lot of these fellows take a strong, sound business idea--the economy of cost in manufacture and selling--and hitch it to a load of the rottenest business principle in the bunch--the inflation of the value of your plant and stock--, and then wonder why people hold their noses when their outfit drives down Wall Street. Of course, when you stop a little leakage between the staves and dip out the sugar by the bucket from the top, your net gain is going to be a deficit for somebody. So if these fellows try to do business as they should do it, by clean and sound methods and at fair and square prices, they can't earn money enough to satisfy their stockholders, and they get sore; and if they try to do business in the only way that's left, by clubbing competition to death, and gouging the public, then the whole country gets sore. It seems to me that a good many of these trusts are at a stage where the old individual character of the businesses from which they came is dead, and a new corporate character hasn't had time to form and strengthen. Naturally, when a youngster hangs fire over developing a conscience, he's got to have one licked into him. Personally, I want to see fewer businesses put into trusts on the canned-soup theory--add hot water and serve--before I go into one; and I want to know that the new concern is going to put a little of itself into every case that leaves the plant, just as I have always put in a little of myself. Of course, I don't believe that this stage of the trusts can last, because, in the end, a business that is founded on doubtful values and that makes money by doubtful methods will go to smash or be smashed, and the bigger the business the bigger the smash. The real trust-busters are going to be the crooked trusts, but so long as they can keep out of jail they will make it hard for the sound and straight ones to prove their virtue. Yet once the trust idea strikes bed-rock, and a trust is built up of sound properties on a safe valuation; once the most capable man has had time to rise to the head, and a new breed, trained to the new idea, to grow up under him; and once dishonest competition--not hard competition--is made a penitentiary offense, and the road to the penitentiary macadamized so that it won't be impassable to the fellows who ride in automobiles--then there'll be no more trust-busting talk, because a trust will be the most efficient, the most economical, and the most profitable way of doing business; and there's no use bucking that idea or no sense in being so foolish as to want to. It would be like grabbing a comet by the tail and trying to put a twist in it. And there's nothing about it for a young fellow to be afraid of, because a good man isn't lost in a big business--he simply has bigger opportunities and more of them. The larger the interests at stake, the less people are inclined to jeopardize them by putting them in the hands of any one but the best man in sight. I'm not afraid of any trust that's likely to come along for a while, because Graham & Co. ain't any spring chicken. I'm not too old to change, but I don't expect to have to just yet, and so long as the trust and labor situation remains as it is I don't believe that you and I and the kid can do much better than to follow my old rule: _Mind your own business; own your own business; and run your own business_. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. THE END. 
36841	----	Mundus Foppensis: OR, THE Fop Display'd. BEING The Ladies VINDICATION, In Answer to a late Pamphlet, Entituled, Mundus Muliebris: Or, The Ladies Dressing-Room Unlocked, _&c._ In Burlesque. Together with a short SUPPLEMENT to the _Fop-Dictionary_: Compos'd for the use of the Town _Beaus_. _Prisca juvent alios; Ego me nunc denique natum, Gratulor hæc ætas moribus apta meis. Non quia nunc terra lentum subducitur aurum Lectaque diverso littore Concha venit. Sed quia cultus adest, nec nostros mansit in Annos, Rusticitas Priscis illa superstes avis._ _Ovid_ de Arte Amandi. _Lib. 3._ _London,_ Printed for John Harris at the Harrow in the _Poultry_, 1691. ADVERTISEMENT There is newly published _The Present State of Europe_; or, _The Historical and Political Mercury_: Giving an Account of all the publick and private Occurrences that are most considerable in every Court, for the Months of _August_ and _September_, 1690. With curious _Reflections_ upon every State. To be continued Monthly from the Original, published at the _Hague_ by the Authority of the States of _Holland_ and _West-Friesland_. Sold by John Harris at the Harrow in the _Poultrey_. There is newly published _A plain Relation of the late Action at Sea_, between the _English_ and _Dutch_, and the _French_ Fleets, from _June_ 22th. to _July_ 5th. last: With _Reflections_ thereupon, and upon the Present State of the Nation, _&c._ Written by the Author of the _Reflections upon the last Years Occurrences_, &c. _London_, Printed for John Harris at the Harrow in the _Poultrey_, Price 1 _s._ THE PREFACE. Ladies, _In the Tacker together of Mundus Muliebris, As it was a very great Piece of ill Manners, to unlock your Dressing-Rooms without your Leave, so was it no less indecent in him to expose your Wardrobes to the World, especially in such a Rhapsody of Rhime Doggeril as looks much more like an Inventory than a Poem; however, he has only pilfer'd away the Names of your Varieties without doing ye any other Mischief; for there is nothing to be found in all his Index, nor his Dictionary neither, but what becomes a Person of Quality to give, and a Person of Quality to receive; and indeed, considering how frail the mortal Estates of mortal Gentlemen are, it argues but a common Prudence in Ladies to take Advantage of the Kindness of their Admirers_; to make Hay while the Sun shines; _well knowing how often they are inveigl'd out of their Jointures upon all Occasions: Besides, it is a_ _general Desire in Men, that their Ladies should keep Home, and therefore it is but reasonable they should make their Homes as delightful as it is possible; and therefore this Bubble of an Inventory is not to be thought the Effect of general Repentance, among your Servants and Adorers, but the capricious Malice of some Person envious of the little Remunerations of your Kindnesses for being disbandded from your Conversation; little indeed, considering the Rewards due to your Merits, otherwise it would be the greatest Injustice upon Earth for the Men to think of reforming the Women before they reform themselves, who are ten times worse in all respects, as you will have sufficient to retort upon them when you come by and by to the Matter._ _But to shew that it is no new thing for Ladies to go gay and gaudy, we find in Ovid, that the Women made use of great Variety of Colours for the Silks of which they made their Garments, of which the chiefest in request among them were Azure, Sea-green, Saffron colour, Violet, Ash colour, Rose colour, Chesnut, Almond Colour, with several others, as their Fancy thought fit to make choice; nor were they deny'd the Purple in Grain, overlaid with Pearl, or embroider'd with Gold: Nor_ _was it a strange thing for the Roman Women to die their Hair Yellow, as an augmentation to their Beauty; nor did the severity of the times at all oppose it, but rather allow'd it. Now, says Ovid, The Manner of dressing is not of one sort, and therefore let every Lady choose what best becomes her; first consulting her Looking-glass. And soon after, he confesses that there were not more Leaves upon a large Oak, not so many Bees in Hybla, nor so many wild Beasts ranging the Alps as he could number differences of dressing Ladies. He tells ye how Laodamia drest to set off a long Face. How Diana drest when she went a Hunting: And how Iole was carelessly drest when she took Alcides Captive in the Dangles of her Tresses: So that it is no such new thing for the Women of this Age to desire rich and splendid Ornaments. And why their Grandmothers, and Great Grandmothers confin'd themselves to their Nuptial Kirtles, their Gowns and Petticoats that lasted so many Anniversaries; their Virginals for Musick, and their Spanish Pavans, and Sellingers Rounds for Recreation, after their long poring upon Tent-stitch, 'tis not a farthing Matter for our Ladies to enquire: 'Twas their Misfortune they knew no better; but because they_ _knew no better, 'tis no Argument that our Ladies should be ty'd to their obsolete Examples: For the Alterations of Times and Customs alter the Humors and Fashions of an Age, and change the whole Frame of Conversation. Juno is by the Poets trick'd up in Vestments embroidered with all the Colours of the Peacocks; and no question the Poets spoke with Relation to the Gallantry of the Women of those times. And who so gaudy as Madam Iris in the Skie, and therefore said to be chief Maid of Honour to Jupiter's Wife. I could give ye an Account of the Habits of Venus, and the Graces, which the Poets adapting to the Modes of those Times, plainly demonstrates, that the Ladies were no less curious in those days than now._ _So then, Ladies, for your comfort be it spoken, here's only a Great Cry and little Wool; while the Unlocker of your Dressing-Rooms brings us a long Bedroll of hard Names to prove that you make use of a great deal of Variety to set forth and grace your Beauty, and render your Charms more unresistable, and that you love to have your Closets splendidly and richly furnish'd: Heavens be prais'd, he lays nothing Criminal to your Charge; but only puts ye in mind of a Chapter in Isaiah, of which_ _you are not bound to take much notice, in regard his mistaking the 6. for the 3: may secure ye there is little heed to be given to his Divinity._ _But on the other side it makes me mad to hear what the Devil of a Roman Satyr Juvenal speaks of his own Sex; for tho' he makes Women bad enough, he makes it an easier thing to meet with Prodigies and Monsters, than Men of Sense and Vertue._ Should I behold in _Rome_, that Man, _says he_, That were of spotless Fame, and Life unblam'd; More than a Wonder it would be to me, And I that Monster would compare to damn'd: Two-headed Boy, with double Members born, Or Fish, by Plow turn'd up, where lately Corn In fertile Acres grew; or Fole by Mule Brought forth, as Heaven would Nature over-rule: No less amaz'd, than if a stoney Showre Should from the Skie upon the Pavement pour; Or that some Swarm of Bees, ascending higher Than usually, should cluster on the Temple Spire; Or that some rapid and impetuous Stream, Should roll into the Sea, all Bloud, or Cream. _Heavens! how many Wonders do's Juvenal make at the sight of an Honest Man in his time; and yet when he has spoken as bad as he could of_ _the Women, we find no such severe Expressions of his upon the Female Sex. Now Ladies if good Men are so scarce, what need you care what Fools and bad Men say. 'Tis true it must be acknowledg'd a hard Censure upon Men; but it was a Man that said it; and therefore it makes the better for the Feminine Gender. Well, Ladies, you may be pleas'd to make what use of it you think fit, as being that which will certainly defend ye against all the Picklocks of your Dressing-Rooms for the future; besides the Liberty which Ovid, an Authentick Author, gives ye, to make use of what Dresses, what Ornaments, what Embellishments you please, according to the Mode and Practice of those times, under one of the best Rulers of the Roman Empire, and far more antient than when your Grandmothers and Great Grandmothers spun Flax, and bespittl'd their Fingers._ THE Fop Display'd; OR, The Ladies VINDICATION: In ANSWER to The Ladies Dressing-Room Unlock'd, _&c._ Fain wou'd I, Ladies, briefly know How you have injur'd Bully _Beau_; That he thus falls, with so much noise, Upon your Trinkets, and your Toys? Something was in't; for I protest t' ye, He has most wonderfully drest ye: Nor has his Wrath spar'd ye an inch, To set ye out in Pedlars French; And all his Readers to possess, That Women conjure when they dress: Malicious _Beau_-Design, to make The Ladies Dressing-Room to speak Hard Words, unknown to all their Gransires; The Language like of Necromancers. Heavens! must Men still be at th' Mercies Of new _Medeas_, and new _Circes_; Not working by the fatal Powers Of old inchanting Herbs and Flowers; But by the Magick of their Garments, Conspiring to renew our Torments? I'll not believe the venomous Satyr, It cannot be in Ladies Nature, So amiable, sweet, and active, To Study Magical Attractive; As if they Wanted Help of _Endor_, Their Graces more Divine to render. Rather we think this _Jargonry_ Beyond the Skill of Doctor Dee: Hell's Preacher, _Phlegyas,_ from below, Call'd up, and hous'd in carnal _Beau_; With wicked Hells _Enthusiasm_, Between each Sex to make a _Chasm_; For _Virgil_, never tax'd of Nonsense; Nor yet provok'd, to injure Lady Brings in the same infernal Rabbi, Among the Damn'd, disturb'd in Conscience; And stirr'd with like Satyrick Rage, Against the Females of that Age. Ingratefull Rhimer! thus to vex The more refin'd and lovely Sex, By acting like officious Novice, Informer in the Devil's _Crown-Office_, If we mayn't rather take him for Some busie, bold Apparator, In Satan's Commons Court of Arches, By his more Feminine Researches: Tho' what if many a tainted Whore Tormented him before his hour, 'Twas mean Revenge, howe'er, to fall On the whole Sex in general; 'Cause 'twas his ill luck still to light On Ware unsound, for want of Wit. What if the Ladies will be brave, Why may not they a Language have To wrap their Trinkets up in Mystery? Since Men are much more blam'd in History, For tying up their Slipper peaks With Silver Chains, that reach'd their Necks. Was't not, d'ye think, a pleasant sight, To see the smiling Surgeon slit The swelling Figs, in Bum behind, Caught by misusing of his Kind? But Women, only for being quaint, To signifie the Things they want By proper Names, must be reproach'd; For wanton, foolish, and debauch'd; Yet Learning is no Crime to Ladies, And Terms of Art are still where Trade is. Printers speak Gibb'rish at their Cafes; And Weavers talk in unknown Phrases; And Blacksmith's 'Prentice takes his Lessons From Arabick (to us) Expressions: Why then mayn't Ladies, in their Stations, Use novel Names for novel Fashions? And is not _Colbertine_, God save us, Much nearer far than _Wevus mavus_; A sort of Cant, with which the young Corrupted once their Mother Tongue: Is such a Bumpkin Cant as that Fit for an Age where only what Is brisk and airy, new refin'd, Exalts the Wit, and clears the mind? No ladies, no; go on your way; Gay Cloaths require gay Words, we say. When Art has trimm'd up Head-Attire, Fit for a Nation to admire; And Head and Ornament are well met, Like Amazonian Plume and Helmet; To call that by a vulgar Name, Would be too mean, and th' Artist shame; Call it a _Septizonimum_, or _Tiara_; Or what you please, that's new and rare-a. May not the Head, the Seat of Sense, Name it's own Dress, without Offence? The Roman Ladies, you are told, Wore such a Head-Attire of old; And what if _Juvenal_ were such a Satyr, The Roman Ladies to bespatter; Tell _Juvenal_, he was a Fool, And must not think to _England_ rule: Why should her Jewels move my Spleen; Let her out-dazle _Egypt_'s Queen: It shows that Gold the Pocket lines, Where such illustrious Glory shines; And there's a sort of Pride becomes The Pomp of Dress, as well as Rooms. I would not for the world be thought To pick a hole in Ladies Coat; Because they make it their Delight, To keep their Bodies trim and tite. What though the Names be new, and such As borrow from the French and Dutch? Or strain'd from the Italian Idiom, Rather from hence I take the Freedom, To praise their Care, thus to enrich And fructifie our barren Speech, We owe to their Vocabulary, That makes our Language full and airy, Enlarging _Meige_'s Dictionary. Where things want Names, Names must be had: Shall Lady cry to Chamber-maid, Bring me my Thing there, for my head; My Thing there, quilted white and red; My Thing there for my Wrists and Neck; 'Tis ten to One the Maids mistake; Then Lady cries, The Devil take Such cursed Sots; my tother Thing; Then 'stead of Shoes, the Cuffs they bring. 'Slife--Lady crys, if I rise up, I'll send thee to the Devil to sup; And thus, like _Babel_, in conclusion, The Lady's Closet's all Confusion; When as if Ladies name the Things, The Maid, whate'er she bid her, brings; Neither is Lady chaf'd with Anger, Nor Bones of Maiden put in danger. Sure then 'twas some ill-natur'd _Beau_, To persecute the Ladies so; For peopling, of their own accords, _Phillip's English World of Words_: A _Beau_ more cruel than the _Goths_, Thus to deny the Women Cloaths: As if to theirs the rich Additions Were Heathen Rites, and Superstitions; Or else, as if from _Picts_ descended, He were with Women's Cloaths offended; And spite of cold, or heat of air, He lov'd to see Dame Nature bare. Their Shoes and Stays, he says, are tawdry, Not fit to wear 'cause of th' Embroidry. For Petticoats he'd have e'm bare-breech'd, From _India_ 'cause the Stuffs are far-fetch'd. Their Points and Lace he damns to Hell; Corruptions of the Common-Weal. The vain Exceptions of Wiseacres, Fit to goe herd among the Quakers; And talk to _Maudlin_, in close Hood, Things that themselves ne'er understood. Now let us then the _Beau_ survey, Has he no Baubles to display: There's first the _Dango_, and the _Snake_, Those _Dildoes_ in the Nape of Neck; That dangle down behind, to shew Dimensions of the _Snake_ below: 'Tis thick, and long; but pizzl'd at th' end, And would be thought the Woman's Friend: Yet they who many times have try'd, By _Dango_ swear the _Snake_ bely'd. Then th' insignificant _Knee-Rowl_, A mere _Whim-wham_, upon my Soul; For that 'twas never made, I fear, To save the Master's Knees at Prayer: Which being worn o'th' largest size, That Man _Rolls_ full, the Bully cries. A Term of Art for Knees Concinnity, Beyond the Sense of School-Divinity. What _Beau_ himself would so unman, To ride in scandalous Sedan? A Carriage only fit for Midwives, That of their Burthens go to rid Wives; Unless to hide, from Revelation, Th' Adulterer's haste to Assignation. What Dunces are our Tonsors grown, Where's their Gold Filings in an Amber Box, To strew upon their Masters Locks, And make 'em glitter in the Sun? Sure English _Beaus_ may out-vie _Venus_, As well as _Commodus_, or _Gallienus_. 'Twas Goldilocks, my lovely Boy, Made _Agamemnon_ ruine _Troy_. I could produce ye Emperours That sate in Womens Dress whole hours, Expos'd upon the publick Stage Their Catamites, Wives by Marr'age. Your old Trunk-hose are laid aside, For what-d'-ye-call-em's Tail to hide; So strait and close upon the Skin, As onely made for Lady's Eyne; To see the shape of Thighs and Groin: Hard case _Priapus_ should be so restrain'd, That had whole Orchards at command. Yet these are Toys, in Men, more wise, To Womens innocent Vanities. While soft Sir _Courtly Nice_ looks great, With the unmortgag'd Rents of his Estate: What is the Learning he adores, But the Discourse of Pimps and Whores? She who can tye, with quaintest Art, The spruce Cravat-string, wins his Heart; Where that same Toy does not exactly sit, He's not for common Conversation fit. How is the Barber held Divine, That can a Perriwig _Carine_! Or else _Correct_ it; which you please; For these are _Terms_ too, now-a-days, Of modern Gallants to entice The Barber to advance his Price: For if a Barber be not dear, He must not cover Coxcomb's Ear. Bless us! what's there? 'tis something walks, A piece of Painting, and yet speaks: Hard Case to blame the Ladies Washes, When Men are come to mend their Faces. Yet some there are such Women grown, They cann't be by their Faces known: Some wou'd be like the fair _Adonis_; Some would be _Hyacinthus_ Cronies; And then they study wanton use Of Spanish Red, and white Ceruse; The only Painters to the Life, That seem with Natures self at strife; As if she only the dead Colours laid, But they the Picture perfect made. What _Zeuxis_ dare provoke these Elves, That to out-doe him paint themselves? For tho' the Birds his painted Grapes did crave, These paint and all Mankind deceive. This sure must spend a World of Morning, More than the Ladies quick adorning; They have found out a shorter way, Not as before, to wast the day; They only comb, wash hands and face, And streightway, with a comely Grace, On the admired _Helmet_ goes, As ready rigg'd as their lac'd Shoes. Far much more time Men trifling wast, E'er their soft Bodies can be drest; The Looking-Glass hangs just before, And each o'th' Legs requires an hour: Now thereby, Ladies, hangs a Tale, A Story for your Cakes and Ale. A certain _Beau_ was lately dressing, But sure, e'er he had crav'd Heavens Blessing; When in comes Friend, and finds him laid In mournfull plight, upon his Bed. Dear _Tom_, quoth he, such a Mischance As ne'er befell the Foes of _France_; Nay, I must tell thee, _Fleury_ Battel Was ne'er to _Europe_ half so fatal; For by I know not what ill luck, My Glass this Morn fell down and broke Upon my Shin, just in my Rolling; Now is not this worth thy condoling? See Stocking cut, and bloody Shin, Besides the Charge of healing Skin. 'Twas the only Kindness of my Fate, It mist the solid Piece, my Pate. Ladies, this was ill luck, but you Have much the worser of the two; The World is chang'd I know not how, For Men kiss Men, not Women now; And your neglected Lips in vain, Of smugling _Jack_, and _Tom_ complain: A most unmanly nasty Trick; One Man to lick the other's Cheek; And only what renews the shame Of _J._ the first, and _Buckingham_: He, true it is, his Wives Embraces fled To slabber his lov'd _Ganimede_; But to employ, those Lips were made For Women in _Gomorrha_'s Trade; Bespeaks the Reason ill design'd, Of railing thus 'gainst Woman-kind: For who that loves as Nature teaches, That had not rather kiss the Breeches Of Twenty Women, than to lick The Bristles of one Male dear _Dick_? Now wait on _Beau_ to his _Alsatia_, A Place that loves no _Dei Gratia_; Where the Undoers live, and Undone, In _London_, separate from _London_; Where go but Three Yards from the street, And you with a new Language meet: _Prig_, _Prigster_, _Bubble_, _Caravan_, _Pure Tackle_, _Buttock_, _Purest pure_. _Sealers_, _Putts_, _Equipp_, and _Bolter_; _Lug out_, _Scamper_, _rub_ and _scowre_. _Ready_, _Rhino_, _Coal_, and _Darby_, _Meggs_, and _Smelts_, and _Hoggs_, and _Decus_; _Tathers_, _Fambles_, _Tatts_ and _Doctors_, _Bowsy_, _Smoaky_, _Progg_, and _Cleare_, _Bolter_, _Banter_, _Cut a shamm_; With more a great deal of the same. Should _Saffold_ make but half this Rattle, When Maidens visit his O-racle, They'd take him for some Son of _Cham_, Calling up Legion by his Name, Add but to this the Flanty-Tant Of Fopling Al-a-mode Gallant; Why should not _Gris_, or _Jardine_, Be as well allow'd as _Bien gaunte_; _Cloaths_ is a paltry Word _Ma foy_; But Grandeur in the French _Arroy_. _Trimming_'s damn'd English, but _le Grass_ Is that which must for Modish pass. To call a Shoe a Shoe, is base, Let the genteel _Picards_ take Place. Hang _Perriwig_, 'tis only fit For Barbers Tongues that ne'er spoke Wit; But if you'd be i'th' Fashion, choose The far politer Term, _Chedreux_ What Clown is he that proudly moves, With on his hands what we call Gloves? No Friend, for more refin'd converse Will tell ye they are _Orangers_. So strangely does _Parisian_ Air Change English Youth, that half a year Makes 'em forget all Native Custome, To bring French Modes, and _Gallic_ Lust home; Nothing will these Apostates please, But _Gallic_ Health, and French Disease. In French their Quarrels, and their Fears, Their Joys they publish, and their Cares; In French they quarrel, and in French _Mon coeur,_ they cry, to paltry Wench. Why then should these Extravagants Make such Rhime-doggeril Complaints Against the Ladies Dressing-Rooms, And closets stor'd with rich Perfumes? There's nothing there but what becomes The Plenty of a fair Estate: Tho' Chimney Furniture of Plate, Tho' Mortlake Tapestry, Damask-Bed; Or Velvet all Embroidered; Tho' they affect a handsome store, Of part for State, of usefull more; They're Glories not to be deny'd To Women, stopping there their Pride; For such a Pride has nothing ill, But only makes them more genteel. Should Nature these fine Toys produce, And Women be debarr'd the use? These are no Masculine Delights; Studies of Books for Men are sights; A Stable with good Horses stor'd, And Payment punctual to their Word: Proportion these things to my Wishes, Let Women take the Porcelan Dishes; The Toylet Plates gilt and embost, With all the rest of little cost; Such small Diffusion feeds the Poor, While Misers hoard up all their store. Our Satyr then was one of those Who ne'er had Wealth at his dispose; Or being sped to live in Plenty, Posted to find his Coffers empty; Addicted all to sport and Gaming, And that same Vice not worth the naming; Till deeply dipp'd in Us'rers Books, And over-rid by Cheats and Rooks, The _Mint_ becomes his Sanctuary, Where not of his past Errors weary, But aged grown, and impotent, Alike in Purse and Codpiece spent, He _Cynic_ turns, in _Kings-Bench_ Tub, And vents the Froth of Brewers Bub: Where we will leave him melancholly, Bewailing Poverty, and Folly. A Short _Supplement_ to the _Fop-Dictionary_, so far as concerns the present Matter. _Adieu donce me Cheres._ Farewell my dear Friends. _Arroy._ A Suit of Cloaths. _To adjust a Man's self._ That is, to dress himself. _Beau._ A Masculine French Adjective, signifying fine but now naturaliz'd into _English_ to denote a sparkish dressing Fop. _Beaux Esprits._ A Club of Wits, who call'd themselves so. _Bachique._ A Drinking Song or Catch. _The Brilliant_ of Language. Sharpness and wittiness of Expression. _A Brandenburgh._ A Morning Gown. _To Carine a Perriwig._ That is, to order it. _Chedreux._ A Perriwig. _Correct._ The same as Carine. _Deshabille._ Undrest, or rather in a careless Dress. _En Cavalier._ Like a Gentleman. _Esclat._ Of Beauty, or the Lustre of Beauty. _Eveille._ I observ'd her more _Eveille_ than other Women; that is, more sprightly and airey. _Equipt._ That is, well furnish'd with Money and Cloaths. _Gaunte Bien Gaunte._ Modish in his Gloves. _Grossier._ The World is very _Grossier_; that is, very dull, and ill bred. _Levee and Couchee._ Is to attend a Gentleman at his rising or going to Bed. _Le Grass._ The furniture of a Suit. _Orangers._ The Term for Gloves scented with Oranges. _Picards._ Shoes in downright English. _Pulvillio._ Sweet Powder for the Hair. _Rolls._ A sort of Dress for the Knees, invented as some say by the Roman Catholicks, for the conveniency of Kneeling, but others ascribe the lucky Fancy to Coll. S----. _A Revoir._ Till I see you again. _Surtout._ The great Coat which covers all. For the rest you are referr'd to the Dilucidations of the _Alsatian_ Squire. FINIS. Transcriber's notes: Other editions of Ovid's 'de Arte Amandi' quoted on the title page use the words 'terræ' for 'terra' and 'litore' for 'littore.' Those words are presented here as printed. Spelling was not changed, except for 'thtng' to 'thing' ... it is no new thing for Ladies ... 
21959	----	[Illustration: "_Young fellows come to me looking for jobs and telling me what a mean house they have been working for._"] Letters from A Self-Made Merchant To His Son Being the Letters written by John Graham, Head of the House of Graham & Company, Pork-Packers in Chicago, familiarly known on 'Change as "Old Gorgon Graham," to his Son, Pierrepont, facetiously known to his intimates as "Piggy." Boston: Small, Maynard & Company: 1903 * * * * * _Copyright, 1901-1902, by_ _THE CURTIS PUBLISHING CO._ _Copyright, 1901-1902, by_ _GEORGE HORACE LORIMER_ _Copyright, 1902, by_ _SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY_ (_Incorporated_) _Entered at Stationers' Hall_ _Published October, 1902_ _Sixtieth Thousand December, 1902_ _Plates by_ _Riggs Printing & Publishing Co._ _Albany, U.S.A._ _Presswork by_ _The University Press,_ _Cambridge, U.S.A._ * * * * * TO CYRUS CURTIS A SELF-MADE MAN * * * * * CONTENTS PAGE I. From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. _Mr. Pierrepont has just become a member, in good and regular standing, of the Freshman class._ 1 II. From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, at Harvard University. _Mr. Pierrepont's expense account has just passed under his father's eye, and has furnished him with a text for some plain particularities._ 15 III. From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, at Harvard University. _Mr. Pierrepont finds Cambridge to his liking, and has suggested that he take a post-graduate course to fill up some gaps which he has found in his education._ 29 IV. From John Graham, head of the house of Graham & Co., at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont Graham, at the Waldorf-Astoria, in New York. _Mr. Pierrepont has suggested the grand tour as a proper finish to his education._ 45 V. From John Graham, head of the house of Graham & Co., at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont Graham, at Lake Moosgatchemawamuc, in the Maine woods. _Mr. Pierrepont has written to his father withdrawing his suggestion._ 57 VI. From John Graham, en route to Texas, to Pierrepont Graham, care of Graham & Co., Union Stock Yards, Chicago. _Mr. Pierrepont has, entirely without intention, caused a little confusion in the mails, and it has come to his father's notice in the course of business._ 69 VII. From John Graham, at the Omaha Branch of Graham & Co., to Pierrepont Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. _Mr. Pierrepont hasn't found the methods of the worthy Milligan altogether to his liking, and he has commented rather freely on them._ 81 VIII. From John Graham, at Hot Springs, Arkansas, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago. _Mr. Pierrepont has just been promoted from the mailing to the billing desk and, in consequence, his father is feeling rather "mellow" toward him._ 93 IX. From John Graham, at Hot Springs, Arkansas, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago. _Mr. Pierrepont has been investing more heavily in roses than his father thinks his means warrant, and he tries to turn his thoughts to staple groceries._ 113 X. From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Commercial House, Jeffersonville, Indiana. _Mr. Pierrepont has been promoted to the position of traveling salesman for the house, and has started out on the road._ 127 XI. From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, at The Planters' Palace Hotel, at Big Gap, Kentucky. _Mr. Pierrepont's orders are small and his expenses are large, so his father feels pessimistic over his prospects._ 141 XII. From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, at Little Delmonico's, Prairie Centre, Indiana. _Mr. Pierrepont has annoyed his father by accepting his criticisms in a spirit of gentle, but most reprehensible, resignation._ 157 XIII. From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, care of The Hoosier Grocery Co., Indianapolis, Indiana. _Mr. Pierrepont's orders have been looking up, so the old man gives him a pat on the back--but not too hard a one._ 177 XIV. From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, at The Travelers' Rest, New Albany, Indiana. _Mr. Pierrepont has taken a little flyer in short ribs on 'Change, and has accidentally come into the line of his father's vision._ 191 XV. From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, at The Scrub Oaks, Spring Lake, Michigan. _Mr. Pierrepont has been promoted again, and the old man sends him a little advice with his appointment._ 209 XVI. From John Graham, at the Schweitzerkasenhof, Karlsbad, Austria, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. _Mr. Pierrepont has shown mild symptoms of an attack of society fever, and his father is administering some simple remedies._ 223 XVII. From John Graham, at the London House of Graham & Co., to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago. _Mr. Pierrepont has written his father that he is getting along famously in his new place._ 243 XVIII. From John Graham, at the London House of Graham & Co., to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago. _Mr. Pierrepont is worried over rumors that the old man is a bear on lard and that the longs are about to make him climb a tree._ 259 XIX. From John Graham, at the New York house of Graham & Co., to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago. _The old man, on the voyage home, has met a girl who interests him and who in turn seems to be interested in Mr. Pierrepont._ 275 XX. From John Graham, at the Boston House of Graham & Co., to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago. _Mr. Pierrepont has told the old man "what's what" and received a limited blessing._ 301 * * * * * ILLUSTRATIONS _By_ F. R. GRUGER _and_ B. MARTIN JUSTICE 1. "Young fellows come to me looking for jobs and telling me what a mean house they have been working for." _Frontispiece_ _Facing p._ 2. "Old Doc Hoover asked me right out in Sunday School if I didn't want to be saved." 4 3. "I have seen hundreds of boys go to Europe who didn't bring back a great deal except a few trunks of badly fitting clothes." 20 4. "I put Jim Durham on the road to introduce a new product." 38 5. "Old Dick Stover was the worst hand at procrastinating that I ever saw." 50 6. "Charlie Chase told me he was President of the Klondike Exploring, Gold Prospecting, and Immigration Company." 62 7. "Jim Donnelly, of the Donnelly Provision Company, came into my office with a fool grin on his fat face." 72 8. "Bill Budlong was always the last man to come up to the mourners' bench." 84 9. "Clarence looked to me like another of his father's bad breaks." 98 10. "You looked so blamed important and chesty when you started off." 128 11. "Josh Jenkinson would eat a little food now and then just to be sociable, but what he really lived on was tobacco." 146 12. "Herr Doctor Paracelsus Von Munsterberg was a pretty high-toned article." 166 13. "When John L. Sullivan went through the stock yards it just simply shut down the plant." 184 14. "I started in to curl up that young fellow to a crisp." 200 15. "A good many salesmen have an idea that buyers are only interested in funny stories." 216 16. "Jim Hicks dared Fatty Wilkins to eat a piece of dirt." 248 17. "Elder Hoover was accounted a powerful exhorter in our parts." 268 18. "Miss Curzon, with one of his roses in her hair, watching him from a corner." 294 * * * * * +------------------------------+ | No. 1 | +------------------------------+ | From John Graham, at | | the Union Stock Yards | | in Chicago, to his son, | | Pierrepont, at Harvard | | University, Cambridge, | | Mass. Mr. Pierrepont has | | just been settled by his | | mother as a member, in | | good and regular standing, | | of the Freshman class. | +------------------------------+ LETTERS _from a_ SELF-MADE MERCHANT _to his_ SON I CHICAGO, October 1, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ Your Ma got back safe this morning and she wants me to be sure to tell you not to over-study, and I want to tell you to be sure not to under-study. What we're really sending you to Harvard for is to get a little of the education that's so good and plenty there. When it's passed around you don't want to be bashful, but reach right out and take a big helping every time, for I want you to get your share. You'll find that education's about the only thing lying around loose in this world, and that it's about the only thing a fellow can have as much of as he's willing to haul away. Everything else is screwed down tight and the screw-driver lost. I didn't have your advantages when I was a boy, and you can't have mine. Some men learn the value of money by not having any and starting out to pry a few dollars loose from the odd millions that are lying around; and some learn it by having fifty thousand or so left to them and starting out to spend it as if it were fifty thousand a year. Some men learn the value of truth by having to do business with liars; and some by going to Sunday School. Some men learn the cussedness of whiskey by having a drunken father; and some by having a good mother. Some men get an education from other men and newspapers and public libraries; and some get it from professors and parchments--it doesn't make any special difference how you get a half-nelson on the right thing, just so you get it and freeze on to it. The package doesn't count after the eye's been attracted by it, and in the end it finds its way to the ash heap. It's the quality of the goods inside which tells, when they once get into the kitchen and up to the cook. You can cure a ham in dry salt and you can cure it in sweet pickle, and when you're through you've got pretty good eating either way, provided you started in with a sound ham. If you didn't, it doesn't make any special difference how you cured it--the ham-tryer's going to strike the sour spot around the bone. And it doesn't make any difference how much sugar and fancy pickle you soak into a fellow, he's no good unless he's sound and sweet at the core. The first thing that any education ought to give a man is character, and the second thing is education. That is where I'm a little skittish about this college business. I'm not starting in to preach to you, because I know a young fellow with the right sort of stuff in him preaches to himself harder than any one else can, and that he's mighty often switched off the right path by having it pointed out to him in the wrong way. I remember when I was a boy, and I wasn't a very bad boy, as boys go, old Doc Hoover got a notion in his head that I ought to join the church, and he scared me out of it for five years by asking me right out loud in Sunday School if I didn't want to be saved, and then laying for me after the service and praying with me. Of course I wanted to be saved, but I didn't want to be saved quite so publicly. When a boy's had a good mother he's got a good conscience, and when he's got a good conscience he don't need to have right and wrong labeled for him. Now that your Ma's left and the apron strings are cut, you're naturally running up against a new sensation every minute, but if you'll simply use a little conscience as a tryer, and probe into a thing which looks sweet and sound on the skin, to see if you can't fetch up a sour smell from around the bone, you'll be all right. [Illustration: "_Old Doc Hoover asked me right out in Sunday School if I didn't want to be saved._"] I'm anxious that you should be a good scholar, but I'm more anxious that you should be a good clean man. And if you graduate with a sound conscience, I shan't care so much if there are a few holes in your Latin. There are two parts of a college education--the part that you get in the schoolroom from the professors, and the part that you get outside of it from the boys. That's the really important part. For the first can only make you a scholar, while the second can make you a man. Education's a good deal like eating--a fellow can't always tell which particular thing did him good, but he can usually tell which one did him harm. After a square meal of roast beef and vegetables, and mince pie and watermelon, you can't say just which ingredient is going into muscle, but you don't have to be very bright to figure out which one started the demand for painkiller in your insides, or to guess, next morning, which one made you believe in a personal devil the night before. And so, while a fellow can't figure out to an ounce whether it's Latin or algebra or history or what among the solids that is building him up in this place or that, he can go right along feeding them in and betting that they're not the things that turn his tongue fuzzy. It's down among the sweets, among his amusements and recreations, that he's going to find his stomach-ache, and it's there that he wants to go slow and to pick and choose. It's not the first half, but the second half of a college education which merchants mean when they ask if a college education pays. It's the Willie and the Bertie boys; the chocolate eclair and tutti-frutti boys; the la-de-dah and the baa-baa-billy-goat boys; the high cock-a-lo-rum and the cock-a-doodle-do boys; the Bah Jove!, hair-parted-in-the-middle, cigaroot-smoking, Champagne-Charlie, up-all-night-and-in-all-day boys that make 'em doubt the cash value of the college output, and overlook the roast-beef and blood-gravy boys, the shirt-sleeves and high-water-pants boys, who take their college education and make some fellow's business hum with it. Does a College education pay? Does it pay to feed in pork trimmings at five cents a pound at the hopper and draw out nice, cunning, little "country" sausages at twenty cents a pound at the other end? Does it pay to take a steer that's been running loose on the range and living on cactus and petrified wood till he's just a bunch of barb-wire and sole-leather, and feed him corn till he's just a solid hunk of porterhouse steak and oleo oil? You bet it pays. Anything that trains a boy to think and to think quick pays; anything that teaches a boy to get the answer before the other fellow gets through biting the pencil, pays. College doesn't make fools; it develops them. It doesn't make bright men; it develops them. A fool will turn out a fool, whether he goes to college or not, though he'll probably turn out a different sort of a fool. And a good, strong boy will turn out a bright, strong man whether he's worn smooth in the grab-what-you-want-and-eat-standing-with-one-eye-skinned-for-the-dog school of the streets and stores, or polished up and slicked down in the give-your-order-to-the-waiter-and-get-a-sixteen-course-dinner school of the professors. But while the lack of a college education can't keep No. 1 down, having it boosts No. 2 up. It's simply the difference between jump in, rough-and-tumble, kick-with-the-heels-and-butt-with-the-head nigger fighting, and this grin-and-look-pleasant, dodge-and-save-your-wind-till-you-see-a-chance-to-land-on-the-solar-plexus style of the trained athlete. Both styles win fights, but the fellow with a little science is the better man, providing he's kept his muscle hard. If he hasn't, he's in a bad way, for his fancy sparring is just going to aggravate the other fellow so that he'll eat him up. Of course, some men are like pigs, the more you educate them, the more amusing little cusses they become, and the funnier capers they cut when they show off their tricks. Naturally, the place to send a boy of that breed is to the circus, not to college. Speaking of educated pigs, naturally calls to mind the case of old man Whitaker and his son, Stanley. I used to know the old man mighty well ten years ago. He was one of those men whom business narrows, instead of broadens. Didn't get any special fun out of his work, but kept right along at it because he didn't know anything else. Told me he'd had to root for a living all his life and that he proposed to have Stan's brought to him in a pail. Sent him to private schools and dancing schools and colleges and universities, and then shipped him to Oxford to soak in a little "atmosphere," as he put it. I never could quite lay hold of that atmosphere dodge by the tail, but so far as I could make out, the idea was that there was something in the air of the Oxford ham-house that gave a fellow an extra fancy smoke. Well, about the time Stan was through, the undertaker called by for the old man, and when his assets were boiled down and the water drawn off, there wasn't enough left to furnish Stan with a really nourishing meal. I had a talk with Stan about what he was going to do, but some ways he didn't strike me as having the making of a good private of industry, let alone a captain, so I started in to get him a job that would suit his talents. Got him in a bank, but while he knew more about the history of banking than the president, and more about political economy than the board of directors, he couldn't learn the difference between a fiver that the Government turned out and one that was run off on a hand press in a Halsted Street basement. Got him a job on a paper, but while he knew six different languages and all the facts about the Arctic regions, and the history of dancing from the days of Old Adam down to those of Old Nick, he couldn't write up a satisfactory account of the Ice-Men's Ball. Could prove that two and two made four by trigonometry and geometry, but couldn't learn to keep books; was thick as thieves with all the high-toned poets, but couldn't write a good, snappy, merchantable street-car ad.; knew a thousand diseases that would take a man off before he could blink, but couldn't sell a thousand-dollar tontine policy; knew the lives of our Presidents as well as if he'd been raised with them, but couldn't place a set of the Library of the Fathers of the Republic, though they were offered on little easy payments that made them come as easy as borrowing them from a friend. Finally I hit on what seemed to be just the right thing. I figured out that any fellow who had such a heavy stock of information on hand, ought to be able to job it out to good advantage, and so I got him a place teaching. But it seemed that he'd learned so much about the best way of teaching boys, that he told his principal right on the jump that he was doing it all wrong, and that made him sore; and he knew so much about the dead languages, which was what he was hired to teach, that he forgot he was handling live boys, and as he couldn't tell it all to them in the regular time, he kept them after hours, and that made them sore and put Stan out of a job again. The last I heard of him he was writing articles on Why Young Men Fail, and making a success of it, because failing was the one subject on which he was practical. I simply mention Stan in passing as an example of the fact that it isn't so much knowing a whole lot, as knowing a little and how to use it that counts. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +----------------------------+ | No. 2 | +----------------------------+ | From John Graham, at | | the Union Stock Yards | | in Chicago, to his son, | | Pierrepont, at Harvard | | University. | | | | Mr. Pierrepont's expense | | account has just passed | | under his father's eye, | | and has furnished him | | with a text for some | | plain particularities. | +----------------------------+ II CHICAGO, May 4, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ The cashier has just handed me your expense account for the month, and it fairly makes a fellow hump-shouldered to look it over. When I told you that I wished you to get a liberal education, I didn't mean that I wanted to buy Cambridge. Of course the bills won't break me, but they will break you unless you are very, very careful. I have noticed for the last two years that your accounts have been growing heavier every month, but I haven't seen any signs of your taking honors to justify the increased operating expenses; and that is bad business--a good deal like feeding his weight in corn to a scalawag steer that won't fat up. I haven't said anything about this before, as I trusted a good deal to your native common-sense to keep you from making a fool of yourself in the way that some of these young fellows who haven't had to work for it do. But because I have sat tight, I don't want you to get it into your head that the old man's rich, and that he can stand it, because he won't stand it after you leave college. The sooner you adjust your spending to what your earning capacity will be, the easier they will find it to live together. The only sure way that a man can get rich quick is to have it given to him or to inherit it. You are not going to get rich that way--at least, not until after you have proved your ability to hold a pretty important position with the firm; and, of course, there is just one place from which a man can start for that position with Graham & Co. It doesn't make any difference whether he is the son of the old man or of the cellar boss--that place is the bottom. And the bottom in the office end of this business is a seat at the mailing-desk, with eight dollars every Saturday night. I can't hand out any ready-made success to you. It would do you no good, and it would do the house harm. There is plenty of room at the top here, but there is no elevator in the building. Starting, as you do, with a good education, you should be able to climb quicker than the fellow who hasn't got it; but there's going to be a time when you begin at the factory when you won't be able to lick stamps so fast as the other boys at the desk. Yet the man who hasn't licked stamps isn't fit to write letters. Naturally, that is the time when knowing whether the pie comes before the ice-cream, and how to run an automobile isn't going to be of any real use to you. I simply mention these things because I am afraid your ideas as to the basis on which you are coming with the house have swelled up a little in the East. I can give you a start, but after that you will have to dynamite your way to the front by yourself. It is all with the man. If you gave some fellows a talent wrapped in a napkin to start with in business, they would swap the talent for a gold brick and lose the napkin; and there are others that you could start out with just a napkin, who would set up with it in the dry-goods business in a small way, and then coax the other fellow's talent into it. I have pride enough to believe that you have the right sort of stuff in you, but I want to see some of it come out. You will never make a good merchant of yourself by reversing the order in which the Lord decreed that we should proceed--learning the spending before the earning end of business. Pay day is always a month off for the spend-thrift, and he is never able to realize more than sixty cents on any dollar that comes to him. But a dollar is worth one hundred and six cents to a good business man, and he never spends the dollar. It's the man who keeps saving up and expenses down that buys an interest in the concern. That is where you are going to find yourself weak if your expense accounts don't lie; and they generally don't lie in that particular way, though Baron Munchausen was the first traveling man, and my drummers' bills still show his influence. I know that when a lot of young men get off by themselves, some of them think that recklessness with money brands them as good fellows, and that carefulness is meanness. That is the one end of a college education which is pure cussedness; and that is the one thing which makes nine business men out of ten hesitate to send their boys off to school. But on the other hand, that is the spot where a young man has the chance to show that he is not a light-weight. I know that a good many people say I am a pretty close proposition; that I make every hog which goes through my packing-house give up more lard than the Lord gave him gross weight; that I have improved on Nature to the extent of getting four hams out of an animal which began life with two; but you have lived with me long enough to know that my hand is usually in my pocket at the right time. Now I want to say right here that the meanest man alive is the one who is generous with money that he has not had to sweat for, and that the boy who is a good fellow at some one else's expense would not work up into first-class fertilizer. That same ambition to be known as a good fellow has crowded my office with second-rate clerks, and they always will be second-rate clerks. If you have it, hold it down until you have worked for a year. Then, if your ambition runs to hunching up all week over a desk, to earn eight dollars to blow on a few rounds of drinks for the boys on Saturday night, there is no objection to your gratifying it; for I will know that the Lord didn't intend you to be your own boss. [Illustration: "_I have seen hundreds of boys go to Europe who didn't bring back a great deal except a few trunks of badly fitting clothes._"] You know how I began--I was started off with a kick, but that proved a kick up, and in the end every one since has lifted me a little bit higher. I got two dollars a week, and slept under the counter, and you can bet I knew just how many pennies there were in each of those dollars, and how hard the floor was. That is what you have got to learn. I remember when I was on the Lakes, our schooner was passing out through the draw at Buffalo when I saw little Bill Riggs, the butcher, standing up above me on the end of the bridge with a big roast of beef in his basket. They were a little short in the galley on that trip, so I called up to Bill and he threw the roast down to me. I asked him how much, and he yelled back, "about a dollar." That was mighty good beef, and when we struck Buffalo again on the return trip, I thought I would like a little more of it. So I went up to Bill's shop and asked him for a piece of the same. But this time he gave me a little roast, not near so big as the other, and it was pretty tough and stringy. But when I asked him how much, he answered "about a dollar." He simply didn't have any sense of values, and that's the business man's sixth sense. Bill has always been a big, healthy, hard-working man, but to-day he is very, very poor. The Bills ain't all in the butcher business. I've got some of them right now in my office, but they will never climb over the railing that separates the clerks from the executives. Yet if they would put in half the time thinking for the house that they give up to hatching out reasons why they ought to be allowed to overdraw their salary accounts, I couldn't keep them out of our private offices with a pole-ax, and I wouldn't want to; for they could double their salaries and my profits in a year. But I always lay it down as a safe proposition that the fellow who has to break open the baby's bank toward the last of the week for car-fare isn't going to be any Russell Sage when it comes to trading with the old man's money. He'd punch my bank account as full of holes as a carload of wild Texans would a fool stockman that they'd got in a corner. Now I know you'll say that I don't understand how it is; that you've got to do as the other fellows do; and that things have changed since I was a boy. There's nothing in it. Adam invented all the different ways in which a young man can make a fool of himself, and the college yell at the end of them is just a frill that doesn't change essentials. The boy who does anything just because the other fellows do it is apt to scratch a poor man's back all his life. He's the chap that's buying wheat at ninety-seven cents the day before the market breaks. They call him "the country" in the market reports, but the city's full of him. It's the fellow who has the spunk to think and act for himself, and sells short when prices hit the high C and the house is standing on its hind legs yelling for more, that sits in the directors' meetings when he gets on toward forty. We've got an old steer out at the packing-house that stands around at the foot of the runway leading up to the killing pens, looking for all the world like one of the village fathers sitting on the cracker box before the grocery--sort of sad-eyed, dreamy old cuss--always has two or three straws from his cud sticking out of the corner of his mouth. You never saw a steer that looked as if he took less interest in things. But by and by the boys drive a bunch of steers toward him, or cows maybe, if we're canning, and then you'll see Old Abe move off up that runway, sort of beckoning the bunch after him with that wicked old stump of a tail of his, as if there was something mighty interesting to steers at the top, and something that every Texan and Colorado, raw from the prairies, ought to have a look at to put a metropolitan finish on him. Those steers just naturally follow along on up that runway and into the killing pens. But just as they get to the top, Old Abe, someways, gets lost in the crowd, and he isn't among those present when the gates are closed and the real trouble begins for his new friends. I never saw a dozen boys together that there wasn't an Old Abe among them. If you find your crowd following him, keep away from it. There are times when it's safest to be lonesome. Use a little common-sense, caution and conscience. You can stock a store with those three commodities, when you get enough of them. But you've got to begin getting them young. They ain't catching after you toughen up a bit. You needn't write me if you feel yourself getting them. The symptoms will show in your expense account. Good-by; life's too short to write letters and New York's calling me on the wire. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +-------------------------------+ | No. 3 | +-------------------------------+ | From John Graham, at the | | Union Stock Yards in | | Chicago, to his son, | | Pierrepont, at Harvard | | University. Mr. Pierrepont | | finds Cambridge to his | | liking, and has suggested | | that he take a post-graduate | | course to fill up some | | gaps which he has found | | in his education. | +-------------------------------+ III June 1, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ No, I can't say that I think anything of your post-graduate course idea. You're not going to be a poet or a professor, but a packer, and the place to take a post-graduate course for that calling is in the packing-house. Some men learn all they know from books; others from life; both kinds are narrow. The first are all theory; the second are all practice. It's the fellow who knows enough about practice to test his theories for blow-holes that gives the world a shove ahead, and finds a fair margin of profit in shoving it. There's a chance for everything you have learned, from Latin to poetry, in the packing business, though we don't use much poetry here except in our street-car ads., and about the only time our products are given Latin names is when the State Board of Health condemns them. So I think you'll find it safe to go short a little on the frills of education; if you want them bad enough you'll find a way to pick them up later, after business hours. The main thing is to get a start along right lines, and that is what I sent you to college for. I didn't expect you to carry off all the education in sight--I knew you'd leave a little for the next fellow. But I wanted you to form good mental habits, just as I want you to have clean, straight physical ones. Because I was run through a threshing machine when I was a boy, and didn't begin to get the straw out of my hair till I was past thirty, I haven't any sympathy with a lot of these old fellows who go around bragging of their ignorance and saying that boys don't need to know anything except addition and the "best policy" brand of honesty. We started in a mighty different world, and we were all ignorant together. The Lord let us in on the ground floor, gave us corner lots, and then started in to improve the adjacent property. We didn't have to know fractions to figure out our profits. Now a merchant needs astronomy to see them, and when he locates them they are out somewhere near the fifth decimal place. There are sixteen ounces to the pound still, but two of them are wrapping paper in a good many stores. And there're just as many chances for a fellow as ever, but they're a little gun shy, and you can't catch them by any such coarse method as putting salt on their tails. Thirty years ago, you could take an old muzzle-loader and knock over plenty of ducks in the city limits, and Chicago wasn't Cook County then, either. You can get them still, but you've got to go to Kankakee and take a hammerless along. And when I started in the packing business it was all straight sailing--no frills--just turning hogs into hog meat--dry salt for the niggers down South and sugar-cured for the white folks up North. Everything else was sausage, or thrown away. But when we get through with a hog nowadays, he's scattered through a hundred different cans and packages, and he's all accounted for. What we used to throw away is our profit. It takes doctors, lawyers, engineers, poets, and I don't know what, to run the business, and I reckon that improvements which call for parsons will be creeping in next. Naturally, a young man who expects to hold his own when he is thrown in with a lot of men like these must be as clean and sharp as a hound's tooth, or some other fellow's simply going to eat him up. The first college man I ever hired was old John Durham's son, Jim. That was a good many years ago when the house was a much smaller affair. Jim's father had a lot of money till he started out to buck the universe and corner wheat. And the boy took all the fancy courses and trimmings at college. The old man was mighty proud of Jim. Wanted him to be a literary fellow. But old Durham found out what every one learns who gets his ambitions mixed up with number two red--that there's a heap of it lying around loose in the country. The bears did quick work and kept the cash wheat coming in so lively that one settling day half a dozen of us had to get under the market to keep it from going to everlasting smash. That day made young Jim a candidate for a job. It didn't take him long to decide that the Lord would attend to keeping up the visible supply of poetry, and that he had better turn his attention to the stocks of mess pork. Next morning he was laying for me with a letter of introduction when I got to the office, and when he found that I wouldn't have a private secretary at any price, he applied for every other position on the premises right down to office boy. I told him I was sorry, but I couldn't do anything for him then; that we were letting men go, but I'd keep him in mind, and so on. The fact was that I didn't think a fellow with Jim's training would be much good, anyhow. But Jim hung on--said he'd taken a fancy to the house, and wanted to work for it. Used to call by about twice a week to find out if anything had turned up. Finally, after about a month of this, he wore me down so that I stopped him one day as he was passing me on the street. I thought I'd find out if he really was so red-hot to work as he pretended to be; besides, I felt that perhaps I hadn't treated the boy just right, as I had delivered quite a jag of that wheat to his father myself. "Hello, Jim," I called; "do you still want that job?" "Yes, sir," he answered, quick as lightning. "Well, I tell you how it is, Jim," I said, looking up at him--he was one of those husky, lazy-moving six-footers--"I don't see any chance in the office, but I understand they can use another good, strong man in one of the loading gangs." I thought that would settle Jim and let me out, for it's no joke lugging beef, or rolling barrels and tierces a hundred yards or so to the cars. But Jim came right back at me with, "Done. Who'll I report to?" That sporty way of answering, as if he was closing a bet, made me surer than ever that he was not cut out for a butcher. But I told him, and off he started hot-foot to find the foreman. I sent word by another route to see that he got plenty to do. I forgot all about Jim until about three months later, when his name was handed up to me for a new place and a raise in pay. It seemed that he had sort of abolished his job. After he had been rolling barrels a while, and the sport had ground down one of his shoulders a couple of inches lower than the other, he got to scheming around for a way to make the work easier, and he hit on an idea for a sort of overhead railroad system, by which the barrels could be swung out of the storerooms and run right along into the cars, and two or three men do the work of a gang. It was just as I thought. Jim was lazy, but he had put the house in the way of saving so much money that I couldn't fire him. So I raised his salary, and made him an assistant timekeeper and checker. Jim kept at this for three or four months, until his feet began to hurt him, I guess, and then he was out of a job again. It seems he had heard something of a new machine for registering the men, that did away with most of the timekeepers except the fellows who watched the machines, and he kept after the Superintendent until he got him to put them in. Of course he claimed a raise again for effecting such a saving, and we just had to allow it. I was beginning to take an interest in Jim, so I brought him up into the office and set him to copying circular letters. We used to send out a raft of them to the trade. That was just before the general adoption of typewriters, when they were still in the experimental stage. But Jim hadn't been in the office plugging away at the letters for a month before he had the writer's cramp, and began nosing around again. The first thing I knew he was sicking the agents for the new typewriting machine on to me, and he kept them pounding away until they had made me give them a trial. Then it was all up with Mister Jim's job again. I raised his salary without his asking for it this time, and put him out on the road to introduce a new product that we were making--beef extract. Jim made two trips without selling enough to keep them working overtime at the factory, and then he came into my office with a long story about how we were doing it all wrong. Said we ought to go for the consumer by advertising, and make the trade come to us, instead of chasing it up. That was so like Jim that I just laughed at first; besides, that sort of advertising was a pretty new thing then, and I was one of the old-timers who didn't take any stock in it. But Jim just kept plugging away at me between trips, until finally I took him off the road and told him to go ahead and try it in a small way. Jim pretty nearly scared me to death that first year. At last he had got into something that he took an interest in--spending money--and he just fairly wallowed in it. Used to lay awake nights, thinking up new ways of getting rid of the old man's profits. And he found them. Seemed as if I couldn't get away from Graham's Extract, and whenever I saw it I gagged, for I knew it was costing me money that wasn't coming back; but every time I started to draw in my horns Jim talked to me, and showed me where there was a fortune waiting for me just around the corner. [Illustration: "_I put Jim Durham out on the road to introduce a new product._"] Graham's Extract started out by being something that you could make beef-tea out of--that was all. But before Jim had been fooling with it a month he had got his girl to think up a hundred different ways in which it could be used, and had advertised them all. It seemed there was nothing you could cook that didn't need a dash of it. He kept me between a chill and a sweat all the time. Sometimes, but not often, I just _had_ to grin at his foolishness. I remember one picture he got out showing sixteen cows standing between something that looked like a letter-press, and telling how every pound or so of Graham's Extract contained the juice squeezed from a herd of steers. If an explorer started for the North Pole, Jim would send him a case of Extract, and then advertise that it was the great heat-maker for cold climates; and if some other fellow started across Africa he sent _him_ a case, too, and advertised what a bully drink it was served up with a little ice. He broke out in a new place every day, and every time he broke out it cost the house money. Finally, I made up my mind to swallow the loss, and Mister Jim was just about to lose his job sure enough, when the orders for Extract began to look up, and he got a reprieve; then he began to make expenses, and he got a pardon; and finally a rush came that left him high and dry in a permanent place. Jim was all right in his way, but it was a new way, and I hadn't been broad-gauged enough to see that it was a better way. That was where I caught the connection between a college education and business. I've always made it a rule to buy brains, and I've learned now that the better trained they are the faster they find reasons for getting their salaries raised. The fellow who hasn't had the training may be just as smart, but he's apt to paw the air when he's reaching for ideas. I suppose you're asking why, if I'm so hot for education, I'm against this post-graduate course. But habits of thought ain't the only thing a fellow picks up at college. I see you've been elected President of your class. I'm glad the boys aren't down on you, but while the most popular man in his class isn't always a failure in business, being as popular as that takes up a heap of time. I noticed, too, when you were home Easter, that you were running to sporty clothes and cigarettes. There's nothing criminal about either, but I don't hire sporty clerks at all, and the only part of the premises on which cigarette smoking is allowed is the fertilizer factory. I simply mention this in passing. I have every confidence in your ultimate good sense, and I guess you'll see the point without my elaborating with a meat ax my reasons for thinking that you've had enough college for the present. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +-----------------------------+ | No. 4 | +-----------------------------+ | From John Graham, head | | of the house of Graham | | & Co., at the Union Stock | | Yards in Chicago, to his | | son, Pierrepont Graham, | | at the Waldorf-Astoria, | | in New York. Mr. | | Pierrepont has suggested | | the grand tour as a | | proper finish to his | | education. | +-----------------------------+ IV June 25, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ Your letter of the seventh twists around the point a good deal like a setter pup chasing his tail. But I gather from it that you want to spend a couple of months in Europe before coming on here and getting your nose in the bull-ring. Of course, you are your own boss now and you ought to be able to judge better than any one else how much time you have to waste, but it seems to me, on general principles, that a young man of twenty-two, who is physically and mentally sound, and who hasn't got a dollar and has never earned one, can't be getting on somebody's pay-roll too quick. And in this connection it is only fair to tell you that I have instructed the cashier to discontinue your allowance after July 15. That gives you two weeks for a vacation--enough to make a sick boy well, or a lazy one lazier. I hear a good deal about men who won't take vacations, and who kill themselves by overwork, but it's usually worry or whiskey. It's not what a man does during working-hours, but after them, that breaks down his health. A fellow and his business should be bosom friends in the office and sworn enemies out of it. A clear mind is one that is swept clean of business at six o'clock every night and isn't opened up for it again until after the shutters are taken down next morning. Some fellows leave the office at night and start out to whoop it up with the boys, and some go home to sit up with their troubles--they're both in bad company. They're the men who are always needing vacations, and never getting any good out of them. What every man does need once a year is a change of work--that is, if he has been curved up over a desk for fifty weeks and subsisting on birds and burgundy, he ought to take to fishing for a living and try bacon and eggs, with a little spring water, for dinner. But coming from Harvard to the packing-house will give you change enough this year to keep you in good trim, even if you didn't have a fortnight's leeway to run loose. You will always find it a safe rule to take a thing just as quick as it is offered--especially a job. It is never easy to get one except when you don't want it; but when you have to get work, and go after it with a gun, you'll find it as shy as an old crow that every farmer in the county has had a shot at. When I was a young fellow and out of a place, I always made it a rule to take the first job that offered, and to use it for bait. You can catch a minnow with a worm, and a bass will take your minnow. A good fat bass will tempt an otter, and then you've got something worth skinning. Of course, there's no danger of your not being able to get a job with the house--in fact, there is no real way in which you can escape getting one; but I don't like to see you shy off every time the old man gets close to you with the halter. I want you to learn right at the outset not to play with the spoon before you take the medicine. Putting off an easy thing makes it hard, and putting off a hard one makes it impossible. Procrastination is the longest word in the language, but there's only one letter between its ends when they occupy their proper places in the alphabet. Old Dick Stover, for whom I once clerked in Indiana, was the worst hand at procrastinating that I ever saw. Dick was a powerful hearty eater, and no one ever loved meal-time better, but he used to keep turning over in bed mornings for just another wink and staving off getting up, until finally his wife combined breakfast and dinner on him, and he only got two meals a day. He was a mighty religious man, too, but he got to putting off saying his prayers until after he was in bed, and then he would keep passing them along until his mind was clear of worldly things, and in the end he would drop off to sleep without saying them at all. What between missing the Sunday morning service and never being seen on his knees, the first thing Dick knew he was turned out of the church. He had a pretty good business when I first went with him, but he would keep putting off firing his bad clerks until they had lit out with the petty cash; and he would keep putting off raising the salaries of his good ones until his competitor had hired them away. Finally, he got so that he wouldn't discount his bills, even when he had the money; and when they came due he would give notes so as to keep from paying out his cash a little longer. Running a business on those lines is, of course, equivalent to making a will in favor of the sheriff and committing suicide so that he can inherit. The last I heard of Dick he was ninety-three years old and just about to die. That was ten years ago, and I'll bet he's living yet. I simply mention Dick in passing as an instance of how habits rule a man's life. There is one excuse for every mistake a man can make, but only one. When a fellow makes the same mistake twice he's got to throw up both hands and own up to carelessness or cussedness. Of course, I knew that you would make a fool of yourself pretty often when I sent you to college, and I haven't been disappointed. But I expected you to narrow down the number of combinations possible by making a different sort of a fool of yourself every time. That is the important thing, unless a fellow has too lively an imagination, or has none at all. You are bound to try this European foolishness sooner or later, but if you will wait a few years, you will approach it in an entirely different spirit--and you will come back with a good deal of respect for the people who have sense enough to stay at home. [Illustration: "_Old Dick Stover was the worst hand at procrastinating that I ever saw._"] I piece out from your letter that you expect a few months on the other side will sort of put a polish on you. I don't want to seem pessimistic, but I have seen hundreds of boys graduate from college and go over with the same idea, and they didn't bring back a great deal except a few trunks of badly fitting clothes. Seeing the world is like charity--it covers a multitude of sins, and, like charity, it ought to begin at home. Culture is not a matter of a change of climate. You'll hear more about Browning to the square foot in the Mississippi Valley than you will in England. And there's as much Art talk on the Lake front as in the Latin Quarter. It may be a little different, but it's there. I went to Europe once myself. I was pretty raw when I left Chicago, and I was pretty sore when I got back. Coming and going I was simply sick. In London, for the first time in my life, I was taken for an easy thing. Every time I went into a store there was a bull movement. The clerks all knocked off their regular work and started in to mark up prices. They used to tell me that they didn't have any gold-brick men over there. So they don't. They deal in pictures--old masters, they call them. I bought two--you know the ones--those hanging in the waiting-room at the stock yards; and when I got back I found out that they had been painted by a measly little fellow who went to Paris to study art, after Bill Harris had found out that he was no good as a settling clerk. I keep 'em to remind myself that there's no fool like an old American fool when he gets this picture paresis. The fellow who tried to fit me out with a coat-of-arms didn't find me so easy. I picked mine when I first went into business for myself--a charging steer--and it's registered at Washington. It's my trade-mark, of course, and that's the only coat-of-arms an American merchant has any business with. It's penetrated to every quarter of the globe in the last twenty years, and every soldier in the world has carried it--in his knapsack. I take just as much pride in it as the fellow who inherits his and can't find any place to put it, except on his carriage door and his letter-head--and it's a heap more profitable. It's got so now that every jobber in the trade knows that it stands for good quality, and that's all any Englishman's coat-of-arms can stand for. Of course, an American's can't stand for anything much--generally it's the burned-in-the-skin brand of a snob. After the way some of the descendants of the old New York Dutchmen with the hoe and the English general storekeepers have turned out, I sometimes feel a little uneasy about what my great-grandchildren may do, but we'll just stick to the trade-mark and try to live up to it while the old man's in the saddle. I simply mention these things in a general way. I have no fears for you after you've been at work for a few years, and have struck an average between the packing-house and Harvard; then if you want to graze over a wider range it can't hurt you. But for the present you will find yourself pretty busy trying to get into the winning class. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +------------------------------+ | No. 5 | +------------------------------+ | From John Graham, head | | of the house of Graham & | | Co., at the Union Stock | | Yards in Chicago, to his | | son, Pierrepont Graham, | | at Lake Moosgatchemawamuc, | | in the Maine woods. Mr. | | Pierrepont has written to | | his father withdrawing | | his suggestion. | +------------------------------+ V July 7, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ Yours of the fourth has the right ring, and it says more to the number of words used than any letter that I have ever received from you. I remember reading once that some fellows use language to conceal thought; but it's been my experience that a good many more use it _instead_ of thought. A business man's conversation should be regulated by fewer and simpler rules than any other function of the human animal. They are: Have something to say. Say it. Stop talking. Beginning before you know what you want to say and keeping on after you have said it lands a merchant in a lawsuit or the poorhouse, and the first is a short cut to the second. I maintain a legal department here, and it costs a lot of money, but it's to keep me from going to law. It's all right when you are calling on a girl or talking with friends after dinner to run a conversation like a Sunday-school excursion, with stops to pick flowers; but in the office your sentences should be the shortest distance possible between periods. Cut out the introduction and the peroration, and stop before you get to secondly. You've got to preach short sermons to catch sinners; and deacons won't believe they need long ones themselves. Give fools the first and women the last word. The meat's always in the middle of the sandwich. Of course, a little butter on either side of it doesn't do any harm if it's intended for a man who likes butter. Remember, too, that it's easier to look wise than to talk wisdom. Say less than the other fellow and listen more than you talk; for when a man's listening he isn't telling on himself and he's flattering the fellow who is. Give most men a good listener and most women enough note-paper and they'll tell all they know. Money talks--but not unless its owner has a loose tongue, and then its remarks are always offensive. Poverty talks, too, but nobody wants to hear what it has to say. I simply mention these things in passing because I'm afraid you're apt to be the fellow who's doing the talking; just as I'm a little afraid that you're sometimes like the hungry drummer at the dollar-a-day house--inclined to kill your appetite by eating the cake in the centre of the table before the soup comes on. Of course, I'm glad to see you swing into line and show the proper spirit about coming on here and going to work; but you mustn't get yourself all "het up" before you take the plunge, because you're bound to find the water pretty cold at first. I've seen a good many young fellows pass through and out of this office. The first week a lot of them go to work they're in a sweat for fear they'll be fired; and the second week for fear they won't be. By the third, a boy that's no good has learned just how little work he can do and keep his job; while the fellow who's got the right stuff in him is holding down his own place with one hand and beginning to reach for the job just ahead of him with the other. I don't mean that he's neglecting his work; but he's beginning to take notice, and that's a mighty hopeful sign in either a young clerk or a young widow. You've got to handle the first year of your business life about the way you would a trotting horse. Warm up a little before going to the post--not enough to be in a sweat, but just enough to be limber and eager. Never start off at a gait that you can't improve on, but move along strong and well in hand to the quarter. Let out a notch there, but take it calm enough up to the half not to break, and hard enough not to fall back into the ruck. At the three-quarters you ought to be going fast enough to poke your nose out of the other fellow's dust, and running like the Limited in the stretch. Keep your eyes to the front all the time, and you won't be so apt to shy at the little things by the side of the track. Head up, tail over the dashboard--that's the way the winners look in the old pictures of Maud S. and Dexter and Jay-Eye-See. And that's the way I want to see you swing by the old man at the end of the year, when we hoist the numbers of the fellows who are good enough to promote and pick out the salaries which need a little sweetening. I've always taken a good deal of stock in what you call "Blood-will-tell" if you're a Methodist, or "Heredity" if you're a Unitarian; and I don't want you to come along at this late day and disturb my religious beliefs. A man's love for his children and his pride are pretty badly snarled up in this world, and he can't always pick them apart. I think a heap of you and a heap of the house, and I want to see you get along well together. To do that you must start right. It's just as necessary to make a good first impression in business as in courting. You'll read a good deal about "love at first sight" in novels, and there may be something in it for all I know; but I'm dead certain there's no such thing as love at first sight in business. A man's got to keep company a long time, and come early and stay late and sit close, before he can get a girl or a job worth having. There's nothing comes without calling in this world, and after you've called you've generally got to go and fetch it yourself. Our bright young men have discovered how to make a pretty good article of potted chicken, and they don't need any help from hens, either; and you can smell the clover in our butterine if you've developed the poetic side of your nose; but none of the boys have been able to discover anything that will pass as a substitute for work, even in a boarding-house, though I'll give some of them credit for having tried pretty hard. [Illustration: "_Charlie Chase told me he was President of the Klondike Exploring, Gold Prospecting and Immigration Company._"] I remember when I was selling goods for old Josh Jennings, back in the sixties, and had rounded up about a thousand in a savings-bank--a mighty hard thousand, that came a dollar or so at a time, and every dollar with a little bright mark where I had bit it--I roomed with a dry-goods clerk named Charlie Chase. Charlie had a hankering to be a rich man; but somehow he could never see any connection between that hankering and his counter, except that he'd hint to me sometimes about an heiress who used to squander her father's money shamefully for the sake of having Charlie wait on her. But when it came to getting rich outside the dry-goods business and getting rich in a hurry, Charlie was the man. Along about Tuesday night--he was paid on Saturday--he'd stay at home and begin to scheme. He'd commence at eight o'clock and start a magazine, maybe, and before midnight he'd be turning away subscribers because his presses couldn't print a big enough edition. Or perhaps he wouldn't feel literary that night, and so he'd invent a system for speculating in wheat and go on pyramiding his purchases till he'd made the best that Cheops did look like a five-cent plate of ice cream. All he ever needed was a few hundred for a starter, and to get that he'd decide to let me in on the ground floor. I want to say right here that whenever any one offers to let you in on the ground floor it's a pretty safe rule to take the elevator to the roof garden. I never exactly refused to lend Charlie the capital he needed, but we generally compromised on half a dollar next morning, when he was in a hurry to make the store to keep from getting docked. He dropped by the office last week, a little bent and seedy, but all in a glow and trembling with excitement in the old way. Told me he was President of the Klondike Exploring, Gold Prospecting and Immigration Company, with a capital of ten millions. I guessed that he was the board of directors and the capital stock and the exploring and the prospecting and the immigrating, too--everything, in fact, except the business card he'd sent in; for Charlie always had a gift for nosing out printers who'd trust him. Said that for the sake of old times he'd let me have a few thousand shares at fifty cents, though they would go to par in a year. In the end we compromised on a loan of ten dollars, and Charlie went away happy. The swamps are full of razor-backs like Charlie, fellows who'd rather make a million a night in their heads than five dollars a day in cash. I have always found it cheaper to lend a man of that build a little money than to hire him. As a matter of fact, I have never known a fellow who was smart enough to think for the house days and for himself nights. A man who tries that is usually a pretty poor thinker, and he isn't much good to either; but if there's any choice the house gets the worst of it. I simply mention these little things in a general way. If you can take my word for some of them you are going to save yourself a whole lot of trouble. There are others which I don't speak of because life is too short and because it seems to afford a fellow a heap of satisfaction to pull the trigger for himself to see if it is loaded; and a lesson learned at the muzzle has the virtue of never being forgotten. You report to Milligan at the yards at eight sharp on the fifteenth. You'd better figure on being here on the fourteenth, because Milligan's a pretty touchy Irishman, and I may be able to give you a point or two that will help you to keep on his mellow side. He's apt to feel a little sore at taking on in his department a man whom he hasn't passed on. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +-----------------------------+ | No. 6 | +-----------------------------+ | From John Graham, en route | | to Texas, to Pierrepont | | Graham, care of Graham & | | Co., Union Stock Yards, | | Chicago. Mr. Pierrepont | | has, entirely without | | intention, caused a little | | confusion in the mails, | | and it has come to his | | father's notice in the | | course of business. | +-----------------------------+ VI PRIVATE CAR PARNASSUS, Aug. 15, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ Perhaps it's just as well that I had to hurry last night to make my train, and so had no time to tell you some things that are laying mighty heavy on my mind this morning. Jim Donnelly, of the Donnelly Provision Company, came into the office in the afternoon, with a fool grin on his fat face, to tell me that while he appreciated a note which he had just received in one of the firm's envelopes, beginning "Dearest," and containing an invitation to the theatre to-morrow night, it didn't seem to have any real bearing on his claim for shortage on the last carload of sweet pickled hams he had bought from us. Of course, I sent for Milligan and went for him pretty rough for having a mailing clerk so no-account as to be writing personal letters in office hours, and such a blunderer as to mix them up with the firm's correspondence. Milligan just stood there like a dumb Irishman and let me get through and go back and cuss him out all over again, with some trimmings that I had forgotten the first time, before he told me that you were the fellow who had made the bull. Naturally, I felt pretty foolish, and, while I tried to pass it off with something about your still being green and raw, the ice was mighty thin, and you had the old man running tiddledies. It didn't make me feel any sweeter about the matter to hear that when Milligan went for you, and asked what you supposed Donnelly would think of that sort of business, you told him to "consider the feelings of the girl who got our brutal refusal to allow a claim for a few hundredweight of hams." I haven't any special objection to your writing to girls and telling them that they are the real sugar-cured article, for, after all, if you overdo it, it's your breach-of-promise suit, but you must write before eight or after six. I have bought the stretch between those hours. Your time is money--my money--and when you take half an hour of it for your own purposes, that is just a petty form of petty larceny. Milligan tells me that you are quick to learn, and that you can do a powerful lot of work when you've a mind to; but he adds that it's mighty seldom your mind takes that particular turn. Your attention may be on the letters you are addressing, or you may be in a comatose condition mentally; he never quite knows until the returns come from the dead-letter office. A man can't have his head pumped out like a vacuum pan, or stuffed full of odds and ends like a bologna sausage, and do his work right. It doesn't make any difference how mean and trifling the thing he's doing may seem, that's the big thing and the only thing for him just then. Business is like oil--it won't mix with anything but business. You can resolve everything in the world, even a great fortune, into atoms. And the fundamental principles which govern the handling of postage stamps and of millions are exactly the same. They are the common law of business, and the whole practice of commerce is founded on them. They are so simple that a fool can't learn them; so hard that a lazy man won't. Boys are constantly writing me for advice about how to succeed, and when I send them my receipt they say that I am dealing out commonplace generalities. Of course I am, but that's what the receipt calls for, and if a boy will take these commonplace generalities and knead them into his job, the mixture'll be cake. [Illustration: "_Jim Donnelly of the Donnelly Provision Company came into my office with a fool grin on his fat face._"] Once a fellow's got the primary business virtues cemented into his character, he's safe to build on. But when a clerk crawls into the office in the morning like a sick setter pup, and leaps from his stool at night with the spring of a tiger, I'm a little afraid that if I sent him off to take charge of a branch house he wouldn't always be around when customers were. He's the sort of a chap who would hold back the sun an hour every morning and have it gain two every afternoon if the Lord would give him the same discretionary powers that He gave Joshua. And I have noticed that he's the fellow who invariably takes a timekeeper as an insult. He's pretty numerous in business offices; in fact, if the glance of the human eye could affect a clockface in the same way that a man's country cousins affect their city welcome, I should have to buy a new timepiece for the office every morning. I remember when I was a boy, we used to have a pretty lively camp-meeting every summer, and Elder Hoover, who was accounted a powerful exhorter in our parts, would wrastle with the sinners and the backsliders. There was one old chap in the town--Bill Budlong--who took a heap of pride in being the simon pure cuss. Bill was always the last man to come up to the mourners' bench at the camp-meeting and the first one to backslide when it was over. Used to brag around about what a hold Satan had on him and how his sin was the original brand, direct from Adam, put up in cans to keep, and the can-opener lost. Doc Hoover would get the whole town safe in the fold and then have to hold extra meetings for a couple of days to snake in that miserable Bill; but, in the end, he always got religion and got it hard. For a month or two afterward, he'd make the chills run down the backs of us children in prayer-meeting, telling how he had probably been the triflingest and orneriest man alive before he was converted. Then, along toward hog-killing time, he'd backslide, and go around bragging that he was standing so close to the mouth of the pit that his whiskers smelt of brimstone. He kept this up for about ten years, getting vainer and vainer of his staying qualities, until one summer, when the Elder had rounded up all the likeliest sinners in the bunch, he announced that the meetings were over for that year. You never saw a sicker-looking man than Bill when he heard that there wasn't going to be any extra session for him. He got up and said he reckoned another meeting would fetch him; that he sort of felt the clutch of old Satan loosening; but Doc Hoover was firm. Then Bill begged to have a special deacon told off to wrastle with him, but Doc wouldn't listen to that. Said he'd been wasting time enough on him for ten years to save a county, and he had just about made up his mind to let him try his luck by himself; that what he really needed more than religion was common-sense and a conviction that time in this world was too valuable to be frittered away. If he'd get that in his head he didn't think he'd be so apt to trifle with eternity; and if he didn't get it, religion wouldn't be of any special use to him. A big merchant finds himself in Doc Hoover's fix pretty often. There are too many likely young sinners in his office to make it worth while to bother long with the Bills. Very few men are worth wasting time on beyond a certain point, and that point is soon reached with a fellow who doesn't show any signs of wanting to help. Naturally, a green man always comes to a house in a pretty subordinate position, and it isn't possible to make so much noise with a firecracker as with a cannon. But you can tell a good deal by what there is left of the boy, when you come to inventory him on the fifth of July, whether he'll be safe to trust with a cannon next year. It isn't the little extra money that you may make for the house by learning the fundamental business virtues which counts so much as it is the effect that it has on your character and that of those about you, and especially on the judgment of the old man when he's casting around for the fellow to fill the vacancy just ahead of you. He's pretty apt to pick some one who keeps separate ledger accounts for work and for fun, who gives the house sixteen ounces to the pound, and, on general principles, to pass by the one who is late at the end where he ought to be early, and early at the end where he ought to be late. I simply mention these things in passing, but, frankly, I am afraid that you have a streak of the Bill in you; and you can't be a good clerk, let alone a partner, until you get it out. I try not to be narrow when I'm weighing up a young fellow, and to allow for soakage and leakage, and then to throw in a little for good feeling; but I don't trade with a man whom I find deliberately marking up the weights on me. This is a fine country we're running through, but it's a pity that it doesn't raise more hogs. It seems to take a farmer a long time to learn that the best way to sell his corn is on the hoof. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. P.S. I just had to allow Donnelly his claim on those hams, though I was dead sure our weights were right, and it cost the house sixty dollars. But your fool letter took all the snap out of our argument. I get hot every time I think of it. +------------------------------+ | No. 7 | +------------------------------+ | From John Graham, at the | | Omaha Branch of Graham & | | Co., to Pierrepont Graham, | | at the Union Stock Yards, | | Chicago. Mr. Pierrepont | | hasn't found the methods | | of the worthy Milligan | | altogether to his liking, | | and he has commented | | rather freely on them. | +------------------------------+ VII OMAHA, September 1, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ Yours of the 30th ultimo strikes me all wrong. I don't like to hear you say that you can't work under Milligan or any other man, for it shows a fundamental weakness. And then, too, the house isn't interested in knowing how you like your boss, but in how he likes you. I understand all about Milligan. He's a cross, cranky old Irishman with a temper tied up in bow-knots, who prods his men with the bull-stick six days a week and schemes to get them salary raises on the seventh, when he ought to be listening to the sermon; who puts the black-snake on a clerk's hide when he sends a letter to Oshkosh that ought to go to Kalamazoo, and begs him off when the old man wants to have him fired for it. Altogether he's a hard, crabbed, generous, soft-hearted, loyal, bully old boy, who's been with the house since we took down the shutters for the first time, and who's going to stay with it till we put them up for the last time. But all that apart, you want to get it firmly fixed in your mind that you're going to have a Milligan over you all your life, and if it isn't a Milligan it will be a Jones or a Smith, and the chances are that you'll find them both harder to get along with than this old fellow. And if it isn't Milligan or Jones or Smith, and you ain't a butcher, but a parson or a doctor, or even the President of the United States, it'll be a way-back deacon, or the undertaker, or the machine. There isn't any such thing as being your own boss in this world unless you're a tramp, and then there's the constable. Like the old man if you can, but give him no cause to dislike you. Keep your self-respect at any cost, and your upper lip stiff at the same figure. Criticism can properly come only from above, and whenever you discover that your boss is no good you may rest easy that the man who pays his salary shares your secret. Learn to give back a bit from the base-burner, to let the village fathers get their feet on the fender and the sawdust box in range, and you'll find them making a little room for you in turn. Old men have tender feet, and apologies are poor salve for aching corns. Remember that when you're in the right you can afford to keep your temper, and that when you're in the wrong you can't afford to lose it. When you've got an uncertain cow it's all O.K. to tie a figure eight in her tail, if you ain't thirsty, and it's excitement you're after; but if you want peace and her nine quarts, you will naturally approach her from the side, and say, So-boss, in about the same tone that you would use if you were asking your best girl to let you hold her hand. Of course, you want to be sure of your natural history facts and learn to distinguish between a cow that's a kicker, but whose intentions are good if she's approached with proper respect, and a hooker, who is vicious on general principles, and any way you come at her. There's never any use fooling with an animal of that sort, brute or human. The only safe place is the other side of the fence or the top of the nearest tree. [Illustration: "_Bill Budlong was always the last man to come up to the mourners' bench._"] When I was clerking in Missouri, a fellow named Jeff Hankins moved down from Wisconsin and bought a little clearing just outside the town. Jeff was a good talker, but a bad listener, and so we learned a heap about how things were done in Wisconsin, but he didn't pick up much information about the habits of our Missouri fauna. When it came to cows, he had had a liberal education and he made out all right, but by and by it got on to ploughing time and Jeff naturally bought a mule--a little moth-eaten cuss, with sad, dreamy eyes and droopy, wiggly-woggly ears that swung in a circle as easy as if they ran on ball-bearings. Her owner didn't give her a very good character, but Jeff was too busy telling how much he knew about horses to pay much attention to what anybody was saying about mules. So finally the seller turned her loose in Jeff's lot, told him he wouldn't have any trouble catching her if he approached her right, and hurried off out of range. Next morning at sunup Jeff picked out a bridle and started off whistling Buffalo Gals--he was a powerful pretty whistler and could do the Mocking Bird with variations--to catch the mule and begin his plowing. The animal was feeding as peaceful as a water-color picture, and she didn't budge; but when Jeff began to get nearer, her ears dropped back along her neck as if they had lead in them. He knew that symptom and so he closed up kind of cautious, aiming for her at right angles and gurgling, "Muley, muley, here muley; that's a good muley," sort of soothing and caressing-like. Still she didn't stir and Jeff got right up to her and put one arm over her back and began to reach forward with the bridle, when something happened. He never could explain just what it was, but we judged from the marks on his person that the mule had reached forward and kicked the seat of his trousers with one of her prehensile hind feet; and had reached back and caught him on the last button of his waistcoat with one of her limber fore feet; and had twisted around her elastic neck and bit off a mouthful of his hair. When Jeff regained consciousness, he reckoned that the only really safe way to approach a mule was to drop on it from a balloon. I simply mention this little incident as an example of the fact that there are certain animals with which the Lord didn't intend white men to fool. And you will find that, as a rule, the human varieties of them are not the fellows who go for you rough-shod, like Milligan, when you're wrong. It's when you come across one of those gentlemen who have more oil in their composition than any two-legged animal has a right to have, that you should be on the lookout for concealed deadly weapons. I don't mean that you should distrust a man who is affable and approachable, but you want to learn to distinguish between him and one who is too affable and too approachable. The adverb makes the difference between a good and a bad fellow. The bunco men aren't all at the county fair, and they don't all operate with the little shells and the elusive pea. When a packer has learned all that there is to learn about quadrupeds, he knows only one-eighth of his business; the other seven-eighths, and the important seven-eighths, has to do with the study of bipeds. I dwell on this because I am a little disappointed that you should have made such a mistake in sizing up Milligan. He isn't the brightest man in the office, but he is loyal to me and to the house, and when you have been in business as long as I have you will be inclined to put a pretty high value on loyalty. It is the one commodity that hasn't any market value, and it's the one that you can't pay too much for. You can trust any number of men with your money, but mighty few with your reputation. Half the men who are with the house on pay day are against it the other six. A good many young fellows come to me looking for jobs, and start in by telling me what a mean house they have been working for; what a cuss to get along with the senior partner was; and how little show a bright, progressive clerk had with him. I never get very far with a critter of that class, because I know that he wouldn't like me or the house if he came to work for us. I don't know anything that a young business man ought to keep more entirely to himself than his dislikes, unless it is his likes. It's generally expensive to have either, but it's bankruptcy to tell about them. It's all right to say nothing about the dead but good, but it's better to apply the rule to the living, and especially to the house which is paying your salary. Just one word before I close, as old Doc Hoover used to say, when he was coming into the stretch, but still a good ways off from the benediction. I have noticed that you are inclined to be a little chesty and starchy around the office. Of course, it's good business, when a fellow hasn't much behind his forehead, to throw out his chest and attract attention to his shirt-front. But as you begin to meet the men who have done something that makes them worth meeting you will find that there are no "keep off the grass" or "beware of the dog" signs around their premises, and that they don't motion to the orchestra to play slow music while they talk. Superiority makes every man feel its equal. It is courtesy without condescension; affability without familiarity; self-sufficiency without selfishness; simplicity without snide. It weighs sixteen ounces to the pound without the package, and it doesn't need a four-colored label to make it go. We are coming home from here. I am a little disappointed in the showing that this house has been making. Pound for pound it is not getting nearly so much out of its hogs as we are in Chicago. I don't know just where the leak is, but if they don't do better next month I am coming back here with a shotgun, and there's going to be a pretty heavy mortality among our head men. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +------------------------------+ | No. 8 | +------------------------------+ | From John Graham, at Hot | | Springs, Arkansas, to his | | son, Pierrepont, at the | | Union Stock Yards in | | Chicago. Mr. Pierrepont | | has just been promoted | | from the mailing to the | | billing desk and, in | | consequence, his father | | is feeling rather "mellow" | | toward him. | +------------------------------+ VIII HOT SPRINGS, January 15, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ They've run me through the scalding vats here till they've pretty nearly taken all the hair off my hide, but that or something else has loosened up my joints so that they don't squeak any more when I walk. The doctor says he'll have my rheumatism cured in thirty days, so I guess you can expect me home in about a fortnight. For he's the breed of doctor that is always two weeks ahead of his patients' condition when they're poor, and two weeks behind it when they're rich. He calls himself a specialist, which means that it costs me ten dollars every time he has a look in at my tongue, against two that I would pay the family doctor for gratifying his curiosity. But I guess this specialist business is about the only outlet for marketing the surplus of young doctors. Reminds me of the time when we were piling up canned corned beef in stock faster than people would eat it, and a big drought happened along in Texas and began driving the canners in to the packing-house quicker than we could tuck them away in tin. Jim Durham tried to "stimulate the consumption," as he put it, by getting out a nice little booklet called, "A Hundred Dainty Dishes from a Can," and telling how to work off corned beef on the family in various disguises; but, after he had schemed out ten different combinations, the other ninety turned out to be corned-beef hash. So that was no use. But one day we got together and had a nice, fancy, appetizing label printed, and we didn't economize on the gilt--a picture of a steer so fat that he looked as if he'd break his legs if they weren't shored up pretty quick with props, and with blue ribbons tied to his horns. We labeled it "Blue Ribbon Beef--For Fancy Family Trade," and charged an extra ten cents a dozen for the cans on which that special label was pasted. Of course, people just naturally wanted it. There's nothing helps convince some men that a thing has merit like a little gold on the label. And it's pretty safe to bet that if a fellow needs a six or seven-syllabled word to describe his profession, he's a corn doctor when you come to look him up in the dictionary. And then you'll generally find him in the back part of the book where they tuck away the doubtful words. But that isn't what I started out to say. I want to tell you that I was very, very glad to learn from your letter that you had been promoted to the billing desk. I have felt all along that when you got a little of the nonsense tried out of you there would be a residue of common-sense, and I am glad to have your boss back up my judgment. There's two things you just naturally don't expect from human nature--that the widow's tombstone estimate of the departed, on which she is trying to convince the neighbors against their better judgment that he went to Heaven, and the father's estimate of the son, on which he is trying to pass him along into a good salary, will be conservative. I had that driven into my mind and spiked down when I hired the widow's son a few years ago. His name was Clarence--Clarence St. Clair Hicks--and his father used to keep books for me when he wasn't picking the winners at Washington Park or figuring out the batting averages of the Chicagos. He was one of those quick men who always have their books posted up half an hour before closing time for three weeks of the month, and spend the evenings of the fourth hunting up the eight cents that they are out on the trial balance. When he died his wife found that his life insurance had lapsed the month before, and so she brought Clarence down to the office and asked me to give him a job. Clarence wasn't exactly a pretty boy; in fact, he looked to me like another of his father's bad breaks; but his mother seemed to think a heap of him. I learned that he would have held the belt in his Sunday-school for long-distance verse-reciting if the mother of one of the other boys hadn't fixed the superintendent, and that it had taken a general conspiracy of the teachers in his day-school to keep him from walking off with the good-conduct medal. I couldn't just reconcile those statements with Clarence's face, but I accepted him at par and had him passed along to the head errand boy. His mother cried a little when she saw him marched off, and asked me to see that he was treated kindly and wasn't bullied by the bigger boys, because he had been "raised a pet." A number of unusual things happened in the offices that morning, and the head office boy thought Clarence might be able to explain some of them, but he had an alibi ready every time--even when a bookkeeper found the vault filled with cigarette smoke and Clarence in it hunting for something he couldn't describe. But as he was a new boy, no one was disposed to bear down on him very hard, so his cigarettes were taken away from him and he was sent back to his bench with a warning that he had used up all his explanations. Along toward noon, a big Boston customer came in with his little boy--a nice, plump, stall-fed youngster, with black velvet pants and hair that was just a little longer than was safe in the stock-yards district. And while we were talking business, the kid wandered off to the coat-room, where the errand boys were eating lunch, which was a pretty desperate place for a boy with velvet pants on to go. [Illustration: "_Clarence looked to me like another of his father's bad breaks._"] As far as we could learn from Willie when he came out of his convulsions, the boys had been very polite to him and had insisted on his joining in a new game which Clarence had just invented, called playing pig-sticker. And, because he was company, Clarence told him that he could be the pig. Willie didn't know just what being the pig meant, but, as he told his father, it didn't sound very nice and he was afraid he wouldn't like it. So he tried to pass along the honor to some one else, but Clarence insisted that it was "hot stuff to be the pig," and before Willie could rightly judge what was happening to him, one end of a rope had been tied around his left ankle and the other end had been passed over a transom bar, and he was dangling headforemost in the air, while Clarence threatened his jugular with a lath sword. That was when he let out the yell which brought his father and me on the jump and scattered the boys all over the stock yards. Willie's father canceled his bologna contract and marched off muttering something about "degrading surroundings brutalizing the young;" and Clarence's mother wrote me that I was a bad old man who had held her husband down all his life and now wouldn't give her son a show. For, naturally, after that little incident, I had told the boy who had been raised a pet that he had better go back to the menagerie. I simply mention Clarence in passing as an instance of why I am a little slow to trust my judgment on my own. I have always found that, whenever I thought a heap of anything I owned, there was nothing like getting the other fellow's views expressed in figures; and the other fellow is usually a pessimist when he's buying. The lady on the dollar is the only woman who hasn't any sentiment in her make-up. And if you really want a look at the solid facts of a thing you must strain off the sentiment first. I put you under Milligan to get a view of you through his eyes. If he says that you are good enough to be a billing clerk, and to draw twelve dollars a week, I guess there's no doubt about it. For he's one of those men that never show any real enthusiasm except when they're cussing. Naturally, it's a great satisfaction to see a streak or two of business ability beginning to show under the knife, because when it comes closing time for me it will make it a heap easier to know that some one who bears the name will take down the shutters in the morning. Boys are a good deal like the pups that fellows sell on street corners--they don't always turn out as represented. You buy a likely setter pup and raise a spotted coach dog from it, and the promising son of an honest butcher is just as like as not to turn out a poet or a professor. I want to say in passing that I have no real prejudice against poets, but I believe that, if you're going to be a Milton, there's nothing like being a mute, inglorious one, as some fellow who was a little sore on the poetry business once put it. Of course, a packer who understands something about the versatility of cottonseed oil need never turn down orders for lard because the run of hogs is light, and a father who understands human nature can turn out an imitation parson from a boy whom the Lord intended to go on the Board of Trade. But on general principles it's best to give your cottonseed oil a Latin name and to market it on its merits, and to let your boy follow his bent, even if it leads him into the wheat pit. If a fellow has got poetry in him it's bound to come out sooner or later in the papers or the street cars; and the longer you keep it bottled up the harder it comes, and the longer it takes the patient to recover. There's no easier way to cure foolishness than to give a man leave to be foolish. And the only way to show a fellow that he's chosen the wrong business is to let him try it. If it really is the wrong thing you won't have to argue with him to quit, and if it isn't you haven't any right to. Speaking of bull-pups that turned out to be terriers naturally calls to mind the case of my old friend Jeremiah Simpkins' son. There isn't a solider man in the Boston leather trade than Jeremiah, nor a bigger scamp that the law can't touch than his son Ezra. There isn't an ounce of real meanness in Ezra's whole body, but he's just naturally and unintentionally a maverick. When he came out of college his father thought that a few years' experience in the hide department of Graham & Co. would be a good thing for him before he tackled the leather business. So I wrote to send him on and I would give him a job, supposing, of course, that I was getting a yearling of the steady, old, reliable Simpkins strain. I was a little uneasy when Ezra reported, because he didn't just look as if he had had a call to leather. He was a tall, spare New Englander, with one of those knobby foreheads which has been pushed out by the overcrowding of the brain, or bulged by the thickening of the skull, according as you like or dislike the man. His manners were easy or familiar by the same standard. He told me right at the start that, while he didn't know just what he wanted to do, he was dead sure that it wasn't the leather business. It seemed that he had said the same thing to his father and that the old man had answered, "Tut, tut," and told him to forget it and to learn hides. Simpkins learned all that he wanted to know about the packing industry in thirty days, and I learned all that I wanted to know about Ezra in the same time. Pork-packing seemed to be the only thing that he wasn't interested in. I got his resignation one day just five minutes before the one which I was having written out for him was ready; for I will do Simpkins the justice to say that there was nothing slow about him. He and his father split up, temporarily, over it, and, of course, it cost me the old man's trade and friendship. I want to say right here that the easiest way in the world to make enemies is to hire friends. I lost sight of Simpkins for a while, and then he turned up at the office one morning as friendly and familiar as ever. Said he was a reporter and wanted to interview me on the December wheat deal. Of course, I wouldn't talk on that, but I gave him a little fatherly advice--told him he would sleep in a hall bedroom all his life if he didn't quit his foolishness and go back to his father, though I didn't really believe it. He thanked me and went off and wrote a column about what I might have said about December wheat, and somehow gave the impression that I had said it. The next I heard of Simpkins he was dead. The Associated Press dispatches announced it, the Cuban Junta confirmed it, and last of all, a long dispatch from Simpkins himself detailed the circumstances leading up to the "atrocity," as the headlines in his paper called it. I got a long wire from Ezra's father asking me to see the managing editor and get at the facts for him. It seemed that the paper had thought a heap of Simpkins, and that he had been sent out to Cuba as a correspondent, and stationed with the Insurgent army. Simpkins in Cuba had evidently lived up to the reputation of Simpkins in Chicago. When there was any news he sent it, and when there wasn't he just made news and sent that along. The first word of his death had come in his own letter, brought across on a filibustering steamer and wired on from Jacksonville. It told, with close attention to detail--something he had learned since he left me--how he had strayed away from the little band of insurgents with which he had been out scouting and had blundered into the Spanish lines. He had been promptly made a prisoner, and, despite his papers proving his American citizenship, and the nature of his job, and the red cross on his sleeve, he had been tried by drumhead court martial and sentenced to be shot at dawn. All this he had written out, and then, that his account might be complete, he had gone on and imagined his own execution. This was written in a sort of pigeon, or perhaps you would call it black Spanish, English, and let on to be the work of the eyewitness to whom Simpkins had confided his letter. He had been the sentry over the prisoner, and for a small bribe in hand and the promise of a larger one from the paper, he had turned his back on Simpkins while he wrote out the story, and afterward had deserted and carried it to the Cuban lines. The account ended: "Then, as the order to fire was given by the lieutenant, Señor Simpkins raised his eyes toward Heaven and cried: 'I protest in the name of my American citizenship!'" At the end of the letter, and not intended for publication, was scrawled: "This is a bully scoop for you, boys, but it's pretty tough on me. Good-by. Simpkins." The managing editor dashed a tear from his eye when he read this to me, and gulped a little as he said: "I can't help it; he was such a d----d thoughtful boy. Why, he even remembered to inclose descriptions for the pictures!" Simpkins' last story covered the whole of the front page and three columns of the second, and it just naturally sold cords of papers. His editor demanded that the State Department take it up, though the Spaniards denied the execution or any previous knowledge of any such person as this Señor Simpkins. That made another page in the paper, of course, and then they got up a memorial service, which was good for three columns. One of those fellows that you can find in every office, who goes around and makes the boys give up their lunch money to buy flowers for the deceased aunt of the cellar boss' wife, managed to collect twenty dollars among our clerks, and they sent a floral notebook, with "Gone to Press," done in blue immortelles on the cover, as their "tribute." I put on a plug hat and attended the service out of respect for his father. But I had hardly got back to the office before I received a wire from Jamaica, reading: "Cable your correspondent here let me have hundred. Notify father all hunk. Keep it dark from others. Simpkins." I kept it dark and Ezra came back to life by easy stages and in such a way as not to attract any special attention to himself. He managed to get the impression around that he'd been snatched from the jaws of death by a rescue party at the last moment. The last I heard of him he was in New York and drawing ten thousand a year, which was more than he could have worked up to in the leather business in a century. Fifty or a hundred years ago, when there was good money in poetry, a man with Simpkins' imagination would naturally have been a bard, as I believe they used to call the top-notchers; and, once he was turned loose to root for himself, he instinctively smelled out the business where he could use a little poetic license and made a hit in it. When a pup has been born to point partridges there's no use trying to run a fox with him. I was a little uncertain about you at first, but I guess the Lord intended you to hunt with the pack. Get the scent in your nostrils and keep your nose to the ground, and don't worry too much about the end of the chase. The fun of the thing's in the run and not in the finish. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +-----------------------------+ | No. 9 | +-----------------------------+ | From John Graham, at Hot | | Springs, Arkansas, to his | | son, Pierrepont, at the | | Union Stock Yards in | | Chicago. Mr. Pierrepont | | has been investing more | | heavily in roses than his | | father thinks his means | | warrant, and he tries to | | turn his thoughts to | | staple groceries. | +-----------------------------+ IX HOT SPRINGS, January 30, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ I knew right off that I had made a mistake when I opened the inclosed and saw that it was a bill for fifty-two dollars, "for roses sent, as per orders, to Miss Mabel Dashkam." I don't just place Miss Dashkam, but if she's the daughter of old Job Dashkam, on the open Board, I should say, on general principles, that she was a fine girl to let some other fellow marry. The last time I saw her, she inventoried about $10,000 as she stood--allowing that her diamonds would scratch glass--and that's more capital than any woman has a right to tie up on her back, I don't care how rich her father is. And Job's fortune is one of that brand which foots up to a million in the newspapers and leaves the heirs in debt to the lawyers who settle the estate. Of course I've never had any real experience in this sparking business, except with your Ma; but I've watched from the other side of the fence while a heap of fellows were getting it, and I should say that marrying a woman like Mabel Dashkam would be the first step toward becoming a grass widower. I'll bet if you'll tell her you're making twelve a week and ain't going to get any more till you earn it, you'll find that you can't push within a mile of her even on a Soo ice-breaker. She's one of those women with a heart like a stock-ticker--it doesn't beat over anything except money. Of course you're in no position yet to think of being engaged even, and that's why I'm a little afraid that you may be planning to get married. But a twelve-dollar clerk, who owes fifty-two dollars for roses, needs a keeper more than a wife. I want to say right here that there always comes a time to the fellow who blows fifty-two dollars at a lick on roses when he thinks how many staple groceries he could have bought with the money. After all, there's no fool like a young fool, because in the nature of things he's got a long time to live. I suppose I'm fanning the air when I ask you to be guided by my judgment in this matter, because, while a young fellow will consult his father about buying a horse, he's cock-sure of himself when it comes to picking a wife. Marriages may be made in Heaven, but most engagements are made in the back parlor with the gas so low that a fellow doesn't really get a square look at what he's taking. While a man doesn't see much of a girl's family when he's courting, he's apt to see a good deal of it when he's housekeeping; and while he doesn't marry his wife's father, there's nothing in the marriage vow to prevent the old man from borrowing money of him, and you can bet if he's old Job Dashkam he'll do it. A man can't pick his own mother, but he can pick his son's mother, and when he chooses a father-in-law who plays the bucket shops, he needn't be surprised if his own son plays the races. Never marry a poor girl who's been raised like a rich one. She's simply traded the virtues of the poor for the vices of the rich without going long on their good points. To marry for money or to marry without money is a crime. There's no real objection to marrying a woman with a fortune, but there is to marrying a fortune with a woman. Money makes the mare go, and it makes her cut up, too, unless she's used to it and you drive her with a snaffle-bit. While you are at it, there's nothing like picking out a good-looking wife, because even the handsomest woman looks homely sometimes, and so you get a little variety; but a homely one can only look worse than usual. Beauty is only skin deep, but that's deep enough to satisfy any reasonable man. (I want to say right here that to get any sense out of a proverb I usually find that I have to turn it wrong side out.) Then, too, if a fellow's bound to marry a fool, and a lot of men have to if they're going to hitch up into a well-matched team, there's nothing like picking a good-looking one. I simply mention these things in a general way, because it seems to me, from the gait at which you're starting off, that you'll likely find yourself roped and branded any day, without quite knowing how it happened, and I want you to understand that the girl who marries you for my money is getting a package of green goods in more ways than one. I think, though, if you really understood what marrying on twelve a week meant, you would have bought a bedroom set instead of roses with that fifty-two you owe. Speaking of marrying the old man's money by proxy naturally takes me back to my old town in Missouri and the case of Chauncey Witherspoon Hoskins. Chauncey's father was the whole village, barring the railroad station and the saloon, and, of course, Chauncey thought that he was something of a pup himself. So he was, but not just the kind that Chauncey thought he was. He stood about five foot three in his pumps, had a nice pinky complexion, pretty wavy hair, and a curly mustache. All he needed was a blue ribbon around his neck to make you call, "Here, Fido," when he came into the room. Still I believe he must have been pretty popular with the ladies, because I can't think of him to this day without wanting to punch his head. At the church sociables he used to hop around among them, chipping and chirping like a dicky-bird picking up seed; and he was a great hand to play the piano, and sing saddish, sweetish songs to them. Always said the smooth thing and said it easy. Never had to choke and swallow to fetch it up. Never stepped through his partner's dress when he began to dance, or got flustered when he brought her refreshments and poured the coffee in her lap to cool instead of in the saucer. We boys who couldn't walk across the floor without feeling that our pants had hiked up till they showed our feet to the knees, and that we were carrying a couple of canvased hams where our hands ought to be, didn't like him; but the girls did. You can trust a woman's taste on everything except men; and it's mighty lucky that she slips up there or we'd pretty nigh all be bachelors. I might add that you can't trust a man's taste on women, either, and that's pretty lucky, too, because there are a good many old maids in the world as it is. One time or another Chauncey lolled in the best room of every house in our town, and we used to wonder how he managed to browse up and down the streets that way without getting into the pound. I never found out till after I married your Ma, and she told me Chauncey's heart secrets. It really wasn't violating any confidence, because he'd told them to every girl in town. Seems he used to get terribly sad as soon as he was left alone with a girl and began to hint about a tragedy in his past--something that had blighted his whole life and left him without the power to love again--and lots more slop from the same pail. Of course, every girl in that town had known Chauncey since he wore short pants, and ought to have known that the nearest to a tragedy he had ever been was when he sat in the top gallery of a Chicago theatre and saw a lot of barnstormers play Othello. But some people, and especially very young people, don't think anything's worth believing unless it's hard to believe. Chauncey worked along these lines until he was twenty-four, and then he made a mistake. Most of the girls that he had grown up with had married off, and while he was waiting for a new lot to come along, he began to shine up to the widow Sharpless, a powerful, well-preserved woman of forty or thereabouts, who had been born with her eye-teeth cut. He found her uncommon sympathetic. And when Chauncey finally came out of his trance he was the stepfather of the widow's four children. She was very kind to Chauncey, and treated him like one of her own sons; but she was very, very firm. There was no gallivanting off alone, and when they went out in double harness strangers used to annoy him considerable by patting him on the head and saying to his wife: "What a bright-looking chap your son is, Mrs. Hoskins!" She was almost seventy when Chauncey buried her a while back, and they say that he began to take notice again on the way home from the funeral. Anyway, he crowded his mourning into sixty days--and I reckon there was plenty of room in them to hold all his grief without stretching--and his courting into another sixty. And four months after date he presented his matrimonial papers for acceptance. Said he was tired of this mother-and-son foolishness, and wasn't going to leave any room for doubt this time. Didn't propose to have people sizing his wife up for one of his ancestors any more. So he married Lulu Littlebrown, who was just turned eighteen. Chauncey was over fifty then, and wizened up like a late pippin that has been out overnight in an early frost. He took Lu to Chicago for the honeymoon, and Mose Greenebaum, who happened to be going up to town for his fall goods, got into the parlor car with them. By and by the porter came around and stopped beside Chauncey. "Wouldn't your daughter like a pillow under her head?" says he. Chauncey just groaned. Then--"Git; you Senegambian son of darkness!" And the porter just naturally got. Mose had been taking it all in, and now he went back to the smoking-room and passed the word along to the drummers there. Every little while one of them would lounge up the aisle to Chauncey and ask if he couldn't lend his daughter a magazine, or give her an orange, or bring her a drink. And the language that he gave back in return for these courtesies wasn't at all fitting in a bridegroom. Then Mose had another happy thought, and dropped off at a way station and wired the clerk at the Palmer House. When they got to the hotel the clerk was on the lookout for them, and Chauncey hadn't more than signed his name before he reached out over his diamond and said: "Ah, Mr. Hoskins; would you like to have your daughter near you?" I simply mention Chauncey in passing as an example of the foolishness of thinking you can take any chances with a woman who has really decided that she wants to marry, or that you can average up matrimonial mistakes. And I want you to remember that marrying the wrong girl is the one mistake that you've got to live with all your life. I think, though, that if you tell Mabel what your assets are, she'll decide she won't be your particular mistake. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +----------------------------+ | No. 10 | +----------------------------+ | From John Graham, at the | | Union Stock Yards in | | Chicago, to his son, | | Pierrepont, at the | | Commercial House, | | Jeffersonville, Indiana. | | Mr. Pierrepont has been | | promoted to the position | | of traveling salesman | | for the house, and has | | started out on the road. | +----------------------------+ X CHICAGO, March 1, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ When I saw you start off yesterday I was just a little uneasy; for you looked so blamed important and chesty that I am inclined to think you will tell the first customer who says he doesn't like our sausage that he knows what he can do about it. Repartee makes reading lively, but business dull. And what the house needs is more orders. Sausage is the one subject of all others that a fellow in the packing business ought to treat solemnly. Half the people in the world take a joke seriously from the start, and the other half if you repeat it often enough. Only last week the head of our sausage department started to put out a tin-tag brand of frankfurts, but I made him take it off the market quicker than lightning, because I knew that the first fool who saw the tin-tag would ask if that was the license. And, though people would grin a little at first, they'd begin to look serious after a while; and whenever the butcher tried to sell them our brand they'd imagine they heard the bark, and ask for "that real country sausage" at twice as much a pound. He laughs best who doesn't laugh at all when he's dealing with the public. It has been my experience that, even when a man has a sense of humor, it only really carries him to the point where he will join in a laugh at the expense of the other fellow. There's nothing in the world sicker-looking than the grin of the man who's trying to join in heartily when the laugh's on him, and to pretend that he likes it. Speaking of sausage with a registered pedigree calls to mind a little experience that I had last year. A fellow came into the office here with a shriveled-up toy spaniel, one of those curly, hairy little fellows that a woman will kiss, and then grumble because a fellow's mustache tickles. Said he wanted to sell him. I wasn't really disposed to add a dog to my troubles, but on general principles I asked him what he wanted for the little cuss. [Illustration: "_You looked so blamed important and chesty when you started off._"] The fellow hawed and choked and wiped away a tear. Finally, he fetched out that he loved the dog like a son, and that it broke his heart to think of parting with him; that he wouldn't dare look Dandy in the face after he had named the price he was asking for him, and that it was the record-breaking, marked-down sacrifice sale of the year on dogs; that it wasn't really money he was after, but a good home for the little chap. Said that I had a rather pleasant face and he knew that he could trust me to treat Dandy kindly; so--as a gift--he would let me have him for five hundred. "Cents?" says I. "Dollars," says he, without blinking. "It ought to be a mastiff at that price," says I. "If you thought more of quality," says he, in a tone of sort of dignified reproof, "and less of quantity, your brand would enjoy a better reputation." I was pretty hot, I can tell you, but I had laid myself open, so I just said: "The sausage business is too poor to warrant our paying any such price for light-weights. Bring around a bigger dog and then we'll talk;" but the fellow only shook his head sadly, whistled to Dandy, and walked off. I simply mention this little incident as an example of the fact that when a man cracks a joke in the Middle Ages he's apt to affect the sausage market in the Nineteenth Century, and to lay open an honest butcher to the jeers of every dog-stealer in the street. There's such a thing as carrying a joke too far, and the fellow who keeps on pretending to believe that he's paying for pork and getting dog is pretty apt to get dog in the end. But all that aside, I want you to get it firmly fixed in your mind right at the start that this trip is only an experiment, and that I am not at all sure you were cut out by the Lord to be a drummer. But you can figure on one thing--that you will never become the pride of the pond by starting out to cut figure eights before you are firm on your skates. A real salesman is one-part talk and nine-parts judgment; and he uses the nine-parts of judgment to tell when to use the one-part of talk. Goods ain't sold under Marquess of Queensberry rules any more, and you'll find that knowing how many rounds the Old 'Un can last against the Boiler-Maker won't really help you to load up the junior partner with our Corn-fed brand hams. A good many salesmen have an idea that buyers are only interested in baseball, and funny stories, and Tom Lipton, and that business is a side line with them; but as a matter of fact mighty few men work up to the position of buyer through giving up their office hours to listening to anecdotes. I never saw one that liked a drummer's jokes more than an eighth of a cent a pound on a tierce of lard. What the house really sends you out for is orders. Of course, you want to be nice and mellow with the trade, but always remember that mellowness carried too far becomes rottenness. You can buy some fellows with a cheap cigar and some with a cheap compliment, and there's no objection to giving a man what he likes, though I never knew smoking to do anything good except a ham, or flattery to help any one except to make a fool of himself. Real buyers ain't interested in much besides your goods and your prices. Never run down your competitor's brand to them, and never let them run down yours. Don't get on your knees for business, but don't hold your nose so high in the air that an order can travel under it without your seeing it. You'll meet a good many people on the road that you won't like, but the house needs their business. Some fellows will tell you that we play the hose on our dry salt meat before we ship it, and that it shrinks in transit like a Baxter Street Jew's all-wool suits in a rainstorm; that they wonder how we manage to pack solid gristle in two-pound cans without leaving a little meat hanging to it; and that the last car of lard was so strong that it came back of its own accord from every retailer they shipped it to. The first fellow will be lying, and the second will be exaggerating, and the third may be telling the truth. With him you must settle on the spot; but always remember that a man who's making a claim never underestimates his case, and that you can generally compromise for something less than the first figure. With the second you must sympathize, and say that the matter will be reported to headquarters and the boss of the canning-room called up on the carpet and made to promise that it will never happen again. With the first you needn't bother. There's no use feeding expensive "hen food" to an old Dominick that sucks eggs. The chances are that the car weighed out more than it was billed, and that the fellow played the hose on it himself and added a thousand pounds of cheap salt before he jobbed it out to his trade. Where you're going to slip up at first is in knowing which is which, but if you don't learn pretty quick you'll not travel very far for the house. For your own satisfaction I will say right here that you may know you are in a fair way of becoming a good drummer by three things: First--When you send us Orders. Second--More Orders. Third--Big Orders. If you do this you won't have a great deal of time to write long letters, and we won't have a great deal of time to read them, for we will be very, very busy here making and shipping the goods. We aren't specially interested in orders that the other fellow gets, or in knowing how it happened after it has happened. If you like life on the road you simply won't let it happen. So just send us your address every day and your orders. They will tell us all that we want to know about "the situation." I was cured of sending information to the house when I was very, very young--in fact, on the first trip which I made on the road. I was traveling out of Chicago for Hammer & Hawkins, wholesale dry-goods, gents' furnishings and notions. They started me out to round up trade in the river towns down Egypt ways, near Cairo. I hadn't more than made my first town and sized up the population before I began to feel happy, because I saw that business ought to be very good there. It appeared as if everybody in that town needed something in my line. The clerk of the hotel where I registered wore a dicky and his cuffs were tied to his neck by pieces of string run up his sleeves, and most of the merchants on Main Street were in their shirt-sleeves--at least those that had shirts were--and so far as I could judge there wasn't a whole pair of galluses among them. Some were using wire, some a little rope, and others just faith--buckled extra tight. Pride of the Prairie XXX flour sacks seemed to be the nobby thing in boys' suitings there. Take it by and large, if ever there was a town which looked as if it had a big, short line of dry-goods, gents' furnishings and notions to cover, it was that one. But when I caught the proprietor of the general store during a lull in the demand for navy plug, he wouldn't even look at my samples, and when I began to hint that the people were pretty ornery dressers he reckoned that he "would paste me one if I warn't so young." Wanted to know what I meant by coming swelling around in song-and-dance clothes and getting funny at the expense of people who made their living honestly. Allowed that when it came to a humorous get-up my clothes were the original end-man's gag. I noticed on the way back to the hotel that every fellow holding up a hitching-post was laughing, and I began to look up and down the street for the joke, not understanding at first that the reason why I couldn't see it was because I was it. Right there I began to learn that, while the Prince of Wales may wear the correct thing in hats, it's safer when you're out of his sphere of influence to follow the styles that the hotel clerk sets; that the place to sell clothes is in the city, where every one seems to have plenty of them; and that the place to sell mess pork is in the country, where every one keeps hogs. That is why when a fellow comes to me for advice about moving to a new country, where there are more opportunities, I advise him--if he is built right--to go to an old city where there is more money. I wrote in to the house pretty often on that trip, explaining how it was, going over the whole situation very carefully, and telling what our competitors were doing, wherever I could find that they were doing anything. I gave old Hammer credit for more curiosity than he possessed, because when I reached Cairo I found a telegram from him reading: "_Know what our competitors are doing: they are getting all the trade. But what are you doing?_" I saw then that the time for explaining was gone and that the moment for resigning had arrived; so I just naturally sent in my resignation. That is what we will expect from you--or orders. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +-----------------------------+ | No. 11 | +-----------------------------+ | From John Graham, at the | | Union Stock Yards in | | Chicago, to his son, | | Pierrepont, at The | | Planters' Palace Hotel, | | at Big Gap, Kentucky. Mr. | | Pierrepont's orders are | | small and his expenses | | are large, so his father | | feels pessimistic over | | his prospects. | +-----------------------------+ XI CHICAGO, April 10, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ You ought to be feeling mighty thankful to-day to the fellow who invented fractions, because while your selling cost for last month was within the limit, it took a good deal of help from the decimal system to get it there. You are in the position of the boy who was chased by the bull--open to congratulations because he reached the tree first, and to condolence because a fellow up a tree, in the middle of a forty-acre lot, with a disappointed bull for company, is in a mighty bad fix. I don't want to bear down hard on you right at the beginning of your life on the road, but I would feel a good deal happier over your showing if you would make a downright failure or a clean-cut success once in a while, instead of always just skinning through this way. It looks to me as if you were trying only half as hard as you could, and in trying it's the second half that brings results. If there's one piece of knowledge that is of less use to a fellow than knowing when he's beat, it's knowing when he's done just enough work to keep from being fired. Of course, you are bright enough to be a half-way man, and to hold a half-way place on a half-way salary by doing half the work you are capable of, but you've got to add dynamite and ginger and jounce to your equipment if you want to get the other half that's coming to you. You've got to believe that the Lord made the first hog with the Graham brand burned in the skin, and that the drove which rushed down a steep place was packed by a competitor. You've got to know your goods from A to Izzard, from snout to tail, on the hoof and in the can. You've got to know 'em like a young mother knows baby talk, and to be as proud of 'em as the young father of a twelve-pound boy, without really thinking that you're stretching it four pounds. You've got to believe in yourself and make your buyers take stock in you at par and accrued interest. You've got to have the scent of a bloodhound for an order, and the grip of a bulldog on a customer. You've got to feel the same personal solicitude over a bill of goods that strays off to a competitor as a parson over a backslider, and hold special services to bring it back into the fold. You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction. You've got to eat hog, think hog, dream hog--in short, go the whole hog if you're going to win out in the pork-packing business. That's a pretty liberal receipt, I know, but it's intended for a fellow who wants to make a good-sized pie. And the only thing you ever find in pastry that you don't put in yourself is flies. You have had a wide-open chance during the last few months to pick up a good deal about the practical end of the business, and between trips now you ought to spend every spare minute in the packing-house getting posted. Nothing earns better interest than judicious questions, and the man who invests in more knowledge of the business than he has to have in order to hold his job has capital with which to buy a mortgage on a better one. I may be mistaken, but I am just a little afraid that you really did not get beyond a bowing acquaintance with Mr. Porker when you were here at the packing-house. Of course, there isn't anything particularly pretty about a hog, but any animal which has its kindly disposition and benevolent inclination to yield up a handsome margin of profit to those who get close to it, is worthy of a good deal of respect and attention. I ain't one of those who believe that a half knowledge of a subject is useless, but it has been my experience that when a fellow has that half knowledge he finds it's the other half which would really come in handy. So, when a man's in the selling end of the business what he really needs to know is the manufacturing end; and when he's in the factory he can't know too much about the trade. You're just about due now to run into a smart Aleck buyer who'll show you a sample of lard which he'll say was made by a competitor, and ask what you think the grand jury ought to do to a house which had the nerve to label it "leaf." Of course, you will nose around it and look wise and say that, while you hesitate to criticize, you are afraid it would smell like a hot-box on a freight if any one tried to fry doughnuts in it. That is the place where the buyer will call for Jack and Charlie to get in on the laugh, and when he has wiped away the tears he will tell you that it is your own lard, and prove it to you. Of course, there won't be anything really the matter with it, and if you had been properly posted you would have looked surprised when he showed it to you and have said: "I don't quite diagnose the case your way, Mr. Smith; that's a blamed sight better lard than I thought Muggins & Co. were making." And you'd have driven a spike right through that fellow's little joke and have nailed down his order hard and tight with the same blow. What you know is a club for yourself, and what you don't know is a meat-ax for the other fellow. That is why you want to be on the lookout all the time for information about the business, and to nail a fact just as a sensible man nails a mosquito--the first time it settles near him. Of course, a fellow may get another chance, but the odds are that if he misses the first opening he will lose a good deal of blood before he gets the second. [Illustration: "_Josh Jenkinson would eat a little food now and then just to be sociable, but what he really lived on was tobacco._"] Speaking of finishing up a subject as you go along naturally calls to mind the case of Josh Jenkinson, back in my home town. As I first remember Josh, he was just bone and by-products. Wasn't an ounce of real meat on him. In fact, he was so blamed thin that when he bought an outfit of clothes his wife used to make them over into two suits for him. Josh would eat a little food now and then, just to be sociable, but what he really lived on was tobacco. Usually kept a chew in one cheek and a cob pipe in the other. He was a powerful hand for a joke and had one of those porous heads and movable scalps which go with a sense of humor in a small village. Used to scare us boys by drawing in on his pipe and letting the smoke sort of leak out through his eyes and ears and nose. Pretended that he was the devil and that he was on fire inside. Old Doc Hoover caught him at it once and told us that he wasn't, but allowed that he was a blood relation. Elder Hoover was a Methodist off the tip of the sirloin. There weren't any evasions or generalities or metaphors in his religion. The lower layers of the hereafter weren't Hades or Gehenna with him, but just plain Hell, and mighty hot, too, you bet. His creed was built of sheet iron and bolted together with inch rivets. He kept the fire going under the boiler night and day, and he was so blamed busy stoking it that he didn't have much time to map out the golden streets. When he blew off it was super-heated steam and you could see the sinners who were in range fairly sizzle and parboil and shrivel up. There was no give in Doc; no compromises with creditors; no fire sales. He wasn't one of those elders who would let a fellow dance the lancers if he'd swear off on waltzing; or tell him it was all right to play whist in the parlor if he'd give up penny-ante at the Dutchman's; or wink at his smoking if he'd quit whisky. Josh knew this, so he kept away from the camp-meeting, though the Elder gunned for him pretty steady for a matter of five years. But one summer when the meetings were extra interesting, it got so lonesome sitting around with the whole town off in the woods that Josh sneaked out to the edge of the camp and hid behind some bushes where he could hear what was going on. The elder was carrying about two hundred and fifty pounds, by the gauge, that day, and with that pressure he naturally traveled into the sinners pretty fast. The first thing Josh knew he was out from under cover and a-hallelujahing down between the seats to the mourners' bench. When the elder saw what was coming he turned on the forced draft. Inside of ten minutes he had Josh under conviction and had taken his pipe and plug away from him. I am just a little inclined to think that Josh would have backslid if he hadn't been a practical joker, and a critter of that breed is about as afraid of a laugh on himself as a raw colt of a steam roller. So he stuck it out, and began to take an interest in meal time. Kicked because it didn't come eight or ten times a day. The first thing he knew he had fatted up till he filled out his half suit and had to put it away in camphor. Then he bought a whole suit, living-skeleton size. In two weeks he had strained a shoulder seam and looked as if he was wearing tights. So he retired it from circulation and moved up a size. That one was a little loose, and it took him a good month to crowd it. Josh was a pretty hefty man now, but he kept right on bulging out, building on an addition here and putting out a bay window there, all the time retiring new suits, until his wife had fourteen of them laid away in the chest. Said it didn't worry him; that he was bound to lose flesh sooner or later. That he would catch them on the way down, and wear them out one at a time. But when he got up to three hundred and fifty pounds he just stuck. Tried exercise and dieting and foreign waters, but he couldn't budge an ounce. In the end he had to give the clothes to the Widow Doolan, who had fourteen sons in assorted sizes. I simply mention Josh in passing as an example of the fact that a fellow can't bank on getting a chance to go back and take up a thing that he has passed over once, and to call your attention to the fact that a man who knows his own business thoroughly will find an opportunity sooner or later of reaching the most hardened cuss of a buyer on his route and of getting a share of his. I want to caution you right here against learning all there is to know about pork-packing too quick. Business is a good deal like a nigger's wool--it doesn't look very deep, but there are a heap of kinks and curves in it. When I was a boy and the fellow in pink tights came into the ring, I used to think he was doing all that could be reasonably expected when he kept eight or ten glass balls going in the air at once. But the beautiful lady in the blue tights would keep right on handing him things--kerosene lamps and carving knives and miscellaneous cutlery and crockery, and he would get them going, too, without losing his happy smile. The great trouble with most young fellows is that they think they have learned all they need to know and have given the audience its money's worth when they can keep the glass balls going, and so they balk at the kerosene lamps and the rest of the implements of light housekeeping. But there's no real limit to the amount of extras a fellow with the right stuff in him will take on without losing his grin. I want to see you come up smiling; I want to feel you in the business, not only on pay day but every other day. I want to know that you are running yourself full time and overtime, stocking up your brain so that when the demand comes you will have the goods to offer. So far, you promise to make a fair to ordinary salesman among our retail trade. I want to see you grow into a car-lot man--so strong and big that you will force us to see that you are out of place among the little fellows. Buck up! Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +---------------------------+ | No. 12 | +---------------------------+ | From John Graham, at | | the Union Stock Yards | | in Chicago, to his son, | | Pierrepont, at Little | | Delmonico's, Prairie | | Centre, Indiana. Mr. | | Pierrepont has annoyed | | his father by accepting | | his criticisms in a | | spirit of gentle, but | | most reprehensible, | | resignation. | +---------------------------+ XII CHICAGO, April 15, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ Don't ever write me another of those sad, sweet, gentle sufferer letters. It's only natural that a colt should kick a trifle when he's first hitched up to the break wagon, and I'm always a little suspicious of a critter that stands too quiet under the whip. I know it's not meekness, but meanness, that I've got to fight, and it's hard to tell which is the worst. The only animal which the Bible calls patient is an ass, and that's both good doctrine and good natural history. For I had to make considerable of a study of the Missouri mule when I was a boy, and I discovered that he's not really patient, but that he only pretends to be. You can cuss him out till you've nothing but holy thoughts left in you to draw on, and you can lay the rawhide on him till he's striped like a circus zebra, and if you're cautious and reserved in his company he will just look grieved and pained and resigned. But all the time that mule will be getting meaner and meaner inside, adding compound cussedness every thirty days, and practicing drop kicks in his stall after dark. Of course, nothing in this world is wholly bad, not even a mule, for he is half horse. But my observation has taught me that the horse half of him is the front half, and that the only really safe way to drive him is hind-side first. I suppose that you could train one to travel that way, but it really doesn't seem worth while when good roadsters are so cheap. That's the way I feel about these young fellows who lazy along trying to turn in at every gate where there seems to be a little shade, and sulking and balking whenever you say "git-ap" to them. They are the men who are always howling that Bill Smith was promoted because he had a pull, and that they are being held down because the manager is jealous of them. I've seen a good many pulls in my time, but I never saw one strong enough to lift a man any higher than he could raise himself by his boot straps, or long enough to reach through the cashier's window for more money than its owner earned. When a fellow brags that he has a pull, he's a liar or his employer's a fool. And when a fellow whines that he's being held down, the truth is, as a general thing, that his boss can't hold him up. He just picks a nice, soft spot, stretches out flat on his back, and yells that some heartless brute has knocked him down and is sitting on his chest. A good man is as full of bounce as a cat with a small boy and a bull terrier after him. When he's thrown to the dog from the second-story window, he fixes while he's sailing through the air to land right, and when the dog jumps for the spot where he hits, he isn't there, but in the top of the tree across the street. He's a good deal like the little red-headed cuss that we saw in the football game you took me to. Every time the herd stampeded it would start in to trample and paw and gore him. One minute the whole bunch would be on top of him and the next he would be loping off down the range, spitting out hair and pieces of canvas jacket, or standing on one side as cool as a hog on ice, watching the mess unsnarl and the removal of the cripples. I didn't understand football, but I understood that little sawed-off. He knew his business. And when a fellow knows his business, he doesn't have to explain to people that he does. It isn't what a man knows, but what he thinks he knows that he brags about. Big talk means little knowledge. There's a vast difference between having a carload of miscellaneous facts sloshing around loose in your head and getting all mixed up in transit, and carrying the same assortment properly boxed and crated for convenient handling and immediate delivery. A ham never weighs so much as when it's half cured. When it has soaked in all the pickle that it can, it has to sweat out most of it in the smoke-house before it is any real good; and when you've soaked up all the information you can hold, you will have to forget half of it before you will be of any real use to the house. If there's anything worse than knowing too little, it's knowing too much. Education will broaden a narrow mind, but there's no known cure for a big head. The best you can hope is that it will swell up and bust; and then, of course, there's nothing left. Poverty never spoils a good man, but prosperity often does. It's easy to stand hard times, because that's the only thing you can do, but in good times the fool-killer has to do night work. I simply mention these things in a general way. A good many of them don't apply to you, no doubt, but it won't do any harm to make sure. Most men get cross-eyed when they come to size themselves up, and see an angel instead of what they're trying to look at. There's nothing that tells the truth to a woman like a mirror, or that lies harder to a man. What I am sure of is that you have got the sulks too quick. If you knew all that you'll have to learn before you'll be a big, broad-gauged merchant, you might have something to be sulky about. When you've posted yourself properly about the business you'll have taken a step in the right direction--you will be able to get your buyer's attention. All the other steps are those which lead you into his confidence. Right here you will discover that you are in the fix of the young fellow who married his best girl and took her home to live with his mother. He found that the only way in which he could make one happy was by making the other mad, and that when he tried to make them both happy he only succeeded in making them both mad. Naturally, in the end, his wife divorced him and his mother disinherited him, and left her money to an orphan asylum, because, as she sensibly observed in the codicil, "orphans can not be ungrateful to their parents." But if the man had had a little tact he would have kept them in separate houses, and have let each one think that she was getting a trifle the best of it, without really giving it to either. Tact is the knack of keeping quiet at the right time; of being so agreeable yourself that no one can be disagreeable to you; of making inferiority feel like equality. A tactful man can pull the stinger from a bee without getting stung. Some men deal in facts, and call Bill Jones a liar. They get knocked down. Some men deal in subterfuges, and say that Bill Jones' father was a kettle-rendered liar, and that his mother's maiden name was Sapphira, and that any one who believes in the Darwinian theory should pity rather than blame their son. They get disliked. But your tactful man says that since Baron Munchausen no one has been so chuck full of bully reminiscences as Bill Jones; and when that comes back to Bill he is half tickled to death, because he doesn't know that the higher criticism has hurt the Baron's reputation. That man gets the trade. There are two kinds of information: one to which everybody's entitled, and that is taught at school; and one which nobody ought to know except yourself, and that is what you think of Bill Jones. Of course, where you feel a man is not square you will be armed to meet him, but never on his own ground. Make him be honest with you if you can, but don't let him make you dishonest with him. When you make a mistake, don't make the second one--keeping it to yourself. Own up. The time to sort out rotten eggs is at the nest. The deeper you hide them in the case the longer they stay in circulation, and the worse impression they make when they finally come to the breakfast-table. A mistake sprouts a lie when you cover it up. And one lie breeds enough distrust to choke out the prettiest crop of confidence that a fellow ever cultivated. Of course, it's easy to have the confidence of the house, or the confidence of the buyer, but you've got to have both. The house pays you your salary, and the buyer helps you earn it. If you skin the buyer you will lose your trade; and if you play tag with the house you will lose your job. You've simply got to walk the fence straight, for if you step to either side you'll find a good deal of air under you. Even after you are able to command the attention and the confidence of your buyers, you've got to be up and dressed all day to hold what trade is yours, and twisting and turning all night to wriggle into some of the other fellow's. When business is good, that is the time to force it, because it will come easy; and when it is bad, that is the time to force it, too, because we will need the orders. Speaking of making trade naturally calls to my mind my old acquaintance, Herr Doctor Paracelsus Von Munsterberg, who, when I was a boy, came to our town "fresh from his healing triumphs at the Courts of Europe," as his handbills ran, "not to make money, but to confer on suffering mankind the priceless boon of health; to make the sick well, and the well better." Munsterberg wasn't one of your common, coarse, county-fair barkers. He was a pretty high-toned article. Had nice, curly black hair and didn't spare the bear's grease. Wore a silk hat and a Prince Albert coat all the time, except when he was orating, and then he shed the coat to get freer action with his arms. And when he talked he used the whole language, you bet. [Illustration: "_Herr Doctor Paracelsus Von Munsterberg was a pretty high-toned article._"] Of course, the Priceless Boon was put up in bottles, labeled Munsterberg's Miraculous Medical Discovery, and, simply to introduce it, he was willing to sell the small size at fifty cents and the large one at a dollar. In addition to being a philanthropist the Doctor was quite a hand at card tricks, played the banjo, sung coon songs and imitated a saw going through a board very creditably. All these accomplishments, and the story of how he cured the Emperor of Austria's sister with a single bottle, drew a crowd, but they didn't sell a drop of the Discovery. Nobody in town was really sick, and those who thought they were had stocked up the week before with Quackenboss' Quick Quinine Kure from a fellow that made just as liberal promises as Munsterberg and sold the large size at fifty cents, including a handsome reproduction of an old master for the parlor. Some fellows would just have cussed a little and have moved on to the next town, but Munsterberg made a beautiful speech, praising the climate, and saying that in his humble capacity he had been privileged to meet the strength and beauty of many Courts, but never had he been in any place where strength was stronger or beauty beautifuller than right here in Hoskins' Corners. He prayed with all his heart, though it was almost too much to hope, that the cholera, which was raging in Kentucky, would pass this Eden by; that the yellow fever, which was devastating Tennessee, would halt abashed before this stronghold of health, though he felt bound to add that it was a peculiarly malignant and persistent disease; that the smallpox, which was creeping southward from Canada, would smite the next town instead of ours, though he must own that it was no respecter of persons; that the diphtheria and scarlet-fever, which were sweeping over New England and crowding the graveyards, could be kept from crossing the Hudson, though they were great travelers and it was well to be prepared for the worst; that we one and all might providentially escape chills, headaches, coated tongue, pains in the back, loss of sleep and that tired feeling, but it was almost too much to ask, even of such a generous climate. In any event, he begged us to beware of worthless nostrums and base imitations. It made him sad to think that to-day we were here and that to-morrow we were running up an undertaker's bill, all for the lack of a small bottle of Medicine's greatest gift to Man. I could see that this speech made a lot of women in the crowd powerful uneasy, and I heard the Widow Judkins say that she was afraid it was going to be "a mighty sickly winter," and she didn't know as it would do any harm to have some of that stuff in the house. But the Doctor didn't offer the Priceless Boon for sale again. He went right from his speech into an imitation of a dog, with a tin can tied to his tail, running down Main Street and crawling under Si Hooper's store at the far end of it--an imitation, he told us, to which the Sultan was powerful partial, "him being a cruel man and delighting in torturing the poor dumb beasts which the Lord has given us to love, honor and cherish." He kept this sort of thing up till he judged it was our bedtime, and then he thanked us "one and all for our kind attention," and said that as his mission in life was to amuse as well as to heal, he would stay over till the next afternoon and give a special matinée for the little ones, whom he loved for the sake of his own golden-haired Willie, back there over the Rhine. Naturally, all the women and children turned out the next afternoon, though the men had to be at work in the fields and the stores, and the Doctor just made us roar for half an hour. Then, while he was singing an uncommon funny song, Mrs. Brown's Johnny let out a howl. The Doctor stopped short. "Bring the poor little sufferer here, Madam, and let me see if I can soothe his agony," says he. Mrs. Brown was a good deal embarrassed and more scared, but she pushed Johnny, yelling all the time, up to the Doctor, who began tapping him on the back and looking down his throat. Naturally, this made Johnny cry all the harder, and his mother was beginning to explain that she "reckoned she must have stepped on his sore toe," when the Doctor struck his forehead, cried "Eureka!", whipped out a bottle of the Priceless Boon, and forced a spoonful of it into Johnny's mouth. Then he gave the boy three slaps on the back and three taps on the stomach, ran one hand along his windpipe, and took a small button-hook out of his mouth with the other. Johnny made all his previous attempts at yelling sound like an imitation when he saw this, and he broke away and ran toward home. Then the Doctor stuck one hand in over the top of his vest, waved the button-hook in the other, and cried: "Woman, your child is cured! Your button-hook is found!" Then he went on to explain that when baby swallowed safety-pins, or pennies, or fish-bones, or button-hooks, or any little household articles, that all you had to do was to give it a spoonful of the Priceless Boon, tap it gently fore and aft, hold your hand under its mouth, and the little article would drop out like chocolate from a slot machine. Every one was talking at once, now, and nobody had any time for Mrs. Brown, who was trying to say something. Finally she got mad and followed Johnny home. Half an hour later the Doctor drove out of the Corners, leaving his stock of the Priceless Boon distributed--for the usual consideration--among all the mothers in town. It was not until the next day that Mrs. Brown got a chance to explain that while the Boon might be all that the Doctor claimed for it, no one in her house had ever owned a button-hook, because her old man wore jack-boots and she wore congress shoes, and little Johnny wore just plain feet. I simply mention the Doctor in passing, not as an example in morals, but in methods. Some salesmen think that selling is like eating--to satisfy an existing appetite; but a good salesman is like a good cook--he can create an appetite when the buyer isn't hungry. I don't care how good old methods are, new ones are better, even if they're only just as good. That's not so Irish as it sounds. Doing the same thing in the same way year after year is like eating a quail a day for thirty days. Along toward the middle of the month a fellow begins to long for a broiled crow or a slice of cold dog. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +----------------------------+ | No. 13 | +----------------------------+ | From John Graham, at | | the Union Stock Yards | | in Chicago, to his son, | | Pierrepont, care of The | | Hoosier Grocery Co., | | Indianapolis, Indiana. | | Mr. Pierrepont's orders | | have been looking up, so | | the old man gives him a | | pat on the back--but not | | too hard a one. | +----------------------------+ XIII CHICAGO, May 10, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ That order for a carload of Spotless Snow Leaf from old Shorter is the kind of back talk I like. We can stand a little more of the same sort of sassing. I have told the cashier that you will draw thirty a week after this, and I want you to have a nice suit of clothes made and send the bill to the old man. Get something that won't keep people guessing whether you follow the horses or do buck and wing dancing for a living. Your taste in clothes seems to be lasting longer than the rest of your college education. You looked like a young widow who had raised the second crop of daisies over the deceased when you were in here last week. Of course, clothes don't make the man, but they make all of him except his hands and face during business hours, and that's a pretty considerable area of the human animal. A dirty shirt may hide a pure heart, but it seldom covers a clean skin. If you look as if you had slept in your clothes, most men will jump to the conclusion that you have, and you will never get to know them well enough to explain that your head is so full of noble thoughts that you haven't time to bother with the dandruff on your shoulders. And if you wear blue and white striped pants and a red necktie, you will find it difficult to get close enough to a deacon to be invited to say grace at his table, even if you never play for anything except coffee or beans. Appearances are deceitful, I know, but so long as they are, there's nothing like having them deceive for us instead of against us. I've seen a ten-cent shave and a five-cent shine get a thousand-dollar job, and a cigarette and a pint of champagne knock the bottom out of a million-dollar pork corner. Four or five years ago little Jim Jackson had the bears in the provision pit hibernating and living on their own fat till one morning, the day after he had run the price of mess pork up to twenty dollars and nailed it there, some one saw him drinking a small bottle just before he went on 'Change, and told it round among the brokers on the floor. The bears thought Jim must have had bad news, to be bracing up at that time in the morning, so they perked up and everlastingly sold the mess pork market down through the bottom of the pit to solid earth. There wasn't even a grease spot left of that corner when they got through. As it happened, Jim hadn't had any bad news; he just took the drink because he felt pretty good, and things were coming his way. But it isn't enough to be all right in this world; you've got to look all right as well, because two-thirds of success is making people think you are all right. So you have to be governed by general rules, even though you may be an exception. People have seen four and four make eight, and the young man and the small bottle make a damned fool so often that they are hard to convince that the combination can work out any other way. The Lord only allows so much fun for every man that He makes. Some get it going fishing most of the time and making money the rest; some get it making money most of the time and going fishing the rest. You can take your choice, but the two lines of business don't gee. The more money, the less fish. The farther you go, the straighter you've got to walk. I used to get a heap of solid comfort out of chewing tobacco. Picked up the habit in Missouri, and took to it like a Yankee to pie. At that time pretty much every one in those parts chewed, except the Elder and the women, and most of them snuffed. Seemed a nice, sociable habit, and I never thought anything special about it till I came North and your Ma began to tell me it was a vile relic of barbarism, meaning Missouri, I suppose. Then I confined operations to my office and took to fine cut instead of plug, as being tonier. Well, one day, about ten years ago, when I was walking through the office, I noticed one of the boys on the mailing-desk, a mighty likely-looking youngster, sort of working his jaws as he wrote. I didn't stop to think, but somehow I was mad in a minute. Still, I didn't say a word--just stood and looked at him while he speeded up the way the boys will when they think the old man is nosing around to see whose salary he can raise next. I stood over him for a matter of five minutes, and all the time he was pretending not to see me at all. I will say that he was a pretty game boy, for he never weakened for a second. But at last, seeing he was about to choke to death, I said, sharp and sudden--"Spit." Well, sir, I thought it was a cloudburst. You can bet I was pretty hot, and I started in to curl up that young fellow to a crisp. But before I got out a word, something hit me all of a sudden, and I just went up to the boy and put my hand on his shoulder and said, "Let's swear off, son." Naturally, he swore off--he was so blamed scared that he would have quit breathing if I had asked him to, I reckon. And I had to take my stock of fine cut and send it to the heathen. I simply mention this little incident in passing as an example of the fact that a man can't do what he pleases in this world, because the higher he climbs the plainer people can see him. Naturally, as the old man's son, you have a lot of fellows watching you and betting that you are no good. If you succeed they will say it was an accident; and if you fail they will say it was a cinch. There are two unpardonable sins in this world--success and failure. Those who succeed can't forgive a fellow for being a failure, and those who fail can't forgive him for being a success. If you do succeed, though, you will be too busy to bother very much about what the failures think. I dwell a little on this matter of appearances because so few men are really thinking animals. Where one fellow reads a stranger's character in his face, a hundred read it in his get-up. We have shown a dozen breeds of dukes and droves of college presidents and doctors of divinity through the packing-house, and the workmen never noticed them except to throw livers at them when they got in their way. But when John L. Sullivan went through the stock yards it just simply shut down the plant. The men quit the benches with a yell and lined up to cheer him. You see, John looked his job, and you didn't have to explain to the men that he was the real thing in prize-fighters. Of course, when a fellow gets to the point where he is something in particular, he doesn't have to care because he doesn't look like anything special; but while a young fellow isn't anything in particular, it is a mighty valuable asset if he looks like something special. Just here I want to say that while it's all right for the other fellow to be influenced by appearances, it's all wrong for you to go on them. Back up good looks by good character yourself, and make sure that the other fellow does the same. A suspicious man makes trouble for himself, but a cautious one saves it. Because there ain't any rotten apples in the top layer, it ain't always safe to bet that the whole barrel is sound. [Illustration: "_When John L. Sullivan went through the stock yards, it just simply shut down the plant._"] A man doesn't snap up a horse just because he looks all right. As a usual thing that only makes him wonder what really is the matter that the other fellow wants to sell. So he leads the nag out into the middle of a ten-acre lot, where the light will strike him good and strong, and examines every hair of his hide, as if he expected to find it near-seal, or some other base imitation; and he squints under each hoof for the grand hailing sign of distress; and he peeks down his throat for dark secrets. If the horse passes this degree the buyer drives him twenty or thirty miles, expecting him to turn out a roarer, or to find that he balks, or shies, or goes lame, or develops some other horse nonsense. If after all that there are no bad symptoms, he offers fifty less than the price asked, on general principles, and for fear he has missed something. Take men and horses, by and large, and they run pretty much the same. There's nothing like trying a man in harness a while before you bind yourself to travel very far with him. I remember giving a nice-looking, clean-shaven fellow a job on the billing-desk, just on his looks, but he turned out such a poor hand at figures that I had to fire him at the end of a week. It seemed that the morning he struck me for the place he had pawned his razor for fifteen cents in order to get a shave. Naturally, if I had known that in the first place I wouldn't have hired him as a human arithmetic. Another time I had a collector that I set a heap of store by. Always handled himself just right when he talked to you and kept himself looking right up to the mark. His salary wasn't very big, but he had such a persuasive way that he seemed to get a dollar and a half's worth of value out of every dollar that he earned. Never crowded the fashions and never gave 'em any slack. If sashes were the thing with summer shirts, why Charlie had a sash, you bet, and when tight trousers were the nobby trick in pants, Charlie wore his double reefed. Take him fore and aft, Charlie looked all right and talked all right--always careful, always considerate, always polite. One noon, after he had been with me for a year or two, I met him coming in from his route looking glum; so I handed him fifty dollars as a little sweetener. I never saw a fifty cheer a man up like that one did Charlie, and he thanked me just right--didn't stutter and didn't slop over. I earmarked Charlie for a raise and a better job right there. Just after that I got mixed up with some work in my private office and I didn't look around again till on toward closing time. Then, right outside my door I met the office manager, and he looked mighty glum, too. "I was just going to knock on your door," said he. "Well?" I asked. "Charlie Chasenberry is eight hundred dollars short in his collections." "Um--m," I said, without blinking, but I had a gone feeling just the same. "I had a plain-clothes man here to arrest him this evening, but he didn't come in." "Looks as if he'd skipped, eh?" I asked. "I'm afraid so, but I don't know how. He didn't have a dollar this morning, because he tried to overdraw his salary account and I wouldn't let him, and he didn't collect any bills to-day because he had already collected everything that was due this week and lost it bucking the tiger." I didn't say anything, but I suspected that there was a sucker somewhere in the office. The next day I was sure of it, for I got a telegram from the always polite and thoughtful Charlie, dated at Montreal: "Many, many thanks, dear Mr. Graham, for your timely assistance." Careful as usual, you see, about the little things, for there were just ten words in the message. But that "Many, many thanks, dear Mr. Graham," was the closest to slopping over I had ever known him to come. I consider the little lesson that Charlie gave me as cheap at eight hundred and fifty dollars, and I pass it along to you because it may save you a thousand or two on your experience account. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +----------------------------+ | No. 14 | +----------------------------+ | From John Graham, at the | | Union Stock Yards in | | Chicago, to his son, | | Pierrepont, at The | | Travelers' Rest, New | | Albany, Indiana. Mr. | | Pierrepont has taken a | | little flyer in short | | ribs on 'Change, and has | | accidentally come into | | the line of his father's | | vision. | +----------------------------+ XIV CHICAGO, July 15, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ I met young Horshey, of Horshey & Horter, the grain and provision brokers, at luncheon yesterday, and while we were talking over the light run of hogs your name came up somehow, and he congratulated me on having such a smart son. Like an old fool, I allowed that you were bright enough to come in out of the rain if somebody called you, though I ought to have known better, for it seems as if I never start in to brag about your being sound and sweet that I don't have to wind up by allowing a rebate for skippers. Horshey was so blamed anxious to show that you were over-weight--he wants to handle some of my business on 'Change--that he managed to prove you a light-weight. Told me you had ordered him to sell a hundred thousand ribs short last week, and that he had just bought them in on a wire from you at a profit of four hundred and sixty-odd dollars. I was mighty hot, you bet, to know that you had been speculating, but I had to swallow and allow that you were a pretty sharp boy. I told Horshey to close out the account and send me a check for your profits and I would forward it, as I wanted to give you a tip on the market before you did any more trading. I inclose the check herewith. Please indorse it over to the treasurer of The Home for Half Orphans and return at once. I will see that he gets it with your compliments. Now, I want to give you that tip on the market. There are several reasons why it isn't safe for you to trade on 'Change just now, but the particular one is that Graham & Co. will fire you if you do. Trading on margin is a good deal like paddling around the edge of the old swimming hole--it seems safe and easy at first, but before a fellow knows it he has stepped off the edge into deep water. The wheat pit is only thirty feet across, but it reaches clear down to Hell. And trading on margin means trading on the ragged edge of nothing. When a man buys, he's buying something that the other fellow hasn't got. When a man sells, he's selling something that he hasn't got. And it's been my experience that the net profit on nothing is nit. When a speculator wins he don't stop till he loses, and when he loses he can't stop till he wins. You have been in the packing business long enough now to know that it takes a bull only thirty seconds to lose his hide; and if you'll believe me when I tell you that they can skin a bear just as quick on 'Change, you won't have a Board of Trade Indian using your pelt for a rug during the long winter months. Because you are the son of a pork packer you may think that you know a little more than the next fellow about paper pork. There's nothing in it. The poorest men on earth are the relations of millionaires. When I sell futures on 'Change, they're against hogs that are traveling into dry salt at the rate of one a second, and if the market goes up on me I've got the solid meat to deliver. But, if you lose, the only part of the hog which you can deliver is the squeal. I wouldn't bear down so hard on this matter if money was the only thing that a fellow could lose on 'Change. But if a clerk sells pork, and the market goes down, he's mighty apt to get a lot of ideas with holes in them and bad habits as the small change of his profits. And if the market goes up, he's likely to go short his self-respect to win back his money. Most men think that they can figure up all their assets in dollars and cents, but a merchant may owe a hundred thousand dollars and be solvent. A man's got to lose more than money to be broke. When a fellow's got a straight backbone and a clear eye his creditors don't have to lie awake nights worrying over his liabilities. You can hide your meanness from your brain and your tongue, but the eye and the backbone won't keep secrets. When the tongue lies, the eyes tell the truth. I know you'll think that the old man is bucking and kicking up a lot of dust over a harmless little flyer. But I've kept a heap smarter boys than you out of Joliet when they found it easy to feed the Board of Trade hog out of my cash drawer, after it had sucked up their savings in a couple of laps. You must learn not to overwork a dollar any more than you would a horse. Three per cent. is a small load for it to draw; six, a safe one; when it pulls in ten for you it's likely working out West and you've got to watch to see that it doesn't buck; when it makes twenty you own a blame good critter or a mighty foolish one, and you want to make dead sure which; but if it draws a hundred it's playing the races or something just as hard on horses and dollars, and the first thing you know you won't have even a carcass to haul to the glue factory. I dwell a little on this matter of speculation because you've got to live next door to the Board of Trade all your life, and it's a safe thing to know something about a neighbor's dogs before you try to pat them. Sure Things, Straight Tips and Dead Cinches will come running out to meet you, wagging their tails and looking as innocent as if they hadn't just killed a lamb, but they'll bite. The only safe road to follow in speculation leads straight away from the Board of Trade on the dead run. Speaking of sure things naturally calls to mind the case of my old friend Deacon Wiggleford, whom I used to know back in Missouri years ago. The Deacon was a powerful pious man, and he was good according to his lights, but he didn't use a very superior article of kerosene to keep them burning. Used to take up half the time in prayer-meeting talking about how we were all weak vessels and stewards. But he was so blamed busy exhorting others to give out of the fullness with which the Lord had blessed them that he sort of forgot that the Lord had blessed him about fifty thousand dollars' worth, and put it all in mighty safe property, too, you bet. The Deacon had a brother in Chicago whom he used to call a sore trial. Brother Bill was a broker on the Board of Trade, and, according to the Deacon, he was not only engaged in a mighty sinful occupation, but he was a mighty poor steward of his sinful gains. Smoked two-bit cigars and wore a plug hat. Drank a little and cussed a little and went to the Episcopal Church, though he had been raised a Methodist. Altogether it looked as if Bill was a pretty hard nut. Well, one fall the Deacon decided to go to Chicago himself to buy his winter goods, and naturally he hiked out to Brother Bill's to stay, which was considerable cheaper for him than the Palmer House, though, as he told us when he got back, it made him sick to see the waste. The Deacon had his mouth all fixed to tell Brother Bill that, in his opinion, he wasn't much better than a faro dealer, for he used to brag that he never let anything turn him from his duty, which meant his meddling in other people's business. I want to say right here that with most men duty means something unpleasant which the other fellow ought to do. As a matter of fact, a man's first duty is to mind his own business. It's been my experience that it takes about all the thought and work which one man can give to run one man right, and if a fellow's putting in five or six hours a day on his neighbor's character, he's mighty apt to scamp the building of his own. Well, when Brother Bill got home from business that first night, the Deacon explained that every time he lit a two-bit cigar he was depriving a Zulu of twenty-five helpful little tracts which might have made a better man of him; that fast horses were a snare and plug hats a wile of the Enemy; that the Board of Trade was the Temple of Belial and the brokers on it his sons and servants. Brother Bill listened mighty patiently to him, and when the Deacon had pumped out all the Scripture that was in him, and was beginning to suck air, he sort of slunk into the conversation like a setter pup that's been caught with the feathers on its chops. "Brother Zeke," says he, "I shall certainly let your words soak in. I want to be a number two red, hard, sound and clean sort of a man, and grade contract on delivery day. Perhaps, as you say, the rust has got into me and the Inspector won't pass me, and if I can see it that way I'll settle my trades and get out of the market for good." The Deacon knew that Brother Bill had scraped together considerable property, and, as he was a bachelor, it would come to him in case the broker was removed by any sudden dispensation. What he really feared was that this money might be fooled away in high living and speculation. And so he had banged away into the middle of the flock, hoping to bring down those two birds. Now that it began to look as if he might kill off the whole bunch he started in to hedge. "Is it safe, William?" says he. "As Sunday-school," says Bill, "if you do a strictly brokerage business and don't speculate." "I trust, William, that you recognize the responsibilities of your stewardship?" [Illustration: "_I started in to curl up that young fellow to a crisp._"] Bill fetched a groan. "Zeke," says he, "you cornered me there, and I 'spose I might as well walk up to the Captain's office and settle. I hadn't bought or sold a bushel on my own account in a year till last week, when I got your letter saying that you were coming. Then I saw what looked like a safe chance to scalp the market for a couple of cents a bushel, and I bought 10,000 September, intending to turn over the profits to you as a little present, so that you could see the town and have a good time without it's costing you anything." The Deacon judged from Bill's expression that he had got nipped and was going to try to unload the loss on him, so he changed his face to the one which he used when attending the funeral of any one who hadn't been a professor, and came back quick and hard: "I'm surprised, William, that you should think I would accept money made in gambling. Let this be a lesson to you. How much did you lose?" "That's the worst of it--I didn't lose; I made two hundred dollars," and Bill hove another sigh. "Made two hundred dollars!" echoed the Deacon, and he changed his face again for the one which he used when he found a lead quarter in his till and couldn't remember who had passed it on him. "Yes," Bill went on, "and I'm ashamed of it, for you've made me see things in a new light. Of course, after what you've said, I know it would be an insult to offer you the money. And I feel now that it wouldn't be right to keep it myself. I must sleep on it and try to find the straight thing to do." I guess it really didn't interfere with Bill's sleep, but the Deacon sat up with the corpse of that two hundred dollars, you bet. In the morning at breakfast he asked Brother Bill to explain all about this speculating business, what made the market go up and down, and whether real corn or wheat or pork figured in any stage of a deal. Bill looked sort of sad and dreamy-eyed, as if his conscience hadn't digested that two hundred yet, but he was mighty obliging about explaining everything to Zeke. He had changed his face for the one which he wore when he sold an easy customer ground peas and chicory for O. G. Java, and every now and then he gulped as if he was going to start a hymn. When Bill told him how good and bad weather sent the market up and down, he nodded and said that that part of it was all right, because the weather was of the Lord. "Not on the Board of Trade it isn't," Bill answered back; "at least, not to any marked extent; it's from the weather man or some liar in the corn belt, and, as the weather man usually guesses wrong, I reckon there isn't any special inspiration about it. The game is to guess what's going to happen, not what has happened, and by the time the real weather comes along everybody has guessed wrong and knocked the market off a cent or two." That made the Deacon's chin whiskers droop a little, but he began to ask questions again, and by and by he discovered that away behind--about a hundred miles behind, but that was close enough for the Deacon--a deal in futures there were real wheat and pork. Said then that he'd been misinformed and misled; that speculation was a legitimate business, involving skill and sagacity; that his last scruple was removed, and that he would accept the two hundred. Bill brightened right up at that and thanked him for putting it so clear and removing the doubts that had been worrying him. Said that he could speculate with a clear conscience after listening to the Deacon's able exposition of the subject. Was only sorry he hadn't seen him to talk it over before breakfast, as the two hundred had been lying so heavy on his mind all night that he'd got up early and mailed a check for it to the Deacon's pastor and told him to spend it on his poor. Zeke took the evening train home in order to pry that check out of the elder, but old Doc. Hoover was a pretty quick stepper himself and he'd blown the whole two hundred as soon as he got it, buying winter coal for poor people. I simply mention the Deacon in passing as an example of the fact that it's easy for a man who thinks he's all right to go all wrong when he sees a couple of hundred dollars lying around loose a little to one side of the straight and narrow path; and that when he reaches down to pick up the money there's usually a string tied to it and a small boy in the bushes to give it a yank. Easy-come money never draws interest; easy-borrowed dollars pay usury. Of course, the Board of Trade and every other commercial exchange have their legitimate uses, but all you need to know just now is that speculation by a fellow who never owns more pork at a time than he sees on his breakfast plate isn't one of them. When you become a packer you may go on 'Change as a trader; until then you can go there only as a sucker. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +-----------------------------+ | No. 15 | +-----------------------------+ | From John Graham, at | | the Union Stock Yards | | in Chicago, to his son, | | Pierrepont, at The Scrub | | Oaks, Spring Lake, | | Michigan. Mr. Pierrepont | | has been promoted again, | | and the old man sends him | | a little advice with his | | appointment. | +-----------------------------+ XV CHICAGO, September 1, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ I judge from yours of the twenty-ninth that you must have the black bass in those parts pretty well terrorized. I never could quite figure it out, but there seems to be something about a fish that makes even a cold-water deacon see double. I reckon it must be that while Eve was learning the first principles of dressmaking from the snake, Adam was off bass fishing and keeping his end up by learning how to lie. Don't overstock yourself with those four-pound fish yarns, though, because the boys have been bringing them back from their vacations till we've got enough to last us for a year of Fridays. And if you're sending them to keep in practice, you might as well quit, because we've decided to take you off the road when you come back, and make you assistant manager of the lard department. The salary will be fifty dollars a week, and the duties of the position to do your work so well that the manager can't run the department without you, and that you can run the department without the manager. To do this you will have to know lard; to know yourself; and to know those under you. To some fellows lard is just hog fat, and not always that, if they would rather make a dollar to-day than five to-morrow. But it was a good deal more to Jack Summers, who held your new job until we had to promote him to canned goods. Jack knew lard from the hog to the frying pan; was up on lard in history and religion; originated what he called the "Ham and" theory, proving that Moses' injunction against pork must have been dissolved by the Circuit Court, because Noah included a couple of shoats in his cargo, and called one of his sons Ham, out of gratitude, probably, after tasting a slice broiled for the first time; argued that all the great nations lived on fried food, and that America was the greatest of them all, owing to the energy-producing qualities of pie, liberally shortened with lard. It almost broke Jack's heart when we decided to manufacture our new cottonseed oil product, Seedoiline. But on reflection he saw that it just gave him an extra hold on the heathen that he couldn't convert to lard, and he started right out for the Hebrew and vegetarian vote. Jack had enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is the best shortening for any job; it makes heavy work light. A good many young fellows envy their boss because they think he makes the rules and can do as he pleases. As a matter of fact, he's the only man in the shop who can't. He's like the fellow on the tight-rope--there's plenty of scenery under him and lots of room around him, but he's got to keep his feet on the wire all the time and travel straight ahead. A clerk has just one boss to answer to--the manager. But the manager has just as many bosses as he has clerks under him. He can make rules, but he's the only man who can't afford to break them now and then. A fellow is a boss simply because he's a better man than those under him, and there's a heap of responsibility in being better than the next fellow. No man can ask more than he gives. A fellow who can't take orders can't give them. If his rules are too hard for him to mind, you can bet they are too hard for the clerks who don't get half so much for minding them as he does. There's no alarm clock for the sleepy man like an early rising manager; and there's nothing breeds work in an office like a busy boss. Of course, setting a good example is just a small part of a manager's duties. It's not enough to settle yourself firm on the box seat--you must have every man under you hitched up right and well in hand. You can't work individuals by general rules. Every man is a special case and needs a special pill. When you fix up a snug little nest for a Plymouth Rock hen and encourage her with a nice porcelain egg, it doesn't always follow that she has reached the fricassee age because she doesn't lay right off. Sometimes she will respond to a little red pepper in her food. I don't mean by this that you ever want to drive your men, because the lash always leaves its worst soreness under the skin. A hundred men will forgive a blow in the face where one will a blow to his self-esteem. Tell a man the truth about himself and shame the devil if you want to, but you won't shame the man you're trying to reach, because he won't believe you. But if you can start him on the road that will lead him to the truth he's mighty apt to try to reform himself before any one else finds him out. Consider carefully before you say a hard word to a man, but never let a chance to say a good one go by. Praise judiciously bestowed is money invested. Never learn anything about your men except from themselves. A good manager needs no detectives, and the fellow who can't read human nature can't manage it. The phonograph records of a fellow's character are lined in his face, and a man's days tell the secrets of his nights. Be slow to hire and quick to fire. The time to discover incompatibility of temper and curl-papers is before the marriage ceremony. But when you find that you've hired the wrong man, you can't get rid of him too quick. Pay him an extra month, but don't let him stay another day. A discharged clerk in the office is like a splinter in the thumb--a centre of soreness. There are no exceptions to this rule, because there are no exceptions to human nature. Never threaten, because a threat is a promise to pay that it isn't always convenient to meet, but if you don't make it good it hurts your credit. Save a threat till you're ready to act, and then you won't need it. In all your dealings, remember that to-day is your opportunity; to-morrow some other fellow's. Keep close to your men. When a fellow's sitting on top of a mountain he's in a mighty dignified and exalted position, but if he's gazing at the clouds, he's missing a heap of interesting and important doings down in the valley. Never lose your dignity, of course, but tie it up in all the red tape you can find around the office, and tuck it away in the safe. It's easy for a boss to awe his clerks, but a man who is feared to his face is hated behind his back. A competent boss can move among his men without having to draw an imaginary line between them, because they will see the real one if it exists. Besides keeping in touch with your office men, you want to feel your salesmen all the time. Send each of them a letter every day so that they won't forget that we are making goods for which we need orders; and insist on their sending you a line every day, whether they have anything to say or not. When a fellow has to write in six times a week to the house, he uses up his explanations mighty fast, and he's pretty apt to hustle for business to make his seventh letter interesting. Right here I want to repeat that in keeping track of others and their faults it's very, very important that you shouldn't lose sight of your own. Authority swells up some fellows so that they can't see their corns; but a wise man tries to cure his own while remembering not to tread on his neighbors'. [Illustration: "_A good many salesmen have an idea that buyers are only interested in funny stories._"] In this connection, the story of Lemuel Hostitter, who kept the corner grocery in my old town, naturally comes to mind. Lem was probably the meanest white man in the State of Missouri, and it wasn't any walk-over to hold the belt in those days. Most grocers were satisfied to adulterate their coffee with ground peas, but Lem was so blamed mean that he adulterated the peas first. Bought skin-bruised hams and claimed that the bruise was his private and particular brand, stamped in the skin, showing that they were a fancy article, packed expressly for his fancy family trade. Ran a soda-water fountain in the front of his store with home-made syrups that ate the lining out of the children's stomachs, and a blind tiger in the back room with moonshine whiskey that pickled their daddies' insides. Take it by and large, Lem's character smelled about as various as his store, and that wasn't perfumed with lily-of-the-valley, you bet. One time and another most men dropped into Lem's store of an evening, because there wasn't any other place to go and swap lies about the crops and any of the neighbors who didn't happen to be there. As Lem was always around, in the end he was the only man in town whose meanness hadn't been talked over in that grocery. Naturally, he began to think that he was the only decent white man in the county. Got to shaking his head and reckoning that the town was plum rotten. Said that such goings on would make a pessimist of a goat. Wanted to know if public opinion couldn't be aroused so that decency would have a show in the village. Most men get information when they ask for it, and in the end Lem fetched public opinion all right. One night the local chapter of the W.C.T.U. borrowed all the loose hatchets in town and made a good, clean, workmanlike job of the back part of his store, though his whiskey was so mean that even the ground couldn't soak it up. The noise brought out the men, and they sort of caught the spirit of the happy occasion. When they were through, Lem's stock and fixtures looked mighty sick, and they had Lem on a rail headed for the county line. I don't know when I've seen a more surprised man than Lem. He couldn't cuss even. But as he never came back, to ask for any explanation, I reckon he figured it out that they wanted to get rid of him because he was too good for the town. I simply mention Lem in passing as an example of the fact that when you're through sizing up the other fellow, it's a good thing to step back from yourself and see how you look. Then add fifty per cent. to your estimate of your neighbor for virtues that you can't see, and deduct fifty per cent. from yourself for faults that you've missed in your inventory, and you'll have a pretty accurate result. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +-----------------------------+ | No. 16 | +-----------------------------+ | From John Graham, at the | | Schweitzerkasenhof, | | Karlsbad, Austria, to his | | son, Pierrepont, at the | | Union Stock Yards, | | Chicago. Mr. Pierrepont | | has shown mild symptoms | | of an attack of society | | fever, and his father is | | administering some simple | | remedies. | +-----------------------------+ XVI KARLSBAD, October 6, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ If you happen to run across Doc Titherington you'd better tell him to go into training, because I expect to be strong enough to lick him by the time I get back. Between that ten-day boat which he recommended and these Dutch doctors, I'm almost well and about broke. You don't really have to take the baths here to get rid of your rheumatism--their bills scare it out of a fellow. They tell me we had a pretty quiet trip across, and I'm not saying that we didn't, because for the first three days I was so busy holding myself in my berth that I couldn't get a chance to look out the porthole to see for myself. I reckon there isn't anything alive that can beat me at being seasick, unless it's a camel, and he's got three stomachs. When I did get around I was a good deal of a maverick--for all the old fellows were playing poker in the smoking-room and all the young ones were lallygagging under the boats--until I found that we were carrying a couple of hundred steers between decks. They looked mighty homesick, you bet, and I reckon they sort of sized me up as being a long ways from Chicago, for we cottoned to each other right from the start. Take 'em as they ran, they were a mighty likely bunch of steers, and I got a heap of solid comfort out of them. There must have been good money in them, too, for they reached England in prime condition. I wish you would tell our people at the Beef House to look into this export cattle business, and have all the facts and figures ready for me when I get back. There seems to be a good margin in it, and with our English house we are fixed up to handle it all right at this end. It makes me mighty sick to think that we've been sitting back on our hindlegs and letting the other fellow run away with this trade. We are packers, I know, but that's no reason why we can't be shippers, too. I want to milk the critter coming and going, twice a day, and milk her dry. Unless you do the whole thing you can't do anything in business as it runs to-day. There's still plenty of room at the top, but there isn't much anywheres else. There may be reasons why we haven't been able to tackle this exporting of live cattle, but you can tell our people there that they have got to be mighty good reasons to wipe out the profit I see in it. Of course, I may have missed them, for I've only looked into the business a little by way of recreation, but it won't do to say that it's not in our line, because anything which carries a profit on four legs is in our line. I dwell a little on the matter because, while this special case is out of your department, the general principle is in it. The way to think of a thing in business is to think of it first, and the way to get a share of the trade is to go for all of it. Half the battle's in being on the hilltop first; and the other half's in staying there. In speaking of these matters, and in writing you about your new job, I've run a little ahead of your present position, because I'm counting on you to catch up with me. But you want to get it clearly in mind that I'm writing to you not as the head of the house, but as the head of the family, and that I don't propose to mix the two things. Even as assistant manager of the lard department, you don't occupy a very important position with us yet. But the great trouble with some fellows is that a little success goes to their heads. Instead of hiding their authority behind their backs and trying to get close to their men, they use it as a club to keep them off. And a boss with a case of big-head will fill an office full of sore heads. I don't know any one who has better opportunities for making himself unpopular than an assistant, for the clerks are apt to cuss him for all the manager's meanness, and the manager is likely to find fault with him for all the clerks' cussedness. But if he explains his orders to the clerks he loses his authority, and if he excuses himself to the manager he loses his usefulness. A manager needs an assistant to take trouble from him, not to bring it to him. The one important thing for you to remember all the time is not to forget. It's easier for a boss to do a thing himself than to tell some one twice to do it. Petty details take up just as much room in a manager's head as big ideas; and the more of the first you store for him, the more warehouse room you leave him for the second. When a boss has to spend his days swearing at his assistant and the clerks have to sit up nights hating him, they haven't much time left to swear by the house. Satisfaction is the oil of the business machine. Some fellows can only see those above them, and others can only see those under them, but a good man is cross-eyed and can see both ends at once. An assistant who becomes his manager's right hand is going to find the left hand helping him; and it's not hard for a clerk to find good points in a boss who finds good ones in him. Pulling from above and boosting from below make climbing easy. In handling men, your own feelings are the only ones that are of no importance. I don't mean by this that you want to sacrifice your self-respect, but you must keep in mind that the bigger the position the broader the man must be to fill it. And a diet of courtesy and consideration gives girth to a boss. Of course, all this is going to take so much time and thought that you won't have a very wide margin left for golf--especially in the afternoons. I simply mention this in passing, because I see in the Chicago papers which have been sent me that you were among the players on the links one afternoon a fortnight ago. Golf's a nice, foolish game, and there ain't any harm in it so far as I know except for the balls--the stiff balls at the beginning, the lost balls in the middle, and the highballs at the end of the game. But a young fellow who wants to be a boss butcher hasn't much daylight to waste on any kind of links except sausage links. Of course, a man should have a certain amount of play, just as a boy is entitled to a piece of pie at the end of his dinner, but he don't want to make a meal of it. Any one who lets sinkers take the place of bread and meat gets bilious pretty young; and these fellows who haven't any job, except to blow the old man's dollars, are a good deal like the little niggers in the pie-eating contest at the County Fair--they've a-plenty of pastry and they're attracting a heap of attention, but they've got a stomach-ache coming to them by and by. I want to caution you right here against getting the society bug in your head. I'd sooner you'd smoke these Turkish cigarettes which smell like a fire in the fertilizer factory. You're going to meet a good many stray fools in the course of business every day without going out to hunt up the main herd after dark. Everybody over here in Europe thinks that we haven't any society in America, and a power of people in New York think that we haven't any society in Chicago. But so far as I can see there are just as many ninety-nine-cent men spending million-dollar incomes in one place as another; and the rules that govern the game seem to be the same in all three places--you've got to be a descendant to belong, and the farther you descend the harder you belong. The only difference is that, in Europe, the ancestor who made money enough so that his family could descend, has been dead so long that they have forgotten his shop; in New York he's so recent that they can only pretend to have forgotten it; but in Chicago they can't lose it because the ancestor is hustling on the Board of Trade or out at the Stock Yards. I want to say right here that I don't propose to be an ancestor until after I'm dead. Then, if you want to have some fellow whose grandfather sold bad whiskey to the Indians sniff and smell pork when you come into the room, you can suit yourself. Of course, I may be off in sizing this thing up, because it's a little out of my line. But it's been my experience that these people who think that they are all the choice cuts off the critter, and that the rest of us are only fit for sausage, are usually chuck steak when you get them under the knife. I've tried two or three of them, who had gone broke, in the office, but when you separate them from their money there's nothing left, not even their friends. I never see a fellow trying to crawl or to buy his way into society that I don't think of my old friend Hank Smith and his wife Kate--Kate Botts she was before he married her--and how they tried to butt their way through the upper crust. Hank and I were boys together in Missouri, and he stayed along in the old town after I left. I heard of him on and off as tending store a little, and farming a little, and loafing a good deal. Then I forgot all about him, until one day a few years ago when he turned up in the papers as Captain Henry Smith, the Klondike Gold King, just back from Circle City, with a million in dust and anything you please in claims. There's never any limit to what a miner may be worth in those, except his imagination. I was a little puzzled when, a week later, my office boy brought me a card reading Colonel Henry Augustus Bottes-Smythe, but I supposed it was some distinguished foreigner who had come to size me up so that he could round out his roast on Chicago in his new book, and I told the boy to show the General in. I've got a pretty good memory for faces, and I'd bought too much store plug of Hank in my time not to know him, even with a clean shave and a plug hat. Some men dry up with success, but it was just spouting out of Hank. Told me he'd made his pile and that he was tired of living on the slag heap; that he'd spent his whole life where money hardly whispered, let alone talked, and he was going now where it would shout. Wanted to know what was the use of being a nob if a fellow wasn't the nobbiest sort of a nob. Said he'd bought a house on Beacon Hill, in Boston, and that if I'd prick up my ears occasionally I'd hear something drop into the Back Bay. Handed me his new card four times and explained that it was the rawest sort of dog to carry a brace of names in your card holster; that it gave you the drop on the swells every time, and that they just had to throw up both hands and pass you the pot when you showed down. Said that Bottes was old English for Botts, and that Smythe was new American for Smith; the Augustus was just a fancy touch, a sort of high-card kicker. I didn't explain to Hank, because it was congratulations and not explanations that he wanted, and I make it a point to show a customer the line of goods that he's looking for. And I never heard the full particulars of his experiences in the East, though, from what I learned afterward, Hank struck Boston with a bang, all right. He located his claim on Beacon Hill, between a Mayflower descendant and a Declaration Signer's great-grandson, breeds which believe that when the Lord made them He was through, and that the rest of us just happened. And he hadn't been in town two hours before he started in to make improvements. There was a high wrought-iron railing in front of his house, and he had that gilded first thing, because, as he said, he wasn't running a receiving vault and he didn't want any mistakes. Then he bought a nice, open barouche, had the wheels painted red, hired a nigger coachman and started out in style to be sociable and get acquainted. Left his card all the way down one side of Beacon Street, and then drove back leaving it on the other. Everywhere he stopped he found that the whole family was out. Kept it up a week, on and off, but didn't seem to have any luck. Thought that the men must be hot sports and the women great gadders to keep on the jump so much. Allowed that they were the liveliest little lot of fleas that he had ever chased. Decided to quit trying to nail 'em one at a time, and planned out something that he reckoned would round up the whole bunch. Hank sent out a thousand invitations to his grand opening, as he called it; left one at every house within a mile. Had a brass band on the front steps and fireworks on the roof. Ordered forty kegs from the brewery and hired a fancy mixer to sling together mild snorts, as he called them, for the ladies. They tell me that, when the band got to going good on the steps and the fireworks on the roof, even Beacon Street looked out the windows to see what was doing. There must have been ten thousand people in the street and not a soul but Hank and his wife and the mixer in the house. Some one yelled speech, and then the whole crowd took it up, till Hank came out on the steps. He shut off the band with one hand and stopped the fireworks with the other. Said that speechmaking wasn't his strangle-hold; that he'd been living on snowballs in the Klondike for so long that his gas-pipe was frozen; but that this welcome started the ice and he thought about three fingers of the plumber's favorite prescription would cut out the frost. Would the crowd join him? He had invited a few friends in for the evening, but there seemed to be some misunderstanding about the date, and he hated to have good stuff curdle on his hands. While this was going on, the Mayflower descendant was telephoning for the police from one side and the Signer's great-grandson from the other, and just as the crowd yelled and broke for the house two patrol wagons full of policemen got there. But they had to turn in a riot call and bring out the reserves before they could break up Hank's little Boston tea-party. After all, Hank did what he started out to do with his party--rounded up all his neighbors in a bunch, though not exactly according to schedule. For next morning there were so many descendants and great-grandsons in the police court to prefer charges that it looked like a reunion of the Pilgrim Fathers. The Judge fined Hank on sixteen counts and bound him over to keep the peace for a hundred years. That afternoon he left for the West on a special, because the Limited didn't get there quick enough. But before going he tacked on the front door of his house a sign which read: "Neighbors paying their party calls will please not heave rocks through windows to attract attention. Not in and not going to be. Gone back to Circle City for a little quiet. "Yours truly, "HANK SMITH. "N.B.--Too swift for your uncle." Hank dropped by my office for a minute on his way to 'Frisco. Said he liked things lively, but there was altogether too much rough-house on Beacon Hill for him. Judged that as the crowd which wasn't invited was so blamed sociable, the one which was invited would have stayed a week if it hadn't slipped up on the date. That might be the Boston idea, but he wanted a little more refinement in his. Said he was a pretty free spender, and would hold his end up, but he hated a hog. Of course I told Hank that Boston wasn't all that it was cracked up to be in the school histories, and that Circle City wasn't so tough as it read in the newspapers, for there was no way of making him understand that he might have lived in Boston for a hundred years without being invited to a strawberry sociable. Because a fellow cuts ice on the Arctic Circle, it doesn't follow that he's going to be worth beans on the Back Bay. I simply mention Hank in a general way. His case may be a little different, but it isn't any more extreme than lots of others all around you over there and me over here. Of course, I want you to enjoy good society, but any society is good society where congenial men and women meet together for wholesome amusement. But I want you to keep away from people who choose play for a profession. A man's as good as he makes himself, but no man's any good because his grandfather was. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +----------------------------+ | No. 17 | +----------------------------+ | From John Graham, at the | | London House of Graham & | | Co., to his son, | | Pierrepont, at the Union | | Stock Yards in Chicago. | | Mr. Pierrepont has | | written his father that | | he is getting along | | famously in his new | | place. | +----------------------------+ XVII LONDON, October 24, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ Well, I'm headed for home at last, checked high and as full of prance as a spotted circus horse. Those Dutchmen ain't so bad as their language, after all, for they've fixed up my rheumatism so that I can bear down on my right leg without thinking that it's going to break off. I'm glad to learn from your letter that you're getting along so well in your new place, and I hope that when I get home your boss will back up all the good things which you say about yourself. For the future, however, you needn't bother to keep me posted along this line. It's the one subject on which most men are perfectly frank, and it's about the only one on which it isn't necessary to be. There's never any use trying to hide the fact that you're a jim-dandy--you're bound to be found out. Of course, you want to have your eyes open all the time for a good man, but follow the old maid's example--look under the bed and in the closet, not in the mirror, for him. A man who does big things is too busy to talk about them. When the jaws really need exercise, chew gum. Some men go through life on the Sarsaparilla Theory--that they've got to give a hundred doses of talk about themselves for every dollar which they take in; and that's a pretty good theory when you're getting a dollar for ten cents' worth of ingredients. But a man who's giving a dollar's worth of himself for ninety-nine cents doesn't need to throw in any explanations. Of course, you're going to meet fellows right along who pass as good men for a while, because they say they're good men; just as a lot of fives are in circulation which are accepted at their face value until they work up to the receiving teller. And you're going to see these men taking buzzards and coining eagles from them that will fool people so long as they can keep them in the air; but sooner or later they're bound to swoop back to their dead horse, and you'll get the buzzard smell. Hot air can take up a balloon a long ways, but it can't keep it there. And when a fellow's turning flip-flops up among the clouds, he's naturally going to have the farmers gaping at him. But in the end there always comes a time when the parachute fails to work. I don't know anything that's quite so dead as a man who's fallen three or four thousand feet off the edge of a cloud. The only way to gratify a taste for scenery is to climb a mountain. You don't get up so quick, but you don't come down so sudden. Even then, there's a chance that a fellow may slip and fall over a precipice, but not unless he's foolish enough to try short-cuts over slippery places; though some men can manage to fall down the hall stairs and break their necks. The path isn't the shortest way to the top, but it's usually the safest way. Life isn't a spurt, but a long, steady climb. You can't run far up-hill without stopping to sit down. Some men do a day's work and then spend six lolling around admiring it. They rush at a thing with a whoop and use up all their wind in that. And when they're rested and have got it back, they whoop again and start off in a new direction. They mistake intention for determination, and after they have told you what they propose to do and get right up to doing it, they simply peter out. I've heard a good deal in my time about the foolishness of hens, but when it comes to right-down, plum foolishness, give me a rooster, every time. He's always strutting and stretching and crowing and bragging about things with which he had nothing to do. When the sun rises, you'd think that he was making all the light, instead of all the noise; when the farmer's wife throws the scraps in the henyard, he crows as if he was the provider for the whole farmyard and was asking a blessing on the food; when he meets another rooster, he crows; and when the other rooster licks him, he crows; and so he keeps it up straight through the day. He even wakes up during the night and crows a little on general principles. But when you hear from a hen, she's laid an egg, and she don't make a great deal of noise about it, either. I speak of these things in a general way, because I want you to keep in mind all the time that steady, quiet, persistent, plain work can't be imitated or replaced by anything just as good, and because your request for a job for Courtland Warrington naturally brings them up. You write that Court says that a man who has occupied his position in the world naturally can't cheapen himself by stepping down into any little piddling job where he'd have to do undignified things. I want to start right out by saying that I know Court and his whole breed like a glue factory, and that we can't use him in our business. He's one of those fellows who start in at the top and naturally work down to the bottom, because that is where they belong. His father gave him an interest in the concern when he left college, and since the old man failed three years ago and took a salary himself, Court's been sponging on him and waiting for a nice, dignified job to come along and steal him. But we are not in the kidnapping business. The only undignified job I know of is loafing, and nothing can cheapen a man who sponges instead of hunting any sort of work, because he's as cheap already as they can be made. I never could quite understand these fellows who keep down every decent instinct in order to keep up appearance, and who will stoop to any sort of real meanness to boost up their false pride. [Illustration: "_Jim Hicks dared Fatty Wilkins to eat a piece of dirt._"] They always remind me of little Fatty Wilkins, who came to live in our town back in Missouri when I was a boy. His mother thought a heap of Fatty, and Fatty thought a heap of himself, or his stomach, which was the same thing. Looked like he'd been taken from a joke book. Used to be a great eater. Stuffed himself till his hide was stretched as tight as a sausage skin, and then howled for painkiller. Spent all his pennies for cakes, because candy wasn't filling enough. Hogged 'em in the shop, for fear he would have to give some one a bite if he ate them on the street. The other boys didn't take to Fatty, and they didn't make any special secret of it when he was around. He was a mighty brave boy and a mighty strong boy and a mighty proud boy--with his mouth; but he always managed to slip out of anything that looked like a fight by having a sore hand or a case of the mumps. The truth of the matter was that he was afraid of everything except food, and that was the thing which was hurting him most. It's mighty seldom that a fellow's afraid of what he ought to be afraid of in this world. Of course, like most cowards, while Fatty always had an excuse for not doing something that might hurt his skin, he would take a dare to do anything that would hurt his self-respect, for fear the boys would laugh at him, or say that he was afraid, if he refused. So one day during recess Jim Hicks dared him to eat a piece of dirt. Fatty hesitated a little, because, while he was pretty promiscuous about what he put into his stomach, he had never included dirt in his bill-of-fare. But when the boys began to say that he was afraid, Fatty up and swallowed it. And when he dared the other boys to do the same thing and none of them would take the dare, it made him mighty proud and puffed up. Got to charging the bigger boys and the lounger around the post-office a cent to see him eat a piece of dirt the size of a hickory-nut. Found there was good money in that, and added grasshoppers, at two cents apiece, as a side line. Found them so popular that he took on chinch bugs at a nickel, and fairly coined money. The last I heard of Fatty he was in a Dime Museum, drawing two salaries--one as "The Fat Man," and the other as "Launcelot, The Locust Eater, the Only Man Alive with a Gizzard." You are going to meet a heap of Fatties, first and last, fellows who'll eat a little dirt "for fun" or to show off, and who'll eat a little more because they find that there's some easy money or times in it. It's hard to get at these men, because when they've lost everything they had to be proud of, they still keep their pride. You can always bet that when a fellow's pride makes him touchy, it's because there are some mighty raw spots on it. It's been my experience that pride is usually a spur to the strong and a drag on the weak. It drives the strong man along and holds the weak one back. It makes the fellow with the stiff upper lip and the square jaw smile at a laugh and laugh at a sneer; it keeps his conscience straight and his back humped over his work; it makes him appreciate the little things and fight for the big ones. But it makes the fellow with the retreating forehead do the thing that looks right, instead of the thing that is right; it makes him fear a laugh and shrivel up at a sneer; it makes him live to-day on to-morrow's salary; it makes him a cheap imitation of some Willie who has a little more money than he has, without giving him zip enough to go out and force luck for himself. I never see one of these fellows swelling around with their petty larceny pride that I don't think of a little experience of mine when I was a boy. An old fellow caught me lifting a watermelon in his patch, one afternoon, and instead of cuffing me and letting me go, as I had expected if I got caught, he led me home by the ear to my ma, and told her what I had been up to. Your grandma had been raised on the old-fashioned plan, and she had never heard of these new-fangled theories of reasoning gently with a child till its under lip begins to stick out and its eyes to fill with tears as it sees the error of its ways. She fetched the tears all right, but she did it with a trunk strap or a slipper. And your grandma was a pretty substantial woman. Nothing of the tootsey-wootsey about her foot, and nothing of the airy-fairy trifle about her slipper. When she was through I knew that I'd been licked--polished right off to a point--and then she sent me to my room and told me not to poke my nose out of it till I could recite the Ten Commandments and the Sunday-school lesson by heart. There was a whole chapter of it, and an Old Testament chapter at that, but I laid right into it because I knew ma, and supper was only two hours off. I can repeat that chapter still, forward and backward, without missing a word or stopping to catch my breath. Every now and then old Doc Hoover used to come into the Sunday-school room and scare the scholars into fits by going around from class to class and asking questions. That next Sunday, for the first time, I was glad to see him happen in, and I didn't try to escape attention when he worked around to our class. For ten minutes I'd been busting for him to ask me to recite a verse of the lesson, and, when he did, I simply cut loose and recited the whole chapter and threw in the Ten Commandments for good measure. It sort of dazed the Doc, because he had come to me for information about the Old Testament before, and we'd never got much beyond, And Ahab begat Jahab, or words to that effect. But when he got over the shock he made me stand right up before the whole school and do it again. Patted me on the head and said I was "an honor to my parents and an example to my playmates." I had been looking down all the time, feeling mighty proud and scared, but at that I couldn't help glancing up to see the other boys admire me. But the first person my eye lit on was your grandma, standing in the back of the room, where she had stopped for a moment on her way up to church, and glaring at me in a mighty unpleasant way. "Tell 'em, John," she said right out loud, before everybody. There was no way to run, for the Elder had hold of my hand, and there was no place to hide, though I reckon I could have crawled into a rat hole. So, to gain time, I blurted out: "Tell 'em what, mam?" "Tell 'em how you come to have your lesson so nice." I learned to hate notoriety right then and there, but I knew there was no switching her off on to the weather when she wanted to talk religion. So I shut my eyes and let it come, though it caught on my palate once or twice on the way out. "Hooked a watermelon, mam." There wasn't any need for further particulars with that crowd, and they simply howled. Ma led me up to our pew, allowing that she'd tend to me Monday for disgracing her in public that way--and she did. That was a twelve-grain dose, without any sugar coat, but it sweat more cant and false pride out of my system than I could get back into it for the next twenty years. I learned right there how to be humble, which is a heap more important than knowing how to be proud. There are mighty few men that need any lessons in that. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +-----------------------------+ | No. 18 | +-----------------------------+ | From John Graham, at the | | London House of Graham & | | Co., to his son, | | Pierrepont, at the Union | | Stock Yards in Chicago. | | Mr. Pierrepont is worried | | over rumors that the old | | man is a bear on lard, | | and that the longs are | | about to make him climb a | | tree. | +-----------------------------+ XVIII LONDON, October 27, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ Yours of the twenty-first inst. to hand and I note the inclosed clippings. You needn't pay any special attention to this newspaper talk about the Comstock crowd having caught me short a big line of November lard. I never sell goods without knowing where I can find them when I want them, and if these fellows try to put their forefeet in the trough, or start any shoving and crowding, they're going to find me forgetting my table manners, too. For when it comes to funny business I'm something of a humorist myself. And while I'm too old to run, I'm young enough to stand and fight. First and last, a good many men have gone gunning for me, but they've always planned the obsequies before they caught the deceased. I reckon there hasn't been a time in twenty years when there wasn't a nice "Gates Ajar" piece all made up and ready for me in some office near the Board of Trade. But the first essential of a quiet funeral is a willing corpse. And I'm still sitting up and taking nourishment. There are two things you never want to pay any attention to--abuse and flattery. The first can't harm you and the second can't help you. Some men are like yellow dogs--when you're coming toward them they'll jump up and try to lick your hands; and when you're walking away from them they'll sneak up behind and snap at your heels. Last year, when I was bulling the market, the longs all said that I was a kind-hearted old philanthropist, who was laying awake nights scheming to get the farmers a top price for their hogs; and the shorts allowed that I was an infamous old robber, who was stealing the pork out of the workingman's pot. As long as you can't please both sides in this world, there's nothing like pleasing your own side. There are mighty few people who can see any side to a thing except their own side. I remember once I had a vacant lot out on the Avenue, and a lady came in to my office and in a soothing-syrupy way asked if I would lend it to her, as she wanted to build a _crèche_ on it. I hesitated a little, because I had never heard of a _crèche_ before, and someways it sounded sort of foreign and frisky, though the woman looked like a good, safe, reliable old heifer. But she explained that a _crèche_ was a baby farm, where old maids went to wash and feed and stick pins in other people's children while their mothers were off at work. Of course, there was nothing in that to get our pastor or the police after me, so I told her to go ahead. She went off happy, but about a week later she dropped in again, looking sort of dissatisfied, to find out if I wouldn't build the _crèche_ itself. It seemed like a worthy object, so I sent some carpenters over to knock together a long frame pavilion. She was mighty grateful, you bet, and I didn't see her again for a fortnight. Then she called by to say that so long as I was in the business and they didn't cost me anything special, would I mind giving her a few cows. She had a surprised and grieved expression on her face as she talked, and the way she put it made me feel that I ought to be ashamed of myself for not having thought of the live stock myself. So I threw in half a dozen cows to provide the refreshments. I thought that was pretty good measure, but the carpenters hadn't more than finished with the pavilion before the woman telephoned a sharp message to ask why I hadn't had it painted. I was too busy that morning to quarrel, so I sent word that I would fix it up; and when I was driving by there next day the painters were hard at work on it. There was a sixty-foot frontage of that shed on the Avenue, and I saw right off that it was just a natural signboard. So I called over the boss painter and between us we cooked up a nice little ad that ran something like this: Graham's Extract: It Makes the Weak Strong. Well, sir, when she saw the ad next morning that old hen just scratched gravel. Went all around town saying that I had given a five-hundred-dollar shed to charity and painted a thousand-dollar ad on it. Allowed I ought to send my check for that amount to the _crèche_ fund. Kept at it till I began to think there might be something in it, after all, and sent her the money. Then I found a fellow who wanted to build in that neighborhood, sold him the lot cheap, and got out of the _crèche_ industry. I've put a good deal more than work into my business, and I've drawn a good deal more than money out of it; but the only thing I've ever put into it which didn't draw dividends in fun or dollars was worry. That is a branch of the trade which you want to leave to our competitors. I've always found worrying a blamed sight more uncertain than horse-racing--it's harder to pick a winner at it. You go home worrying because you're afraid that your fool new clerk forgot to lock the safe after you, and during the night the lard refinery burns down; you spend a year fretting because you think Bill Jones is going to cut you out with your best girl, and then you spend ten worrying because he didn't; you worry over Charlie at college because he's a little wild, and he writes you that he's been elected president of the Y.M.C.A.; and you worry over William because he's so pious that you're afraid he's going to throw up everything and go to China as a missionary, and he draws on you for a hundred; you worry because you're afraid your business is going to smash, and your health busts up instead. Worrying is the one game in which, if you guess right, you don't get any satisfaction out of your smartness. A busy man has no time to bother with it. He can always find plenty of old women in skirts or trousers to spend their days worrying over their own troubles and to sit up nights waking his. Speaking of handing over your worries to others naturally calls to mind the Widow Williams and her son Bud, who was a playmate of mine when I was a boy. Bud was the youngest of the Widow's troubles, and she was a woman whose troubles seldom came singly. Had fourteen altogether, and four pair of 'em were twins. Used to turn 'em loose in the morning, when she let out her cows and pigs to browse along the street, and then she'd shed all worry over them for the rest of the day. Allowed that if they got hurt the neighbors would bring them home; and that if they got hungry they'd come home. And someways, the whole drove always showed up safe and dirty about meal time. I've no doubt she thought a lot of Bud, but when a woman has fourteen it sort of unsettles her mind so that she can't focus her affections or play any favorites. And so when Bud's clothes were found at the swimming hole one day, and no Bud inside them, she didn't take on up to the expectations of the neighbors who had brought the news, and who were standing around waiting for her to go off into something special in the way of high-strikes. She allowed that they were Bud's clothes, all right, but she wanted to know where the remains were. Hinted that there'd be no funeral, or such like expensive goings-on, until some one produced the deceased. Take her by and large, she was a pretty cool, calm cucumber. But if she showed a little too much Christian resignation, the rest of the town was mightily stirred up over Bud's death, and every one just quit work to tell each other what a noble little fellow he was; and how his mother hadn't deserved to have such a bright little sunbeam in her home; and to drag the river between talks. But they couldn't get a rise. Through all the worry and excitement the Widow was the only one who didn't show any special interest, except to ask for results. But finally, at the end of a week, when they'd strained the whole river through their drags and hadn't anything to show for it but a collection of tin cans and dead catfish, she threw a shawl over her head and went down the street to the cabin of Louisiana Clytemnestra, an old yellow woman, who would go into a trance for four bits and find a fortune for you for a dollar. I reckon she'd have called herself a clairvoyant nowadays, but then she was just a voodoo woman. Well, the Widow said she reckoned that boys ought to be let out as well as in for half price, and so she laid down two bits, allowing that she wanted a few minutes' private conversation with her Bud. Clytie said she'd do her best, but that spirits were mighty snifty and high-toned, even when they'd only been poor white trash on earth, and it might make them mad to be called away from their high jinks if they were taking a little recreation, or from their high-priced New York customers if they were working, to tend to cut-rate business. Still, she'd have a try, and she did. But after having convulsions for half an hour, she gave it up. Reckoned that Bud was up to some cussedness off somewhere, and that he wouldn't answer for any two-bits. [Illustration: "_Elder Hoover was accounted a powerful exhorter in our parts._"] The Widow was badly disappointed, but she allowed that that was just like Bud. He'd always been a boy that never could be found when any one wanted him. So she went off, saying that she'd had her money's worth in seeing Clytie throw those fancy fits. But next day she came again and paid down four bits, and Clytie reckoned that that ought to fetch Bud sure. Someways though, she didn't have any luck, and finally the Widow suggested that she call up Bud's father--Buck Williams had been dead a matter of ten years--and the old man responded promptly. "Where's Bud?" asked the Widow. Hadn't laid eyes on him. Didn't know he'd come across. Had he joined the church before he started? "No." Then he'd have to look downstairs for him. Clytie told the Widow to call again and they'd get him sure. So she came back next day and laid down a dollar. That fetched old Buck Williams' ghost on the jump, you bet, but he said he hadn't laid eyes on Bud yet. They hauled the Sweet By and By with a drag net, but they couldn't get a rap from him. Clytie trotted out George Washington, and Napoleon, and Billy Patterson, and Ben Franklin, and Captain Kidd, just to show that there was no deception, but they couldn't get a whisper even from Bud. I reckon Clytie had been stringing the old lady along, intending to produce Bud's spook as a sort of red-fire, calcium-light, grand-march-of-the-Amazons climax, but she didn't get a chance. For right there the old lady got up with a mighty set expression around her lips and marched out, muttering that it was just as she had thought all along--Bud wasn't there. And when the neighbors dropped in that afternoon to plan out a memorial service for her "lost lamb," she chased them off the lot with a broom. Said that they had looked in the river for him and that she had looked beyond the river for him, and that they would just stand pat now and wait for him to make the next move. Allowed that if she could once get her hands in "that lost lamb's" wool there might be an opening for a funeral when she got through with him, but there wouldn't be till then. Altogether, it looked as if there was a heap of trouble coming to Bud if he had made any mistake and was still alive. The Widow found her "lost lamb" hiding behind a rain-barrel when she opened up the house next morning, and there was a mighty touching and affecting scene. In fact, the Widow must have touched him at least a hundred times and every time he was affected to tears, for she was using a bed slat, which is a powerfully strong moral agent for making a boy see the error of his ways. And it was a month after that before Bud could go down Main Street without some man who had called him a noble little fellow, or a bright, manly little chap, while he was drowned, reaching out and fetching him a clip on the ear for having come back and put the laugh on him. No one except the Widow ever really got at the straight of Bud's conduct, but it appeared that he left home to get a few Indian scalps, and that he came back for a little bacon and corn pone. I simply mention the Widow in passing as an example of the fact that the time to do your worrying is when a thing is all over, and that the way to do it is to leave it to the neighbors. I sail for home to-morrow. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +----------------------------+ | No. 19 | +----------------------------+ | From John Graham, at the | | New York house of Graham | | & Co., to his son, | | Pierrepont, at the Union | | Stock Yards in Chicago. | | The old man, on the | | voyage home, has met a | | girl who interests him | | and who in turn seems to | | be interested in Mr. | | Pierrepont. | +----------------------------+ XIX NEW YORK, November 4, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ Who is this Helen Heath, and what are your intentions there? She knows a heap more about you than she ought to know if they're not serious, and I know a heap less about her than I ought to know if they are. Hadn't got out of sight of land before we'd become acquainted somehow, and she's been treating me like a father clear across the Atlantic. She's a mighty pretty girl, and a mighty nice girl, and a mighty sensible girl--in fact she's so exactly the sort of girl I'd like to see you marry that I'm afraid there's nothing in it. Of course, your salary isn't a large one yet, but you can buy a whole lot of happiness with fifty dollars a week when you have the right sort of a woman for your purchasing agent. And while I don't go much on love in a cottage, love in a flat, with fifty a week as a starter, is just about right, if the girl is just about right. If she isn't, it doesn't make any special difference how you start out, you're going to end up all wrong. Money ought never to be _the_ consideration in marriage, but it always ought to be _a_ consideration. When a boy and a girl don't think enough about money before the ceremony, they're going to have to think altogether too much about it after; and when a man's doing sums at home evenings, it comes kind of awkward for him to try to hold his wife on his lap. There's nothing in this talk that two can live cheaper than one. A good wife doubles a man's expenses and doubles his happiness, and that's a pretty good investment if a fellow's got the money to invest. I have met women who had cut their husband's expenses in half, but they needed the money because they had doubled their own. I might add, too, that I've met a good many husbands who had cut their wives' expenses in half, and they fit naturally into any discussion of our business, because they are hogs. There's a point where economy becomes a vice, and that's when a man leaves its practice to his wife. An unmarried man is a good deal like a piece of unimproved real estate--he may be worth a whole lot of money, but he isn't of any particular use except to build on. The great trouble with a lot of these fellows is that they're "made land," and if you dig down a few feet you strike ooze and booze under the layer of dollars that their daddies dumped in on top. Of course, the only way to deal with a proposition of that sort is to drive forty-foot piles clear down to solid rock and then to lay railroad iron and cement till you've got something to build on. But a lot of women will go right ahead without any preliminaries and wonder what's the matter when the walls begin to crack and tumble about their ears. I never come across a case of this sort without thinking of Jack Carter, whose father died about ten years ago and left Jack a million dollars, and left me as trustee of both until Jack reached his twenty-fifth birthday. I didn't relish the job particularly, because Jack was one of these charlotte-russe boys, all whipped cream and sponge cake and high-priced flavoring extracts, without any filling qualities. There wasn't any special harm in him, but there wasn't any special good, either, and I always feel that there's more hope for a fellow who's an out and out cuss than for one who's simply made up of a lot of little trifling meannesses. Jack wore mighty warm clothes and mighty hot vests, and the girls all said that he was a perfect dream, but I've never been one who could get a great deal of satisfaction out of dreams. It's mighty seldom that I do an exhibition mile, but the winter after I inherited Jack--he was twenty-three years old then--your Ma kept after me so strong that I finally put on my fancy harness and let her trot me around to a meet at the Ralstons one evening. Of course, I was in the Percheron class, and so I just stood around with a lot of heavy old draft horses, who ought to have been resting up in their stalls, and watched the three-year-olds prance and cavort round the ring. Jack was among them, of course, dancing with the youngest Churchill girl, and holding her a little tighter, I thought, than was necessary to keep her from falling. Had both ends working at once--never missed a stitch with his heels and was turning out a steady stream of fancy work with his mouth. And all the time he was looking at that girl as intent and eager as a Scotch terrier at a rat hole. I happened just then to be pinned into a corner with two or three women who couldn't escape--Edith Curzon, a great big brunette whom I knew Jack had been pretty soft on, and little Mabel Moore, a nice roly-poly blonde, and it didn't take me long to see that they were watching Jack with a hair-pulling itch in their finger-tips. In fact, it looked to me as if the young scamp was a good deal more popular than the facts about him, as I knew them, warranted him in being. I slipped out early, but next evening, when I was sitting in my little smoking-room, Jack came charging in, and, without any sparring for an opening, burst out with: "Isn't she a stunner, Mr. Graham!" I allowed that Miss Curzon was something on the stun. "Miss Curzon, indeed," he sniffed. "She's well enough in a big, black way, but Miss Churchill----" and he began to paw the air for adjectives. "But how was I to know that you meant Miss Churchill?" I answered. "It's just a fortnight now since you told me that Miss Curzon was a goddess, and that she was going to reign in your life and make it a heaven, or something of that sort. I forget just the words, but they were mighty beautiful thoughts and did you credit." "Don't remind me of it," Jack groaned. "It makes me sick every time I think what an ass I've been." I allowed that I felt a little nausea myself, but I told him that this time, at least, he'd shown some sense; that Miss Churchill was a mighty pretty girl and rich enough so that her liking him didn't prove anything worse against her than bad judgment; and that the thing for him to do was to quit his foolishness, propose to her, and dance the heel, toe, and a one, two, three with her for the rest of his natural days. Jack hemmed and hawked a little over this, but finally he came out with it: "That's the deuce of it," says he. "I'm in a beastly mess--I want to marry her--she's the only girl in the world for me--the only one I've ever really loved, and I've proposed--that is, I want to propose to her, but I'm engaged to Edith Curzon on the quiet." "I reckon you'll marry her, then," I said; "because she strikes me as a young woman who's not going to lose a million dollars without putting a tracer after it." "And that's not the worst of it," Jack went on. "Not the worst of it! What do you mean! You haven't married her on the quiet, too, have you?" "No, but there's Mabel Moore, you know." I didn't know, but I guessed. "You haven't been such a double-barreled donkey as to give her an option on yourself, too?" "No, no; but I've said things to her which she may have misconstrued, if she's inclined to be literal." "You bet she is," I answered. "I never saw a nice, fat, blonde girl who took a million-dollar offer as a practical joke. What is it you've said to her? 'I love you, darling,' or something about as foxy and noncommittal." "Not that--not that at all; but she may have stretched what I said to mean that." Well, sir, I just laid into that fellow when I heard that, though I could see that he didn't think it was refined of me. He'd never made it any secret that he thought me a pretty coarse old man, and his face showed me now that I was jarring his delicate works. "I suppose I have been indiscreet," he said, "but I must say I expected something different from you, after coming out this way and owning up. Of course, if you don't care to help me----" I cut him short there. "I've got to help you. But I want you to tell me the truth. How have you managed to keep this Curzon girl from announcing her engagement to you?" "Well," and there was a scared grin on Jack's face now; "I told her that you, as trustee under father's will, had certain unpleasant powers over my money--in fact, that most of it would revert to Sis if I married against your wishes, and that you disliked her, and that she must work herself into your good graces before we could think of announcing our engagement." I saw right off that he had told Mabel Moore the same thing, and that was why those two girls had been so blamed polite to me the night before. So I rounded on him sudden. "You're engaged to that Miss Moore, too, aren't you?" "I'm afraid so." "Why didn't you come out like a man and say so at first?" "I couldn't, Mr. Graham. Someways it seemed like piling it up so, and you take such a cold-blooded, unsympathetic view of these things." "Perhaps I do; yes, I'm afraid I do. How far are you committed to Miss Churchill?" Jack cheered right up. "I'm all right there, at least. She hasn't answered." "Then you've asked?" "Why, so I have; at least she may take it for something like asking. But I don't care; I want to be committed there; I can't live without her; she's the only----" I saw that he was beginning to foam up again, so I shut him off straight at the spigot. Told him to save it till after the ceremony. Set him down to my desk, and dictated two letters, one to Edith Curzon and the other to Mabel Moore, and made him sign and seal them, then and there. He twisted and squirmed and tried to wiggle off the hook, but I wouldn't give him any slack. Made him come right out and say that he was a yellow pup; that he had made a mistake; and that the stuff was all off, though I worded it a little different from that. Slung in some fancy words and high-toned phrases. You see, I had made up my mind that the best of a bad matter was the Churchill girl, and I didn't propose to have her commit herself, too, until I'd sort of cleared away the wreckage. Then I reckoned on copper-riveting their engagement by announcing it myself and standing over Jack with a shotgun to see that there wasn't any more nonsense. They were both so light-headed and light-waisted and light-footed that it seemed to me that they were just naturally mates. Jack reached for those letters when they were addressed and started to put them in his pocket, but I had reached first. I reckon he'd decided that something might happen to them on their way to the post-office; but nothing did, for I called in the butler and made him go right out and mail them then and there. I'd had the letters dated from my house, and I made Jack spend the night there. I reckoned it might be as well to keep him within reaching distance for the next day or two. He showed up at breakfast in the morning looking like a calf on the way to the killing pens, and I could see that his thoughts were mighty busy following the postman who was delivering those letters. I tried to cheer him up by reading some little odds and ends from the morning paper about other people's troubles, but they didn't seem to interest him. "They must just about have received them," he finally groaned into his coffee cup. "Why did I send them! What will those girls think of me! They'll cut me dead--never speak to me again." The butler came in before I could tell him that this was about what we'd calculated on their doing, and said: "Beg pardon, sir, but there's a lady asking for you at the telephone." "A lady!" says Jack. "Tell her I'm not here." Talk to one of those girls, even from a safe distance! He guessed not. He turned as pale as a hog on ice at the thought of it. "I'm sorry, sir," said the man, "but I've already said that you were breakfasting here. She said it was very important." I could see that Jack's curiosity was already getting the best of his scare. After all, he threw out, feeling me, it might be best to hear what she had to say. I thought so, too, and he went to the instrument and shouted "Hello!" in what he tried to make a big, brave voice, but it wobbled a little all the same. I got the other end of the conversation from him when he was through. "Hello! Is that you, Jack?" chirped the Curzon girl. "Yes. Who is that?" "Edith," came back. "I have your letter, but I can't make out what it's all about. Come this afternoon and tell me, for we're still good friends, aren't we, Jack?" "Yes--certainly," stammered Jack. "And you'll come?" "Yes," he answered, and cut her off. He had hardly recovered from this shock when a messenger boy came with a note, addressed in a woman's writing. "Now for it," he said, and breaking the seal read: "'_Jack dear:_ Your horrid note doesn't say anything, nor explain anything. Come this afternoon and tell what it means to MABEL.'" "Here's a go," exclaimed Jack, but he looked pleased in a sort of sneaking way. "What do you think of it, Mr. Graham?" "I don't like it." "Think they intend to cut up?" he asked. "Like a sausage machine; and yet I don't see how they can stand for you after that letter." "Well, shall I go?" "Yes, in fact I suppose you must go; but Jack, be a man. Tell 'em plain and straight that you don't love 'em as you should to marry 'em; say you saw your old girl a few days ago and found you loved her still, or something from the same trough, and stick to it. Take what you deserve. If they hold you up to the bull-ring, the only thing you can do is to propose to take the whole bunch to Utah, and let 'em share and share alike. That'll settle it. Be firm." "As a rock, sir." I made Jack come downtown and lunch with me, but when I started him off, about two o'clock, he looked so like a cat padding up the back-stairs to where she knows there's a little canary meat--scared, but happy--that I said once more: "Now be firm, Jack." "Firm's the word, sir," was the resolute answer. "And unyielding." "As the old guard." And Jack puffed himself out till he was as chesty as a pigeon on a barn roof, and swung off down the street looking mighty fine and manly from the rear. I never really got the straight of it, but I pieced together these particulars later. At the corner there was a flower store. Jack stepped inside and sent a box of roses by special messenger to Miss Curzon, so there might be something to start conversation when he got there. Two blocks farther on he passed a second florist's, turned back and sent some lilies to Miss Moore, for fear she might think he'd forgotten her during the hour or more before he could work around to her house. Then he chased about and found a third florist, from whom he ordered some violets for Miss Churchill, to remind her that she had promised him the first dance at the Blairs' that night. Your Ma told me that Jack had nice instincts about these little things which women like, and always put a good deal of heavy thought into selecting his flowers for them. It's been my experience that a critter who has instincts instead of sense belongs in the bushes with the dicky-birds. No one ever knew just what happened to Jack during the next three hours. He showed up at his club about five o'clock with a mighty conceited set to his jaw, but it dropped as if the spring had broken when he caught sight of me waiting for him in the reading-room. "You here?" he asked as he threw himself into a chair. "You bet," I said. "I wanted to hear how you made out. You settled the whole business, I take it?" but I knew mighty well from his looks that he hadn't settled anything. "Not--not exactly--that is to say, entirely; but I've made a very satisfactory beginning." "Began it all over again, I suppose." This hit so near the truth that Jack jumped, in spite of himself, and then he burst out with a really swear. I couldn't have been more surprised if your Ma had cussed. "Damn it, sir, I won't stand any more of your confounded meddling. Those letters were a piece of outrageous brutality. I'm breaking off with the girls, but I've gone about it in a gentler and, I hope, more dignified, way." "Jack, I don't believe any such stuff and guff. You're tied up to them harder and tighter than ever." I could see I'd made a bull's eye, for Jack began to bluster, but I cut him short with: "Go to the devil your own way," and walked out of the club. I reckon that Jack felt mighty disturbed for as much as an hour, but a good dinner took the creases out of his system. He'd found that Miss Moore didn't intend to go to the Blairs', and that Miss Curzon had planned to go to a dance with her sister somewheres else, so he calculated on having a clear track for a trial spin with Miss Churchill. I surprised your Ma a good deal that evening by allowing that I'd go to the Blairs' myself, for it looked to me as if the finals might be trotted there, and I thought I'd better be around, because, while I didn't see much chance of getting any sense into Jack's head, I felt I ought to do what I could on my friendship account with his father. Jack was talking to Miss Churchill when I came into the room, and he was tending to business so strictly that he didn't see me bearing down on him from one side of the room, nor Edith Curzon's sister, Mrs. Dick, a mighty capable young married woman, bearing down on him from the other, nor Miss Curzon, with one of his roses in her hair, watching him from a corner. There must have been a council of war between the sisters that afternoon, and a change of their plans for the evening. [Illustration: "_Miss Curzon, with one of his roses in her hair, watching him from a corner._"] Mrs. Dick beat me stalking Jack, but I was just behind, a close second. He didn't see her until she got right up to him and rapped him on the arm with her fan. "Dear Jack," she says, all smiles and sugar; "dear Jack, I've just heard. Edith has told me, though I'd suspected something for a long, long time, you rogue," and she fetched him another kittenish clip with the fan. Jack looked about the way I once saw old Miss Curley, the president of the Good Templars back in our town in Missouri, look at a party when she half-swallowed a spoonful of her ice cream before she discovered that it was flavored with liquor. But he stammered something and hurried Miss Churchill away, though not before a fellow who was going by had wrung his hand and said, "Congratulations, old chap. Just heard the news." Jack's only idea seemed to travel, and to travel far and fast, and he dragged his partner along to the other end of the room, while I followed the band. We had almost gone the length of the course, when Jack, who had been staring ahead mighty hard, shied and balked, for there, not ten feet away, stood Miss Moore, carrying his lilies, and blushing and smiling at something young Blakely was saying to her. I reckon Jack guessed what that something was, but just then Blakely caught sight of him and rushed up to where he was standing. "I congratulate you, Jack," he said. "Miss Moore's a charming girl." And now Miss Churchill slipped her hand from his arm and turned and looked at Jack. Her lips were laughing, but there was something in her eye which made Jack turn his own away. "Oh, you lucky Jack," she laughed. "You twice lucky Jack." Jack simply curled up: "Wretched mistake somewhere," he mumbled. "Awfully hot here--get you a glass of water," and he rushed off. He dodged around Miss Moore, and made a flank movement which got him by Miss Curzon and safely to the door. He kept on; I followed. I had to go to New York on business next day. Jack had already gone there, bought a ticket for Europe, and was just loafing around the pier trying to hurry the steamer off. I went down to see him start, and he looked so miserable that I'd have felt sorry for him if I hadn't seen him look miserable before. "Is it generally known, sir, do you think?" he asked me humbly. "Can't you hush it up somehow?" "Hush it up! You might as well say 'Shoo!' to the Limited and expect it to stop for you." "Mr. Graham, I'm simply heartbroken over it all. I know I shall never reach Liverpool. I'll go mad on the voyage across, and throw myself overboard. I'm too delicately strung to stand a thing of this sort." "Delicate rats! You haven't nerve enough not to stand it," I said. "Brace up and be a man, and let this be a lesson to you. Good-by." Jack took my hand sort of mechanically and looked at me without seeing me, for his grief-dimmed eyes, in straying along the deck, had lit on that pretty little Southern baggage, Fanny Fairfax. And as I started off he was leaning over her in the same old way, looking into her brown eyes as if he saw a full-course dinner there. "Think of _your_ being on board!" I heard him say. "I'm the luckiest fellow alive; by Jove, I am!" I gave Jack up, and an ex-grass widow is keeping him in order now. I don't go much on grass widows, but I give her credit for doing a pretty good job. She's got Jack so tame that he eats out of her hand, and so well trained that he don't allow strangers to pet him. I inherited one Jack--I couldn't help that. But I don't propose to wake up and find another one in the family. So you write me what's what by return. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. +-----------------------------+ | No. 20 | +-----------------------------+ | From John Graham, at the | | Boston House of Graham & | | Co., to his son, | | Pierrepont, at the Union | | Stock Yards in Chicago. | | Mr. Pierrepont has told | | the old man "what's what" | | and received a limited | | blessing. | +-----------------------------+ XX BOSTON, November 11, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ If that's what, it's all right. And you can't get married too quick to suit the old man. I believe in short engagements and long marriages. I don't see any sense in a fellow's sitting around on the mourner's bench with the sinners, after he's really got religion. The time to size up the other side's strength is before the engagement. Some fellows propose to a girl before they know whether her front and her back hair match, and then holler that they're stuck when they find that she's got a cork leg and a glass eye as well. I haven't any sympathy with them. They start out on the principle that married people have only one meal a day, and that of fried oysters and tutti-frutti ice-cream after the theatre. Naturally, a girl's got her better nature and her best complexion along under those circumstances; but the really valuable thing to know is how she approaches ham and eggs at seven A.M., and whether she brings her complexion with her to the breakfast table. And these fellows make a girl believe that they're going to spend all the time between eight and eleven P.M., for the rest of their lives, holding a hundred and forty pounds, live weight, in their lap, and saying that it feels like a feather. The thing to find out is whether, when one of them gets up to holding a ten pound baby in his arms, for five minutes, he's going to carry on as if it weighed a ton. A girl can usually catch a whisper to the effect that she's the showiest goods on the shelf, but the vital thing for a fellow to know is whether her ears are sharp enough to hear him when he shouts that she's spending too much money and that she must reduce expenses. Of course, when you're patting and petting and feeding a woman she's going to purr, but there's nothing like stirring her up a little now and then to see if she spits fire and heaves things when she's mad. I want to say right here that there's only one thing more aggravating in this world than a woman who gets noisy when she's mad, and that's one who gets quiet. The first breaks her spell of temper with the crockery, but the second simmers along like a freight engine on the track beside your berth--keeps you scared and ready to jump for fear she's going to blow off any minute; but she never does and gets it over with--just drizzles it out. You can punch your brother when he plays the martyr, but you've got to love your wife. A violent woman drives a fellow to drink, but a nagging one drives him crazy. She takes his faults and ties them to him like a tin can to a yellow dog's tail, and the harder he runs to get away from them the more he hears of them. I simply mention these things in a general way, and in the spirit of the preacher at the funeral of the man who wasn't "a professor"--because it's customary to make a few appropriate remarks on these occasions. From what I saw of Helen Heath, I reckon she's not getting any the best of it. She's what I call a mighty eligible young woman--pretty, bright, sensible, and without any fortune to make her foolish and you a fool. In fact, you'd have to sit up nights to make yourself good enough for her, even if you brought her a million, instead of fifty a week. I'm a great believer in women in the home, but I don't take much stock in them in the office, though I reckon I'm prejudiced and they've come to stay. I never do business with a woman that I don't think of a little incident which happened when I was first married to your Ma. We set up housekeeping in one of those cottages that you read about in the story books, but that you want to shy away from, when it's put up to you to live in one of them. There were nice climbing roses on the front porch, but no running water in the kitchen; there were a-plenty of old fashioned posies in the front yard, and a-plenty of rats in the cellar; there was half an acre of ground out back, but so little room inside that I had to sit with my feet out a window. It was just the place to go for a picnic, but it's been my experience that a fellow does most of his picnicking before he's married. Your Ma did the cooking, and I hustled for things to cook, though I would take a shy at it myself once in a while and get up my muscle tossing flapjacks. It was pretty rough sailing, you bet, but one way and another we managed to get a good deal of satisfaction out of it, because we had made up our minds to take our fun as we went along. With most people happiness is something that is always just a day off. But I have made it a rule never to put off being happy till to-morrow. Don't accept notes for happiness, because you'll find that when they're due they're never paid, but just renewed for another thirty days. I was clerking in a general store at that time, but I had a little weakness for livestock, even then; and while I couldn't afford to plunge in it exactly, I managed to buy a likely little shoat that I reckoned on carrying through the Summer on credit and presenting with a bill for board in the Fall. He was just a plain pig when he came to us, and we kept him in a little sty, but we weren't long in finding out that he wasn't any ordinary root-and-grunt pig. The first I knew your Ma was calling him Toby, and had turned him loose. Answered to his name like a dog. Never saw such a sociable pig. Wanted to sit on the porch with us. Tried to come into the house evenings. Used to run down the road squealing for joy when he saw me coming home from work. Well, it got on towards November and Toby had been making the most of his opportunities. I never saw a pig that turned corn into fat so fast, and the stouter he got the better his disposition grew. I reckon I was attached to him myself, in a sort of a sneaking way, but I was mighty fond of hog meat, too, and we needed Toby in the kitchen. So I sent around and had him butchered. When I got home to dinner next day, I noticed that your Ma looked mighty solemn as she set the roast of pork down in front of me, but I strayed off, thinking of something else, as I carved, and my wits were off wool gathering sure enough when I said: "Will you have a piece of Toby, my dear?" Well sir, she just looked at me for a moment, and then she burst out crying and ran away from the table. But when I went after her and asked her what was the matter, she stopped crying and was mad in a minute all the way through. Called me a heartless, cruel cannibal. That seemed to relieve her so that she got over her mad and began to cry again. Begged me to take Toby out of pickle and to bury him in the garden. I reasoned with her, and in the end I made her see that any obsequies for Toby, with pork at eight cents a pound, would be a pretty expensive funeral for us. But first and last she had managed to take my appetite away so that I didn't want any roast pork for dinner or cold pork for supper. That night I took what was left of Toby to a store keeper at the Crossing, who I knew would be able to gaze on his hams without bursting into tears, and got a pretty fair price for him. I simply mention Toby in passing, as an example of why I believe women weren't cut out for business--at least for the pork-packing business. I've had dealings with a good many of them, first and last, and it's been my experience that when they've got a weak case they add their sex to it and win, and that when they've got a strong case they subtract their sex from it and deal with you harder than a man. They're simply bound to win either way, and I don't like to play a game where I haven't any show. When a clerk makes a fool break, I don't want to beg his pardon for calling his attention to it, and I don't want him to blush and tremble and leak a little brine into a fancy pocket handkerchief. A little change is a mighty soothing thing, and I like a woman's ways too much at home to care very much for them at the office. Instead of hiring women, I try to hire their husbands, and then I usually have them both working for me. There's nothing like a woman at home to spur on a man at the office. A married man is worth more salary than a single one, because his wife makes him worth more. He's apt to go to bed a little sooner and to get up a little earlier; to go a little steadier and to work a little harder than the fellow who's got to amuse a different girl every night, and can't stay at home to do it. That's why I'm going to raise your salary to seventy-five dollars a week the day you marry Helen, and that's why I'm going to quit writing these letters--I'm simply going to turn you over to her and let her keep you in order. I bet she'll do a better job than I have. Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM. THE END * * * * * NOTABLE BOOKS OF AMERICAN HUMOR FROM THE LIST OF SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY, BOSTON * * * * * BY FINLAY PETER DUNNE ("MR. DOOLEY") "Mr. Dooley must be added to the acquaintance of all who esteem good sense and good humor. He is worthy to take his place as a national satirist beside Hosea Biglow."--_The Academy_, London. * * * =MR. DOOLEY: IN PEACE AND IN WAR (70th thousand)= "We awoke in the morning to kneel at the shrine of Dooley, and to confess that here was the man, here the very fellow, we had long been waiting for,--here at last America's new humorist."--MAX PEMBERTON, in _The London Daily Mail_. "Full of wit and humor and real philosophy which rank their possessor among those humorists who have really made a genuine contribution to permanent literature."--HARRY THURSTON PECK, in _The Bookman_. "His eloquence is a torrent, and his satire as strong and stinging as a slave-driver's whip."--_Pall Mall Gazette_. Green cloth, decorative, 7 x 4-1/2 in. =$1.25= * * * =MR. DOOLEY: IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN (35th thousand)= "The depression that could prevail against the influence of 'Mr. Dooley's' ebullient drollery, gay wisdom, and rich brogue would be profound indeed, and its victim would be an altogether hopeless case."--_The London World._ "His new book shows no falling off: his wit is as nimble as ever, his eye as quick to note incongruities, his satire as well directed and as brilliant."--_The Academy_, London. "'Mr. Dooley' improves on acquaintance. His creator is a real and rare humorist."--_The Bookman._ Blue cloth, decorative, 7 x 4-1/2 in. =$1.25= * * * * * BY GELETT BURGESS. =VIVETTE. Or, the Memoirs of the Romance Association.= Setting forth the diverting Adventures of one Richard Redforth in the very pleasant City of Millamours; how he took Service in the Association; how he met and wooed the gay Vivette; how they sped their Honeymoon and played the Town; how they spread a mad Banquet; of them that came thereto, and the Tales they told; of the Exploits of the principal Characters, and especially of the Disappearance of Vivette. "Mr. Burgess displays infinite zest and exhaustless resources of invention, and hurries his readers breathlessly along, from one astonishing and audacious situation to another, till the book is flung down at finis with a chuckle of appreciative laughter."--_The Literary News._ Cloth, 6-3/4 x 4-1/8 in. =$1.25= * * * * * BY S. E. KISER. =GEORGIE.= The Sayings and Doings of his Paw, his Maw, Little Albert, and the Bull Pup. "The charm of the book is the permanent charm of all literature, according to Matthew Arnold's admirable definition. _Georgie_ is a singularly acute and humorous interpretation of the home life led by the American who is neither too rich to be aping the English nor too poor to avoid the other extreme of Europeanism in slum or hovel. The book is worth reading as holding 'a mirror up to nature,' and it is also worth praising because it discloses between its lines a kindly and unspoiled nature on the part of the author."--_Chicago Tribune._ Cloth, decorative, 6-3/8 x 5-7/8 in. With ten illustrations by Ralph Bergengren. =$1.00= * * * * * BY HOLMAN F. DAY =UP IN MAINE. Stories of Yankee Life told in Verse.= Few books of verse have won popular favor so quickly as this volume, which is now in its ninth edition and selling as steadily as when first published. It is a rare combination of wit, humor, sense, and homely pathos. "Reading the book, one feels as though he had Maine in the phonograph."--_The New York Sun._ "James Russell Lowell would have welcomed this delicious adjunct to _The Biglow Papers._"--_The Outlook._ "So fresh, so vigorous, and so full of manly feeling that they sweep away all criticism."--_The Nation._ "His subjects are rough diamonds. They have the inherent qualities from which great characters are developed, and out of which heroes are made."--_Buffalo Commercial._ Cloth, decorative, six illustrations, 7-1/2 x 4-7/8 in. =$1.00= * * * =PINE TREE BALLADS. Rhymed Stories of Unplaned Human Natur' up in Maine.= Mr. Day's second book bids fair to outdo in popularity his earlier volume. The section titles, "Our Home Folks," "Songs of the Sea and Shore," "Ballads of Drive and Camp," "Just Human Nature," "Next to the Heart," "Our Good Prevaricators," and "Ballads of Capers and Actions," give an idea of the nature of the contents, which are fully equal in freshness, vigour, and manly feeling to the poems by which Mr. Day has already won an established reputation. "It is impossible to think of any person or class of people in America that these epical lyrics, these laughter-fetching, tear-provoking ballads will fail to please."--_The Chicago Record-Herald._ Cloth, decorative, gilt top, illustrated, 7-1/2 x 4 in. _Net_, =$1.00= * * * * * BY OLIVER HERFORD =ALPHABET OF CELEBRITIES, AN= "Mr. Herford, less considerate than Dr. Holmes, always dares to be as funny as he can, and the wicked glee with which he groups persons incongruous and antipathetic and shows them doing things impossible to them, and makes pictures of them, is a thing to shock the Gradgrinds and dismay the Chadbands. The book is printed in two colors to divert the reader's mind from the jokes, lest laughter be fatal to him."--_New York Times._ Paper boards, 9-3/8 x 7-1/8 in. With 26 illustrations by the Author. =$1.50= * * * * * BY JOHN B. TABB =CHILD VERSE. Poems Grave and Gay= Little poems, full of fancy and sweetness, for grown people as well as for children. "It is pleasant to observe that Father Tabb is not afraid of the pun. He uses it very felicitously in a number of his verses. It is good to see the rehabilitation of an ancient and unfortunate friend."--_Harper's Weekly._ Cloth, decorative, 7-7/8 x 6-3/8 in. =$1.00= * * * * * BY AGNES LEE =ROUND RABBIT, THE. And Other Child Verse= A new holiday edition of Mrs. Lee's delightful verse, which includes a number of new poems. With illustrations by O'Neill Latham. "The mother who (can read) to her young ones these cheerful, sweet, and fascinating jingles, with the pretty quaint conceits and ingenious rimes, without chuckling and forgetting her woes, will be indeed deeply dyed in cerulean."--_The Bookseller, Newsdealer, and Stationer._ Cloth, decorative, 7-7/8 x 6-1/4 in. Net, =$1.00= * * * * * A STANDARD LIBRARY OF BIOGRAPHY * * * _THE BEACON BIOGRAPHIES OF EMINENT AMERICANS_ * * * The aim of this series is to furnish brief, readable, and authentic accounts of the lives of those Americans whose personalities have impressed themselves most deeply on the character and history of their country. On account of the length of the more formal lives, often running into large volumes, the average busy man and woman have not the time or hardly the inclination to acquaint themselves with American biography. In the present series everything that such a reader would ordinarily care to know is given by writers of special competence, who possess in full measure the best contemporary point of view. Each volume is equipped with a photogravure portrait, an engraved title-page, a calendar of important dates, and a brief bibliography for further reading. Finally, the volumes are printed in a form convenient for reading and for carrying handily in the pocket. "They contain exactly what every intelligent American ought to know about the lives of our great men."--_Boston Herald._ "Surprisingly complete studies, ... admirably planned and executed."--_Christian Register._ "Prepared as carefully as if they were so many imperial quartos, instead of being so small that they may be carried in the pocket."--_New York Times._ "They are books of marked excellence."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._ "They interest vividly, and their instruction is surprisingly comprehensive."--_The Outlook._ Price per volume, cloth, =75c=. _net._ Lambskin, =$1.00= _net._ +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | --------------------------------------------------- | | THE BEACON BIOGRAPHIES | | OF EMINENT AMERICANS. | | --------------------------------------------------- | | The following volumes are issued:-- | | | | =Louis Agassiz=, by ALICE BACHE GOULD. | | =John James Audubon=, by JOHN BURROUGHS. | | =Edwin Booth=, by CHARLES TOWNSEND COPELAND. | | =Phillips Brooks=, by M. A. DEWOLFE HOWE. | | =John Brown=, by JOSEPH EDGAR CHAMBERLIN. | | =Aaron Burr=, by HENRY CHILDS MERWIN. | | =James Fenimore Cooper=, by W. B. SHUBRICK CLYMER. | | =Stephen Decatur=, by CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY. | | =Frederick Douglass=, by CHARLES W. CHESNUTT. | | =Ralph Waldo Emerson=, by FRANK B. SANBORN. | | =David G. Farragut=, by JAMES BARNES. | | =Ulysses S. Grant=, by OWEN WISTER. | | =Alexander Hamilton=, by JAMES SCHOULER. | | =Nathaniel Hawthorne=, by MRS. JAMES T. FIELDS. | | =Father Hecker=, by HENRY D. SEDGWICK, Jr. | | =Sam Houston=, by SARAH BARNWELL ELLIOTT. | | ="Stonewall" Jackson=, by CARL HOVEY. | | =Thomas Jefferson=, by THOMAS E. WATSON. | | =Robert E. Lee=, by WILLIAM P. TRENT. | | =Henry W. Longfellow=, by GEORGE RICE CARPENTER. | | =James Russell Lowell=, by EDWARD EVERETT HALE, Jr. | | =Samuel F. B. Morse=, by JOHN TROWERIDGE. | | =Thomas Paine=, by ELLERY SEDGWICK. | | =Daniel Webster=, by NORMAN HAPGOOD. | | =John Greenleaf Whittier=, by RICHARD BURTON. | | | | Price per volume, cloth, 75c. _net_; leather, $1.00 _net._ | | | | SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY, Publishers. | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | _A Companion Series to the Beacon Biographies_ | | --------------------------------------------------- | | THE WESTMINSTER BIOGRAPHIES | | _of Eminent Englishmen_ | | --------------------------------------------------- | | The WESTMINSTER BIOGRAPHIES are uniform in plan, | | size, and general make-up with the BEACON BIOGRAPHIES, | | the point of important difference lying in the fact that | | they deal with the lives of eminent Englishmen instead | | of eminent Americans. They are bound in limp red cloth, | | are gilt-topped, and have a cover design and a vignette | | title-page by BERTRAM GROSVENOR GOODHUE. Like the _Beacon | | Biographies_, each volume has a frontispiece portrait, a | | photogravure, a calendar of dates, and a bibliography for | | further reading. | | | | The following volumes are issued:-- | | | | =Robert Browning=, by ARTHUR WAUGH. | | =Daniel Defoe=, by WILFRED WHITTEN. | | =Adam Duncan= (Lord Camperdown), by H. W. WILSON. | | =George Eliot=, by CLARA THOMSON. | | =Cardinal Newman=, by A. R. WALLER. | | =John Wesley=, by FRANK BANFIELD. | | | | Price per volume, cloth, 75c. _net_, lambskin, $1.00 _net._ | | | | SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY, Publishers. | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ 
39067	----	HORACE CHASE A Novel by CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON AUTHOR OF "JUPITER LIGHTS" "EAST ANGELS" ETC. NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 1894 Copyright, 1894, by HARPER & BROTHERS. _All rights reserved._ HORACE CHASE CHAPTER I In a mountain village of North Carolina, in the year 1873, the spring had opened with its accustomed beauty. But one day there came a pure cold wind which swept through the high valley at tremendous speed from dawn to midnight. People who never succumb to mere comfort did not relight their fires. But to the Franklin family comfort was a goddess, they would never have thought of calling her "mere"; "delightful" was their word, and Ruth would probably have said "delicious." The fire in Mrs. Franklin's parlor, therefore, having been piled with fresh logs at two o'clock as an offering to this deity, was now, at four, sending out a ruddy glow. It was a fire which called forth Ruth's highest approbation when she came in, followed by her dog, Petie Trone, Esq. Not that Ruth had been facing the blast; she never went out from a sense of duty, and for her there was no pleasure in doing battle with things that were disagreeable for the sake merely of conquering them. Ruth had come from her own room, where there was a fire also, but one not so generous as this, for here the old-fashioned hearth was broad and deep. The girl sat down on the rug before the blaze, and then, after a moment, she stretched herself out at full length there, with her head resting on her arm thrown back behind it. "It's a pity, Ruth, that with all your little ways, you are not little yourself," remarked Dolly Franklin, the elder sister. "Such a whalelike creature sprawled on the floor isn't endearing; it looks like something out of Gulliver." "It's always so," observed Mrs. Franklin, drowsily. "It's the oddest thing in the world--but people never will stay in character; they want to be something different. Don't you remember that whenever poor Sue Inness was asked to sing, the wee little creature invariably chanted, 'Here's a health to King Charles,' in as martial a voice as she could summon? Whereas Lucia Lewis, who is as big as a grenadier, always warbles softly some such thing as 'Call me pet names, dearest. Call me a bird.' Bird! Mastodon would do better." "Mastodon?" Ruth commented. "It is evident, His Grand, that you have seen Miss Billy to-day!" Ruth was not a whale, in spite of Dolly's assertion. But she was tall, her shoulders had a marked breadth, and her arms were long. She was very slender and supple, and this slenderness, together with her small hands and feet, took away all idea of majesty in connection with her, tall though she was; one did not think of majesty, but rather of girlish merriment and girlish activity. And girlish indolence as well. Mrs. Franklin had once said: "Ruth is either running, or jumping, or doing something in such haste that she is breathless; or else she is stretched out at full length on the carpet or the sofa, looking as though she never intended to move again!" The girl had a dark complexion with a rich color, and hair that was almost black; her face was lighted by blue eyes, with long thick black lashes which made a dark fringe round the blue. The persons who liked Ruth thought her beautiful; they asserted that her countenance had in it something which was captivating. But others replied that though her friends might call her captivating if they pleased, since that word denotes merely a personal charm, they had no right to say that she was beautiful; for as regards beauty, there are well-defined rules, and, with the exception of her wonderful eyes, the face of the second Miss Franklin transgressed every one of these canons. Ruth's features were without doubt irregular. And especially was it true that her mouth was large. But the lips were exquisitely cut, and the teeth very white. Regarding her appearance as a whole, there was a fact which had not as yet been noticed, namely, that no man ever found fault with it; the criticism came always from feminine lips. And these critics spoke the truth; but they forgot, or rather they did not see, some of the compensations. There were people not a few, even in her own small circle, who did not look with favor upon Ruth Franklin; it was not merely, so they asserted, that she was heedless and frivolous, caring only for her own amusement, and sacrificing everything to that, for of many young persons this could be said; but they maintained in addition that hers was a disposition in its essence self-indulgent; she was indolent; she was fond of luxuries; she was even fond of "good eating"--an odd accusation to be brought against a girl of that age. In this case also the charges were made by feminine lips. And again it may be added that while these critics spoke the truth, or part of the truth, they did not, on the other hand, see some of the compensations. "Why do you say '_poor_ Sue Inness,' His Grand?" inquired Dolly, in an expostulating tone. "Why do people always say '_poor_' so-and-so, of any one who is dead? It is an alarmingly pitying word; as though the unfortunate departed must certainly be in a very bad place!" "Here is something about the bishop," said Mrs. Franklin, who was reading a Raleigh newspaper in the intervals of conversation. Her tone was now animated. "He has been in Washington, and one of his sermons was--" But she was interrupted by her daughters, who united their voices in a chant as follows: "Mother Franklin thinks, That General Jackson, Jared the Sixth, Macaroon custards, And Bishop Carew, Are per-_fec_-tion!" Mrs. Franklin made no reply to these Gregorian assertions (which she had often heard before), save the remark, "You have torn your skirt, Ruth." "Oh, please don't look at me over your glasses, His Grand. It spoils your profile so," answered Ruth; for Mrs. Franklin was surveying the skirt with her head bent forward and her chin drawn sharply in, so that her eyes could be brought to bear upon the rent over her spectacles. She now drew off these aids to vision impatiently. "Whether I look through them or over them doesn't matter; you and Dolly are never satisfied. I cannot read the paper without my glasses; do you wish me to know nothing of the news of the world?" "We'll _tell_ you," responded Dolly, going on busily with her knitting. "For instance, to-day: Genevieve has had _all_ the paint cleaned and _all_ the windows washed; she is now breathing that righteous atmosphere of cold, fireless bleakness and soap which she adores. Miss Billy Breeze has admired everything that she can think of, because admiration is so uplifting. And she has written another page about the primeval world; now she--" Here the door which led to the entrance-hall was opened with a jerk by Linda, a plump negro girl, who bounced in, ejaculated "Lady!" in a congratulatory tone, and then bounced out to act as usher for the incoming guest. "Billy herself, probably," said Mrs. Franklin. "Ruth, are you stretched out there under the plea that you are not yet fully grown?" But Ruth did not deem it necessary to leave her couch for Miss Billy Breeze. "Hail, Billy!" she said, as the visitor entered. "Mother thinks that I ought to be seated politely on the sofa; will you please imagine that I am there?" "Oh, certainly," replied Miss Breeze, in a conciliatory tone. Miss Breeze lived under the impression that the members of this family quarrelled with each other almost incessantly; when she was present, therefore, she did her best to smooth over their asperities. "It is rather good for her, you know," she said reassuringly to Mrs. Franklin; "for it is a windy day, and Ruth is not robust." Then to Ruth: "Your mother naturally wishes you to look your best, my dear." "Do you, His Grand?" inquired Ruth. "Because if you do, I must certainly stay where I am, so that I can tuck under me, very neatly, this rip in my skirt, which Miss Billy has not yet seen. Petie Trone, Esq., shake hands with the lady." The dog, a small black-and-tan terrier, was reposing on the rug beside Ruth; upon hearing her command, he trotted across to the visitor, and offered a tiny paw. "Dear little fellow," said Miss Breeze, bending, and shaking it gently. "His Grand must allow that he looks extremely well?" For the circle of friends had ended by accepting the legend (invented by Ruth) that Mrs. Franklin was Petie Trone's grandmother, or "His Grand." The only person who still held out against this title was Genevieve, the daughter-in-law; Mrs. Franklin the younger thought that the name was ridiculous. Her husband's family seemed to her incomprehensibly silly about their pets. Miss Wilhelmina Breeze was thirty-five; but no one would have thought so from her fair pink-and-white complexion, and young, innocent eyes. From her earliest years she had longed to hear herself called "Wilhelmina." But the longing was almost never gratified; the boyish name given to her in joke when she was a baby had clung to her with the usual fatal tenacity. "Miss Billy, have you seen mother to-day?" Dolly inquired. "Not until now," answered the visitor, surprised. "Well, then, have you thought of mastodons?" "Certainly I have; and if you yourself, Dolly, would think more seriously of the whole subject, the primeval world--you would soon be as fascinated with it as I am. Imagine one of those vast extinct animals, Dolly, lifting his neck up a hill to nibble the trees on its top!" said Miss Breeze with enthusiasm. "And birds as large as chapels flying through the air! Probably they sang, those birds. What sort of voices do you suppose they had? The cave-lion was twenty-nine feet high. The horned tryceratops was seventy-five feet long! It elevates the mind even to think of them." "You see, His Grand, that she _has_ thought of mastodons," commented Dolly. "Your unexpected mention of them, therefore, is plainly the influence of her mind acting upon yours from a distance--the distance of the Old North Hotel." "Have you really thought of them, dear Mrs. Franklin? And do you believe there can be such a thing as the conscious--I mean, of course, _un_conscious--influence of one mind upon another?" inquired Miss Billy, her face betraying a delighted excitement. "No, no; it's only Dolly's nonsense," answered Mrs. Franklin. "It's easy to say nonsense, His Grand. But how, then, do you account for the utterances of my planchette?" demanded Dolly, wagging her head triumphantly. Dolly, the second of Mrs. Franklin's three children, was an invalid. The Franklins, as a family, were tall and dark, and Dolly was tall and dark also; her face, owing to the pain which frequently assailed her, was thin, worn, and wrinkled. She sat in a low easy-chair, and beside her was her own especial table, which held what she called her "jibs." These were numerous, for Dolly occupied herself in many ways. She sketched, she carved little knick-knacks, she played the violin; she made lace, she worked out chess problems, and she knitted; she also scribbled rhymes which her family called poetry. The mantel-piece of this parlor was adorned with a hanging which bore one of her verses, stitched in old English text, the work of her mother's needle: "O Fire! in these dark frozen days So gracious is thy red, So warm thy comfort, we forget The violets are dead." The family thought this beautiful. Dolly's verses, her drawing and wood-carving, her lace-making and chess, were amateurish; her violin-playing was at times spirited, and that was the utmost that could be said of it. But her knitting was remarkable. She knitted nothing but silk stockings, and these, when finished, had a wonderful perfection. Dolly was accustomed to say of herself that in the heels of her stockings was to be found the only bit of conscience which she possessed. When she mentioned planchette, her mother frowned. "I do not approve of such things." "Yes, because you are afraid!" chuckled Dolly. "Oh, anything that dear Mrs. Franklin does not approve of--" murmured Miss Billy. Mrs. Franklin rose. "His Grand is fleeing!" Dolly announced, gleefully. "I must make the salad-dressing, mustn't I? Ruth will not touch Zoe's dressing. Billy, Mr. Chase is to dine with us to-day, informally; don't you want to stay and help us entertain him?" added the mistress of the house as she left the room. "Dolly," suggested Ruth, from her place on the rug, "set planchette to work, and make it tell us secrets; make it tell us whether Miss Billy understands the _true_ character of Achilles Larue!" "She does not; I can tell her that without planchette," replied Dolly. "Only one person in the world has ever fully understood Achilles--had the strength to do it; and _he_ died!" "Yes, I know; I have heard Mr. Larue speak of that one friend," said Miss Billy, regretfully. "How unfortunate that he lost him!" "Yes, baddish. And the term is quite in his own line," commented Dolly. "With him it is never warm, but warmish; the bluest sky is bluish; a June day, fairish; a twenty-mile walk, longish. In this way he is not committed to extravagant statements. When he is dead, he won't be more than deadish. But he's that now." Mrs. Franklin, having made the salad-dressing (when she made it, it was always perfection), returned to the parlor. "Ruth, go and change your dress. Take Miss Billy with you, but take her to my room, not yours. For of course you will stay, Billy?" "I don't think I'd better; I'm not dressed for the evening; and I said I should be back," answered Miss Breeze, hesitatingly. "To whom did you say it? To the Old North? Run along," said Mrs. Franklin, smiling. "If it is shoes you are thinking of, as yours are muddy, Ruth can lend you a pair." "That she cannot," remarked Dolly. "Buy Ruth six pairs of new shoes, and in six days all will be shabby. But you can have a pair of mine, Miss Billy." When she was left alone with her elder daughter, Mrs. Franklin said: "Poor Billy! She is always haunted by the idea that she may possibly meet Achilles Larue here. She certainly will not meet him at the Old North, for he never goes near the place, in spite of her gentle invitations. But here there is always a chance, and I never can resist giving it to her, although in reality it is folly; he has never looked at her, and he never will." "No. But you need not be anxious about her," replied Dolly; "she has the happy faculty of living in illusions, day after day. She can go on hopefully admiring Achilles to the last moment of her life, and I dare say she even thinks that he has a liking for her, little as he shows it. She has occult reasons for this belief; she would find them in a kick." "Goose!" said Mrs. Franklin, dismissing Billy's virginal dreams with the matron's disillusioned knowledge. "Aren't you going to change your dress, Dolly?" "Why? Am I not tidy as I am? I thought you considered me too tidy?" And it was true that the elder Miss Franklin was always a personification of rigid neatness; from the dark hair that shaded her tired face, to the shoes on her feet, all was severely orderly and severely plain. "Oh, go, go!" answered her mother, impatiently. Dolly screwed up her mouth, shook her head slowly, and laid her work aside; then she rose, and with her cane walked towards the door. On her way she stopped, and, bending, kissed her mother's forehead. "Some of these days, mother, I shall be beautiful. It will be during one of our future existences somewhere. It must be so, dear; you have earned it for me by your loving pity here." Nothing could exceed the tenderness of her tone as she said this. Mrs. Franklin made no response beyond a little toss of her head, as though repudiating this account of herself. But after Dolly had left the room, a moisture gathered in the mother's eyes. Ruth, meanwhile, had conducted Miss Billy to her own chamber. "But Mrs. Franklin said I was to go to _her_ room?" suggested the guest. "She doesn't mind; she only meant that Bob is probably here," answered Ruth, as she opened the windows and threw back the blinds; for the afternoon was drawing towards its close. Miss Billy took off her bonnet, and, after a moment's thought, hung it by its crown on a peg; in that position it did not seem possible that even Bob could make a resting-place within it. Bob was young and very small. He was beautiful or devilish according to one's view of flying-squirrels. But whether you liked him or whether you hated him, there was always a certain amount of interest in connection with the creature, because you could never be sure where he was. Miss Billy, who was greatly afraid of him, had given a quick look towards the tops of the windows and doors. There was no squirrel visible. But that was small comfort; Bob could hide himself behind a curtain-ring when he chose. One of the blinds came swinging to with a bang, and Ruth, reopening the window, struggled with it again. "There is Mr. Hill coming along the back street on Daniel," she said, pausing. "He is beckoning to me! What can he want? You will find shoes in the closet, Miss Billy, and don't wait for me; I am going down to speak to him." Away she flew, running lightly at full speed through the upper hall and down the back stairs, closely followed by Petie Trone, Esq. Miss Billy closed the window and stood there for a moment looking out. Presently she saw Ruth at the stone wall at the end of the garden. She also recognized (with disapproving eyes) the unclerical hat of the Rev. Malachi Hill, who had stopped his horse in the road outside. He was talking to Ruth, who listened with her chin resting on her hands on the top of the wall, while the wind roughened her hair wildly, and blew out her skirts like a balloon. Miss Billy watched her for a while; then, after making her own preparations for the evening, she seated herself by the fire to wait. For no one could make Ruth come in one moment before she chose to do so; it seemed better, therefore, not to call attention to her absence by returning to the parlor alone, lest Mrs. Franklin should be made uneasy by knowing that the girl was out, bareheaded, in the cold wind. Having made her decision (Billy was always troubled, even upon the smallest occasion, by four or five different theories as to the best course to pursue), she looked about the room with the same wonder and gentle dislike which she had often felt before. The necessary articles of furniture were all set closely back against the wall, in order that the central space of the large chamber should be left entirely free. For Ruth did not like little things--small objects of any kind which required dusting, and which could be easily upset. Miss Billy, who adored little things, and who lived in a grove of them, thought the place dreadfully bare. There were no souvenirs; no photographs of friends in velvet frames; there were no small tables, brackets, screens, hanging shelves, little chairs, little boxes, little baskets, fans, and knick-knacks; there was not even a wall-calendar. With Miss Billy, the removal of the old leaf from her poetical calendar, and the reading of the new one each morning, was a solemn rite. And when her glance reached the toilet-table, her non-comprehension reached its usual climax. The table itself was plain and unadorned, but on its top was spread out a profuse array of toilet articles, all of ivory or crystal. That a girl so wholly careless about everything else should insist upon having so many costly and dainty objects for her personal use in the privacy of her own room seemed remarkable. "Give Ruth her bath in scented water, and all these ivory and crystal things to use when she dresses, and she is perfectly willing to go about in a faded, torn old skirt, a hat entirely out of fashion, shabby gloves, and worn-out shoes; in short, looking anyhow!" mused Billy, perplexed. Down-stairs Mrs. Franklin was receiving another visitor. After Dolly's departure, Rinda had made a second irruptive entrance, with the announcement, "Gen'lem!" and Mr. Anthony Etheridge came in. Etheridge was a strikingly handsome man, who appeared to be about fifty-eight. He entered with light step and smiling face, and a flower in his coat. "Ah, commodore, when did you return?" said Mrs. Franklin, giving him her hand. "Two hours ago," answered Etheridge, bowing over it gallantly. "You are looking remarkably well, my dear madam. Hum-ha!" These last syllables were not distinct; Etheridge often made this little sound, which was not an ahem; it seemed intended to express merely a general enjoyment of existence--a sort of overflow of health and vitality. "Only two hours ago? You have been all day in that horrible stage, and yet you have strength to pay visits?" "Not visits; _a_ visit. You are alone?" "Only for the moment; Dolly and Ruth are dressing. We are expecting some one to dine with us--a new acquaintance, by-the-way, since you left; a Mr. Chase." "Yes, Horace Chase; I knew he was here. I should like to kick him out!" "Why so fierce?" said Mrs. Franklin, going on with her lamplighters. For the making of lamplighters from old newspapers was one of her pastimes. "Of course I am fierce. We don't want fellows of that sort here; he will upset the whole place! What brought him?" "He has not been well, I believe" ("That's one comfort! They never are," interpolated Etheridge), "and he was advised to try mountain air. In addition, he is said to be looking into the railroad project." "Good heavens! Already? The one solace I got out of the war was the check it gave to the advance of those horrible rails westward; I have been in hopes that the locomotives would not get beyond Old Fort in my time, at any rate. Why, Dora, this strip of mountain country is the most splendid bit of natural forest, of nature undraped, which exists to-day between the Atlantic Ocean and the Rockies!" "Save your eloquence for Genevieve, commodore." "Hum-ha! Mrs. Jared, eh?" "Yes; she knew Mr. Chase when he was a little boy; she says she used to call him Horrie. As soon as she heard that he was here, she revived the acquaintance; and then she introduced him to us." "Does she _like_ him?" asked Etheridge, with annoyance in his tone. "I don't know whether she likes him or not; but she is hoping that he will do something that will increase the value of property here." "It is intelligent of Mrs. Jared to be thinking of that already," said Etheridge, softening a little. "Perhaps if I owned land here, I should take another view of the subject myself! You too, Dora--you might make something?" "No; we have no land save the garden, and the house is dreadfully dilapidated. Personally, I may as well confess that I should be glad to see the railroad arrive; I am mortally tired of that long jolting stage-drive from Old Fort; it nearly kills me each time I take it. And I am afraid I don't care for nature undraped so much as you do, commodore; I think I like draperies." "Of course you do! But when you--and by you I mean the nation at large--when you perceive that your last acre of primitive forest is forever gone, then you will repent. And you will begin to cultivate wildness as they do abroad, poor creatures--plant forests and guard 'em with stone walls and keepers, by Jove! Horace Chase appears here as the pioneer of spoliation. He may not mean it; he does not come with an axe on his shoulder exactly; he comes, in fact, with baking-powder; but that's how it will end. Haven't you heard that it was baking-powder? At least you have heard of the powder itself--the Bubble? I thought so. Well, that's where he made his first money--the Bubble Baking-Powder; and he made a lot of it, too! Now he is in no end of other things. One of them is steamships; some of the Willoughbys of New York have gone in with him, and together they have set up a new company, with steamers running south--the Columbian Line." "Yes, Genevieve explained it to us. But as he does not travel with his steamers round his neck, there remains for us, inland people as we are, only what he happens to be himself. And that is nothing interesting." "Not interesting, eh?" said Etheridge, rather gratified. "To my mind he is not. He is ordinary in appearance and manners; he says 'yes, ma'am,' and 'no, ma'am,' to me, as though I were a great-grandmother! In short, I don't care for him, and it is solely on Genevieve's account that I have invited him. For she keeps urging me to do it; she is very anxious to have him like Asheville. He has already dined with us twice, to meet her. But to-day he comes informally--a chance invitation given only this morning (and again given solely to please _her_), when I happened to meet him at the Cottage." "How old is the wretch?" "I don't know. Forty-four or forty-five." "Quite impossible, then, that Mrs. Jared should have known him when he was a boy; she was not born at that time," commented Etheridge. "What she means, of course, is that she, as a child herself, called him 'Horrie.'" Mrs. Franklin did not answer, and at this moment Dolly came in. "Yes, I am well," she said, in reply to the visitor's greeting; "we are all well, and lazy. The world at large will never be helped much by us, I fear; we are too contented. Have you ever noticed, commodore, that the women who sacrifice their lives so nobly to help humanity seldom sacrifice one small thing, and that is a happy home? Either they do not possess such an article, or else they have spoiled it by quarrelling with every individual member of their families." "Now, Dolly, no more of your sarcasms. Tell me rather about this new acquaintance of yours, this bubbling capitalist whom you have invented and set up in your midst during my unsuspecting absence," said Etheridge. "You need not think, commodore, that you can make me say one word about him," answered Dolly, solemnly; "for I read in a book only the other day that a tendency to talk about other persons, instead of one's self, was a sure sign of advancing age. Young people, the book goes on to say, are at heart interested in nothing on earth but themselves and their own affairs; they have not the least curiosity about character or traits in general. As I wish to be considered young, I have made a vow to talk of nothing but myself hereafter. Anything you may wish to hear about _me_ I am ready to tell you." Dolly was now attired in a velvet dress of dark russet hue, like the color of autumn oak leaves; this tint took the eye away somewhat from the worn look of her plain thin face. The dress, however, was eight years old, and the fashion in which it had been made originally had never been altered. "The being interested in nothing but themselves, and their own doings and feelings, is not confined to young people," said Mrs. Franklin, laughing. "I have known a goodly number of their elders who were quite as bad. When these gentry hold forth, by the hour, about their convictions and their theories, their beliefs and disbeliefs, their likings and dislikings, their tastes and their principles, their souls, their minds, and their bodies--if, in despair, you at last, by way of a change, turn the conversation towards some one else, they become loftily silent. And they go away and tell everybody, with regret of course, that you are hopelessly given to gossip! Gossip, in fact, has become very valuable to me; I keep it on hand, and pour it forth in floods, to drown those egotists out." "When you gossip, then, I shall know that _I_ bore you," said Etheridge, rising, "I mustn't do so now; I leave you to your Bubble. Mrs. Jared, I suppose, will be with you this evening? I ask because I had thought of paying her a how-do-you-do visit, later." "Pay it here, commodore," suggested Mrs. Franklin. "Perhaps you would like to see her 'Horrie' yourself?" "Greatly, greatly. I am always glad to meet any of these driving speculators who come within my reach. For it makes me contented for a month afterwards--contented with my own small means--to see how yellow they are! Not a man jack of them who hasn't a skin like guinea gold." Upon this point the commodore could enlarge safely, for no color could be fresher and finer than his own. After he had gone, Mrs. Franklin said: "Imagine what he has just told me--that Genevieve could not possibly have known Horace Chase when he was a boy, because she is far too young!" And then mother and daughter joined in a merry laugh. "It would be fun to tell him that she was forty on her last birthday," said Dolly. "He would never believe you; he would think that you fibbed from jealousy," answered Mrs. Franklin. "As you are dressed, I may as well go and make ready myself," she added, rising. "I have been waiting for Ruth; I cannot imagine what she is about." This is what Ruth was about--she was rushing up the back stairs in the dark, breathless. When she reached her room, she lit the candles hastily. "You still here, Miss Billy? I supposed you had gone down long ago." She stirred the fire into a blaze, and knelt to warm her cold hands. "Such fun! I have made an engagement for us all, this evening. You can never think what it is. Nothing less than a fancy-dress procession at the rink for the benefit of the Mission. A man is carrying costumes across the mountains for some tableaux for a soldiers' monument at Knoxville; his wagon has broken down, and he is obliged to stay here until it is mended. Mr. Hill has made use of this for the Mission. Isn't it a splendid idea? He has been rushing about all the afternoon, and he has found twenty persons who are willing to appear in fancy dress, and he himself is to be an Indian chief, in war-paint and feathers." "In war-paint and feathers? _Oh!_" "Yes. It seems that he has a costume of his own. He had it when he was an insurance agent, you know, before he entered the ministry; he was always fond of such things, he says, and the costume is a very handsome one; when he wore it, he called himself Big Moose." "Big Moose! It must be stopped," said Miss Billy, in a horrified voice. For Miss Billy had the strictest ideas regarding the dignity of the clergy. "On the contrary, I told him that it would be a great attraction, and that it was his duty to do all he could," declared Ruth, breaking into one of her intense laughs. Her laugh was not loud, but when it had once begun it seemed sometimes as if it would never stop. At present, as soon as she could speak, she announced, "We'll _all_ go." "Do not include me," said Miss Billy, with dignity. "I think it shocking, Ruth. I do indeed." "Oh, you'll be there," said Ruth, springing up, and drawing Miss Billy to her feet. "You'll put on roller-skates yourself, and go wheeling off first this way, then that way, with Achilles Larue." And, as she said this, she gleefully forced her visitor across the floor, now in a long sweep to the right, now to the left, with as close an imitation of skating as the circumstances permitted. While they were thus engaged, Mrs. Franklin opened the door. "What are you doing? Ruth--not dressed yet?" "I'm all ready, His Grand," responded Ruth, running across the room and pouring water into the basin in a great hurry. "I have only to wash my hands" (here she dashed lavender into the water); "I'll be down directly." "And we shall all admire you in that torn dress," said her mother. "Never mind, I'll pin it up. Nobody will see it at dinner, under the table. And after dinner my cloak will cover it--for we are all going out." "Going out this windy evening? Never! Are you ready, Billy? And Ruth, you must come as you are, for Mr. Chase is already here, and Rinda is bringing in the soup." "Never fear, His Grand. I'll come." And come she did, two minutes later, just as she was, save that her wind-roughened hair had been vaguely smoothed, and fastened down hastily with large hair-pins placed at random. Owing to her hurry, she had a brilliant color; and seeing, as she entered, the disapproving expression in her mother's eyes, she was seized with the idea of making, for her own amusement, a stately sweeping courtesy to Horace Chase; this she accordingly did, carrying it off very well, with an air of majesty just tempered at the edges with burlesque. Chase, who had risen, watched this salutation with great interest. When it was over, he felt it incumbent upon him, however, to go through, in addition, the more commonplace greeting. "How do you do, Miss Ruth?" he said, extending his hand. And he gave the tips of her fingers (all she yielded to him) three careful distinct shakes. Then they went to dinner. CHAPTER II The meal which followed was good; for Zoe, the cook, was skilful in her old-fashioned way. But the dinner service was ordinary; the only wine was Dry Catawba; Rinda's ideas of waiting, too, were primitive. The Franklins, however, had learned to wait upon themselves. They had the habit of remaining long at the table; for, whether they were alone or whether they had a guest, there was always a soup, there was always a salad, there were always nuts and fruit, followed by coffee--four courses, therefore, in addition to the two which the younger Mrs. Franklin, whose household was managed in a very different way, considered all that was necessary "for the body." "A serious rice pudding, Genevieve, no doubt _is_ enough for the body, as you call it," Dolly had once said. "But _we_ think of the mind also; we aim at brilliancy. And no one ever scintillated yet on cod-fish and stewed prunes!" "Mrs. Jared Franklin is well, I hope?" Chase asked, when the last course was reached. He was not fond of nuts or figs, but he was playing his part, according to his conception of it, by eating at intervals one raisin. "Quite well; thanks. I have never known her to be ill," replied Dolly. "Mr. Chase, I am going to suggest something: as mother and my sister-in-law are both Mrs. Jared, and as mother has no burning desire to be called 'old Mrs. Franklin' just yet, why don't you say 'Mrs. G. B.' when you mean the younger matron?" Chase would never have thought of calling either the one or the other a matron, his idea of the word being the female superintendent of a public institution. "G. B.--are those her initials?" he said. "Yes, of course; G. for Genevieve, or Gen, as I used to call her." "And B. for Beatrice; isn't that lovely? Our own names, unfortunately, are very plain--Ruth, Dolly, and Jared; Genevieve has taken pity upon the Jared, and changed it to Jay. Mother, however, actually likes the name Jared. She is weak enough to be proud of the fact that there have been six Jared Franklins in the direct line, from eldest son to father, going back to colonial days. People are _very_ sorry for this delusion of hers; they have told her repeatedly that the colonial period was unimportant. Genevieve, in particular, has often explained to her that modern times are far more interesting." "I guess there isn't much question about that, is there?" said Chase. "No doubt they did the best they could in those old days. But they couldn't do much, you see, because they had nothing to work with, no machinery, no capital, no combinations; they couldn't hear anything until long after it had happened, and they couldn't go anywhere except on horseback. I've always been glad _I_ didn't serve my time then. I guess I should have found it slow." "You must find Asheville rather slow?" remarked Dolly. "It is more than slow, Miss Franklin; it has stopped entirely. But it has great natural advantages--I have been surprised to see how many. I like new enterprises, and I've been thinking about something." Here he paused and ate one more raisin, balancing it for a moment upon the palm of his hand before he swallowed it. "I've been thinking of picking up that railroad at Old Fort and pushing it right through to this place, and on to Tennessee; a branch, later, to tap South Carolina and Georgia. That isn't all, however." He paused again. Then with a glance which rested for a moment on each face, and finally stopped at Mrs. Franklin's, "What do you say," he added, with an hospitable smile, "to my making a big watering-place of your hilly little village?" "_Asheville_ watered? What next!" said Dolly. "The next is that the stock won't be," replied Chase, laughing. "I mean, the stock of the company that undertakes the affair, if it does undertake it. You'd better apply for some right off; all of you. Shall I tell you how the thing strikes me, while you are finishing your nuts? Well, then, this is about it. The whole South is a hot place in summer, ladies; from Baltimore down to the end of Florida and Louisiana they simply swelter from June to October, and always must swelter. If you will look at a map, you can see for yourselves that the only region where the people of all this big section can get fresh air during the heated term, without a long journey for it, is this one line of mountains, called Alleghanies in the lump, but in reality including the Blue Ridge, the Cumberlands, your Smokies and Blacks, and others about here. For a trip to the southern sea-coast isn't much relief; a hot beach is about the hottest place I know! Now, then, what is the best point among these mountains? The Alleghanies lie _this_ way." (He made the Alleghanies with a table-spoon.) "Then _there_ is the Blue Ridge." (A nut-cracker.) "And here you get your Smokies and so forth." (Almonds taken hastily from a dish and arranged in a line.) "And I'll just indicate the Cumberlands with this orange. Very well. Now where are the highest peaks of these lines? Let us follow the range down. Do we find them in Pennsylvania? No, sir. Do we find them in Virginia? We do not. Are they over there among the Cumberlands? Not by a long shot. Where are they, then? Right here, ladies, at your own door; right here, where I make a dot this minute." And taking a pencil from his pocket, he made a small mark on the table-cloth between the spoon and the nut-cracker. "In this neighborhood," he went on, emphasizing his statement by pointing his pencil at Miss Billy, "there are thirteen nearly seven thousand feet high. It seems to me, therefore, that in spite of all the jokes about talking for buncombe, the talk for Buncombe has not been half tall enough yet. For this very Buncombe County is bound to be the favorite watering-place for over twelve millions of people, some day or other." "Watering-place?" commented Dolly. "Well, we _have_ the two rivers, the French Broad and the Swannanoa. But the Swannanoa is small; if the millions should all drink at once, it would soon go dry." "I meant summer resort, Miss Franklin, not watering-place," said Chase, inwardly entertained by the quickness bordering on the sharp with which "the sickly one," as he called her, always took him up. "Though there are sulphur springs near by too: I have been out to look at them. And it isn't only the Southerners who will come here," he went on. "Northerners will flock also, when they understand what these mountains are. For, in comparison with them, the Catskills are a suburb; the White Mountains, ornamental rock-work; and the Adirondacks, a wood-lot. _Here_ everything is absolutely wild; you can shoot because there are all sorts of things _to_ shoot, from bears down. And then there's another point--for I haven't got to the bottom of the sack yet. This mountain valley of yours, being 2400 feet above the sea, has a wonderfully pure dry air, and yet, as it is so far south, it is not cold; its winter climate, therefore, is as good as its summer, and even better. So here's the situation: people who live in hot places will come here from June to October, and people who live in cold places will come from October to June." He returned the orange and the almonds to their dishes, replaced the table-spoon and nut-cracker, and then, looking at Mrs. Franklin, he gave her a cheerful nod. "That's it, ma'am; that's the whole in a nutshell." Ruth gravely offered him an empty almond shell. "We'll have something better than that, Miss Ruth--a philopena." And taking a nut-cracker, he opened several almonds. Finding a double kernel, he gave her one of the halves. "Now, if I win, I should be much favored if you would make me something of worsted--a tidy is the name, I think?" Ruth began to laugh. "Well, then, a picture-frame of cones." And now the other ladies joined in Ruth's merriment. "We must decline such rare objects," said Mrs. Franklin. "But we have our own small resources, Mr. Chase." And, leading the way back to the parlor, she showed him the mantel-cover with Dolly's verse. "Why, that's beautiful, Miss Franklin," said Chase, with sincere admiration, when he had read the lines. "I didn't know you could write poetry." "Oh yes," answered Dolly. "I think in elegies as a general thing, and I make sonnets as I dress. Epics are nothing to me, and I turn off triolets in no time. But I don't publish, Mr. Chase, because I don't want to be called a _minor_ poet." Here Rinda came in like a projectile, carrying a large box clasped in her arms. "Jess lef'! 'Spress!" she exclaimed excitedly. "Express?" repeated Mrs. Franklin, trying to make out the address without her glasses. "Read it, Ruth." Ruth looked at the label, and then broke into another laugh. She had hardly recovered from the preceding one, and Chase, with amusement, watched her start off again. But he soon found himself surrounded by laughers a second time. "Why, what's wrong with it?" he asked, seeing that it was the label which excited their mirth. And in his turn he examined it. "Miss Ruth Franklin, Lommy Dew, Asheville? That's right, isn't it? Isn't Lommy Dew the name of your place?" Rinda meanwhile, wildly curious, had been opening the box by main force with the aid of the poker. She now uncovered a huge cluster of hot-house roses, packed in moss. "Flowers? Who could have sent them?" said Mrs. Franklin, surprised. She had no suspicion of her present guest; her thoughts had turned towards some of their old friends at the North. But Ruth, happening to catch the look in Horace Chase's eyes as he glanced for an instant at the blossoms, not so much admiringly as critically, exclaimed: "_You_ sent them, Mr. Chase. How perfectly lovely!" "I'm afraid they're not much," Chase answered. "I thought they'd send more." He had wished to show that he appreciated the invitations to L'Hommedieu, and as, according to his idea, it was the young lady of the family to whom it was proper to pay such attentions, he had ordered the box to be sent to Ruth rather than to Mrs. Franklin or Dolly. Ruth's laugh had stopped. She was passionately fond of hot-house flowers, and now both her hands together could hardly encircle even the stems alone of these superb tea-roses, whose gorgeous masses filled her arms as she raised them. With a quick movement she buried her face in the soft petals. "But, I say, what was wrong with this?" asked Chase a second time, as he again looked at the label. "L'Hommedieu is a French name--" began Dolly. But Ruth interrupted her: "It is an ugly old French name, Mr. Chase, and as it is pronounced, in America at least, exactly as you wrote it, I think it might as well be spelled so, too. At present, however, this is the way--the silly way." And holding her flowers with her left arm, she detached her right hand, and scribbled the name on the edge of the Raleigh paper. "Ah!" said Chase, looking at it. "I don't speak French myself. I thought perhaps it had something to do with dew." And frowning a little, a frown of attention, he spelled the word over. An old negro woman, her head covered with a red kerchief folded like a turban, now came stiffly in with the coffee-tray, her stiffness being an angry dignity. It was Zoe, the cook, tired of waiting for Rinda, who, still in the parlor, was occupied in gazing with friendly interest at the roses. "Lawdy--ef I ain't clean ferget!" remarked the waitress, genially, to the company in general. "You clar out, good-fer-nutt'n nigger!" muttered the offended cook, in an undertone to her coadjutor. With the tray, or rather behind it, a lady came in. "Just in time for coffee, Genevieve," remarked Dolly, cheerfully. "Thanks; I do not take it at night," Genevieve answered. This was a dialogue often repeated in one form or another, for Dolly kept it up. The younger Mrs. Franklin did not like evening dinners, and Dolly even maintained that her sister-in-law thought them wicked. "She sees a close connection between a late dinner with coffee after it, and the devil." The Franklins had always dined at the close of the day, for the elder Jared Franklin, having been the editor of a daily paper, had found that hour the most convenient one. The editor was gone; his family had moved from the North to the South, and life for them was changed in many ways; but his habit of the evening dinner they had never altered. The younger Mrs. Franklin greeted Chase cordially. Dolly listened, hoping to hear her call him "Horrie." But Genevieve contented herself with giving him her hand, and some frank words of welcome. Genevieve was always frank. And in all she said and did, also, she was absolutely sincere. She was a beautiful woman with golden hair, fair skin, regular features, and ideally lovely eyes; her tall figure was of Juno-like proportions. Chase admired her, that was evident. But Dolly (who was noting this) had long ago discovered that men always admired her sister-in-law. In addition to her beauty, Genevieve had a sweet voice, and an earnest, half-appealing way of speaking. She was appealing to Chase now. "There is to be an entertainment at the rink to-night, Horace, for the benefit of the Mission; won't you go? I hope so. And, mamma, that is what I have come over for; to tell you about it, and beg you to go also." She had seated herself beside Chase; but, as she said these last words, she put out her hand and laid it affectionately on Mrs. Franklin's shoulder. "I believe I am to have the pleasure of spending the evening here?" Chase answered, making a little bow towards his hostess. "But if mamma herself goes to the rink, as I am sure she will, then won't you accompany her? The Mission and the Colored Home, Horace, are--" But here Chase, like a madman, made a sudden bound, and grasped the top of Miss Billy Breeze's head. Quick as his spring had been, however, Ruth's was quicker. She pulled his hands away. "Don't hurt him! _Don't!_" But the squirrel was not under Chase's fingers; he had already escaped, and, running down the front of Miss Billy's dress (to her unspeakable terror), he now made another leap, and landed on Dolly's arm, where Ruth caught him. "What in creation is it?" said Chase, who had followed. "A bird? Or a mouse?" "Mouse!" said Ruth, indignantly. "It's Bob, my dear little flying-squirrel; I saw him on the cornice, but I thought he would fly to me. It's amazing that any one can possibly be afraid of the darling," she added, with a reproachful glance towards Miss Billy, who was still cowering. "I had him when he was nothing but a baby, Mr. Chase--he had fallen from his nest--and I have brought him up myself. Now that he is getting to be a big boy, he naturally likes to fly about a little. He cannot be always climbing his one little tree in the dining-room. He is so soft and downy. Look at his bright eyes." Here she opened her hand so that Chase could see her pet. "Would you like to hold him for a moment?" "Oh, I'll look at _you_ holding him," answered Chase. "Hollo! here's another." For Petie Trone, Esq., his jealousy roused by his mistress's interest in the squirrel, had come out from under the sofa, and was now seated on his hind-legs at the edge of her dress, begging. "Wouldn't you like an owl?" Chase suggested. "Or a 'possum? A 'coon might be tamed, if caught young." Ruth walked away, offended. This made him laugh still more as he returned to his place beside Genevieve. "She is only eighteen," murmured the younger Mrs. Franklin, apologetically. Her words were covered by a rapturous "Gen'lem!" from Rinda at the door. For Rinda was always perfectly delighted to see anybody; when, therefore, there were already two or three guests, and still another appeared, her voice became ecstatic. The new-comer was Anthony Etheridge. "How fortunate!" said Genevieve. "For it makes another for our little charity party. There is to be an impromptu entertainment at the rink to-night, commodore, for the benefit of the Mission, and mamma is going, I hope. Won't you accompany her? Let me introduce Mr. Chase--a very old friend of mine. Mr. Chase, Commodore Etheridge." "Happy to meet you," said Chase, rising in order to shake hands. "Gen'lem!" called Rinda again; this time fairly in a yell. The last "gen'lem" was a slender man of thirty-five, who came in with his overcoat on. "Thanks; I did not take it off," he said, in answer to Mrs. Franklin, "because I knew that you were all going to the"--(here Ruth gave a deep cough)--"because I thought it possible that you might be going to the rink to-night," he went on, changing the form of his sentence, with a slight smile; "and in that case I hoped to accompany you." "Yes," said Genevieve, "mamma is going, Mr. Larue. I only wish I could go, also." The cheeks of Miss Billy Breeze had become flushed with rose-color as the new-comer entered. Noticing instantly the change he had made in his sentence when Ruth coughed, she at once divined that the girl had gone, bareheaded and in the darkness, to his residence during that long absence before dinner, in order to secure his co-operation in the frolic of the evening. Ruth had, in fact, done this very thing; for nothing amused her so much as to watch Billy herself when Larue was present. The girl was now wicked enough to carry on her joke a little longer. "I am _so_ sorry, Miss Billy, that you do not care to go," she said, regretfully. Miss Billy passed her handkerchief over her mouth and tried to smile. But she was, in fact, winking to keep back tears. And then Mrs. Franklin, always kind-hearted, came to the rescue. "Did you tell Ruth that you could not go, Billy? Change your mind, my dear; change it to please _me_." "Oh, if _you_ care about it, dear Mrs. Franklin," murmured Billy, escaping, and hurrying happily up the stairs to put on her wraps. The rink was a large, bare structure of wood, with a circular arena for roller-skating. This evening the place was lighted, and the gallery was occupied by the colored band. The members of this band, a new organization, had volunteered their services with the heartiest good-will. It was true that they could play (without mistakes) but one selection, namely, "The lone starry hours give me, love." But they arranged this difficulty by playing it first, softly; then as a solo on the cornet; then fortissimo, with drums; by means of these alterations it lasted bravely throughout the evening. Nearly the whole village was present; the promenade was crowded, and there were many skaters on the floor below. The Rev. Malachi Hill, the originator of the entertainment, was distributing programmes, his face beaming with pleasure as he surveyed the assemblage. Presently he came to the party from L'Hommedieu. "Programmes, Mrs. Franklin? Programmes, gentlemen?" He had written these programmes himself, in his best handwriting. "The performance will soon begin," he explained. "The procession will skate round the arena five times, and afterwards most of the characters will join in a reel--" Here some one called him, and he hastened off. Chase, who had received a programme, looked at it in a business-like way. "Christopher Columbus," he read aloud; "Romeo and Juliet; the Muses, Calliope, and--and others," he added, glancing down the list. His Calliope had rhymed with hope, and a gleam of inward entertainment showed itself for one instant in the eyes of Etheridge and Larue. Ruth saw this scintillation; instantly she crossed to Chase's side, as he still studied the programme, and bending to look at it, said, "Please, may I see too?" "Oh! I thought you had one," said Chase, giving her the sheet of paper. "The Muses," read Ruth again, aloud. "Cally-ope," she went on, giving the word Chase's pronunciation. "And Terp-si-core." She made this name rhyme with "more." Then, standing beside her new acquaintance, she glared at the remainder of the party, defiantly. Mrs. Franklin was so much overcome by this performance of her daughter's that she was obliged to turn away to conceal her laughter. "What possesses her--the witch!" asked Etheridge, following. "It is only because she thinks I don't like him. He has given her those magnificent roses, and so she intends to stand up for him. I never know whom she will fancy next. Do look at her now!" "I am afraid you have spoiled her," commented Etheridge, but joining in the mother's laugh himself, as he caught a glimpse of Ruth starting off, with high-held head and firm step, to walk with Chase round the entire promenade. Owing to this sudden departure, Miss Billy Breeze found herself unexpectedly alone with Larue. She was so much excited by this state of things that at first she could hardly speak. How many times, during this very month, had she arranged with herself exactly what she should say if such an opportunity should be given her. Her most original ideas, her most beautiful thoughts (she kept them written out in her diary), should be summoned to entertain him. The moment had come. And this is what she actually did say: "Oh!" (giggle), "how pretty it is, isn't it?" (Giggle.) "Really a most beautiful sight. So interesting to see so many persons, and all so happy, is it not? I don't know when I've seen anything lovelier. Yes, indeed--_lovely_. But I hope you won't take cold, Mr. Larue? Really, now, do be careful. One takes cold so easily; and then it is sometimes so hard to recover." With despair she heard herself bringing out these inanities. "I hope you are not in a draught?" she wandered on. "Colds are _so_ tiresome." And now, with a loud burst from the band, the procession issued from an improvised tent at the end of the building. First came Christopher Columbus at the head; then Romeo and Juliet; the Muses, three and three; George Washington and his wife, accompanied by Plato and a shepherdess; other personages followed, and all were mounted on roller-skates, and were keeping time to the music as well as they could. Then the rear was closed by a single American Indian in a complete costume of copper-colored tights, with tomahawk, war-paint, and feathers. This Indian, as he was alone, was conspicuous; and when he skated into the brighter light, there came from that part of the audience which was nearest to him, a sound of glee. The sound, however, was instantly suppressed. But it rose again as he sailed majestically onward, in long sweeps to the right and the left, his head erect, his tomahawk brandished; it increased to mirth which could not be stifled. For nature having given to this brave slender legs, the costume-maker had supplied a herculean pair of calves, and these appendages had shifted their position, and were now adorning the front of each limb at the knee, the chieftain meanwhile remaining unconscious of the accident, and continuing to perform his part with stateliness at the end of the skating line. Ruth, with her hands dropping helplessly by her side, laughed until her mother came to her. Mrs. Franklin herself was laughing so that she could hardly speak. But Ruth's laughs sometimes were almost dangerous; they took such complete possession of her. "Give her your arm and make her walk up and down," said Mrs. Franklin to Etheridge. And Etheridge took the girl under his charge. Chase, who had grinned silently each time the unsuspecting Moose came into view (for the procession had passed round the arena three times), now stepped down to the skating-floor as he approached on his fourth circuit, and stopped him. There was a short conference, and then, amid peals of mirth, the Moose looked down, and for the first time discovered the aspect of his knees. Chase signalled to the band to stop. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "this Indian was not aware of his attractions." (Applause.) "But now that he knows what they are, he will take part in the reel (which he had not intended to do), and he will take part _as he is_! For the benefit of the Mission, ladies and gentlemen. The hat will be passed immediately afterwards." Signing to the musicians to go on again, he conducted the chief to the space which had been left free for the reel, and then, when the other couples had skated to their places, he led off with his companion in a sort of quickstep (as he had no skates); and it is safe to say that North Carolina had never beheld so original a dance as that which followed (to the inexhaustible "Starry Hours" played as a jig). Chase and the Indian led and reled. Finally Chase, with his hat tilted back on his head, and his face extremely solemn, balanced with his partner, taking so much pains with remarkable fancy steps, which were immediately imitated by the Indian's embossed legs, that the entire audience was weak from its continuous mirth. Then removing his hat, Chase made the rounds, proffering it with cordial invitation to all: "For the Mission, ladies and gentlemen. For _Big Moose's_ Mission." Big Moose, on his way home later (in his clergyman's attire this time), was so happy that he gave thanks. He would have liked, indeed, to chant a gloria. For the Mission was very near his heart, and from its beginning it had been so painfully fettered by poverty that, several times, he had almost despaired. But now that magic hat had brought to the struggling little fund more than it had ever dreamed of possessing; for underneath the dimes and the quarters of Asheville had laid a fat roll, a veritable Golconda roll of greenbacks. But one person could have given this roll, namely, the one stranger, Horace Chase. CHAPTER III Mrs. Franklin was a widow, her husband, Jared Franklin, having died in 1860. Franklin, a handsome, hearty man, who had enjoyed every day of his life, had owned and edited a well-known newspaper in one of the large towns on the Hudson River. This paper had brought him in a good income, which he had spent in his liberal way, year after year. The Franklins were not extravagant; but they lived generously, and they all had what they wanted. Their days went on happily, for they were fond of each other, they had the same sense of humor, and they took life easily, one and all. But when Jared Franklin died (after a sudden and short illness), it was found that he at least had taken it too easily; for he had laid aside nothing, and there were large debts to pay. As he had put his only son, the younger Jared, into the navy, the newspaper was sold. But it did not bring in so much as was expected, and the executors were forced in the end to sell the residence also; when the estate was finally cleared, the widow found herself left with no home, and, for income, only the small sum which had come to her from her father, Major Seymour, of the army. In this condition of things her thoughts turned towards the South. For her mother, Mrs. Seymour, was a Southerner of Huguenot descent, one of the L'Hommedieu family. And Mrs. Seymour's eldest sister, Miss Dora L'Hommedieu, had bequeathed to the niece (now Mrs. Franklin), who had been named after her, all she had to leave. This was not much. But the queer, obstinate old woman did own two houses, one for the summer among the mountains of North Carolina, one for the winter in Florida. For she believed that she owed her remarkable health and longevity to a careful change of climate twice each year; and, accompanied by an old negress as cross-grained as herself, she had arrived in turn at each of these residences for so many seasons that it had seemed as if she would continue to arrive forever. In 1859, however, her migrations ceased. At that date the Franklins were still enjoying their prosperity, and this legacy of the two ramshackle L'Hommedieu abodes, far away in the South, was a good deal laughed at by Jared Franklin, who laughed often. But when, soon afterwards, the blow came, and his widow found herself homeless and bereft, these houses seemed to beckon to her. They could not be sold while the war lasted, and even after that great struggle was over no purchasers appeared. In the meantime they were her own; they would be a roof, two roofs, over her head; and the milder climate would be excellent for her invalid daughter Dolly. In addition, their reduced income would go much further there than here. As soon after the war, therefore, as it could be arranged, she had made the change, and now for seven years she had been living in old Dora's abodes, very thankful to have them. Mrs. Franklin herself would have said that they lived in North Carolina; that their visits to Florida were occasional only. It was true that she had made every effort to dispose of the Florida place. "For sale--a good coquina house on the bay," had been a standing advertisement in the St. Augustine _Press_ year after year. But her hopes had been disappointed, and as the house still remained hers, she had only once been able to withstand the temptation of giving Dolly the benefit of the Florida climate in the winter, little as she could afford the additional expense; in reality, therefore, they had divided their year much as Miss L'Hommedieu had divided hers. The adjective ramshackle, applied at random by Jared Franklin, had proved to be appropriate enough as regarded the North Carolina house, which old Dora had named L'Hommedieu, after herself. L'Hommedieu was a rambling wooden structure surrounded by verandas; it had been built originally by a low-country planter who came up to these mountains in the summer. But old Miss L'Hommedieu had let everything run down; she had, in truth, no money for repairs. When the place, therefore, came into the hands of her niece, it was much dilapidated. And in her turn Mrs. Franklin had done very little in the way of renovation, beyond stopping the leaks of the roof. Her daughter-in-law, Genevieve, was distressed by the aspect of everything, both without and within. "You really ought to have the whole house done over, mamma," she had said more than once. "If you will watch all the details yourself, it need not cost so very much: see what I have accomplished at the Cottage. "In time, in time," Mrs. Franklin had answered. But in her heart she was not fond of Genevieve's abode; she preferred the low-ceilinged rooms of L'Hommedieu, shabby though they might be. These rooms had, in fact, an air of great cheerfulness. Anthony Etheridge was accustomed to say that he had never seen anywhere a better collection of easy-chairs. "There are at least eight with the long seat which holds a man's body comfortably as far as the knees, as it ought to held; not ending skimpily half-way between the knee and the hip in the usual miserable fashion!" Mrs. Franklin had saved three of these chairs from the wreck of her northern home, and the others had been made, of less expensive materials, under her own eye. Both she and her husband had by nature a strong love of ease, and their children had inherited the same disposition; it could truthfully be said that as a family they made themselves comfortable, and kept themselves comfortable, all day long. They did this at present in the face of obstacles which would have made some minds forget the very name of comfort. For they were far from their old home; they were cramped as to money; there was Dolly's suffering to reckon with; and there was a load of debt. The children, however, were ignorant in a great measure of this last difficulty; whatever property there was, belonged to Mrs. Franklin personally, and she kept her cares to herself. These fresh debts, made after the estate had finally been cleared, were incurred by the mother's deliberate act--an act of folly or of beauty, according to the point from which one views it; after her husband's death she had borrowed money in order to give to her daughter Dora every possible aid and advantage in her contest with fate--the long struggle which the girl made to ignore illness, to conquer pain. These sums had never been repaid, and when the mother thought of them, she was troubled. But she did not think of them often; when she had succeeded (with difficulty) in paying the interest each year, she was able to dismiss the subject from her mind, and return to her old habit of taking life easily; for neither her father, the army officer, nor her husband, the liberal-handed editor, had ever taught her with any strictness the importance of a well-balanced account. Poor Dolly's health had always been uncertain. But when her childhood was over, her mother's tender help from minute to minute had kept her up in a determined attempt to follow the life led by other girls of her age. A mother's love can do much. But heredity, coming from the past, blind and deaf to all appeal, does more, and the brave effort failed. The elder Miss Franklin had now been for years an invalid, and an invalid for whom no improvement could be expected; sometimes she was able, with the aid of her cane, to take a walk of a mile's length, or more, and often several weeks would pass in tolerable comfort; but sooner or later the pain was sure to come on again, and it was a pain very hard to bear. But although Dolly was an invalid, she was neither sad nor dull. Both she and her mother were talkers by nature, and they never seemed to reach the end of their interest in each other's remarks. Ruth, too, was never tired of listening and laughing over Dolly's sallies. The whole family, in fact, had been born gay-hearted, and they were always sufficiently entertained with their own conversation and their own jokes; on the stormy days, when they could expect no visitors, they enjoyed life on the whole rather more than they did when they had guests--though they were fond of company also. One evening, a week after the masquerade at the rink, Mrs. Franklin, leaning back in her easy-chair with her feet on a footstool, was peacefully reading a novel, when she was surprised by the entrance of Miss Breeze; she was surprised because Billy had paid her a visit in the afternoon. "Yes, I thought I would come in again," began Billy, vaguely. "I thought perhaps--or rather I thought it would be better--" "Take off your bonnet and jacket, won't you?" interposed Ruth. "Why, how smart you are, Billy!" remarked Mrs. Franklin, as she noted her guest's best dress, and the pink ribbon round her throat above the collar. "Yes," began Billy again; "I thought--it seemed better--" "Dolly," interrupted Ruth, "get out planchette, and make it write Billy a love letter!" And she gave her sister a glance which said: "Head her off! Or she will let it all out." Dolly comprehended. She motioned Miss Breeze solemnly to a chair near her table, and taking the planchette from its box, she arranged the paper under it. "I don't like it! I don't like it!" protested Mrs. Franklin. "His Grand, if you don't like it, beat it," said Ruth, jumping up. "Give it a question too hard to answer. Go to the dining-room and do something--anything you like. Then planchette shall tell us what it is--aha!" "A good idea," said Mrs. Franklin, significantly. And with her light step she left the room. The mother was as active as a girl; no one was ever deterred, therefore, from asking her to rise, or to move about, by any idea of age. She was tall, with aquiline features, bright dark eyes, and thick silvery hair. As she was thin, her face showed the lines and fine wrinkles which at middle age offset a slender waist. But, when she was animated, these lines disappeared, for at such moments her color rose, the same beautiful color which Ruth had inherited. Dolly sat with her hands on the little heart-shaped board, pondering what she should say; for her familiar spirit was simply her own quick invention. But while it would have been easy to mystify Miss Billy, it was not easy to imagine what her mother, a distinctly hostile element, might do for the especial purpose of perplexing the medium; for although Mrs. Franklin knew perfectly well that her daughter invented all of planchette's replies, she remained nevertheless strongly opposed to even this pretended occultism. Dolly therefore pondered. But, as she did so, she was saying to herself that it was useless to ponder, and that she might as well select something at random, when suddenly there sprang into her mind a word, a word apropos of nothing at all, and, obeying an impulse, she wrote it; that is, planchette wrote it under the unseen propelling power of her long fingers. Then Ruth pushed the board aside, and they all read the word; it was "grinning." "Grinning?" repeated Ruth. "How absurd! Imagine mother grinning!" She opened the door, and called, "What did you do, His Grand?" "Wishing to expose that very skilful pretender, Miss Dora Franklin, I did the most unlikely thing I could think of," answered Mrs. Franklin's voice. "I went to the mirror, and standing in front of it, I grinned at my own image; grinned like a Cheshire cat." Miss Billy looked at Dolly with frightened eyes. Dolly herself was startled; she crumpled the paper and threw it hastily into the waste-basket. Mrs. Franklin, returning through the hall, was met by Anthony Etheridge, who had entered without ringing, merely giving a preliminary tap on the outer door with his walking-stick. Dolly began to talk as soon as they came in, selecting a subject which had nothing to do with planchette. For the unconscious knowledge which, of late years, she seemed to possess, regarding the thoughts in her mother's mind, troubled them both. "Commodore, I have something to tell you. It is for you especially, for I have long known your secret attachment! From my window, I can see that field behind the Mackintosh house. Imagine my beholding Maud Muriel opening the gate this afternoon, crossing to the big bush in the centre, seating herself behind it, taking a long clay pipe from her pocket, filling it, lighting it, and smoking it!" "No!" exclaimed Etheridge, breaking into a resounding laugh. "Could she make it go?" "Not very well, I think; I took my opera-glass and watched her. Her face, as she puffed away, was exactly as solemn as it is when she models her deadly busts." "Ho, ho, ho!" roared Etheridge again. "Ladies, excuse me. I have always thought that girl might be a genius if she could only get drunk! Perhaps the pipe is a beginning." While he was saying this, Horace Chase was ushered in. A moment later there came another ring, and the Rev. Mr. Hill appeared, followed by Achilles Larue. "Why, I have a party!" said Mrs. Franklin, smiling, as she welcomed the last comer. "Yes, His Grand, it _is_ a party," said Ruth. "Now you may know, since they are here, and you cannot stop it. I invited them all myself, late this afternoon; and it is a molasses-candy-pulling; Dolly and I have arranged it. We did not tell you beforehand, because we knew you would say it was sticky." "Sticky it is," replied Mrs. Franklin. "Vilely sticky!" added Etheridge, emphatically. "And then we knew, also, that you would say that you could not get up a supper in so short a time," Ruth went on. "But Zoe has had her sister to help her, and ever so many nice things are all ready; chicken salad, for instance; and--listen, His Grand--a long row of macaroon custards, each cup with _three_ macaroons dissolved in madeira!" And then she intoned the family chant, Dolly joining in from her easy-chair: "Mother Franklin thinks, That General Jackson, Jared the Sixth, Macaroon custards, And Bishop Carew, Are per-_fec_-tion!" "What does she mean by that?" said Chase to Miss Billy. "Oh, it is only one of their jokes; they have so many! Dear Mrs. Franklin was brought up by her father to admire General Jackson, and Dolly and Ruth pretend that she thinks he is still at the White House. And Jared the Sixth means her son, you know. And they say she is fond of macaroon custards; that is, _fondish_," added Miss Billy, getting in the "ish" with inward satisfaction. "And she is much attached to Bishop Carew. But, for that matter, so are we all." "A Roman Catholic?" inquired Chase. "He is our bishop--the Episcopal Bishop of North Carolina," answered Miss Breeze, surprised. "Oh! I didn't know. I'm a Baptist myself. Or at least my parents were," explained Chase. The kitchen of L'Hommedieu was large and low, with the beams showing overhead; it had a huge fireplace with an iron crane. This evening a pot dangled from the crane; it held the boiling molasses, and Zoe, brilliant in a new scarlet turban in honor of the occasion, was stirring the syrup with a long-handled spoon. One of the easy-chairs had been brought from the parlor for Dolly. Malachi Hill seated himself beside her; he seemed uneasy; he kept his hat in his hand. "I did not know that Mr. Chase was to be here, Miss Dolly, or I would not have come," he said to his companion, in an undertone. "I can't think what to make of myself--I'm becoming a regular cormorant! Strange to say, instead of being satisfied with all he has given to the Mission, I want more. I keep thinking of all the good he might do in these mountains if he only knew the facts, and I have fairly to hold myself in when he is present, to keep from flattering him and getting further help. Yes, it's as bad as that! Clergymen, you know, are always accused of paying court to rich men, or rather to liberal men. For the first time in my life I understand the danger! It's a dreadful temptation--it is indeed. I really think, Miss Dolly, that I had better go." "No, you needn't; I'll see to you," answered Dolly. "If I notice you edging up too near him, I'll give a loud ahem. Stay and amuse yourself; you know you like it." And Malachi Hill did like it. In his mission-work he was tirelessly energetic, self-sacrificing, devoted; on the other hand, he was as fond of merrymaking as a boy. He pulled the candy with glee, but also with eager industry, covering platter after platter with his braided sticks. His only rival in diligence was Chase, who also showed great energy. Dolly pulled; Mrs. Franklin pulled; even Etheridge helped. Ruth did not accomplish much, for she stopped too often; but when she did work she drew out the fragrant strands to a greater length than any one else attempted, and she made wheels of it, and silhouettes of all the company, including Mr. Trone. Miss Billy had begun with much interest; then, seeing that Larue had done nothing beyond arranging the platters and plates in mathematical order on the table, she stopped, slipped out, and went up-stairs to wash her hands. When she returned, fortune favored her; the only vacant seat was one near him, and, after a short hesitation, she took it. Larue did not speak; he was looking at Ruth, who was now pulling candy with Horace Chase, drawing out the golden rope to a yard's length, and throwing the end back to him gayly. Finally, when not even the painstaking young missionary could scrape another drop from the exhausted pot, Dolly, taking her violin, played a waltz. The uncarpeted floor was tempting, and after all the sticky hands had been washed, the dancing began--Ruth with Chase, Etheridge with Miss Billy; then Etheridge with Mrs. Franklin, while Miss Billy returned quickly to her precious chair. "But these dances do not compare with the old ones," said Mrs. Franklin, when they had paused to let Dolly rest. "There was the mazurka; and the varsovienne--how pretty that was! La-la-la, la, _la_!" And humming the tune, she took a step or two lightly. Etheridge, who knew the varsovienne, joined her. "Go on," said Ruth. "I'll whistle it for you." And sitting on the edge of a table she whistled the tune, while the two dancers circled round the kitchen, looking extremely well together. "Whistling girls, you know," said Chase, warningly. He had joined Ruth, and was watching her as she performed her part. She kept on, undisturbed by his jests, bending her head a little to the right and to the left in time with the music; her whistling was as clear as a flute. "And then there was the heel-and-toe polka. Surely you remember that, commodore," pursued Mrs. Franklin, with inward malice. For the heel-and-toe was a very ancient memory. It was considered old when she herself had seen it as a child. "Never heard of it in my life," answered Etheridge. "Hum--ha." "Oh, I know the heel-and-toe," cried Ruth. "I learned it from mother ages ago, just for fun. Are you rested, Dolly? Play it, please, and mother and I will show them." Dolly began, and then Mrs. Franklin and Ruth, tall, slender mother, and tall, slender daughter, each with one arm round the other's waist, and the remaining arm held curved above the head, danced down the long room together, taking the steps of the queer Polish dance with charming grace and precision. "Oh, _dear_ Mrs. Franklin, so young and cheerful! So pleasant to see her, is it not? So lovely! Don't you think so? And dancing is so interesting in so many ways! Though, of course, there are other amusements equally to be desired," murmured Miss Billy, incoherently, to Larue. "Now we will have a quadrille, and I will improvise the figures," said Ruth. "Mother and the commodore; Miss Billy and Mr. Larue; Mr. Chase with me; and we will take turns in making the fourth couple." "Unfortunately, I don't dance," observed Larue. "Spoil-sport!" said Ruth, annihilatingly. "You got it that time," remarked Chase, condolingly, to the other man. "Miss Ruth, I can take the senator's place, if you like," said Malachi Hill, springing up, good-naturedly. Since the termination of the candy-pulling, he had been sitting contentedly beside Dolly, watching her play, and regaling himself meanwhile with a stick of the fresh compound, its end carefully enveloped in a holder of paper. "Excellent," said Ruth. "Please take Miss Billy, then." Poor Miss Billy, obliged to dance with a misguided clergyman! This time there was not the excuse of the Mission; it was a real dance. He already smoked; the next step certainly would be cards and horse-racing! While she was taking her place, Rinda ushered in a new guest. "Maud Muriel--how lucky!" exclaimed Ruth. "You are the very person we need, for we are trying to get up a quadrille, and have not enough persons. I know you like to dance?" "Yes, I like it very much--for hygienic reasons principally," responded the new-comer. "Please take my place, then," Ruth went on. "This is Mr. Chase, Miss Maud Mackintosh. Now we will see if our generic geologist and sensational senator will refuse to dance with _me_." And sinking suddenly on her knees before Larue, Ruth extended her hands in petition. "What is all that she called him, Miss Maud?" inquired Chase, laughing. "Miss Mackintosh," said his partner, correctively. "They are only alliterative adjectives, Mr. Chase, rather indiscriminately applied. Ruth is apt to be indiscriminate." Larue had risen, and Ruth triumphantly led him to his place. He knew that she was laughing at him; in fact, as he went through the figures calmly, his partner mimicked him to his face. But he was indifferent alike to her laughter and her mimicry; what he was noticing was her beauty. If he had been speaking of her, he would have called her "prettyish"; but as he was only thinking, he allowed himself to note the charm of her eyes for the moment, the color in her cheeks and lips. For he was sure that it was only for the moment. "The coloring is evanescent," was his mental criticism. "Her beauty will not last. For she is handsome only when she is happy, and happiness for her means doing exactly as she pleases, and having her own way unchecked. No woman can do that forever. By the time she is thirty she may be absolutely plain." Maud Muriel had laid aside her hat and jacket. She possessed a wealth of beautiful red hair, whose thick mass was combed so tightly back from her forehead that it made her wink; her much-exposed countenance was not at all handsome, though her hazel eyes were large, calm, and clear. She was a spinster of thirty-six--tall and thin, with large bones. And from her hair to her heels she was abnormally, extraordinarily straight. She danced with much vigor, scrutinizing Chase, and talking to him in the intervals between the figures. These intervals, however, were short, for Ruth improvised with rapidity. Finally she kept them all flying round in a circle so long that Mrs. Franklin, breathless, signalled that she must pause. "Now we are all hungry," said Ruth. "Zoe, see to the coffee. And, Rinda, you may make ready here. We won't go to the dining-room, His Grand; it's much more fun in the kitchen." Various inviting dishes were soon arrayed upon a table. And then Ruth, to pass away the time until the coffee should be ready, began to sing. All the Franklins sang; Miss Billy had a sweet soprano, Maud Muriel a resonant contralto, and Malachi Hill a tenor of power; Etheridge, when he chose, could add bass notes. "Hark, the merry merry Christ-Church bells, One, two, three, four, five, six; They sound so strong, so wondrous sweet, And they troll so merrily, merrily." Horace Chase took no part in the catch song; he sat looking at the others. It was the Franklin family who held his attention--the mother singing with light-hearted animation; Dolly playing her part on her violin, and singing it also; and Ruth, who, with her hands clasped behind her head, was carolling like a bird. To Chase's mind it seemed odd that a woman so old as Mrs. Franklin, a woman with silver hair and grown-up children, should like to dance and sing. Dolly was certainly a very "live" invalid! And Ruth--well, Ruth was enchanting. Horace Chase's nature was always touched by beauty; he was open to its influences, it had been so from boyhood. What he admired was not regularity of feature, but simply the seductive sweetness of womanhood. And, young as she was, Ruth Franklin's face was full of this charm. He looked at her again as she sat singing the chorus: "Hark, the first and second bell, Ring every day at four and ten"-- Then his gaze wandered round the kitchen. From part of the wall the plastering was gone; it had fallen, and had never been replaced. The housewives whom he had hitherto known, so he said to himself, would have preferred to have their walls repaired, and spend less, if necessary, upon dinners. Suppers, too! (Here he noted the rich array on the kitchen table.) This array was completed presently by the arrival of the coffee, which filled the room with its fragrant aroma, and the supper was consumed amid much merriment. When the clock struck twelve, Maud Muriel rose. "I must be going," she said. "Wilhelmina, I came for you; that is what brought me. When I learned at the hotel that you were here, I followed for the purpose of seeing you home." "Allow me the pleasure of accompanying you both," said Chase. "That is not necessary; I always see to Wilhelmina," answered Miss Mackintosh, as she put on her hat. "Yes; she is so kind," murmured Miss Billy. But Miss Billy in her heart believed that in some way or other Achilles Larue would yet be her escort (though he never had been that, or anything else, in all the years of their acquaintance). He was still in the house, and so was she; something might happen! What happened was that Larue took leave of Mrs. Franklin, and went off alone. Then Billy said to herself: "On the whole, I'm glad he didn't suggest it. For it is only five minutes' walk to the hotel, and if he had gone with me it would have counted as a call, and then he needn't have done anything more for a long time. So I'm glad he did not come. Very." "Maud Muriel," demanded Dolly, "why select a _clay_ pipe?" "Oh, did you see me?" inquired Miss Mackintosh, composedly. "I use a clay pipe, Dolly, because it is cleaner; I can always have a new one. Smoking is said to insure the night's rest, and so I thought it best to learn it, as my brother's children are singularly active at night. I have been practising for three weeks, and I generally go to the woods, where no one can see me. But to-day I did not have time." Chase broke into a laugh. Etheridge had emitted another ho, ho, ho! Then he gave Maud a jovial tap. "My dear young lady, don't go to the woods. Let _me_ come, with another clay pipe, and be your protector." "I have never needed a protector in my life," replied Miss Mackintosh; "I don't know what that feeling is, commodore. I secrete myself simply because people might not understand my motives; they might think that I was secretly given to dissolute courses. Are you ready, Wilhelmina?" As the two ladies opened the outer door and stepped forth into the darkness, Chase, not deterred by the rebuff he had received from the stalwart virgin, passed her, and offered his arm to the gentler Miss Billy. And then Malachi Hill, feeling that he must, advanced to offer himself as escort for the remaining lady. "Poor manikin! Do you think I need _you_?" inquired the sculptress sarcastically, under her breath. The young clergyman disappeared. He did not actually run. But he was round the corner in an astonishingly short space of time. Etheridge was the last to take leave. "Well, you made a very merry party for your bubbling friend," he said to Mrs. Franklin. "It wasn't for _him_," she answered. "He is not mother's bubbling friend, and he is not Dolly's, either," said Ruth; "he is mine alone. Mother and Dolly do not in the least appreciate him." "Is he worth much appreciation?" inquired Etheridge, noting her beauty as Larue had noted it. "How striking she grows!" he thought. And, forgetting for the moment what they were talking about, he looked at her as Chase had looked. Meanwhile Ruth was answering, girlishly: "Much appreciation? _All_, commodore--all. Mr. Chase is _splendid_!" CHAPTER IV Nothing could exceed the charm of the early summer, that year, in this high valley. The amphitheatre of mountains had taken on fresher robes of green, the air was like champagne; it would have been difficult to say which river danced more gayly along its course, the foam-flecked French Broad, its clear water open to the sunshine, or the little Swannanoa, frolicking through the forest in the shade. One morning, a few days after the candy-pulling at L'Hommedieu, even Maud Muriel was stirred to admiration as she threw open the blinds of her bedroom at her usual early hour. "No humidity. And great rarefaction," she said to herself, as she tried the atmosphere with a tentative snort. Maud Muriel lived with her brother, Thomas Mackintosh; that is, she had a room under his roof and a seat at his table. But she did not spend much time at home, rather to the relief of Mrs. Thomas Mackintosh, an easy-going Southern woman, with several young children, including an obstreperous pair of twins. Maud Muriel, dismissing the landscape, took a conscientious sponge-bath, and went down to breakfast. After breakfast, on her way to her studio, she stopped for a moment to see Miss Billy. "At any rate, I _walk_ well," she had often thought with pride. And to-day, as she approached the hotel, she was so straight that her shoulders tipped backward. Miss Billy was staying at the inn. This hotel bore the name "The Old North State," the loving title given by native North-Carolinians to their commonwealth--a commonwealth which, in its small long-settled towns, its old farms, and in the names of its people, shows less change in a hundred years than any other portion of the Union. The Old North, as it was called, was a wooden structure painted white, with outside blinds of green; in front of it extended a row of magnificent maple-trees. Miss Billy had a small sitting-room on the second floor; Maud Muriel, paying no attention to the negro servants, went up the uncarpeted stairway to her friend's apartment, and, as she opened the door, she caught sight of this friend carefully rolling a waste bit of string into a small ball. "Too late--I saw you," she said. (For Miss Billy had nervously tried to hide the ball.) "I know you have at least fifty more little wads of the same sort somewhere, arranged in graded rows! A new ball of string of the largest size--enough to last a year--costs a dime, Wilhelmina. You must have a singularly defective sense of proportion to be willing to give many minutes (for I have even seen you taking out knots!) to a substance whose value really amounts to about the thousandth part of a cent! I have stopped on my way to the barn to tell you two things, Wilhelmina. One is that I do _not_ like your 'Mountain Walk.'" Here she took a roll of delicately written manuscript, tied with blue ribbons, from her pocket, and placed it on the table. "It is supposed to be about trees, isn't it? But you do not describe a single one with the least accuracy; all you do is to impute to them various allegorical sentiments, which no tree--a purely vegetable production--_ever_ had." "It was only a beginning--leading up to a study of the pre-Adamite trees, which I hope to make, later," Miss Billy answered. "Ruskin, you know--" "You need not quote Ruskin to me--a man who criticises sculpture without any practical knowledge whatever of human anatomy; a man who subordinates correct drawing in a picture to the virtuous state of mind of the artist! If Ruskin's theory is true, very good persons who visit the poor and go to church, are, if they dabble in water-colors, or pen-and-ink sketches, the greatest of artists, because their piety is sincere. And _vice versa_. The history of art shows that, doesn't it?" commented Maud, ironically. "I am sorry to see that you sat up so late last night, Wilhelmina." "Why, how do you know?" said Miss Billy, guiltily conscious of midnight reading. "By the deep line between your eyebrows. You must see to that, or you will be misjudged by scientific minds. For marked, lined, or wrinkled foreheads indicate criminal tendencies; the statistics of prisons prove it. To-night put on two pieces of strong sticking-plaster at the temples, to draw the skin back. The other thing I had to tell you is that the result of my inquiries of a friend at the North who keeps in touch with the latest investigations of Liébeault and the Germans, is, that there may, after all, be something in the subject you mentioned to me, namely, the possibility of influencing a person, not present, by means of an effort of will. So we will try it now--for five minutes. Fix your eyes steadily upon that figure of the carpet, Wilhelmina"--she indicated a figure with her parasol--"and I will do the same. As subject we will take my sister-in-law. We will will her to whip the twins. Are you ready?" She took out her watch. "Begin, then." Miss Billy, though secretly disappointed in the choice of subject, tried hard to fix her mind upon the proposed castigation. But in spite of her efforts her thoughts would stray to the carpet itself, to the pattern of the figure, and its reds and greens. "Time's up," announced Maud, replacing her watch in the strong watch-pocket on the outside of her skirt; "I'll tell you whether the whipping comes off. Do you think it is decent, Wilhelmina, to be dressing and undressing yourself whenever you wish to know what time it is?" (For Miss Billy, who tried to follow the fashions to some extent, was putting her own watch back in her bodice, which she had unbuttoned for the purpose.) "Woman will never be the equal of man until she has grasped the conception that the position of her pockets should be unchangeable," Maud went on. "I think I will go with you as far as L'Hommedieu," suggested Billy, ignoring the subject of the watch-pocket (an old one). "I have some books to take, so I may as well." She put on her hat, and piled eight dilapidated paper-covered volumes on her arm. "Are you still collecting vapid literature for that feather-headed woman?" inquired Maud. For Billy went all over Asheville, to every house she knew, and probed in old closets and bookcases in search of novels for Mrs. Franklin. For years she had performed this office. When Mrs. Franklin had finished reading one set of volumes, Billy carried them back to their owners, and then roamed and foraged for more. "If you do go as far as L'Hommedieu, you must stop there definitely; you must not go on to the barn," Maud Muriel announced, as they went down the stairs. "For if you do, you will stay. And then I shall be going back with you, to see to you. And then you will be coming part way back with me, to talk. And thus we shall be going home with each other all the rest of the day!" She passed out and crossed the street, doing it in the face of the leaders of a team of six horses attached to one of the huge mountain wagons, which are shaped like boats tilted up behind; for two files of these wagons, heavily loaded, were coming slowly up the road. Miss Billy started to cross also, but after three or four steps she turned and hurried back to the curb-stone. Then suddenly she started a second time, running first in one direction, then in another, and finally and unexpectedly in a third, so that the drivers of the wagons nearest to her, and even the very horses themselves, were filled with perplexity as to the course which she wished to pursue. Miss Billy, meanwhile, finding herself hemmed in, began to shriek wildly. The drivers in front stretched their necks round the corners of the canvas hoods erected, like gigantic Shaker bonnets, over their high-piled loads, in order to see what was the matter. And the drivers who were behind stood up and peered forward. But they could make out nothing, and, as Miss Billy continued her yells, the whole procession, and with it the entire traffic of the main street, came slowly to a pause. The pause was not long. The energetic Maud Muriel, jerking up the heads of two of the leaders, made a dive, caught hold of her frightened friend, and drew her out by main strength. The horses whom she had thus attacked, shook themselves. "Hep!" called their driver. "Hep!" called the other drivers, in various keys. And then, one by one, with a jerk and a creak, the great wains started on again. When the friends reached L'Hommedieu, Billy was still trembling. "I'd better take them in for you," said Maud Muriel, referring to the load of books which Billy was carrying for her companion. They found Dolly in the parlor, winding silk for her next pair of stockings. "Here are some volumes which Wilhelmina is bringing to Mrs. Franklin," said Maud Muriel, depositing the pile on a table. "More novels?" said Dolly. "I'm so glad. Thank you, Miss Billy. For mother really has nothing for to-day. The one she had yesterday was very dull; she said she was 'worrying' through it. It was a story about female suffrage--as though any one could care for that!" "Care for it or not, it is sure to come," declared Miss Mackintosh. "Yes, in A.D. 5000." "Sooner, much sooner. _We_ may not see it," pursued Maud Muriel, putting up her finger impressively. "But, mark my words, our _children_ will." Miss Billy listened to this statement with the deepest interest. "Well, Maud Muriel--Miss Billy, yourself, and myself as _parents_--that certainly is a new idea!" Dolly replied. Ruth came in. At the same moment Maud Muriel turned to go; and, unconsciously, Billy made a motion as if about to follow. "Wilhelmina, you are to _stay_," said Maud, sternly, as she departed, straighter than ever. "Yes, Miss Billy, please stay," said Ruth. "I want you to go with me to see Genevieve." "Genevieve?" repeated Dolly, surprised. "Yes. She has bought another new dress for me, and this time she is going to fit it herself, she says, so that there may be no more bagging," answered Ruth, laughing. "I know she intends to _squeeze_ me up. And so I want Miss Billy to come and say it's dangerous!" Ruth was naturally what is called short-waisted; this gave her the long step which in a tall, slender woman is so enchantingly graceful. Genevieve did not appreciate grace of this sort. In her opinion Ruth's waist was too large. If she had been told that it was the waist of Greek sculpture, the statement would not have altered her criticism; she had no admiration for Greek sculpture; the few life-sized casts from antique statues which she had seen had appeared to her highly unpleasant objects. Her ideas of feminine shape were derived, in fact, from the season's fashion plates. Her own costumes were always of one unbroken tint, the same from head to foot. To men's eyes, therefore, her attire had an air of great simplicity. Women perceived at once that this unvarying effect was not obtained without much thought, and Genevieve herself would have been the last to disclaim such attention. For she believed that it was each woman's duty to dress as becomingly as was possible, because it increased her attraction; and the greater her attraction, the greater her influence. If she had been asked, "influence for what?" she would have replied unhesitatingly, "influence for good!" Her view of dress, therefore, being a serious one, she was disturbed by the entire indifference of her husband's family to the subject, both generally and in detail. She had the most sincere desire to assist them, to improve them; most of all she longed to improve Ruth (she had given up Dolly), and more than once she had denied herself something, and taken the money it would have cost, to buy a new costume for the heedless girl, who generally ruined the gifts (in her sister-in-law's opinion) by careless directions, or no directions at all, to the Asheville dressmaker. Ruth bore Miss Billy away. But as they crossed the garden towards the cottage she said: "I may as well tell you--there will be no fitting. For Mr. Chase is there; I have just caught a glimpse of him from the upper window." "Then why go now?" inquired Miss Billy, who at heart was much afraid of Genevieve. "To see Mr. Chase, of course. I wish to thank him for my philopena, which came late last night. Mother and Dolly are not pleased. But _I_ am, ever so much." She took a morocco case from her pocket, and, opening it, disclosed a ring of very delicate workmanship, the gold circlet hardly more than a thread, and enclosing a diamond, not large, but very pure and bright. "Oh-ooh!" said Miss Billy, with deep admiration. "Yes; isn't it lovely? Mother and Dolly say that it is too much. But I have never seen anything in the world yet which I thought too much! I should like to have ever so many rings, each set with one gem only, but that gem perfect. And I should like to have twenty or thirty bracelets, all of odd patterns, to wear on my arms above the elbow. And I should like close rows of jewels to wear round my throat. And clasps of jewels for the belt; and shoe-buckles too. I have never had an ornament, except one dreadful silver thing. Let me see; it's on now!" And feeling under her sleeve, she drew off a thin silver circlet, and threw it as far as she could across the grass. "Oh, your pretty bracelet!" exclaimed Miss Billy. "Pretty? Horrid!" Horace Chase had called at the Cottage in answer to a note from Genevieve, offering to take him to the Colored Home. "As you have shown so much kindly interest in the Mission, I feel sure that this second good work of ours will also please you," she wrote. "I think I won't go to-day, Gen, if it's all the same to you," said Chase, when he entered. "For my horses have come and I ought not to delay any longer about making some arrangements for them." "Any other time will do for the Home," answered Genevieve, graciously. "But can't you stay for a little while, Horace? Let me show you my house." Chase had already seen her parlor, with its velvet carpet, its set of furniture covered with green, its pictures arranged according to the size of the frames, with the largest below on a line with the eye, and the others above in pyramidical gradations, so that the smallest were near the cornice. At that distance the subjects of the smaller pictures were more or less indistinguishable; but at least the arrangement of the frames was full of symmetry. In the second story, at the end of the house, was "Jay's smoking-room." "Jay likes to smoke; it is a habit he acquired in the navy; I have therefore fitted up this room on purpose," said Jay's wife. It was a small chamber, with a sloping ceiling, a single window overlooking the kitchen roof, oil-cloth on the floor, one table, and one chair. "Do put in _two_ chairs," suggested Chase, jocularly. For though he thought the husband of Genevieve a fortunate man, he could not say that his smoking-room was a cheerful place. "Oh, _I_ never sit here," answered Genevieve. "Now come down and take a peep at my kitchen, Horace. I have been kneading the bread; there it is on the table. I prefer to knead it myself, though I hope that in time Susannah will be able to do it according to my method" (with a glance towards the negro servant, who returned no answering smile). "And this is my garden. I can never tell you how glad I am that we have at last a fixed home of our own, Horrie. No more wandering about! Jay is able to spend a large part of his summers here, and, later, when he has made a little more money, he will come for the whole summer--four months. And I go to Raleigh to be with him in the winter; I am hoping that we can have a winter home there too, very soon. We are _so_ much more comfortable in every way than we used to be. And looking at it from another point of view, it is inexpressibly better for Jay himself to be out of the navy. It always disturbed me--such a limited life!" Jared Franklin, when an ensign, had met Genevieve Gray, fallen in love with her, and married her, in the short space of three months. He had remained in the navy throughout the war, and for two years longer; then, yielding at last to his wife's urgent entreaties, he had resigned. After his resignation he had been for a time a clerk in Atlanta. Now he was in business for himself in a small way at Raleigh; it was upon his establishment there that Genevieve had started this summer home in Asheville. "Our prospects are much brighter," she went on, cheerfully; "for at present we have a future. No one has a future in the navy; no one can make money there. But now there is no reason why Jay should not succeed, as other men have succeeded; that is what I always tell him. And I am not thinking only of ourselves, Horrie, as I say that; when Jay is a rich man, my principal pleasure in it will be the power which we shall have to give more in charity, to do more in all good works." And in saying this, Genevieve Franklin was entirely sincere. "You must keep me posted about the railroad," she went on, as she led the way across the garden. "Oh yes; if we decide to take hold of it, you shall be admitted into the ring," answered Chase--"the inside track." "I could buy land here beforehand--quietly, you know?" "You've got a capital head for business, haven't you, Gen! Better than any one has at your mother-in-law's, I reckon?" "They are not clever in that way; I have always regretted it. But they are very amiable." "Not that Dolly!" "Oh, Dolly? My principal feeling for poor Dolly, of course, is simply pity. This is my little dairy, Horrie; come in. I have been churning butter this morning." Ruth and Miss Billy, finding no one in the house, had followed to the dairy; and they entered in time to hear this last phrase. "She does churning and everything else, Mr. Chase, at three o'clock in the morning," said Ruth, with great seriousness. "Not quite so early," Genevieve corrected. The point was not taken up. The younger Mrs. Franklin, a fresh, strong, equable creature, who woke at dawn as a child wakes, liked an early breakfast as a child likes it. She found it difficult, therefore, to understand her mother-in-law's hour of nine, or half-past nine. "But you lose so much time, mamma," she had remarked during the first weeks of her own residence at Asheville. "Yes," Dolly answered. (It was always Dolly who answered Genevieve; Dolly delighted in it.) "We _do_ lose it at that end of the morning--the raw end, Genevieve. But when we are once up, we remain up, available, fully awake, get-at-able, until midnight; we do not go off and seclude ourselves impregnably for two hours or so in the middle of the day." For Dolly was aware that it was her sister-in-law's habit to retire to her room immediately after her one o'clock dinner, and take a nap; often a long one. "Do you wish to see something pretty, Genevieve?" said Ruth, giving her the morocco case. "Thank you, Mr. Chase; I have wanted a ring so long; you can't think how long!" "Have you?" said Chase, smiling. "Yes. And this is such a beauty." "Well, to me it seemed rather small. I wrote to a friend of mine to get it; it was my partner, in fact, Mr. Willoughby. I told him that it was for a young lady. That's his taste, I suppose." "The taste is perfect," said Miss Billy. For poor Miss Billy, browbeaten though she was by almost everybody, possessed a very delicate and true perception in all such matters. "I have been _perfectly_ happy ever since it came," Ruth declared, as she took the ring, slipped it on her finger, and looked at the effect. "You make me proud, Miss Ruth." "Don't you want to be a little prouder?" and she came up to him coaxingly. "I am sure Genevieve has been asking you to go with her to the Colored Home?" This quick guess made Chase laugh. "For it is the weekly reception day, and all her old women have on their clean turbans. The Colored Home is excellent, of course, but it won't fly away; there'll be more clean turbans next week. Meanwhile, _I_ have something very pressing. I have long wanted Miss Mackintosh to make a bust of Petie Trone, Esq. And she won't, because she thinks it is frivolous. But if _you_ will go with me, Mr. Chase, and speak of it as a fine thing to do, she will be impressed, I know; for she has a sort of concealed liking for you." Chase made a grimace. "I don't mean anything fiery," Ruth went on; "it's only a reasonable scientific interest. She is at the barn now: won't you come? For Petie Trone, Esq., is not a young dog any longer. He is more than eight years old," concluded the girl, mournfully. Genevieve, who had been greatly struck by the ring, glanced at Chase with inward despair, as her sister-in-law made this ineffective conclusion. They had left the dairy, and were standing in the garden, and her despair renewed itself as, in the brighter light, she noted Ruth's faded dress, and the battered garden hat, whose half-detached feather had been temporarily secured with a large white pin. But Chase was not looking at the hat. "Of course I'll go," he answered. "We'll have the little scamp in bronze, if you like. Don't worry about his age, Miss Ruth; he is so tremendously lively that he will see us all out yet." "Come, then," said Ruth, exultingly. She linked her arm in Miss Billy's. "You must go, too, Miss Billy, so that you can tell mother that I did not tease Mr. Chase _too_ hard." Maud Muriel's studio was in an unused hay-barn. Here, ranged on rough shelves, were her "works," as Miss Billy called them--many studies of arms, and hands, and a dozen finished portrait-busts in clay. The subjects of the busts appeared to have been selected, one and all, for their strictly commonplace aspect; they had not even the distinction of ugliness. There were three old men with ordinary features, and no marked expression of any kind; there were six middle-aged women, each with the type of face which one forgets the moment after seeing it; and there were three uncompromisingly uninteresting little boys. The modelling was conscientious, and it was evident in each case that the likeness was faithful. "But Petie Trone, Esq., is a _pretty_ dog," objected the sculptress, when Ruth had made her request, backed up by Chase, who described the "dogs and animals of all sorts" which he had seen in bronze and marble in the galleries abroad. No one laughed, as the formal title came out from Maud's lips, Asheville had long ago accepted the name; Petie Trone, Esq., was as well known as Mount Pisgah. "Don't you like pretty things?" Chase asked, gazing at the busts, and then at the studies of arms and hands--scraggy arms with sharp elbows and thin fingers, withered old arms with clawlike phalanges, lean arms of growing boys with hands like paws, hard-worked arms with distorted muscles--every and any human arm and hand save a beautiful one. "Prettiness is the exception, not the rule," replied Maud, with decision. "I prefer to model the usual, the average; for in that direction, and in that only, lies truth." "Yes; and I suppose that if I should make a usual cur of Petie Trone, Esq., cover him with average mud, and beat him so that he would cower and slink in his poor little tail, _then_ you would do him?" said Ruth, indignantly. "See here, Miss Mackintosh, your principles needn't be upset by one small dog. Come, do him; not his bust, but the whole of him. A life-sized statue," added Chase, laughing; "he must be about eleven inches long! Do him for me," he went on, boldly, looking at her with secret amusement; for he had never seen such an oaken bearing as that of this Asheville spinster. Maud Muriel did not relax the tension of her muscles; in fact, she could not. The condition called "clinched," which with most persons is occasional only, had with her become chronic. Nevertheless, somehow, she consented. "I'll get the darling this minute," cried Ruth, hurrying out. And Chase followed her. "Well, here you are again! What did I tell you?" said the sculptress to Miss Billy, when they were left alone. "I did not mean to come, Maud Muriel. I really did not intend--" Billy began. "What place, Wilhelmina, is _paved_ with good intentions? Now, of course, we shall be going home with each other all the rest of the day!" declared the sculptress, good-humoredly. Meanwhile, outside, Ruth was suggesting to Horace Chase, coaxingly, that he should wait until she could find her dog, and bring him to the barn. "Because if _you_ are not with me, Maud Muriel will be sure to change her mind!" "Not she. She is no more changeable than a telegraph pole. I am afraid I must leave you now, Miss Ruth; for the men are waiting to see me about the horses." "Whose horses?" "Mine." "Did you send for them? Oh, _I_ love horses too. Where are they?" "At the Old North stables. So you like horses? I'll drive the pair round, then, in a day or two, to show them to you." And after shaking hands with her--Chase always shook hands--he went towards the village; for Maud Muriel's barn was on the outskirts. In figure he was tall, thin, and muscular. He never appeared to be in haste; all his movements were leisurely, even his words coming out with deliberation. His voice was pitched in a low key; his articulation was extremely distinct; sometimes, when amused, he had a slight humorous drawl. Ruth looked after him for a moment. Then she went in search of her dog. A little later Anthony Etheridge paid his usual morning visit to the post-office. On his return, when near his own abode, he met Horace Chase. "A mail in?" inquired Chase, quickly, as he saw the letters. "No; they came last night. _I_ am never in a hurry about mails," answered Etheridge. "You younger fellows have not learned, as I have, that among every six letters, say, four at least are sure to be more or less disagreeable. Well, have you decided? Are you coming to my place?" For Etheridge had rooms in a private house, where he paid for a whole wing in order that his night's rest should not be disturbed by other tenants, who might perhaps bring in young children; with his usual thriftiness, he had offered his lower floor to Chase. "Well, no, I guess not; I'm thinking of coming here," Chase answered, indicating the hotel near by with a backward turn of his thumb. "My horses are here; they came last night. I'm making some arrangements for them, now." Anthony Etheridge cared more for a good horse than for anything else in the world. In spite of his title of Commodore, sailing had only a second place in his list of tastes. He had commanded a holiday squadron only, a fleet of yachts. Some years before, he had resigned his commandership in the Northern club. But he was still a commodore, almost in spite of himself, for he had again been elected, this time by the winter yacht club of St. Augustine. At the word "horses" his face had lighted up. "Can I have a look at them?" he said, eagerly. "Did they stand the journey well?" "O. K. They're round in the stable, if you want to come." The three horses were beautiful specimens of their kind. "The pair, I intend to drive; I found that there was nothing in Asheville, and as I'm going to stay awhile longer (for the air is bringing me right up), I had to have something," Chase remarked. "The mare is for riding." "She looks like a racer?" "Well, she _has_ taken one prize. But I shall never race her again; I don't care about it. I remember when I thought a race just heaven! When I wasn't more than nineteen, I took a prize with a trotter; 'twas a very small race, to be sure; but a big thing to me. Not long after that, there was another prize offered for a well-matched pair, and by that time I had a pair--temporarily--bays. One of them, however, had a white spot on his nose. Well, sir, I painted his nose, and won the premium!" He broke into a laugh. "Was that before you invented the Bubble Baking-powder?" inquired Etheridge. In this question, there was a tinge of superciliousness. Chase did not suspect it; in his estimation, a baking-powder was as good a means as anything else, the sole important point being its success. But even if he had perceived the tinge, it would only have amused him; with his far-stretching plans--plans which extended across a continent--his large interests and broad ambitions, criticism from this obscure old man would have seemed comical. Anthony Etheridge was not so obscure a personage as Chase fancied. But he was not known in the world of business or of speculation, and he had very little money. This last fact Chase had immediately divined. For he recognized in Etheridge a man who would never have denied himself luxury unless forced to do it, a man who would never have been at Asheville if he could have afforded Newport; the talk about "nature undraped" was simply an excuse. And he had discovered also another secret which no one (save Mrs. Franklin) suspected, namely, that the handsome commodore was in reality far older than his gallant bearing would seem to indicate. "_I_ didn't invent the Bubble," he had said, explanatorily. "I only bought it. Then the inventor and I ran it together, in a sort of partnership, as long as he lived. 'Twas as good as a silver mine for a while. Nothing could stand against it, sir--nothing." But Etheridge was not interested in the Bubble. "I should like greatly to see your mare go," he said. "Here, boy, isn't that track in the field in pretty fair condition still?" "Yes, boss," answered the negro, whom he had addressed. "Why not let her go round it, Chase? It will do her good to stretch her legs this fine morning." Here a shadow in the doorway caused them both to turn their heads. It was Ruth Franklin. "Good heavens, Ruth, what are you doing here in the stables?" asked Etheridge, astonished. "I have come to see the horses," replied Ruth, confidently. She addressed Chase. She had already learned that she could count upon indulgence from him, no matter what fancies might seize her. "Here they are, then," Chase answered. "Come closer. This is Peter, and that is Piper. And here is the mare, Kentucky Belle. Your friend, the commodore, was urging me, as you came in, to send Kentucky round a race-course you have here somewhere." "Yes, I know; the old ring," said Ruth. "Oh, please do! Please have a real race." "But there's nothing to run against her, Miss Ruth. The pair are not racers." "You go to Cyrus Jaycox," said Etheridge to the negro, "and ask him for--for" (he could not remember the name)--"for the colt," he concluded, in an enraged voice. "Fer Tipkinoo, sah? Yassah." "Tell him to come himself." "Yassah." The negro started off on a run. "It's the landlord of the Old North," Etheridge explained. "He has a promising colt, Tippecanoe" (he brought it out this time sonorously). "No match, of course, for your mare, Chase. Still, it will make a little sport." His color had risen; his face was young with anticipation. "Now, Ruth, go home; you have seen the horses, and that is enough. Your mother would be much displeased if she knew you were here." For answer, Ruth looked at Chase. "I won't be the least trouble," she said, winningly. "Oh, do be! I like trouble--feel all the better for lots of it," he answered. "Come along with me. And make all the trouble you can!" Three little negro boys, highly excited, had already started off to act as pilots to the field. Ruth put her hand in Chase's arm; for if the owner of Kentucky Belle wished to have her with him, or at least if he had the appearance of wishing it, there was less to be said against her presence. They led the way, therefore. Then came Chase's man with the mare, Etheridge keeping close to the beautiful beast, and watching her gait with critical eyes. All the hangers-on of the stable brought up the rear. The field, where an amateur race had been held during the preceding year, was not far distant; its course was a small one. Some minutes later their group was completed by the arrival of Cyrus Jaycox with his colt, Tippecanoe. "But where is Groves?" said Chase to his men. "Groves is the only one of you who can ride her properly." It turned out, however, that Groves had gone to bed ill; he had taken a chill on the journey. "I didn't observe that he wasn't here," said Chase. (This was because he had been talking to Ruth.) "We shall have to postpone it, commodore." "Let her go round with one of the other men just once, to show her action," Etheridge urged. "Yes, please, please," said Ruth. The mare, therefore, went round the course with the groom Cartright, followed by the Asheville colt, ridden by a little negro boy, who clung on with grins and goggling eyes. "There is Mr. Hill, watching us over the fence," said Ruth. "How astonished he looks!" And she beckoned to the distant figure. Malachi Hill, who had been up the mountain to pay a visit to a family in bereavement, had recognized them, and stopped his horse in the road to see what was going on. In response to Ruth's invitation, he found a gate, opened it by leaning from his saddle, and came across to join them. As he rode up, Etheridge was urging another round. "If I were not such a heavy weight, I'd ride the mare myself!" he declared, with enthusiasm. Cyrus Jaycox offered a second little negro, as jockey. But Chase preferred to trust Cartright, unfitted though he was. In reality he consented not on account of the urgency of Etheridge, but solely to please the girl by his side. There was trouble about this second start; the colt, not having been trained, boggled and balked. Kentucky Belle, on her side, could not comprehend such awkwardness. "I'll go a few paces with them, just to get them well off," suggested Malachi Hill. And, touching Daniel with his whip, he rode forward, coming up behind the other two. Mr. Hill's Daniel was the laughing-stock of the irreverent; he was a very tall, ancient horse, lean and rawboned, with a rat tail. But he must have had a spark of youthful fire left in him somewhere, or else a long-thwarted ambition, for he made more than the start which his rider had intended; breaking into a pounding pace, he went round the entire course, in spite of the clergyman's efforts to pull him up. The mare, hearing the thundering sound of his advance behind her, began to go faster. Old Daniel passed the Asheville colt as though he were nothing at all; then, stretching out his gaunt head, he went in pursuit of the steed in front like a mad creature, the dust of the ring rising in clouds behind him. Nothing could now stop either horse. Cartright was powerless with Kentucky Belle, and Daniel paid no heed to his rider. But, the second time round, it was not quite clear whether the clergyman was trying to stop or not. The third time there was no question--he would not have stopped for the world; his flushed face showed the deepest delight. Meanwhile people had collected as flies collect round honey; the negroes who lived in the shanties behind the Old North had come running to the scene in a body, the big children "toting" the little ones; and down the lane which led from the main street had rushed all the whites within call, led by the postmaster himself, a veteran of the Mexican War. After the fourth round, Kentucky Belle decided to stop of her own accord. She was, of course, ahead. But not very far behind her, still thundering along with his rat tail held stiffly out, came old Daniel, in his turn ahead of Tippecanoe. As Daniel drew near, exhausted but still ardent, there rose loud laughter and cheers. "Good gracious!" murmured the missionary, as he quickly dismounted, pulled his hat straight, and involuntarily tried to hide himself between Etheridge and Chase. "What _have_ I done!" His perturbation was genuine. "Come along," said Chase, who had been laughing uproariously himself; "we'll protect you." He gave his arm to Mr. Hill, and with Ruth (who still kept her hold tightly) on his left, he made with his two companions a stately progress back to the hotel, followed by the mare led by Cartright, with Etheridge as body-guard; then by Cyrus Jaycox, with Tippecanoe; and finally by all the spectators, who now numbered nearly a hundred. But at the head of the whole file (Chase insisted upon this) marched old Daniel, led by the other groom. "Go round to the front," called Chase. And round they all went to the main street, amid the hurrahs of the accompanying crowd, white and black. At the door of the Old North, Ruth escaped and took refuge within, accompanied by the troubled clergyman; and a moment later Chase and Etheridge followed. Ruth had led the way to Miss Billy's sitting-room. Miss Billy received her guests with wonder; Maud Muriel was with her (for her prophecy had come true; the two had already begun the "going home" with each other). "We have had the most exciting race, Miss Billy," explained Ruth. "A real horse-race round the old track out in the field. And Mr. Hill came in second on Daniel!" The eyes of Miss Billy, turning to the clergyman with horror, moved Chase to fresh laughter. "I say--why not all stay and dine with me?" he suggested. "To celebrate Daniel's triumph, you know? I am coming here to stay, so I might as well begin. The dinner hour is two o'clock, and it is almost that now. We can have a table to ourselves, and perhaps they can find us some champagne." "That will be great fun; _I'll_ stay," said Ruth. "And the commodore will, I'm sure. Mr. Hill, too." "Thanks, no. I must go. Good-day," said the missionary, hastening out. Chase pursued him. "Why, you are the hero of the whole thing," he said; "the man of the hour! We can't bring old Daniel into the dining-room. So we must have you, Hill." "I am sorry to spoil it; but you will have to excuse me," answered the other man, hurriedly. Then, with an outburst of confidence: "It is impossible for me to remain where Miss Mackintosh is present. There is something perfectly awful to me, Mr. Chase, in that woman's eye!" "Is that all? Come back; I'll see to her," responded Chase. And see to her he did. Aided by Etheridge, who liked nothing better than to assail the sculptress with lovelorn compliments, Chase paid Maud Muriel such devoted attention that for the moment she forgot poor Hill, or rather she left him to himself. He was able, therefore, to eat his dinner. But he still said, mutely, "Good gracious!" and, taking out his handkerchief, he furtively wiped his brow. The Old North had provided for its patrons that day roast beef, spring chickens, new potatoes, and apple puddings. All the diners at the other tables asked for "a dish of gravy." A saucer containing gravy was then brought and placed by the side of each plate. Small hot buscuits were offered instead of bread, and eaten with the golden mountain butter. Mrs. Jaycox, stimulated by the liberal order for champagne, sent to Chase's table the additional splendors of three kinds of fresh cake, peach preserves, and a glass jug of cream. CHAPTER V The spring deepened into summer, and July opened. On the 10th, the sojourners at the Warm Springs, the beautiful pools that well up in the valley of the French Broad River, were assembled on the veranda of the rambling wooden hotel, after their six o'clock supper, when they saw two carriages approaching. "Phew! who can they be?" "What horses!" The horses were indeed remarkably handsome--two bays and a lighter-limbed pair of sorrels; in addition there was a mounted groom. The housekeeper, who had come out on the veranda, mentioned in a low tone that a second groom had arrived, three hours earlier, to engage rooms for the party, and make preparations. "They are to have supper by themselves, later; we're to do our best. Extras have been ordered, and they've sent all sorts of supplies. And champagne!" "Chase, did you say the name was? That's a hoax. It's General Grant himself, I reckon, coming along yere like a conqueror in disguise," said a wag. The bays were Horace Chase's Peter and Piper, attached to a two-seated carriage which was a model as regarded comfort; Anthony Etheridge was driving, and with him were Mrs. Franklin, Dolly, and Ruth. Horace Chase himself, in a light vehicle for two, which he called his cart, had the sorrels. His companion was a gaunt, dark man, who looked as though he had been ill. This man was Mrs. Franklin's son Jared. Franklin had been stricken by that disheartening malady which is formed by the union of fever and ague. After bearing it for several weeks, and sending no tidings of his condition to his family (for he considered it a rather unmasculine ailment), he had journeyed to Asheville with the last remnants of his strength, and arriving by stage, and finding no one at the cottage (for it was his wife's day at the Colored Home), he had come with uncertain steps across the field to L'Hommedieu, entering the parlor like a yellow spectre, his eyes sunken, his mind slightly wandering. "Ye-es, here I am," he said, vaguely. "I was coming next week, you know. But I--I didn't feel well. And so I've--come now." His mother had given a cry; then, with an instinctive movement, her tall figure looking taller than ever, she had rushed forward and clasped her dazed, fever-stricken son in her arms. The mountain air, prompt remedies, and the vigilant nursing of Genevieve, soon routed the insidious foes. Routed them, that is, for the moment; for their strength lies in stealthy returns; as Jared said (he made jokes even at the worst stages), they never know when they are beaten. But as soon as there was even a truce, their victim, though still yellow and weak, announced that he must return to his business immediately. "But I thought you spent your summers here, Mr. Franklin?" remarked Horace Chase, inquiringly. "Yes, that is the plan, and I have been here a good deal for the past three seasons. But this year I can't stay," Jared answered. This was said at L'Hommedieu. Ruth was sitting beside her brother on the sofa, her arm in his. "But you must stay," she protested. "You are not strong yet; you are not strong at all." She put her other arm across his breast, as if to keep him. "I shall not let you go!" Jared Franklin was tall and broad-shouldered, with dark eyes whose expression was always sad. In spite of this sadness, he had Dolly's habit of making jocular remarks. But he had not Dolly's sharpness; where she was sarcastic, the brother was only ironical. In looks Jared did not resemble his mother or Dolly. But there was a strong likeness between his face and Ruth's; they had the same contours, the same mouth. While Ruth was protesting, Mrs. Franklin, making no pretence of busying herself with anything, not even with lamplighters, sat looking at her son with eyes which seemed to have grown larger, owing to the depth of love within them. Chase, who had happened to be at L'Hommedieu when Jared arrived, had never forgotten that rush of the mother--the mother whose easy indolence he had, up to that moment, condemned. So now he said, with his slight drawl: "Oh, you want to give the fever another round of shot before you go back, Mr. Franklin. Why not take a few days more, and drive with me over the Great Smokies into Tennessee?" And the result was the party already described. The evening before the start, Ruth had come out on the veranda of L'Hommedieu. Chase and her brother had been smoking there (for Jared had not shown any deep attachment to his smoking-room), and Dolly, who loved the aroma of cigars, had seated herself near them. Jared had now strolled off with his mother, and Genevieve, coming over from the cottage, had taken her husband's place. As she approached, Chase had extinguished his cigar and tossed it into the grass; for tobacco smoke always gave the younger Mrs. Franklin a headache. Ruth had walked up to Chase's chair. "No, please don't rise; I am only looking at you, Mr. Chase. You are so wonderful!" "Now don't be _too_ hard on me!" interposed the visitor, humorously. "First, you are making my brother take this long drive," Ruth went on; "the very thing of all others that will do him good--and I could go down on my knees to you just for that! Then you have sent for that easy carriage, so that Dolly can go, too. Then you are taking _me_. The commodore also, who would rather drive Peter and Piper than go to heaven! I have always wanted to see somebody who could do _everything_. It must be very nice to have money," she concluded, reflectively. "And to do so much good with it," added Genevieve. Genevieve had insisted that her mother-in-law should take the fourth place in the carriage; for the drive would be excellent for Mrs. Franklin, who was far from strong; whereas, for herself, as she was in perfect health, no change was necessary. Genevieve might have mentioned, also, that she had had change enough for her whole life, and to spare, during the years which her husband had spent in the navy; for the younger Mrs. Franklin did not enjoy varying scenes. A house of her own and everything in it hers; prearranged occupations, all useful or beneficent, following each other regularly in an unbroken round; a leading place in the management of charitable institutions; the writing and despatching of letters, asking for contributions to these institutions; the general supervision of the clergy, with an eye to dangerous ritualistic tendencies; the conscientious endeavor to tell her friends on all occasions what they ought to do (Genevieve was never angry when they disagreed with her, she only pitied them. There was, in fact, no one she knew whom she had not felt herself competent, at one time or another, to pity)--all this gave her the sense of doing good. And to Genevieve that was more precious than all else--the feeling that she was doing good. "Ruth is right; it must be enchanting to have money," she went on. "I have often planned what I should do myself if I had a fortune. I think I may say that I can direct, administer; I have never seen or read of any charitable institution, refuge, hospital, home, asylum, or whatever it may be, which seemed too large or too complicated for me to undertake. On the contrary, I know I should like it; I feel that I have that sort of capacity." Her face kindled as she spoke; her genius (for she had a genius, that of directorship) was stirring within her. "You certainly have one part of the capacity, and that is the despotism," remarked Dolly, laughing. "The other members of your Board of Managers for the Colored Home, for instance--Mrs. Baxter, Miss Wynne, Miss Kent--they haven't a voice in even the smallest matter, poor souls! You rule them with a rod of iron--all for their good, no doubt." "As it is," continued the younger Mrs. Franklin, combating not Dolly's sarcasms (to which she had paid no attention), but her own sincere longings--"as it is, I cannot build a hospital at present, though I don't give up hope for the future. But I can at least give my prayers to all, and that I do; I never ring a door-bell without offering an inward petition that something I may say will help those whom I shall see when I go in." "Now that's generous," commented Dolly. "But don't be too unselfish, Genevieve; think of yourself occasionally; why not pray that something _they_ may say will be a help to _you_?" After the arrival of his party at the Warm Springs, Chase devoted a half-hour to a brief but exhaustive examination of the site, the pool, and the buildings. "When we have made a Tyrol of Buncombe, we'll annex this place as a sort of Baden-Baden," he said. "Thirty-five miles from Asheville--that will just do. Ever tried the baths, commodore?" "You must apply to somebody who has rheumatism, Mr. Chase," answered Etheridge, loftily. "The pool has an abundant supply at a temperature of 104 Fahrenheit," Chase went on, with the gleam of a smile showing itself in his eyes for a moment (for the commodore's air of youth always amused him; it was so determined). "Baden-Baden was one of the prettiest little places I saw over there, on the other side of the big pond. They've taken lots of pains to lay out a promenade along a stream, and the stream is about as big as one from a garden-hose! But here there could be a walk worth something--along this French Broad." They were strolling near the river in the red light of the sunset. "Their forest that they talk about, their Black Forest, is all guarded and patrolled," Chase continued; "every tree counted! I don't call that a forest at all. Now _these_ woods are perfectly wild. Why--they're as wild as Noah!" "Don't you mean old as Noah?" inquired Ruth, laughing. "Certainly not," commented Jared. "Noah was extremely wild. And not in his youth only; in his age as well." "The first thing, however, would be the roads," Chase went on. "I never thought I should have to take a back seat about the United States of America! But I returned from Europe singing small, I can tell you, about our roads. Talk about the difficulty of making 'em? Go and look at Switzerland!" "By all means," said Ruth, promptly. "Only tell us how, Mr. Chase. We'll go at once." She was walking with her brother, her hat dangling by its elastic cord from her arm. Chase came out of his plans. "So you want to see Switzerland, do you?" he said, in an indulgent tone. Ruth lifted her hat, and made with it a gesture which took in the entire horizon. "I wish to see everything in the world!" Jared took her hat away from her, put it on her head and secured it, or tried to secure it. "Will you take me, Jared? I mean some day?" she said, as he bungled with the cord, endeavoring to get it over her hair. "That's not the way." She unbuttoned the loop and adjusted it. It was a straw hat (thanks to Genevieve, a new one), which shaded her face, but left free, behind, the thick braids which covered her small head from crown to throat. "Once, pussy, I might have answered yes. But now I'm not so sure," replied Jared, rather gloomily. "I don't want to go, I wasn't in earnest; I only want to stay where you are," exclaimed his young sister, her mood changing. "But if only you had never left the navy! If only you were not tied down in that horrid, horrid Raleigh!" "Is Raleigh so very horrid?" inquired Chase. "Any place is horrid that keeps Jared shut up in a warehouse all day," announced Ruth, indignantly. Mrs. Franklin, who was behind with Etheridge, came forward, took Ruth's arm, and led her back. "She is sorry that you left the service?" Chase inquired of the brother. Ruth overheard this question. "Jared was always well when he was in the navy," she called out. "No, His Grand, I _will_ say it: he was always well, and he was happy too; Dolly has told me so. Now he is never well; he is growing so thin that I can't bear to see it. And as for happiness--he is _miserable_!" Her voice broke; she stood still, her breast heaving. Jared strolled on, his hands in the pockets of his flannel coat. "It's nothing," he said to Chase, who was looking back; "she'll get over it in a moment. She says whatever comes into her head; we have spoiled her, I suppose. She was so much younger, you see; the last of my mother's six children. And the three who came before her had died in infancy, so there was a great to-do when this one lived." Chase glanced back a second time. Ruth, Mrs. Franklin, and Etheridge had turned, and were going towards the hotel. "She appears to wish that you had remained in the navy; isn't that rather odd?" he inquired, the idea in his mind being simply the facilities that existed for seeing this idolized brother, now that Raleigh was his home instead of the ocean. "Odd?" repeated Jared. And his tone had such a strange vibration that his companion turned and looked at him. They continued their walk for an hour longer. When they came back, they found the commodore seated on the veranda of the cottage which had been arranged for their use by Chase's courier. Ruth and Mrs. Franklin were his companions, and Dolly was also there, resting on a sofa which had been rolled out from the room behind. Chase and Jared lighted cigars; Etheridge took out a cigarette. "Now if we only had Maud Muriel with her long clay pipe!" said Ruth. There was no trace of trouble left in her voice; she had drawn her chair close to her brother's, and seated herself contentedly. "It's to the pipe you owe the very clever likeness she has made of your scamp of a dog," remarked Etheridge. "The smoking relaxed her a little, without her knowing it, and so she didn't confine herself, as she usually does, to the purely commonplace side." "Petie! A _commonplace_ side!" protested Ruth. "She now wishes _me_ to sit to her," said Mrs. Franklin; "for my wrinkles have grown so deep lately that she is sure she can make something satisfactorily hideous. Oh, I don't mind the wrinkles, Mr. Chase!" (for Chase had begun to say, "Not at all, ma'am"). "I received my quietus long ago. When I was not quite forty, there was some question about a particular dress-maker whom I wished to see at McCreery's. 'Was she an _old_ woman?' inquired an assistant. 'We have only one _old_ fitter.' It proved to be the person I meant. She was of my own age. The same year I asked a young friend about a party which he had attended the night before. 'Dreadfully dull,' he answered. 'Nobody there but old frumps.' And the old frumps (as I happened to know) were simply twenty or thirty of my contemporaries." "Yes, it's hard; I have often thought so!" said Etheridge, with conviction. "Men, you see, have no age. But nothing saves a woman." "Yes, one thing--namely, to look like a sheep," replied Mrs. Franklin. "If a woman wishes her face to remain young, she must cultivate calm, and even stolidity; she must banish changing expressions; she must give her facial muscles many hours, daily, of absolute repose. Most of my wrinkles have been caused by my wretched habit of contorting my poor thin slave of a face, partly of course to show my intelligence and appreciation, but really, also, in a large measure from sympathy. I have smiled unflinchingly at other people's jokes, looked sad for their griefs, angry for their injuries; I have raised my eyebrows to my hair over their surprises, and knitted my forehead into knots over their mysteries; in short, I have never ceased to grimace. However, even to the sheep-women there comes the fatal moment when their cheeks begin to look like those of an old baby," she concluded, laughing. Dolly, for once untalkative, had not paid attention to this conversation; the moon had risen, and she had been watching its radiance descend slowly and make a silver path across the river. It was so beautiful! And (a rare occurrence with Dolly) it led her to think of herself. "How I should have enjoyed, enjoyed, _enjoyed_ everything if I had only been well!" Even the tenderly loving mother could not have comprehended fully her daughter's heart at that moment. For Mrs. Franklin had had her part, such as it was, on the stage of human existence, and had played it. But Dolly's regret was for a life unlived. "How enchantingly lovely!" she murmured aloud, looking at the moonlit water. "Yes," said Etheridge; "and its greatest beauty is that it's primeval. Larue, I suppose, would call it primevalish!" "I had thought of asking the senator to come along with us," observed Chase. "In a sedan-chair?" inquired Etheridge. "I don't think you know what a petrified squam-doodle he is!" "No, I can't say I do. I only know he's a senator, and we want some senators. To boom our Tyrol, you know. Generals, too. Cottages might be put up at pleasant points near Asheville--on Beaucatcher, for instance--and presented to half a dozen of the best-known Southern generals? What do you say to that?" "Generals as much as you like; but when you and the Willoughbys spread your nets for senators, do select better specimens than Achilles Larue! He is only in the place temporarily at best; he'll be kicked out soon. He succeeded the celebrated old senator who had represented this state for years, and was as well known here, he and his trunk, as the mountains themselves. When he resigned, there happened to be no one of the right sort ready in the political field. Larue was here, he was a college-bred man, and he had some reputation as an author (he has written a dreadfully dull book, _The Blue Ridge in the Glacial Period_). He had a little money, too, and that was in his favor. So they put him in; and now they wish they hadn't! He has no magnetism, no go; nothing but his tiresome drawing-copy profile and his good clothes. You say you don't know what sort of a person he is? He is a decrier, sir; nothing ever fully pleases him. His opinions on all subjects are so clipped to the bone, so closely shaved and denuded, that they are like the plucked chickens, blue and skinny, that one sees for sale at a stall. Achilles Larue never smokes. On the hottest day Achilles Larue remains clammily cold. He has no appreciation of a good dinner; he lives on salt mackerel and digestive crackers. Finally, to sum him up, he is a man, sir, who can neither ride nor drive--a man who knows nothing whatever about a horse! What do you suppose he asked me, when I was looking at a Blue-Grass pacer last year? 'Does he possess endurance?' Yes--actually those words of a _horse_! 'Does he possess endurance?'" repeated Etheridge, pursing up his lips and pronouncing the syllables in a mincing tone. "You say he has nothing but his drawing-copy profile and his good clothes," remarked Dolly. "But he has something more, commodore: the devotion of Mrs. Kip and Miss Billy Breeze." Etheridge looked discomfited. "_Two_ ladies?" said Chase. "Why, he's in luck! Bachelor, I suppose?" "He is a widower," answered Mrs. Franklin. "His wife happened to have been a fool. He now believes that all women are idiots." "He is a man who has never written, and who never will write, a book that stands on its own feet, whether good or bad; but only books _about_ books," grumbled Etheridge. "He has merely the commentator's mind. His views on the Glacial Period are all borrowed. He can't be original even about an iceberg!" "The ladies I have mentioned think that his originality is his strongest point," objected Dolly. "He produces great effects by describing some one in this way, for instance: 'He had small eyes and a grin. He was remarkably handsome.' This leaves them open-mouthed. But Miss Billy herself, as she stands, is his greatest effect; she was never outlined in very vivid hues, and now she has so effaced herself, rubbed herself out, as it were (from fear lest he should call her 'sensational'), that she is like a skeleton leaf. She has the greatest desire to be 'delicate,' extremely delicate, in everything that she does; and she tries to sing, therefore, with so much expression that it's all expression and very little singing! 'Coarse!'--that is to her the most terrible word in the whole vocabulary. I asked her once whether her horned tryceratops, with his seventy-five feet of length, might not have been a little coarse in his manners." "I declare I'll never go to see the woman again; she _is_ such a goose!" exclaimed Etheridge, angrily. Jared laughed. And then his mother laughed also, happy to see him amused. But at the same time she was thinking: "You may not go to see Billy. But, dear me! you will come to see _us_ forever and forever!" And she had a weary vision of Etheridge, entering with his "hum-ha," and his air of youth, five or six times a week as long as she lived. "Commodore," said Dolly, "you may not go to see Miss Breeze. But I am sure you will come to see _us_, with your cheerful hum-ha, and your youthful face, as long as we live." Mrs. Franklin passed her hand over her forehead. "There it is again!" she thought. For, strangely often, Dolly would give voice to the very ideas that were passing through her mother's mind at the moment. At L'Hommedieu the two would fall into silence sometimes, and remain silent for a half-hour, one with her embroidery, the other with her knitting. And then when Dolly spoke at last, it would be of the exact subject which was in her mother's mind. Mrs. Franklin no longer exclaimed: "How could you know I was thinking of that!" It happened too often. She herself never divined Dolly's thoughts. It was Dolly who divined hers, most of the time unconsciously. Meanwhile Etheridge had replied, in a reassuring voice: "Well, Dolly, I'll do my best; you may count upon _that_." And then Ruth, leaning her head against her brother's arm so that her face was hidden, laughed silently. From the Warm Springs they drove over the Great Smoky Mountains into Tennessee. Then returning, making no haste, they climbed slowly up again among the peaks. At the top of the pass they paused to gaze at the far-stretching view--Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia; on the west, the Cumberland ranges sloping towards Chattanooga; in the east, the crowded summits of the Blue Ridge, their hue an unchanging azure; the Black Mountains with Mitchell, the Cat-tail Peak, the Balsams, the Hairy Bear, the Big Craggy, Great Pisgah, the Grandfather, and many more. The brilliant sunshine and the crystalline atmosphere revealed every detail--the golden and red tints of the gigantic bald cliffs near them, the foliage of every tree; the farm-houses like white dots thousands of feet below. Up here at the top of the pass there were no clearings visible; for long miles in every direction the forest held unbroken sway, filling the gorges like a leafy ocean, and sweeping up to the surrounding summits in the darker tints of the black balsams. The air was filled with delicate wild odors, a fragrance which is like no other--the breath of a virgin forest. "And you want to put a railroad here?" broke out Dolly, suddenly. She addressed Horace Chase, who had drawn up his sorrels beside the carriage. "Oh no, Miss Dolly; it can't get up so high, you know," he answered, not comprehending her dislike. "It will have to go through down below; tunnels." "The principal objection I have to your railroad, Chase, is that it will bring railroad good-byes to this uncorrupted neighborhood," said Jared. "For there will be, of course, a station. And people will have to go there to see their friends off. The train will always be late in starting; then the heretofore sincere Ashevillians will be driven to all the usual exaggerations and falsities to fill the eternal time; they will have to repeat the same things over and over, stand first on one leg and then on the other, and smile until they are absolute clowns. Meanwhile their departing friends will be obliged to lean out of the car-windows in return, and repeat inanities and grin, until they too are perfectly haggard." Jared was now seated beside Etheridge; he had given up his place in the cart to Ruth for an hour or two. Several times Mrs. Franklin herself had tried the cart. She was very happy, for Jared had undoubtedly gained strength; there was a faint color in his cheeks, and his face looked less worn, his eyes a little less dreary. "How I should like to see _all_ the mountains!" exclaimed Ruth, suddenly, looking at the crowded circle of peaks. "Well--I suppose there are some sort of roads?" Chase answered. "Put the two pairs together and make a four-in-hand," suggested Etheridge, eagerly. "Then we might drive down Transylvania way. When I wasn't more than eighteen I often drove a four-in-hand over the--the--the range up there where I was born," he concluded, with fresh inward disgust over the forgotten name. "The Green Mountains," said Mrs. Franklin. "Not at all. The Catskills," Etheridge answered, curtly. His birthplace was Rutland, Vermont. But on principle he never acknowledged a forgotten title. "This is the country of the moonshiners, isn't it?" asked Chase, his keen eyes glancing down a wild gorge. "The young lady beside you can tell about that," Etheridge answered. Chase turned to Ruth, surprised. The color was leaving her face. "Yes, I _did_ see; I saw a man shot!" she said, her dark-fringed blue eyes lifted to his with an awe-struck expression. "It was at Crumb's, the house where we stayed the first night, you know. I was standing at the door. A man came running along the road, trying to reach the house. Behind him, not more than ten feet distant, came another man, also running. He held a pistol at arm's-length. He fired twice. After the first shot, the man in front still ran. After the second, he staggered along for a step or two, and then fell. And the other man disappeared." These short sentences came out in whispered tones; when she finished, her face was blanched. "You ought not to have seen it. You ought not to have told me," said Chase, giving an indignant glance towards the carriage; he thought they should have prevented the narration. "Oh, don't be disturbed, Mr. Chase," said Dolly, looking at him from her cushions with an amused smile. "The balls were extracted, and the man is now in excellent health. Ruth has a way of turning perfectly white and then enormously red on all occasions. She was much whiter last week when it was supposed that Petie Trone, Esq., had inflammation of the lungs." And Ruth herself was already laughing again, and the red had returned. "It was a revenue detective," explained Mrs. Franklin; "I mean the man who was shot. The mountaineers have always made whiskey, and they think that they have a right to make it; they look upon the detectives as spies." But Chase had no sympathy for moonshiners; he was on the side of law and order. "The government should send up troops," he said. "What else are they for?" "It is not the business of the army to hunt out illicit stills," replied Jared Franklin, all the ex-officer in his haughty tone. "Well, maybe not; you see I'm only a civilian myself," remarked Chase, in a pacific voice. "Shall we go on?" They started down the eastern slope. When the cart was at some distance in front, Ruth said: "Oh, Mr. Chase, thank you for answering so good-naturedly. My brother has in reality a sweet temper. But lately he has been so out of sorts, so unhappy." "Yes, I am beginning to understand about that, Miss Ruth; I didn't at first. It's a great pity. Perhaps something can be done?" "No; he can't get back into the navy now," said Ruth, sadly. "But a change of some kind might be arranged," answered Chase, touching the off horse. At the base of the mountains they followed the river road again, a rocky track, sometimes almost in the water, under towering cliffs that rose steeply, their summits leaning forward a little as though they would soon topple over. At many points it was a veritable cañon, and the swift current of the stream foamed so whitely over the scattered rocks of its bed that it was like the rapids of Niagara. Here and there were bold islands; the forest on both sides was splendid with the rich tints of the _Rhododendron maximum_ in full bloom; not patches or single bushes, but high thickets, a solid wall of blazing color. Their stopping-place for the last evening was the farm-house called Crumb's, where they had also spent the first night of their journey on their way westward. Crumb's was one of the old farms; the grandfather of David Crumb had tilled the same acres. It was a pleasant place near the river, the house comparatively large and comfortable. The Crumbs were well-to-do in the limited mountain sense of the term, though they had probably never had a hundred dollars in cash in their lives. Mrs. Crumb, a lank woman with stooping shoulders and a soft, flat voice, received them without excitement. Nothing that life had to offer, for good or for ill, could ever bring excitement again to Portia Crumb. Her four sons had been killed in battle in Virginia, one after the other, and the mother lived on patiently. David Crumb was more rebellious against what he called their "bad luck." Once a week, and sometimes twice, he went to Asheville, making the journey a pretext for forgetting troubles according to the ancient way. He was at Asheville now, his wife explained, "with a load of wood." She did not add that he would probably return with a load of another sort--namely, a mixture of whiskey and repentance. The two never spoke of their lost boys; when they talked together it was always about "the craps." Porshy, as her friends called her, having been warned by Chase's courier that her former guests were returning, had set her supper-table with care. People stopped at Crumb's perforce; for, save at Warm Springs, there were no inns in the French Broad Valley. Ruth had been there often. For the girl, who was a fearless horsewoman, was extravagantly fond of riding; at one time or another she had ridden almost every horse in Asheville, including old Daniel himself. Of late years the Crumbs would have been glad to be relieved of all visitors. But the mountain farmers of the South are invariably hospitable--hospitable even with their last slice of corn-bread, their last cup of coffee. Porshy, therefore, had brought out her best table-cloth (homespun, like her sheets), her six thin silver teaspoons, her three china teacups and saucers. "Yes, rale chiny, you bet," she had said, in her gentle, lifeless voice, when Mrs. Franklin, who knew the tragedy of the house, was benevolently admiring the painstaking effort. The inevitable hot biscuits were waiting in a flat pan, together with fried bacon and potatoes and coffee. Chase's supplies of potted meats, hot-house fruit, and excellent champagne made the meal an extraordinary combination. The table was set in the kitchen, which was also the living-room. One end of the large, low-browed apartment was blocked by the loom, for Portia had been accustomed to spin, weave, dye, and fashion all the garments worn by herself and her family. As they left the table, the sinking sun sent his horizontal beams through the open windows in a flood of golden light. "Let us go up to the terrace," said Ruth. The terrace was a plateau on the mountain-side at some distance above; a winding path led thither through the thick forest. "It is too far," said Mrs. Franklin. "It is at least a mile from here, and a steep climb all the way; and, besides, it will soon be dark." "Oh, but I want to go immensely, His Grand. Mr. Chase liked it so much when we were up there on our way out that he says it shall be named after me. And perhaps they will put up a cottage." "Yes, Ruth's Terrace, ma'am. That is the name I propose," said Chase. "There will be light enough to go up; and then we can wait there until the moon rises," continued Ruth. "The moon is full to-night, and the view will be lovely. You will go, Jared, won't you? Oh, please!" She had her way, as usual. Chase and Jared, lighting cigars, prepared to accompany her. "You'll stay here, I suppose, commodore?" said Chase. "Stay here! By no means. There is nothing I like better than an evening stroll," answered Etheridge, heroically. And, lighting a cigarette, he walked on in advance, swinging his cane with an air of meditative enjoyment. Dolly and Mrs. Franklin, meanwhile, sat beside the small fire which Portia had made on the broad hearth of her "best room." The fire, of aromatic "fat-pine" splinters only, without large sticks, had been kindled more on account of the light than from any need of its warmth; for the evening, though cool, was not cold. The best room, however, was large, and the great forest and cliffs outside, and the wild river, made the little blaze seem cheerful. Portia had been proud of this apartment in the old days before the war. In one corner there was a bed covered with a brilliant patch-work quilt; on the mantel-piece there was an old accordion, and a vase for flowers whose design was a hand holding a cornucopia; the floor was covered by a rag carpet; and tacked on the walls in a long row were colored fashion plates from _Godey's Lady's Book_ for 1858. At ten o'clock Ruth and the commodore came in. But long after midnight, when the others were asleep, Chase and Jared Franklin still strolled to and fro along the river road in the moonlight, talking. The next day they all returned to Asheville. At the end of the week, when Jared went back to his business, Chase accompanied him. "I thought I might as well take a look at that horrid Raleigh," he said to Ruth, with solemn humor. "You see, I have been laboring under the impression that it was a very pretty place--a mistake which evidently wants to be cleared up." Ten days later the mud-bespattered Blue Ridge stage came slowly into Asheville at its accustomed hour. The mail-bags were thrown out, and then the postmaster, in his shirt-sleeves, with his spectacles on his nose and his straw hat tilted back on his head, began the distribution of their contents, assisted (through the open windows) by the usual group of loungers. This friendly audience had its elbows on the sill. It made accompanying comments as follows: "Hurry up, you veteran of the Mexican war!" "That letter ain't for Johnny Monroe. It's for Jem Morse; I can see the direction from here. Where's your eyes?" "_Six_ for General Cyarter? Lucky reb, _he_ is!" Twenty minutes later Genevieve Franklin entered the parlor of L'Hommedieu, a flush of deep rose-color in each cheek, her eyes lustrous. "Mamma, a letter from Jay! It is too good--I cannot tell you--" Her words came out pantingly, for she had been running; she sat down with her hand over her breast as if to help herself breathe. "From Jared? Oh, where are my glasses?" said Mrs. Franklin, searching vainly in her pocket and then on the table. "Here, Dolly. Quick! Read it!" And then Dolly, also excited, read Jared's letter aloud. Ruth came in in time to hear this sentence: "I am to have charge of their Charleston office (the office of the Columbian Line), at a salary of three thousand dollars a year." "Who? What? Not Jared? And at _Charleston_?" cried the girl, clapping her hands. "Oh, how splendid! For it's the water, you know; the salt-water at last. With the ships coming and going, and the ocean, it won't be so awfully inland to him, poor fellow, as Raleigh and Atlanta." "And the large salary," said Genevieve, still breathless. "_That's_ Horrie! I have felt sure, from the first, that he would do something for us. Such an old friend of mine. Dear, dear Horrie!" A week later Chase returned. "Yes, he'll get off to Charleston, ma'am, in a few days," he said to Mrs. Franklin. "When he is settled there, you must pay him a visit. I guess you'll end by going there to live." "Oh, we can't; we have this house, and no house there. If I could only sell that place in Florida! However, we can stop in Charleston when we go to Florida this winter. That is, if we go," added the mother, remembering her load of debts. But she soon forgot it again; she forgot everything save her joy in the brighter life for her son. "How can I thank you?" she said to Chase, gratefully. "Oh, it's no favor, ma'am. We have always needed a first-class man at Charleston, and we've never had it; we think ourselves very lucky in being able to secure Mr. Franklin." As he went back to the Old North with Etheridge, whom he had met at L'Hommedieu (as Mrs. Franklin would have said, "of course!"), Chase added some further particulars. "You never saw such a mess as he'd made of it, commodore. He told me--we had a good deal of talk when we took that French Broad drive--that his business wasn't what he had hoped it would be when he went into it; that he was afraid it was running down. Running down? It was at a standstill; six months more, and he would have been utterly swamped. The truth is, he didn't know how to manage it. How should he? What does a navy man know about leather? He saw that it was all wrong, yet he didn't know how to help it; that took the heart out of him, you see. There was no use in going on with it a day longer; and so I told him, as soon as I had looked into the thing a little. He has, therefore, made an arrangement--sold out. And now he is going to take a place at Charleston--our Columbian Line." "To the tune of three thousand dollars a year, I understand?" "He'll be worth it to us. A navy officer as agent will be a feather in our caps. It's a pity he couldn't take command of one of our steamers--with his hankering for the sea. Our steamer officers wear uniforms, you know?" "Take care that he doesn't knock you down," said Etheridge, dryly. "Oh, I haven't suggested it. I see he's cranky," Chase answered. When Jared Franklin reached Charleston, he went to the office of the Columbian Company. It faced a wharf or dock, and from its windows he could see the broad harbor, the most beautiful port of the South Atlantic coast. He looked at Fort Sumter, then off towards the low white beaches of Morris Island; he knew the region well; his ship had lain outside during the war. Deliciously sweet to him was the salt tang of the sea; already, miles inland, he had perceived it, and had put his head out of the car window; the salt marshes had been to him like a tonic, as the train rushed past. The ocean out there in the east, too, that was rather better than a clattering street! Words could never express how he loathed the remembrance of the hides and the leather. A steamer of the Columbian Line came in. He went on board, contemptuous of everything, of course, but enjoying that especial species of contempt. Ascending to the upper deck, he glanced at the rigging and smoke-stacks. They were not what he approved of; but, oh! the solace of abusing any sort of rigging outlined against the sky! He went down and looked at the engines; he spoke to the engineer; he prowled all over the ship, from stem to stern, his feet enjoying the sensation of something underneath them that floated. That evening, seated on a bench at the Battery, with his arms on the railing, he looked out to sea. His beloved old life came back to him; all his cruises--the Mediterranean ports, Villefranche and the Bay of Naples; the harbors of China, Rio Janeiro, Alexandria; tropical islands; the color of the Pacific--while the wash of the water below sounded in his ears. At last, long after midnight, he rose; he came back to reality again. "Well, even this is a great windfall. And I must certainly do the best I can for that long-legged fellow"--so he said to himself as he went up Meeting Street towards his hotel. He liked Chase after a fashion; he appreciated his friendliness and his genius for business. But this was the way he thought of him--"that long-legged fellow." Chase's fortune made no impression upon him. At heart he had the sailor's chronic indifference to money-making. But at heart he had also something else--Genevieve; Genevieve and her principles and plans, Genevieve and her rules. CHAPTER VI One afternoon early in September, Miss Billy Breeze, her cheeks pink, her gentle eyes excited, entered the principal store of Asheville, the establishment of Messrs. Pinkham & Bebb. "Kid gloves, if you please, Mr. Bebb. Delicate shades. No. 6." The box of gloves having been produced, Miss Billy selected quickly twelve pairs. "I will take these. And please add twelve pairs of white." Mr. Bebb was astounded, the order seemed to him reckless. Everybody in Asheville knew that Miss Billy's income was six hundred dollars a year. He made up the parcel slowly, in order to give her time to change her mind. But Miss Billy paid for the twenty-four pairs without a quiver, and, with the same excited look, took the package and went out. She walked down the main street to its last houses; she came back on the other side. Turning to the right, she traversed all the cross-roads in that direction. When this was done, she re-entered the main street again, and passed through its entire length a second time. It was Saturday, the day when the country people came to town. Ten mountaineers in a row were sitting on their heels in front of the post-office. Mountain women on horseback, wearing deep sun-bonnets, rode up and down the street, bartering. Wagons passed along, loaded with peaches heaped together as though they were potatoes. Miss Billy was now traversing all the cross-roads to the left. When this was accomplished she came back to the main street, and began over again. It took about an hour to make the entire circuit. At half-past five, on her fourth round, still walking quickly and always with an air of being bound to some especial point, she met Achilles Larue. "Oh--really--is this _you_, Mr. Larue? Such a _surprise_ to see you! Lovely day, isn't it? I've been buying gloves." She opened the package and turned over the gloves hastily. "Light shades, you see. I--I thought I'd better." Larue, slightly lifting his hat, was about to pass on. But Miss Billy detained him. "Of course you are interested in the news, Mr. Larue? Weren't you surprised? I was. I am afraid she is a little too young for him. I think it is rather better when they are of _about_ the same age--don't you?" She had no idea that she had been walking, and at twice her usual speed, for more than four hours. But her slender body knew; it trembled from fatigue. Larue made another move, as if about to continue his course. "But do tell me--weren't you surprised?" Billy repeated, hastily. (For, oh! he _must_ not go so soon.) "I don't think I am ever surprised, Miss Breeze." Here Anthony Etheridge came by, and stopped. He looked sternly at Miss Billy. "But what do you _think_ of it, Mr. Larue?" Billy was inquiring. "I have not thought of it," Larue responded, coldly. "Are you selling gloves?" inquired Etheridge. For the paper having fallen to the ground, the two dozen pairs were visible, lying in confusion over Billy's arm. "To Mr. Larue?" (Giggle.) "Oh, I couldn't." (Giggle.) "They're only No. 6." For poor Billy had one humble little pride--her pretty hand. There was a sound of horses' feet, and Ruth Franklin rode round the corner, on Kentucky Belle, giving them a gay nod as she passed. Horace Chase and Malachi Hill were with her, both mounted on beautiful horses--one black, one chestnut; and at some distance behind followed Chase's groom. "How _happy_ she looks!" murmured Miss Billy, with an involuntary sigh. "Yes. She has obtained what she likes," commented Larue. "Hers is a frivolous nature; she requires gayety, change, luxury, and now she will have them. Her family are very wise to consent. For they have, I suspect, but little money. Her good looks will soon disappear; at thirty she will be plain." And this time, decidedly, he walked away. Miss Billy, her eyes dimmed by unshed tears, looked after him. "Such a--such a _worldly_ view of marriage!" she managed to articulate. "What can you expect from a fish?" answered Etheridge, secretly glad of his opportunity. "Achilles Larue is as cold-blooded as a mackerel, and always was. I don't say he will never marry again; but if he does, the woman he selects will have to go down on her knees and stay there" (Miss Billy's eyes looked hopeful); "and bring him, also, a good big sum of money in her hand." Here, noticing that one of the pairs of gloves had slipped down so far that it was held by the tips of its fingers only, he turned away with a sudden "Good-afternoon." For he had had rheumatism all night in the small of his back; he could walk, but he could not stoop. Miss Billy went home much depressed. The night before, after her usual devotions and an hour's perusal of _The Blue Ridge in the Glacial Period_ (she read the volume through regularly once a month), she had attempted a thought-transferrence. She had, indeed, made many such experiments since Maud Muriel's explanation of the process. But last night she had for the first time succeeded in keeping her mind strictly to the subject; for nearly ten minutes, with her face screwed up by the intensity of the effort, she had willed continuously, "Like me, Achilles, like me!" (She was too modest even to _think_ "love" instead of "like.") "You must! You _shall_!" And now, when at last she had succeeded in meeting him, this was the result! She put away the gloves mechanically: she had bought them not from any need, but simply because she had felt the wish to go out and _do_ something when the exciting news of Ruth Franklin's engagement had reached her at noon. Stirred as she already was by her own private experiment of the previous night, the thought in her heart was: "Well, it isn't extravagance, for light gloves are always useful. And then in case of--of anything happening to _me_, they'd be all ready." When Anthony Etheridge left her, he went to L'Hommedieu, where he found Dolly in the parlor with Petie Trone, Esq. Trone's basket had been established by Ruth under the pedestal which now held his own likeness. For Chase had kept his word; Maud Muriel's clever work had been reproduced in bronze. The squirrel also was present; he was climbing up the window-curtain. "So _you_ have to see to the pets, do you?" remarked the visitor as he seated himself. He had known of the engagement for several days; he had already made what he called "the proper speeches" to Mrs. Franklin and Ruth, and to Chase himself. "I have just seen her--on Kentucky Belle," he went on. "Well, he will give her everything, that's one certainty. On the whole, she's a lucky girl." "It is Mr. Chase who is lucky," answered Dolly, stiffly. She was finishing off the toe of a stocking, and did not look up. "I consider Mr. Chase a miraculously fortunate man." "Miraculously? How do you mean? Because she is young? The good-fortune, as regards that, is for the wife, not the husband; for she will always be so much his junior that he will have to consider her--he will never dare to neglect her. Well, Dolly, all Asheville has heard the news this morning; the town is ringing with it. And it is such an amiable community that it has immediately given its benediction in the most optimistic way. Of course, though, there are some who maintain that she is marrying him for his money." Dolly knitted more rapidly. "And so she is," Etheridge added. "Though not in their sense, for she has never reflected, never thought about it, never made a plan. All the same, it is his wealth, you know, which has fascinated her--his wealth and his liberality. She has never seen anything like it. No one she knows has ever done such things--flowers, jewels, journeys, her brother lifted out of his troubles as if by magic, a future sparkling and splendid opening before her; no wonder she is dazzled. In addition, she herself has an ingrained love of ease--" Dolly dropped her stocking. "Do you think I intend to sit here and listen to you?" she demanded, with flashing eyes. "Wait, wait," answered Etheridge, putting out his hand as if to explain; "you don't see what I am driving at, Dolly. As Mrs. Chase, your sister will have everything she wishes for; all her tastes and fancies gratified to the full; and that is no small affair! Chase will be fond of her; in addition, he will be excessively indulgent to her in every way. With her nature and disposition, her training, too (for you have spoiled her, all of you), it is really an ideal marriage for the girl, and that is what I am trying to tell you. You might search the world over, and you could not find a better one." "I don't like it; I never shall like it," answered Dolly, implacably. "And mother in her heart agrees with me, though she has, somehow, a higher idea of the man than I have. As for Ruth--Ruth is simply swept away--" "Exactly; swept into her proper sphere," interrupted Etheridge. "Don't interfere with the process." "She doesn't understand--" Dolly began. "She understands immensely well what she likes! Give Ruth indulgence, amusement, pleasure, and she will be kind-hearted, amiable, generous; in short, good and happy. On the other hand, there might be another story. Come, I am going to be brutal; I don't know how much money your mother has; but I suspect very little, with the possibility, perhaps, of less. And I can't imagine, Dolly, any one more unhappy than your sister would be, ten years hence, say, if shut up here in Asheville, poor, her good looks gone, to face a life of dull sameness forever. I think it would kill her! She is not at all the girl to accept monotony with resignation or heroism; to settle down to mending and reading, book-clubs and whist-clubs, puddings and embroidery, gossip and good works." Here the house-door opened; Mrs. Franklin and Genevieve came in together, and entered the parlor. When Dolly heard Genevieve's step, she rose. Obliged to walk slowly, she could not slip out; but she made a progress which was almost stately, as, without speaking to her sister-in-law, or looking at her, she left the room. Genevieve, however, required no notice from Dolly. Her face was radiant with satisfaction. She shook hands with Etheridge warmly. "I have not seen you since it happened, commodore. I know you are with us in our pleasure? I know you congratulate us?" Etheridge had always thought the younger Mrs. Franklin a beautiful woman; she reminded him of the Madonna del Granduca at Florence. Now she held his hand so long, and looked at him with such cordial friendliness, that he came out with the gallant exclamation, "Chase is the one I congratulate, by Jove!--on getting such a sister-in-law!" "Think of all Ruth will now be able to do--all the good! I seem to see even my hospital," added Genevieve, gayly. "Hum--yes," added Etheridge. Walking away a step or two, he put his hands in the pockets of his trousers and looked towards his legs reflectively for a moment, as though surveying the pattern of the garments--a convenient gesture to which a (slender) man can resort when he wishes to cover a silence. "For dear mamma, too, it is so delightful," continued Genevieve. She had seated herself, and she now drew her mother-in-law down beside her. "Ruth will never permit mamma to have another care." "Yes--I think I'll just run up and take off my bonnet," said Mrs. Franklin, disengaging herself. And she left the room. Genevieve was not disturbed by this second departure; she was never disturbed by any of the actions or the speeches of her husband's family. She did her own duty regarding them regularly and steadily, month after month; it was part of her rule of conduct. But what they did or said to her in return was less important. "Ruth is a fortunate girl," she went on, as she drew off her gloves with careful touches. "And she appreciates it, commodore--I am glad to tell you that; I have been talking to her. She is very happy. Horace is such an able and splendidly successful man--a man whom every one must respect and admire most warmly." "Yes, a clever speculator indeed!" commented Etheridge, ungratefully, throwing over his drive with the bays. "Speculator? Oh no; it is all genuine business; I can assure you of that," answered Genevieve, seriously. "And now perhaps you can help us a little. Horace is anxious to have the marriage take place this fall. And I am on his side. For why, indeed, should they wait? The usual delays are prudential, or for the purpose of making preparations. But in this case there are no such conditions; he already has a house in New York, for he has always preferred home life. Ruth is willing to have it so. But mamma decidedly, almost obstinately, opposes it." "Dolly too, I suppose?" "Oh, I never count Dolly; her temper is so uncertain. But it is very natural that it should be so, and one always excuses her, poor dear! Couldn't _you_ say a word or two to mamma, commodore? You have known her so long; I am sure you have influence. But my chief dependence, of course, is upon Jay. Mamma always yields to Jay." "Franklin, then, is pleased with the engagement?" said Etheridge, walking about the room, taking up books, looking at them vaguely, and laying them down again. "How could he _not_ be! As it happens, however, we have not yet heard from him, for when our letters reached Charleston he had just started for New York on one of their steamers; some business errand. But he was to return by train, and I am expecting to hear from him to-morrow." There was a sound outside. "Here they come," said Etheridge, looking out. Genevieve rose quickly to join him at the window. Chase and Malachi Hill were dismounting. Then Chase lifted Ruth from Kentucky Belle. "Those are two new horses, you know," explained Genevieve, in a low tone; "Horrie sent for them. And he lets Mr. Hill ride one of them every day." "Yes; _horses_ enough!" grumbled Etheridge, discontentedly. Ruth, holding up the skirt of her habit, was coming towards the house, talking to her two escorts. When she entered the parlor, Genevieve went forward and put her arm round her. "I know you have enjoyed your ride, dear?" "Of course I have. How do you do, commodore? I have just been planning another excursion with Horace." (The name came out happily and securely.) "To Cæsar's Head this time; you to drive the four-in-hand, and I to ride Kentucky Belle." "Yes, that's right; arrange it with him," said Chase. "For I must go; I have letters to write which can be postponed no longer. You have had enough of me for to-day, I guess? May I come in to-morrow afternoon--early?" "Come to lunch," said Ruth, giving him her hand. He held it out for a moment, looking at her with kindly eyes. "You don't know how much I enjoyed my ride," said the girl, heartily. "It is such a joy to be on Kentucky Belle; she is so beautiful, and she moves so lightly! It was the nicest ride I have ever had in my life!" This seemed to please Chase. He took leave of the others and went away. "I will wait here, if you will allow it, Miss Ruth, until he is out of sight," said Malachi Hill. "For I may as well confess to you--I have already told Miss Dolly--that I seem fairly to lose my head when I find myself with Mr. Chase alone! I am so haunted by the idea of all he could do for the Church in these mountains that in spite of the generous gifts he has already made, I keep hankering after more--like a regular _gorilla_ of covetousness!" "I shall have to see that he is never left alone with you," said Ruth, laughing. "There! he has turned the corner. Now _I'll_ go the other way," continued the missionary, his seriousness unbroken. "Mr. Hill is such a _good_ man," remarked Genevieve as she closed the window. "Miss Billy thinks him full of the darkest evil," commented Ruth. "Why do you shut the window?" "You were in a draught. After your ride you must be warm." "I'm a precious object, am I?" "Yes, dear, you certainly are," replied Genevieve, with all the seriousness of Malachi Hill. "If that simpleton of a Billy could see the parson eat apples, she would change her opinion about him," remarked Etheridge. "A man who can devour with relish four, five, and even six, cold raw apples (and the Asheville apples are sixteen inches round) late in the evening, cores, seeds, and all, _must_ be virtuous--as virtuous as mutton!" He was looking at Ruth as he spoke. The girl was leaning back in an easy-chair; Petie Trone, Esq., had lost no time, he was already established in her lap, and the squirrel had flown to her shoulder. She had taken off her gauntlets, and as she lifted her hands to remove her hat, he saw a flash. "Trinkets?" he said. "Oh--you haven't seen it?" She drew off a ring and tossed it across to him. "Take care!" said Genevieve. But Etheridge had already caught it. It was a solitaire diamond ring, the stone of splendid beauty, large, pure, brilliant. "It came yesterday," Genevieve explained. Then she folded her hands--this with Genevieve was always a deliberate motion. "There will be diamonds--yes. But there will be other things also; surely our dear Ruth will remember the duties of wealth as well as its pleasures." Ruth paid no heed to this; put on her ring again, using the philopena circlet as a guard; then she said, "Petie Trone, Esq., there will be just time before dinner for your Saturday scrubbing." Half an hour later when she returned, the little dog trotting behind her, his small body pinned up in a hot towel, Genevieve cried in alarm, "Where are your rings?" "Oh," said Ruth, looking at her hands, "I didn't miss them; they must have come off in the tub. Since then I have been in my room, dressing." "And Rinda may have thrown away the water!" exclaimed her sister-in-law, rushing up the stairs in breathless haste. But Rinda was never in a hurry to perform any of her duties, and the wooden tub devoted to Mr. Trone still stood in its place. Genevieve, baring her white arms, plunged both her hands into the water, her heart beating with anxiety. But the rings, very soapy, were there. That evening, at nine o'clock, Mrs. Franklin was galloping through the latest tale of Anthony Trollope. For she always read a novel with racing speed to get at the story, skipping every description; then, if she had been interested, she went back and reperused it in more leisurely fashion. It was unusual to have a book fresh from the press; the well-fingered volumes which Miss Billy borrowed for her so industriously were generally two or three years old. Horace Chase, learning from Ruth the mother's liking for novels, had sent a note to New York, ordering in his large way "all the latest articles in fiction;" a package to be sent to L'Hommedieu once a month. The first parcel had just arrived, and Mrs. Franklin, opening it, much surprised, had surveyed the gift with mixed feelings. She was alone; Dolly was upstairs. Ruth, seized with a sudden fancy for a glass of cream, had gone, with Rinda as protector, to a house at some distance, where cream was sold; for with Ruth fancies were so vivid that it always seemed to her absolutely necessary to follow them instantly. The mother turned over the volumes. "It doesn't make me like him a bit better!" she said to herself. But her easy-chair was comfortable; the reading-lamp was burning brightly at her elbow. For fourteen years novels had been her opiates; she put on her glasses, took up the Trollope, and began. She had not been reading long, when her attention suddenly jumped back to the present, owing to a sound outside. For the window was open, somebody was coming up the path from the gate, and she recognized--yes, she recognized the step. Letting the book drop, she ran to the house-door. "Jared! Why--how did you get here? The stage came in long ago." "I drove over from Old Fort," answered her son as he entered. "And you did not find Genevieve? She has gone with Mr. Hill to--" "I haven't been to the Cottage yet; I came directly here. Where is Ruth?" "Out. But she will be in soon. Dolly isn't well to-night; she has gone to bed." "The coast is clear, then, and we can talk," said Jared. "So much the better." They were now in the parlor; before seating himself he closed the door. "I have come up, mother, about this affair of Ruth's. As soon as I got back to Charleston and read your letters, I started at once. You have been careless, I fear; but at least I hope that nothing has been said, that no one knows?" "Everybody knows, Jared. At least, everybody in Asheville." "Who has told? Chase?" asked Jared, angrily. "Oh no; he left that to us. I have said nothing, and Dolly has said nothing. But--but--" "But what?" "Genevieve has announced it everywhere," answered Mrs. Franklin, her inward feeling against her daughter-in-law for once getting the better of her. "I will speak to Genevieve. But she is not the one most in fault, mother; she could not have announced it unless _you_ had given your consent. And how came you to do that?" "I don't think I have consented. I have been waiting for you." "Very well, then; we can act together. Now that _I_ have come, Horace Chase will find that there's some one on hand to look after you; he will no longer be able to do as he pleases!" "Our difficulty is, Jared, that it is not so much a question of his doing as he pleases as it is of Ruth's doing as _she_ pleases; she thinks it is all enchanting; and she is headstrong, you know." "Yes. That is the very reason why I think you have been careless, mother. You were here and I was not; you, therefore, were the one to act. You should have taken Ruth out of town at once; you should have taken her north, if necessary, and kept her there; you should have done this at any sacrifice." "It is not so easy--" began his mother. Then she stopped. For she was living on credit; she owed money everywhere, and there were still ten days to elapse before any remittances could reach her. But she would have borne anything, and resorted to everything, rather than let Jared know this. "It took me so completely by surprise," she said, beginning again. "I am sure that you yourself had no suspicion of any such possibility when we took that French Broad drive?" "No, I had not. And it enrages me to think how blind I was! He was laying his plans even then; the whole trip, and all those costly things he did--that was simply part of it." And leaving his chair, the brother walked up and down the room, his face darkly flushed with anger. "Ruth--a child! And he--thirty years older!" "Not that, dear. He is thirty-eight; and she was nineteen last week." "He looks much more than thirty-eight. But that isn't the point. You don't seem to see, mother, what makes it so insufferable; he has bribed her about _me_, bribed her with that place in Charleston; that's the whole story! She is so happy about that, that she forgets all else." "I don't like the idea of an engagement between them any better than you do, Jared. But I ought to say two things. One is, that I don't believe he made any plot as to the Charleston place; I think he likes to help people--" "Yes, our family!" interrupted the son, hotly. "No, mother, you don't understand him in the least. Horace Chase is purely a business man, a long-headed, driving, money-making fellow; all his ambition (and he has plenty of it) is along that one line. It's the only line, in fact, which he thinks important. But the idea of his being a philanthropist would make any one who has ever had business dealings with him laugh for a week!" "Well, have that as you like. But even if he first gave you the place on Ruth's account (for he has fallen very much in love with her, there is no doubt of that), I don't see that he has any need to be a benefactor in keeping you there. They are no doubt delighted to have you; he says so himself, in fact. A navy officer, a gentleman--they may well be!" added Mrs. Franklin, looking for the moment very much like her father, old Major Seymour, with his aristocratic notions. "Why, mother, don't you know that people with that brutal amount of money--Chaise and the Willoughbys, for instance--don't you know that they look upon the salaries of army and navy officers simply as genteel poverty?" said Jared, forgetting for the moment his anger in amusement over her old-fashioned mistake. But he could not have made Mrs. Franklin believe this in ten years of repetition, much less in ten minutes. "And the other thing I had to say," she went on, "is that I don't think Ruth is marrying him on _your_ account solely." "Oh yes, she is, though she may not be conscious of it. But when I have given up the Charleston place, which I shall do to-morrow, then she will be free again. The moment she sees that she can do _me_ no good, all will look different to her. I'd rather do anything--sell the Cottage, and live on a crust all the rest of my days--than have a sister of mine help me along in that way!" His mother watched him as he paced to and fro. He looked ill; there were hollows at his temples and dark circles under his eyes; his tall figure had begun to stoop. He was the dearest of all her children; his incurable, unspoken regrets, his broken life, were like a dagger in her heart at all times. He would give up his place, and then he would have nothing; and she, his mother, could not help him with a penny. He would give up his place and sell the Cottage, and then--Genevieve! It all came back to that; it would always come back to that--Genevieve! She swallowed hard to keep down the sob in her throat. "He is very much in love with her," she repeated, vaguely, in order to say something. "Who cares if he is! I almost begin to think you like it, after all?" "No, dear, no; neither Dolly nor I like it in the least. But Ruth is not easy to manage. And Genevieve was sure that you--" "This is not Genevieve's affair. It is mine!" thundered Jared. His mother jumped up, ran to him, and gave him a kiss. For the moment she forgot his illness, his uncertain future, her own debts, all her troubles, in the joy of hearing him at last assert his will against that of his wife. But it was only for a moment; she knew--knew far better than he did--that the even-tempered feminine pertinacity would always in the end have its way. Jared, impulsive, generous, affectionate, was no match for Genevieve. In a contest of this sort it is the nobler nature, always, that yields; the self-satisfied, limited mind has an obstinacy that never gives way. She leaned her head against her son's breast, and all the bitterness of his marriage came over her afresh like a flood. "Why, mother, what is it?" asked Jared, feeling her tremble. He put his arm round her, and smoothed her hair tenderly. "Tell me what it is that troubles you so?" The gate swung to. Mrs. Franklin lifted her head. "Ruth is coming," she whispered. "Say what you like to her. But, under all circumstances, remember to be kind. I will come back presently." She hurried out. Rinda and Ruth entered. Rinda went to the kitchen, and Ruth, after taking off her hat, came into the parlor, carrying her glass of cream. "Jared!" She put down the glass on the table, and threw her arms round her brother's neck. "Oh, I am _so_ glad you have come!" "Sit down. Here, by me. I wish to speak to you, Ruth." "Yes--about my engagement. It's very good of you to come so soon;" and she put her hand through his arm in her old affectionate way. "I do not call it an engagement when you have neither your mother's consent nor mine," answered her brother. "Whatever it is, however, you must make an end of it." "An end of it? Why?" "Because we all dislike the idea. You are too young to comprehend what you are doing." "I am nineteen; that is not so very young. I comprehend that I am going to be happy. And I _love_ to be happy! I have never seen any one half so kind as Mr. Chase. If there is anything I want to do, he arranges it. He doesn't wait, and hesitate, and consider; he _does_ it. He thinks of everything; it is perfectly beautiful! Why, Jared--what he did for you, wasn't that kind?" "Exactly. That is what he has bribed you with!" "Bribed?" repeated Ruth, surprised, as she saw the indignation in his eyes. Then comprehending what he meant, she laughed, coloring a little also. "But I am not marrying him on your account; I am marrying him on my own. I am marrying because I like it, because I want to. You don't believe it? Why--look at me." She rose and stood before him. "I am the happiest girl in the world as I stand here! I should think you could see it for yourself?" And in truth her face was radiant. "If I have ever had any dreams of what I should like my life to be (and I have had plenty), they have all come true," she went on, with her hands behind her, looking at him reflectively. "Think of all I shall have! And of where I can go! And of what I can do! Why--there's no end of it!" "That is not the way to talk of marriage." "How one talks of it is not important. The important point is to be happy _in_ it, and that I shall be to the full--yes, to the full. His Grand shall have whatever she likes; and Dolly too. First of all, Dolly shall have a phaeton, so that she can drive to the woods every day. The house shall be put in order from top to bottom. And--oh, everything!" "Is that the way you talk to _him_?" But the sarcasm fell to the ground. "Precisely. Word for word," answered Ruth, lightly. And he saw that she spoke the truth. "He is much too old for you. If there were no other--" But Ruth interrupted him with a sort of sweet obstinacy. "That is for me to judge, isn't it?" "He is not at all the person you fancy he is." "I don't care what he is generally, what he is to other people; all I care for is what he is to me. And about that you know nothing; I am the one to know. He is nicer to me, and he always will be nicer, than Genevieve has ever been to _you_!" And turning, the girl walked across the room. "If I have been unhappy, that is the very reason I don't want you to be," answered her brother, after a moment's pause. His tone touched her. She ran back to him, and seated herself on his knee, with her cheek against his. "I didn't mean it, dear; forgive me," she whispered, softly. "But please don't be cross. You are angry because you believe I am marrying to help _you_. But you are mistaken; I am marrying for myself. You might be back in the navy, and mother and Dolly might have more money, and I should still marry him. It would be because I want to, because I like him. If you had anything to say against him personally, it would be different, but you haven't. He is waiting to tell you about himself, to introduce you to his family (he has only sisters), and to his partners, the Willoughbys. Your only objections appear to be that I am marrying him on your account, and I have told you that I am not; and that he is older than I am, and _that_ I like; and that he has money, while we are poor. But he gets something in getting me," she added, in a lighter tone, as she raised her head and looked at him gayly. "Wait till you see how pretty I shall be in fine clothes." The door opened, and Mrs. Franklin came in. Ruth rose. "Here is mother. Now I must say the whole. Listen, mother; and you too, Jared. I intend to marry Horace Chase. If not with your consent, then without it. If you will not let me be married at home, then I shall walk out of the house, go to Horace, and the first clergyman or minister he can find shall marry us. There! I have said it. But _why_ should you treat me so? Don't make me so dreadfully unhappy." She had spoken wilfully, determinedly. But now she was pleading--though it was pleading to have her own way. Into her beautiful eyes came two big tears as she gazed at them. Neither Mrs. Franklin nor Jared could withstand those drops. CHAPTER VII The wedding was over. Pretty little Trinity Church was left alone with its decorations of flowers and vines, the work of Miss Billy Breeze. Miss Billy, much excited, was now standing beside Ruth in the parlor at L'Hommedieu; for Miss Billy and Maud Muriel were the bridesmaids. Maud Muriel had consented with solemnity. "It is strange that such a man as Horace Chase, a man of sense and importance, should be taken with a child like Ruth Franklin," she confided to Miss Billy. "However, I won't desert him at such a moment. I'll stand by him." She was in reality not so much bridesmaid as groomsman. L'Hommedieu was decked with flowers. It was a warm autumn day, the windows and doors were open. All Asheville was in attendance, if not in the house and on the verandas, then gazing over the fence, and waiting outside the gate. For there were many things to engage its attention. First, there was Mrs. Franklin, looking very distinguished; then Genevieve, the most beautiful woman present. Then there was Bishop Carew, who had come from Wilmington to officiate. All Asheville admired the bishop--the handsome, kindly, noble old man, full of dignity, full of sweetness as well; they were proud that he had come to "their" wedding. For that was the way they thought of it. Even the negroes--those who had flocked to old Daniel's race--had a sense of ownership in the affair. A third point of interest was the general surprise over Maud. As Ruth had selected the costumes of her bridesmaids, Miss Mackintosh was attired for the first time in her life in ample soft draperies. Her hair, too, arranged by Miss Billy, had no longer the look of the penitentiary, and the result was that (to the amazement of the town) the sculptress was almost handsome. Anthony Etheridge, much struck by this (and haunted by his old idea), pressed upon her a glass of punch. "Take it," he urged, in a low tone, "take two or three. Then, as soon as this is over, hurry to your studio and _let yourself go_. You'll do wonders!" Two of Chase's partners were present, Nicholas Willoughby, a quiet-looking man of fifty-eight, and his nephew Walter of the same name; Walter was acting as "best man." The elder Willoughby had made use of the occasion to take a general look at this mountain country, with reference to Chase's ideas concerning it, in order to make a report to his brother Richard. For Nicholas and Richard were millionaires many times over; their business in life was investment. Asheville itself, meanwhile, hardly comprehended the importance of such an event as the presence within its borders of a New York capitalist; it knew very little about New York, still less about capitalists. Mrs. Franklin, however, possessed a wider knowledge; she understood what was represented by the name of Willoughby. And it had solaced her unspeakably also to note that the uncle had a genuine liking for her future son-in-law. "They have a real regard for him," she said to her son, in private. "And I myself like him rather better than I once thought I should." Jared had come from Charleston on the preceding day. "Oh, that's far too guarded, mother," he answered. "The only way for us now is to like Horace Chase with enthusiasm, to cling to him with the deepest affection. We must admire unflinchingly everything he says and everything he does--swallow him whole, as it were; it isn't difficult to swallow things _whole_! Just watch me." And, in truth, it was Jared's jocularity that enlivened the reception, and made it so gay; it reached even Dolly, who (to aid him) became herself a veritable Catherine-wheel of jokes, so that every one noticed how happy all the Franklins were--how delighted with the marriage. Chase himself appeared well. His rather ordinary face was lighted by an expression of deep inward happiness which was touching; its set lines were relaxed; his eyes, which were usually too keen, had a softness that was new to them. He was very silent; he let his best man talk for him. Walter Willoughby performed this part admirably; standing beside the bridegroom, he "supported" him gayly through the two hours which were given up to the outside friends. Ruth looked happy, but not particularly pretty. The excitement had given her a deep flush; even her throat was red. At three o'clock Peter and Piper were brought round to the door; Chase was to drive his wife over the mountains, through the magnificent forest, now gorgeous with the tints of autumn, and at Old Fort a special train was waiting to take them eastward. A few more minutes and then they were gone. There was nothing left but the scattered rice on the ground, and Petie Trone, Esq., barking his little heart out at the gate. CHAPTER VIII Early on a moonlit evening in January, 1875, Mr. and Mrs. Horace Chase were approaching St. Augustine. They had come by steamer up the broad St. Johns, the beautiful river of Florida, to the lonely little landing called Tocoi; here they had intrusted themselves to the Atlantic Ocean Railroad. This railroad undertook to convey travellers across the peninsula to the sea-coast, fifteen miles distant; and the promise was kept. But it was kept in a manner so leisurely that more than once Horace Chase had risen and walked to and fro, as though, somehow, that would serve to increase the speed. The rolling-stock possessed by the Atlantic Ocean Railroad at that date consisted of two small street-cars, one for passengers, one for luggage; Chase's promenade, therefore, confined as it was to the first car, had a range of about four steps. "I'm ridiculously fidgety, and that's a fact," he said to his wife, laughing at himself. "I can be lazy enough in a Pullman, for then I can either read the papers or go to sleep. But down here there are no papers to read. And who can sleep in this jolting? I believe I'll ask that darky to let me drive the mules!" "Do," said Ruth. "Then I can be out there with you on the front platform." As there were no other passengers (save Petie Trone, Esq., asleep in his travelling basket), Abram, the negro driver, gave up the reins with a grin. Taking his station on the step, he then admonished the volunteer from time to time as follows: "Dish yere's a bad bit; take keer, boss." "Jess ahead de rail am splayed out on de lef'. Yank 'em hard to de right, or we'll sut'ny run off de track. We ginerally _do_ run off de track 'bout yere." On each side was a dense forest veiled in the gray long moss. Could that be snow between the two black lines of track ahead? No snow, however, was possible in this warm atmosphere; it was but the spectral effect of the moonlight, blanching to an even paler whiteness the silvery sand which formed the road-bed between the rails. This sand covered the sleepers to such a depth that the mules could not step quickly; there was always a pailful of it on each foot to lift and throw off. They moved on, therefore, in a sluggish trot, the cow-bells attached to their collars keeping up a regular tink-tank, tink-tank. The tableau of her husband driving these spirited steeds struck Ruth as comical. She was seated on a camp-stool by his side, and presently she broke into a laugh. "Oh, you do look _so_ funny, Horace! If you could only see yourself! You, so particular about horses that you won't drive anything that is not absolutely perfect, there you stand taking the greatest pains, and watching solemnly every quiver of the ear of those old mules!" They were alone, Abram having gone to the baggage-car to get his tin horn. "Come, now, are you never going to stop making fun of me?" inquired Chase. "How do you expect to hit St. Augustine to-night if this fast express runs off the track?" But in spite of his protest, it was easy to see that he liked to hear her laugh. Abram, coming back, put the horn to his lips and blew a resounding blast; and presently, round a curve, the half-way station came into view--namely, a hut of palmetto boughs on the barren, with a bonfire before it. The negro station-men, beguiling their evening leisure by dancing on the track to their own singing and the music of a banjo, did not think it necessary to stop their gyrations until the heads of the mules actually touched their shoulders. Even then they made no haste in bringing out the fresh team which was to serve as motive power to St. Augustine, and Mr. and Mrs. Chase, leaving the car, strolled up and down near by. The veiled forest had been left behind; the rest of the way lay over the open pine-barrens. The leaping bonfire, the singing negroes, and the little train on its elevated snow-like track contrasted with the wild, lonely, silent, tree-dotted plain, stretching away limitlessly in the moonlight on all sides. "Perhaps Petie Trone, Esq., would like to take a run," said Ruth. Hastening into the car with her usual heedlessness, she tripped and nearly fell, Chase, who had followed, catching her arm just in time to save her. "Some of these days, Ruthie, you will break your neck. Why are you always in such a desperate hurry?" "Talk about hurry!" answered Ruth, as she unstrapped the basket and woke the lazy Mr. Trone. "Who saw the whole of Switzerland in five days? and found it slow at that?" And then they both laughed. After a stretch, Petie Trone decided to make a foray over the barren; his little black figure was soon out of sight. "Horace, now that we are here, I wish you would promise to stay. Can't we stay at least until the middle of March? It's lovely in Florida in the winter," Ruth declared, as they resumed their walk. "Well, I'll stay as long as I can. But I must go to California on business between this and spring," Chase answered. "Why don't you make one of the Willoughbys do that? They never do anything!" "That's all right; I'm the working partner of the firm; it was so understood from the beginning. The Willoughbys only put in capital; all but Walter, of course, who hasn't got much. But Walter's a knowing young chap, who will put in brains. My California business, however, has nothing to do with the Willoughbys, Ruthie; it's my own private affair, _that_ is. If I succeed, and I think I shall, it'll about double my pile. Come, you know you like money." He drew her hand through his arm and held it. "How many more rings do you want? How many more houses? How many more French maids and flounces? How many more carriages?" "Oh, leave out the carriages, do," interrupted Ruth. "When it comes to anything connected with a horse, who spends money--you or I?" "My one small spree compared to your fifty!" "Small!" she repeated. "Wherever we go, whole troops of horses appear by magic!" Then, after a moment, she let her head rest against his shoulder as they strolled slowly on. "You are only too good to me," she added, in another tone. "Well, I guess that's about what I want to be," Chase answered, covering, as he often did, the deep tenderness in his heart with a vein of jocularity. The Atlantic Ocean Railroad's terminal station at St. Augustine consisted of a platform in the sand and another flaring bonfire. At half-past six Mrs. Franklin, Dolly, and Anthony Etheridge were waiting on this platform for the evening train. With them was a fourth person--Mrs. Lilian Kip. "Oh, I can scarcely wait to see her!" exclaimed this lady, excitedly. "Will she be the same? But no. Impossible!" "She is exactly the same," answered Dolly, who, seated on an empty dry-goods box, was watching the bonfire. "But you must remember that Ruth did not come to Florida last winter after her marriage. And this summer, when I was in Asheville, she was abroad. And as none of you came south winter before last--don't you see that it makes nearly _two_ years since I have seen her?" Mrs. Kip went on. "In addition, marriage changes a woman's face so--deepens its expression and makes it so _much_ more beautiful. I am sure, commodore, that _you_ agree with me there?" And she turned to the only man present. "Yes, yes," answered Etheridge, gallantly. In his heart he added: "And therefore the more marriage the better? Is that what you are thinking of, you idiot?" The presence of Mrs. Kip always tore Etheridge to pieces. He had never had any intention of marrying, and he certainly had no such intention now. Yet he could not help admiring this doubly widowed Lilian very deeply, after a fashion. And he knew, too--jealously and angrily he knew it--that before long she would inevitably be led to the altar a third time; so extremely marriageable a woman would never lack for leaders. "Ruth is handsomer," remarked Mrs. Franklin; "otherwise she is unchanged. You will see it for yourself, Lilian, when she comes." The mother's tone was placid. All her forebodings had faded away, and she had watched them disappear with thankful eyes. For Ruth was happy; there could be no doubt about that. In the year that had passed since her marriage, she had returned twice to Asheville, and Mrs. Franklin also had spent a month at her son-in-law's home in New York. On all these occasions it had been evident that the girl was enjoying greatly her new life; that she was delightedly, exultantly, and gleefully contented, and all in a natural way, without analyzing it. She delighted in the boundless gratification of her taste for personal ease and luxury; she exulted in all that she was able to do for her own family; she was full of glee over the amusements, the entertainments, and especially the change, that surrounded her like a boundless horizon. For her husband denied her nothing; she had only to choose. He was not what is known as set in his ways; he had no fixed habits (save the habit of making money); in everything, therefore, except his business affairs, he allowed his young wife to arrange their life according to her fancy. This freedom, this power, and the wealth, had not yet become an old story to Ruth, and, with the enjoyment which she found in all three, it seemed as if they never would become that. It had been an immense delight to her, for instance, to put L'Hommedieu in order for her mother. A month after her marriage, on returning to Asheville for a short visit, she had described her plan to Dolly. "And think what fun it will be, Dolly, to have the whole house done over, not counting each cent in Genevieve's deadly way, but just _recklessly_! And then to see her squirm, and say 'surely!' And you and mother must pretend not to care much about it; you must hardly know what is going on, while they are actually putting in steam-heaters, and hard-wood floors, and bath-rooms with porcelain tubs--hurrah!" And, with Petie Trone barking in her arms, she whirled round in a dance of glee. Chase happening to come in at this moment, she immediately repeated to him all that she had been saying. He agreed; then added, with his humorous deliberation, "But you don't seem to think quite so much of my old school-mate as I supposed you did?" "Sisters-in-law, Mr. Chase, are seldom _very_ devoted friends," explained Dolly, going on with her embroidery. Dolly always did something that required her close attention whenever Horace Chase was present. "How, indeed, can they be? A sister sees one side of her brother's nature, and sees it correctly; a wife sees another side, and with equal accuracy. Each honestly believes that the other is entirely wrong. Their point of view, you see, is so different!" The waiting group at the St. Augustine station on this January evening heard at last the blast of Abram's horn, and presently the train came in, the mules for the last few yards galloping madly, their tin bells giving out a clattering peal, and Chase still acting as driver, with Ruth beside him. Affectionate greetings followed, for all the Franklins were warmly attached to each other. Mrs. Kip was not a Franklin, but she was by nature largely affectionate; she was probably the most affectionate person in Florida. To the present occasion she contributed several tears of joy. Then she signalled to Juniper, her colored waiter; for, being not only affectionate, but romantic as well, she had brought in her phaeton a bridal ornament, a heart three feet high, made of roses reposing upon myrtle, and this symbol, amid the admiration of all the bystanders, black and white, was now borne forward in the arms of Juniper (who, being a slender lad, staggered under its weight). Ruth laughed and laughed as this edifice was presented to her. But as, amid her mirth, she had kissed the donor and thanked her very prettily, Mrs. Kip was satisfied. For Ruth might laugh--Ruth, in fact, always laughed--but marriage was marriage none the less; the most beautiful human relation; and it was certainly fit that the first visit of a happily wedded pair to the land of flowers should be commemorated florally. Mrs. Kip volunteered to carry her heart to Mrs. Franklin's residence; she drove away, therefore, Etheridge accompanying her, and Juniper behind, balancing the structure as well as he could on his knees, with his arms stretched upward to their fullest extent in order to grasp its top. In a rickety barouche drawn by two lean horses the others followed, laughing and talking gayly. Chase got on very well with his mother-in-law; and he supposed, also, that he got on fairly well with Dolly: he had not divined Dolly's mental attitude towards him, which was that simply of an armed neutrality. Dolly would have been wildly happy if, for herself and her mother at least, she could have refused every cent of his money. This had not been possible. Chase had settled upon his wife a sum which gave her a large income for her personal use, independent of all their common expenses; it was upon this income that Ruth had drawn for the restoration of L'Hommedieu, and also for the refurnishing of her mother's house at St. Augustine. "I can't be happy, His Grand, I can't enjoy New York, or our trip to Europe, or anything, unless I feel certain that you are perfectly comfortable in every way," she had said during that first visit at home. "All this money is mine; I am not asked what I do with it, and I never shall be asked; you don't know Horace if you think he will ever even allude to the subject. He intends it for my ownest own, and of course he knows what I care the most for, and that is you and Jared and Dolly. I have always suspected that something troubled you every now and then, though I didn't know what. And if it was money, His Grand, you _must_ take some from me, now that I have it; you must take it, and make your little girl really happy. For she can't be happy until you do." This youngest child really was still, in the mother's eyes, her "baby." And when the baby, sitting down in her lap, put her arms round her neck and pleaded so lovingly, the mother yielded. Her debts were now all paid; it was a secret between herself and Ruth. The disappearance of the burden was a great relief to the mother, though not so much so as it would have been to some women; for it was characteristic of Mrs. Franklin that she had never thought there was anything wrong in being in debt; she had only thought that it was unfortunate. It would not have occurred to her, even in her worst anxieties, to reduce sternly her expenses until they accorded with her means, no matter how low that might lead her; there was a point, so she believed, beyond which a Mrs. Franklin could not descend with justice to her children. And justice to her children was certainly a mother's first duty; justice to creditors must take a second place. To Dolly, unaware of the payment of the debts, the acceptance even of the restoration of the two houses had been bitter enough; for though the money came through Ruth's hands, it was nevertheless provided by this stranger. "If I had only been well, I could have worked and saved mother from this," she thought. "But I am helpless. Not only that, but a care! Nobody stops to think how dreary a lot it is to be always a care. And how hard, hard, never to be able to give, but always to have to accept, accept, and be thankful!" But Dolly, at heart, had a generous nature; she would not cloud even by a look her mother's contentment or the happiness of Ruth. So when Chase said, as the barouche swayed crazily through the deep mud-hole which for years formed the junction between the station lane and the main road, "This old rattletrap isn't safe, ma'am. Is it the best St. Augustine can do? You ought to have something better!"--when Chase said this to her mother, Dolly even brought forward a smile. The rattletrap followed the long causeway which crossed the salt-marsh and the San Sebastian River. Entering the town beneath an archway of foliage, this causeway broadened into a sandy street under huge pride-of-India trees, whose branches met overhead. Old Miss L'Hommedieu's winter residence was not far from St. Francis Barracks, at the south end of the town. It was an old coquina house which rose directly from a little-travelled roadway. An open space on the other side of this roadway, and the absence of houses, gave it the air of being "on the bay," as it was called. Chase had taken, for a term of years, another house not far distant, which really was on the bay. He had done this to please Ruth. It was not probable that they should spend many winters in Florida; but in case they should wish to come occasionally, it would be convenient to have a house ready. "And when we don't want it, Jared could stay here now and then," Ruth had suggested. "Your brother? I guess he isn't going to be a very easy chap to arrange for, here or anywhere," Chase had answered, laughing. "We've already slipped up once pretty well--Charleston, you know." Then, seeing her face grow troubled, "But he'll take another view of something else I have in mind," he went on. "If my California project turns out as I hope, it will be absolutely necessary for me to have a confidential man to see to the New York part of it--some one whom I can trust. And I shall be able to convince Franklin that this time, at any rate, instead of its being a favor to him, it'll be a favor to me. He won't kick at _that_, I reckon." For Jared was now again at Raleigh, working as a clerk for the man who had bought his former business; he had resigned his Charleston place in spite of Ruth, in spite even of Genevieve. He had waited until the wedding was over, in order that Ruth might not be made unhappy at the moment; and then he had done it. Notwithstanding this, his wife had never had so much money in her life as she had now. For she and Ruth, with the perfectly good conscience which women have in such matters, had combined together, as it were, to circumvent secretly the obstinate naval officer. Ruth was warmly attached to her brother; he was the one person who had been able to control her when she was a child; his good opinion had been a hundred times more important to her than that of her mother and Dolly. Now that she was rich, she was bent upon helping him; and having found that she could not do it directly, she had turned all her intelligence towards doing it indirectly, through the capable, the willing Genevieve. Mrs. Jared Franklin, Junior, had quietly and skilfully bought land in Asheville (in readiness for the coming railroad); she had an account at the bank; she had come into the possession of bonds and stock; she had enlarged her house, and she had also given herself the pleasure (she called it the benediction) of laying the foundations of an addition to the Colored Home. As she kept up a private correspondence with Ruth, she had heard of the proposed place in New York for Jared, the place where his services would be of value. She was not surprised; it was what she had been counting upon. Jared's obstinacy would give way, _must_ give way, before this new opportunity; and in the meanwhile, here at Asheville, all was going splendidly well. Amid these various transactions Jared Franklin's mother had been obliged to make up her mind as to what her own attitude should be. It had been to her a relief unspeakable, an overmastering joy, to know that her son would not, after all, sink to harassing poverty. Soothed by this, lulled also by the hope that before very long he would of his own accord consent to give up what was so distasteful to him, she had virtually condoned the underhand partnership between Ruth and Genevieve, arranging the matter with her conscience after her own fashion, by simply turning her head away from the subject entirely. As she had plenty of imagination, she had ended by really convincing herself that she was not aware of what was going on, because she had not heard any of the details. (She had, in fact, refused to hear them.) This left her free to say to Jared (if necessary) that she had known nothing. But she hoped that no actual words of this sort would be required. Her temperament, indeed, had always been largely made up of hope. It was true that Jared for the present was still at Raleigh, drudging away at a very small salary. That, however, would not last forever. And in the meantime (and this was also extraordinarily agreeable to the mother) Madame Genevieve was learning that she could not lead her husband quite so easily as she had supposed she could. In her enjoyment of this fact, Mrs. Franklin, in certain moods, almost hoped that (as his affairs were in reality going on so well) her son would continue to hold out for some time longer. The house which Horace Chase had taken at St. Augustine was much larger than old Miss L'Hommedieu's abode; it was built of coquina, like hers, but it faced the sea-wall directly, commanding the inlet; from its upper windows one could see over Anastasia Island opposite, and follow miles of the blue southern sea. Ruth's French maid, Félicité, had arrived at this brown mansion the day before, with the heavy luggage; to-night, however, new-comers were to remain with the mother in the smaller house. When the barouche reached Mrs. Franklin's door, Etheridge, Mrs. Kip, and the heart were already there. "I won't stay now," said Mrs. Kip. "But may I look in later? Evangeline Taylor is perfectly _wild_ to come." When she returned, a little after eight, Chase was still in the dining-room with Anthony Etheridge, who had dined there. The heart had been suspended from a stout hook on the parlor wall, and Ruth happened a moment before to have placed herself under it, when, having discovered her old guitar in a closet, she had seated herself to tune it. "It's _so_ sweet, Ruth, your sitting there under my flowers," said the visitor, tearfully. "And yet, for _me_, such an--such an _association_!" "I thought your daughter was coming?" said Mrs. Franklin, peering towards the door over her glasses. "Evangeline Taylor will be here in a moment," answered her mother; "her governess is bringing her." And presently there entered a tall, a gigantically tall girl, with a long, solemn, pale face. As she was barely twelve, she was dressed youthfully in a short school-girl frock with a blue sash. Advancing, she kissed Ruth; then, retiring to a corner, she seated herself, arranged her feet in an appropriate pose, and crossed her hands in her lap. A little later, when no one was looking, she furtively altered the position of her feet. Then she changed once or twice the arrangement of her hands. This being settled at last to her satisfaction, she turned her attention to her features, trying several different contortions, and finally settling upon a drawing in of the lips and a slight dilatation of the nostrils. And all this not in the least from vanity, but simply from an intense personal conscientiousness. "The dear child longed to see you, Ruth. She danced for joy when she heard you had come," explained the mother. "Yes, Evangeline and I have always been great chums," answered Ruth, good-naturedly. The room was brightly lighted, and the light showed that the young wife's face was more beautiful than ever; the grace of her figure also was now heightened by all the aids that dress can bestow. Ruth had said to Jared, jokingly, "Wait till you see how pretty I shall be in fine clothes!" The fine clothes had been purchased in profusion, and, what was better, Félicité knew how to adapt them perfectly to her slender young mistress. Mrs. Kip, having paid her tribute to "the association" (she did not say whether the feeling was connected with Andrew Taylor, her first husband, or with the equally departed John Kip, her second), now seated herself beside Ruth, and, with the freedom of old friendship, examined her costume. "I know you had that made in Paris!" she said. "Simple as it is, it has a sort of something or other! And, oh, what a beautiful bracelet! What splendid rings!" Ruth wore no ornaments save that on her right wrist was a band of sapphires, and on her right hand three of the same gems, all the stones being of great beauty. On her left hand she wore the wedding circlet, with her engagement-ring and the philopena guard over it. In answer to the exclamation, she had taken off the jewels and tossed them all into Mrs. Kip's lap. Mrs. Kip looked at them, her red lips open. To some persons, Lilian Kip seemed beautiful, in spite of the fact that the outline of her features, from certain points of view, was almost grotesque; she had a short nose, a wide mouth, a broad face, and a receding chin. Her dark-brown eyes were neither large nor bright, but they had a soft, dove-like expression; her curling hair was of a mahogany-red tint, and she had the exquisitely beautiful skin which sometimes accompanies hair of this hue; her cheeks really had the coloring of peaches and cream; her lips were like strawberries; her neck, arms, and hands were as fair as the inner petals of a tea-rose. With the exception of her imperfect facial outlines, she was as faultlessly modelled as a Venus. A short Venus, it is true, and a well-fed one; still a Venus. No one would ever have imagined her to be the mother of that light-house of a daughter; it was necessary to recall the fact that the height of the late Andrew Taylor had been six feet four inches. Andrew Taylor having married Lilian Howard when she was but seventeen, Lilian Kip, in spite of two husbands and her embarrassingly overtopping child, found herself even now but thirty. She had put Ruth's rings on her hands and the bracelet on her wrist; now she surveyed the effect with her head on one side, consideringly. While she was thus engaged, Mrs. Franklin's little negro boy, Samp, ushered in another visitor--Walter Willoughby. "Welcome to Florida, Mrs. Chase," he said, as he shook hands with Ruth. "As you are an old resident, however, it's really your husband whom I have come to greet; he is here, isn't he?" "Yes; he is in the dining-room with Commodore Etheridge," Ruth answered. "Will you go out?" For it was literally out; the old house was built in the Spanish fashion round an interior court, and to reach the dining-room one traversed a long veranda. "Thanks; I'll wait here," Walter answered. In reality he would have preferred to go and have a cigar with Chase. But as he had not seen his partner's wife since she returned from Europe, it was only courtesy as well as good policy to remain where he was. For Mrs. Chase was a power. She was a power because her husband would always wish to please her; this desire would come next to his money-making, and would even, in Walter's opinion (in case there should ever be a contest between the two influences), "run in close!" Mrs. Kip had hastily divested herself of the jewels, and replaced them on Ruth's wrist and hands, with many caressing touches. "Aren't they _lovely_?" she said to Walter. "That little one, the guard, was _my_ selection," he replied, indicating the philopena circlet. "And not this also?" said Ruth, touching her engagement ring. "No; that was my uncle Richard's choice; Chase wrote to _him_ the second time, not to me," Walter answered. "I'm afraid he didn't like my taste." He laughed; then turned to another subject. "You were playing the guitar when I came in, Mrs. Chase; won't you sing something?" "I neither play nor sing in a civilized way," Ruth answered. "None of us do. In music we are all awful barbarians." "How can you say so," protested Mrs. Kip, "when, as a family, you are _so_ musical?" Then, summoning to her eyes an expression of great intelligence, she added: "And I should know that you were, all of you, from your thick eyebrows and very thick hair. You have heard of that theory, haven't you, Mr. Willoughby? That all true musicians have very thick hair?" "Also murderers; I mean the women--the murderesses," remarked Dolly. "Oh, Dolly, what ideas you do have! Who would ever think of associating murderesses with music? Music is _so_ uplifting," protested the rosy widow. "We should take care that it is not too much so," Dolly answered. "Lots of us are ridiculously uplifted. We know one thing perhaps, and like it. But we remain flatly ignorant about almost everything else. In a busy world this would do no harm, if we could only be conscious of it. But no; on we go, deeply conceited about the one thing we know and like, and loftily severe as to the ignorance of other persons concerning it. It doesn't occur to us that upon other subjects save our own, we ourselves are presenting precisely the same spectacle. A Beethoven, when it comes to pictures, may find something very taking in a daub representing a plump child with a skipping-rope, and the legend: 'See me jump!' A painter of the highest power may think 'The Sweet By-and-By' on the cornet the acme of musical expression. A distinguished sculptor may appreciate on the stage only negro minstrels or a tenth-rate farce. A great historian may see nothing to choose, in the way of beauty, between a fine etching and a chromo. It is well known that the most celebrated, and deservedly celebrated, scientific man of our day devours regularly the weakest fiction that we have. And people who love the best classical music and can endure nothing else, have no idea, very often, whether they belong to the mammalia or the crustacea, or whether the Cologne cathedral is Doric or late Tudor." "Carry it a little further, Miss Franklin," said Walter Willoughby; "it has often been noted that criminals delight in the most sentimental tales." "That isn't the same thing," Dolly answered. "However, to take up your idea, Mr. Willoughby, it is certainly true that it is often the good women who read with the most breathless interest the newspaper reports of crimes." "Oh no!" exclaimed Mrs. Kip. "Yes, they do, Lilian," Dolly responded. "And when it comes to tales, they like dreadful events, with plenty of moral reflections thrown in; the moral reflections make it all right. A plain narrative of an even much less degree of evil, given impartially, and without a word of comment by the author--_that_ seems to them the unpardonable thing." "Well, and isn't it?" said Mrs. Kip. "Shouldn't people be _taught_--_counselled_?" "And it's for the sake of the counsel that they read such stories?" inquired Dolly. During this conversation, Chase, in the dining-room, had risen and given a stretch, with his long arms out horizontally. He was beginning to feel bored by the talk of Anthony Etheridge, "the ancient swell," as he called him. In addition, he had a vision of finishing this second cigar in a comfortable chair in the parlor (for Mrs. Franklin had no objection to cigar smoke), with Ruth near by; for it always amused him to hear his wife laugh and talk. The commodore, meanwhile, having assigned to himself from the day of the wedding the task of "helping to civilize the Bubble," never lost an opportunity to tell him stories from his own more cultivated experience--"stories that will give him ideas, and, by Jove! phrases, too. He needs 'em!" He had risen also. But he now detained his companion until he had finished what he was saying. "So there you have the reason, Mr. Chase, why _I_ didn't marry. I simply couldn't endure the idea of an old woman's face opposite mine at table year after year; for our women grow old so soon! Now you, sir, have shown the highest wisdom in this respect. I congratulate you." "I don't know about that," answered Chase, as he turned towards the door. "Ruth will have an old man's face opposite _her_ before very long, won't she?" "Not at all, my good friend; not at all. Men have no age. At least, they _need_ not have it," answered Etheridge, bringing forward with joviality his favorite axiom. Cordial greetings took place between Chase and Walter Willoughby. "Your uncles weren't sure you would still be here," Chase remarked. "They thought perhaps you wouldn't stay." "I shall stay awhile--outstay you, probably," answered Walter, smiling. "I can't imagine that you'll stand it long." "Doing nothing, you mean? Well, it's true I have never loafed _much_," Chase admitted. "You loafed all summer in Europe," the younger man replied, and his voice had almost an intonation of complaint. He perceived this himself, and smiled a little over it. "So that was loafing, was it," commented Ruth, in a musing tone--"catching trains and coaches on a full run, seeing three or four cantons, half a dozen towns, two passes, and several ranges of mountains every day?" All laughed, and Mrs. Kip said: "Did you rush along at that rate? That was baddish. There's no hurry _here_; that's one good thing. The laziest place! We must get up a boat-ride soon, Ruth. Boat-drive, I mean." Mrs. Franklin meanwhile, rising to get something, knocked over accidentally the lamplighters which she had just completed, and Chase, who saw it, jumped up to help her collect them. "Why, how many you have made!" he said, gallantly. She was not pleased by this innocent speech; she had no desire to be patted on the back, as it were, about her curled strips of paper; she curled them to please herself. She made no reply, save that her nose looked unusually aquiline. "Yes, mother is tremendously industrious in lamplighters," remarked Dolly. "Her only grief is that she cannot send them to the Indian missions. You can send _almost_ everything to the Indian missions; but somehow lamplighters fill no void." "Do you mean the new mission we are to have here--the Indians at the fort?" asked Walter Willoughby. "They are having a big dance to-night." Ruth looked up. "Should you like to see it?" he went on, instantly taking advantage of an opportunity to please her. "Nothing easier. We could watch it quite comfortably, you know, from the ramparts." "I should like it ever so much! Let us go at once, before it is over!" exclaimed Ruth, eagerly. "Ruth! Ruth!" said her mother. "After travelling all day, Mr. Chase may be tired." "Not at all, ma'am," said Chase. "I don't take much stock in Indians myself," he went on, to his wife. "Do you really want to go?" "Oh yes, Horace. Please." "And the commodore will go with _me_," said Mrs. Kip, turning her soft eyes towards Etheridge, who went down before the glance like a house of cards. "But we must take Evangeline Taylor home first," said Mrs. Kip. "We'll go round by way of Andalusia, commodore. It would never do to let her see an Indian dance at _her_ age," she added, affectionately, lifting her hand high to pat her daughter's aerial cheek. "It would make her tremble like a babe." "Oh, _did_ you hear her 'baddish'!" said Dolly, as, a few minutes later, they went up the steps that led to the sea-wall, Chase and Walter Willoughby, Ruth and herself. "And did you hear her 'boat-drive'? She has become so densely confused by hearing Achilles Larue inveigh against the use of 'ride' for 'drive' that now she thinks everything must be drive." Chase and Walter Willoughby smiled; but not unkindly. There are some things which the Dolly Franklins of the world are incapable, with all their cleverness, of comprehending; one of them is the attraction of a sweet fool. The sea-wall of St. Augustine stretches, with its smooth granite coping, along the entire front of the old town, nearly a mile in length. On the land side its top is but four or five feet above the roadway; towards the water it presents a high, dark, wet surface, against which comes the wash of the ocean, or rather of the inlet; for the harbor is protected by a long, low island lying outside. It is this island, called Anastasia, that has the ocean beach. The walk on top of the wall is just wide enough for two. Walter Willoughby led the way with Dolly, and Chase and his wife followed, a short distance behind. Walter thought Miss Franklin tiresome. With the impatience of a young fellow, he did not care for her clever talk. He was interested in clever men; in woman he admired other qualities. He had spent ten days in Asheville during the preceding summer in connection with Chase's plans for investment there, and he had been often at L'Hommedieu during his stay; but he had found Genevieve more attractive than Dolly--Genevieve and Mrs. Kip. For Mrs. Kip, since her second widowhood, had spent her summers at Asheville, for the sake of "the mountain atmosphere;" ("which means Achilles atmosphere," Mrs. Franklin declared). This evening Walter had felt a distinct sense of annoyance when Dolly had announced her intention of going with them to see the Indian dance, for this would arrange their party in twos. He had no desire for a tête-à-tête with Dolly, and neither did he care for a tête-à-tête with Ruth; his idea had been to accompany Mr. and Mrs. Chase as a third. However, he made the best of it; Walter always did that. He had the happy faculty of getting all the enjoyment possible out of the present, whatever it might be. Postponing, therefore, to the next day his plan for making himself agreeable to the Chases, he led the way gayly enough to the fort. Fort San Marco is the most imposing ancient structure which the United States can show. Begun in the seventeenth century, when Florida was a province of Spain, it has turrets, ramparts, and bastions, a portcullis and barbacan, a moat and drawbridge. Its water-battery, where once stood the Spanish cannon, looks out to sea. Having outlived its use as a fortification, it was now sheltering temporarily a band of Indians from the far West, most of whom had been sentenced to imprisonment for crime. With the captives had come their families, for this imprisonment was to serve also as an experiment; the red men were to be instructed, influenced, helped. At present the education had not had time to progress far. The large square interior court, open to the sky, was to-night lighted by torches of pine, which were thrust into the iron rings that had served the Spaniards for the same purpose long before. The Indians, adorned with paint and feathers, were going through their wild evolutions, now moving round a large circle in a strange squatting attitude, now bounding aloft. Their dark faces, either from their actual feelings or from the simulated ferocity appropriate to a war-dance, were very savage, and with their half-naked bodies, their whoops and yells, they made a picture that was terribly realistic to the whites who looked on from the ramparts above, for it needed but little imagination to fancy a _bona fide_ attack--the surprise of the lonely frontier farm-house, with the following massacre and dreadful shrieks. Ruth, half frightened, clung to her husband's arm. Mrs. Kip, after a while, began to sob a little. "I'm _thinking_--of the _wo-women_ they have probably _scalped_ on the _pla-ains_" she said to Etheridge. "What?" he asked, unable to hear. "Never mind; we'll _convert_ them," she went on, drying her eyes hopefully. For a Sunday-school was to be established at the fort, and she had already promised to take a class. But Dolly was on the side of the Indians. "The crimes for which these poor creatures are imprisoned here are nothing but virtues upside down," she shouted. "They killed white men? Of course they did. Haven't the white men stolen all their land?" "But we're going to _Christianize_ them," yelled Mrs. Kip, in reply. They were obliged to yell, amid the deafening noise of the dance and the whoopings below. Ruth had a humorous remark ready, when suddenly her husband, to Walter's amusement, put his hand over her lips. She looked up at him, laughing. She understood. "Funniest thing in the world," he had once said to her, "but the more noise there is, the more incessantly women _will_ talk. Ever noticed? They are capable of carrying on a shrieking conversation in the cars all day long." The atmosphere grew dense with the smoke from the pitch-pine torches, and suddenly, ten minutes later, Dolly fainted. This in itself was not alarming; with Dolly it happened not infrequently. But under the present circumstances it was awkward. "Why did you let her come? I was amazed when I saw her here," said Etheridge, testily. For Etheridge was dead tired. He hated the Indians; he detested the choking smoke; he loathed open ramparts at this time of night. Ruth and Mrs. Franklin had themselves been surprised by Dolly's desire to see the dance. But they always encouraged any wish of hers to go anywhere; such inclinations were so few. Walter Willoughby, meanwhile, prompt as ever, had already found a vehicle--namely, the phaeton of Captain March, the army officer in charge of the Indians; it was waiting outside to take Mrs. March back to the Magnolia Hotel. "The captain lends it with pleasure; as soon, therefore, as Miss Franklin is able, I can drive her home," suggested Walter. But Chase, who knew through his wife some of the secrets of Dolly's suffering, feared lest she might now be attacked by pain; he would not trust her to a careless young fellow like Walter. "I'll take her myself," he said. "And Ruth, you can come back with the others, along the sea-wall." Dolly, who had recovered consciousness, protested against this arrangement. But her voice was only a whisper; Chase, paying no attention to it, lifted her and helped her down to the phaeton. He was certainly the one to do it, so he thought; his wife's sister was his sister as well. It was a pity that she was not rather more amiable. But that made no difference regarding one's duty towards her. The others also left the ramparts, and started homeward, following the sea-wall. This granite pathway is not straight; it curves a little here and there, adapting itself to the line of the shore. To-night it glittered in the moonlight. It was high tide, and the water also glittered as it came lapping against the stones waveringly, so that the granite somehow seemed to waver, too. Etheridge was last, behind Mrs. Kip. He did not wish to make her dizzy by walking beside her, he said. Suddenly he descended. On the land side. Mrs. Kip, hearing the thud of his jump, turned her head, surprised. And then the commodore (though he was still staggering) held out his hand, saying, "We get off here, of course; it is much our nearest way. That's the reason I stepped down," he carelessly added. Mrs. Kip had intended to follow the wall as far as the Basin. But she always instinctively obeyed directions given in a masculine voice. If there were two masculine voices, she obeyed the younger. In this case the younger man did not speak. She acquiesced, therefore, in the elder's sharp "Come!" For poor Etheridge had been so jarred by his fall that his voice had become for the moment falsetto. Mrs. Chase and Walter Willoughby, thus deserted, continued on their way alone. It was a beautiful night. The moon lighted the water so brilliantly that the flash of the light-house on Anastasia seemed superfluous; the dark fort loomed up in massive outlines; a narrow black boat was coming across from the island, and, as there was a breeze, the two Minorcans it carried had put up a rag of a sail, which shone like silver. "How fast they go!" said Ruth. "Would you like to sail home?" asked Walter. He did not wait for her answer, for, quick at divination, he had caught the wish in her voice. He hailed the Minorcans; they brought their boat up to the next flight of water-steps; in two minutes from the time she had first spoken, Ruth, much amused by this unexpected adventure, was sailing down the inlet. "Oh, how wet! I didn't think of that," Walter had exclaimed as he saw the water in the bottom of the boat; and with a quick movement he had divested himself of his coat, and made a seat of it for her in the driest place. She had had no time to object, they were already off; she must sit down, and sit still, for their tottlish craft was only a dugout. Walter, squatting opposite, made jocular remarks about his appearance as he sat there in his shirt-sleeves. It was never difficult for Ruth to laugh, and presently, as the water gained on her companion in spite of all his efforts, she gave way to mirth. She laughed so long that Walter began to feel that he knew her better, that he even knew her well. He laughed himself. But he also took the greatest pains at the same time to guard her pretty dress from injury. The breeze and the tide were both in their favor; they glided rapidly past the bathing-house, the Plaza, the Basin, and the old mansion which Chase had taken. Then Walter directed the Minorcans towards another flight of water-steps. "Here we are," he said. "And in half the time it would have taken us if we had walked. We have come like a shot." He took her to her mother's door. Then, pretty wet, with his ruined coat over his arm, he walked back along the sea-wall to the St. Augustine Hotel. CHAPTER IX Two weeks later Mrs. Kip gave an afternoon party for the Indians. Captain March had not been struck by her idea that the sight of "a lady's quiet home" would have a soothing effect upon these children of the plains. Mrs. Kip had invited the whole band, but the captain had sent only a carefully selected half-dozen in charge of the interpreter. And he had also added, uninvited, several soldiers from the small force at his disposal. Mrs. Kip was sure that these soldiers were present "merely for form." There are various kinds of form. Captain March, having confided to the colonel who commanded at the other end of the sea-wall, that he could answer for the decorum of his six "unless the young ladies get hold of them," a further detachment of men had arrived from St. Francis Barracks; for the colonel was aware that the party was to be largely feminine. The festivities, therefore, went on with double brilliancy, owing to the many uniforms visible under the trees. These trees were magnificent. Mrs. Kip occupied, as tenant, the old Buckingham Smith place, which she had named Andalusia. Here, in addition to the majestic live-oaks, were date-palms, palmettoes, magnolias, crape-myrtles, figs, and bananas, hedges of Spanish-bayonet, and a half-mile of orange walks, which resembled tunnels through a glossy-green foliage, the daylight at each end looking like a far-away yellow spot. All this superb vegetation rose, strangely enough to Northern eyes, from a silver-white soil. It was a beautiful day, warm and bright. Above, the sky seemed very near; it closed down over the flat land like a soft blue cover. The air was full of fragrance, for both here and in the neighboring grove of Dr. Carrington the orange-trees were in bloom. Andalusia was near the San Sebastian border of the town, and to reach it on foot one was obliged to toil through a lane so deep in sand that it was practically bottomless. There was no toil, however, for Mrs. Horace Chase; on the day of the party she arrived at Andalusia in a phaeton drawn by two pretty ponies. She was driving, for the ponies were hers. Her husband was beside her, and, in the little seat behind, Walter Willoughby had perched himself. It was a very early party, having begun with a dinner for the Indians at one o'clock; Mr. and Mrs. Chase arrived at half-past two. Dressed in white, Mrs. Kip was hovering round her dark-skinned guests. When she could not think of anything else to do, she shook hands with them; she had already been through this ceremony eight times. "If I could only speak to them in their own tongue!" she said, yearningly. And the long sentences, expressive of friendship, which she begged the interpreter to translate to them, would have filled a volume. The interpreter, a very intelligent young man, obeyed all her requests with much politeness. "Tell them that we _love_ them," said Mrs. Kip. "Tell them that we think of their _souls_." The interpreter bowed; then he translated as follows: "The white squaw says that you have had enough to eat, and more than enough; and she hopes that you won't make pigs of yourselves if anything else is offered--especially Drowning Raven!" The Chases and Walter Willoughby had come to the Indian party for a particular purpose, or rather Walter had asked the assistance of the other two in carrying out a purpose of his own, which was to make Mrs. Kip give them a ball. For Andalusia possessed a capital room for dancing. The room was, in fact, an old gymnasium--a one-story building near the house. Mrs. Kip was in the habit of lending this gymnasium for tableaux and Sunday-school festivals; to-day it had served as a dining-room for the Indians. Walter declared that with the aid of flags and flowers the gymnasium would make an excellent ball-room; and as the regimental band had arrived at St. Francis Barracks that morning for a short stay, the mistress of Andalusia must be attacked at once. "We'll go to her Indian party, and compliment her out of her shoes," he suggested. "You, Mrs. Chase, must be struck with her dress. I shall simply make love to her. And let me see--what can you do?" he went on, addressing Chase. "I have it; you can admire her chiefs." "Dirty lot!" Chase answered. "I'd rather admire the hostess." But the six Indians were not at all dirty; they had never been half so clean since they were born; they fairly shone with soap and ablutions. Dressed in trousers and calico shirts, with moccasins on their feet, and their black hair carefully anointed, they walked, stood, or sat in a straight row all together, according to the strongly emphasized instructions which they had received before setting out. Two old warriors, one of them the gluttonous Drowning Raven reproved by the interpreter, grinned affably at everything. The others preserved the dignified Indian impassiveness. Soon after his arrival, Walter, who had paid his greetings upon entering, returned to his fair hostess. "I hear you have a rose-tree that is a wonder, Mrs. Kip; where is it?" Mrs. Kip began to explain. "Go through the first orange-walk. Then turn to the right. Then--" "I am afraid I can't remember. Take me there yourself," said Walter, calmly. "Oh, I ought to be here, I think. People are still coming, you know," answered the lady. Then, as he did not withdraw his order, "Well," she said, assentingly. They were absent twenty minutes. When they returned, the soft brown eyes of the widow had a partly pleased, partly deprecatory expression. Another young man in love with her! What could she do to prevent these occurrences? Walter, meanwhile, had returned to Mr. and Mrs. Chase. "It's all right," he said to Ruth. "The ball will come off to-morrow night. Impromptu." "Well, you _have_ got cheek!" commented Chase. Mrs. Kip herself soon came up. "Ruth, dear, do you know that the artillery band is only to stay a short time? My gymnasium has a capital floor; what do you say to an impromptu dance there to-morrow night? I've just thought of it; it's my own idea entirely." "Now what made her lug in that unnecessary lie at the end?" inquired Chase, in a reasoning tone, when their hostess, after a few minutes more of conversation, had returned to her duties. "It's of no importance to anybody whose idea it was. That's what I call taking trouble for nothing!" "If you believe your lie, it's no longer a lie," answered Walter; "and she believes hers. A quarter of a minute after a thing has happened, a woman can often succeed in convincing herself that it happened not _quite_ in that way, but in another. Then she tells it in _her_ way forever after." Chase gave a yawn. "Well, haven't you had about enough of this fool business?" he said to his wife, using the words humorously. "I am ready to go whenever you like," she answered. For if he allowed her to arrange their days as she pleased, she, on her side, always yielded to his wishes whenever he expressed them. "I'll go and see if the ponies have come," he suggested, and he made his way towards the gate. "You don't give us a very nice character," Ruth went on to Walter. "About fibs, do you mean? I only said that you ladies have very powerful beliefs. Proof is nothing to you; faith is all. There is another odd fact connected with the subject, Mrs. Chase, and that is that an absolutely veracious woman, one who tells the exact, bare, cold truth on all occasions and nothing more; who never exaggerates or is tempted to exaggerate, by even a hair's-breadth--who is never conscious that she is coloring things too rosily--such a woman is somehow a very uninteresting person to men! I can't explain it, and it doesn't seem just. But it's so. Women of that sort (for they exist--a few of them) move through life very admirably; but quite without masculine adorers." Then he stopped himself. "I'm not here, however, to discuss problems with her," he thought. "Several hours more of daylight; let me see, what can I suggest next to amuse her?" This young man--he was twenty-seven--had had an intention in seeking St. Augustine at this time; he wished to become well acquainted, if possible intimate, with the enterprising member of his uncle's firm. He had some money, but not much. His father, the elder Walter, had been the one black sheep of the Willoughby flock, the one spendthrift of that prudent family circle. After the death of the prodigal, Richard and Nicholas had befriended the son; the younger Walter was a graduate of Columbia; he had spent eighteen months in Europe; and when not at college or abroad, he had lived with his rich uncles. But this did not satisfy him, he was intensely ambitious; the other Willoughbys had no suspicion of the reach of this nephew's plans. For his ambitions extended in half a dozen different directions, whereas what might have been called the family idea had moved always along one line. Walter had more taste than his uncles; he knew a good picture when he saw it; he liked good architecture; he admired a well-bound book. But these things were subordinate; his first wish was to be rich; that was the stepping-stone to all the rest. As his uncles had children, he could not expect to be their heir; but he had the advantage of the name and the relationship, and they had already done much by making him, nominally at least, a junior partner in this new (comparatively new) firm--a firm which was, however, but one of their interests. The very first time that Walter had met the Chase of Willoughby & Chase he had made up his mind that this was the person he needed, the person to give him a lift. Richard and Nicholas were too cautious, too conservative, for daring enterprises, for outside speculations; in addition, they had no need to turn to things of that sort. Their nephew, however, was in a hurry, and here, ready to his hand, appeared a man of resources; a man who had made one fortune in a baking-powder, another by the bold purchase of three-quarters of an uncertain silver mine, a third by speculation on a large scale in lumber, while a fourth was now in progress, founded (more regularly) in steamers. At present also there was a rumor that he had something new on foot, something in California; Walter had an ardent desire to be admitted to a part in this Californian enterprise, whatever it might be. But Chase's trip to Europe had delayed any progress he might have hoped for in this direction, just as it had delayed the carrying out of the Asheville speculation. The Chases had returned to New York in November. But immediately (for it had seemed immediately to the impatient junior partner) Chase had been hurried off again, this time to Florida, by his silly wife. Walter did not really mean that Ruth was silly; he thought her pretty and amiable. But as she was gay, restless, fond of change, she had interfered (unconsciously of course) with his plans and his hopes for nearly a year; to call her silly, therefore, was, in comparison, a mild revenge. "What under heaven is the use of her dragging poor Chase 'away down South to the land of the cotton,' when she has already kept him a whole summer wandering about Europe," he had said to himself, discomfited, when he first heard of the proposed Florida journey. The next day an idea came to him: "Why shouldn't I go also? Chase will be sure to bore himself to death down there, with nothing in the world to do. And then I shall be on hand to help him through the eternal sunshiny days! In addition, I may as well try to make myself agreeable to his gadding wife; for, whether she knows it as yet or not, it is evident that _she_ rules the roost." He followed, therefore. But as he came straight to Florida, and as Mr. and Mrs. Chase had stopped _en route_ at Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, Charleston, and Savannah, Walter had been in St. Augustine nearly two weeks before they arrived. So far, all had turned out as he had hoped it would. This was not surprising; for young Willoughby was, not merely in manner, but also in reality, a good-natured, agreeable fellow, full of life, fond of amusement. He was ambitious, it is true. But he was as far as possible from being a drudging money-maker. He meant to carry out his plans, but he also meant to enjoy life as he went along. He had noticed, even as far back as the time of the wedding, that the girl whom Horace Chase was to marry had in her temperament both indolence and activity; now one of these moods predominated, now the other. As soon, therefore, as Mr. and Mrs. Chase were established in their St. Augustine house, he let himself go. Whenever the young wife's mood for activity appeared to be uppermost, he opened a door for it; he proposed an excursion, an entertainment of some sort. Already, under his leadership, they had sailed down the Matanzas River (as the inlet is called) to see the old Spanish lookout; they had rowed up Moultrie Creek; they had sent horses across to Anastasia Island and had galloped for miles southward down the hard ocean beach. They had explored the barrens; they had had a bear-hunt; they had camped out; they had caught sharks. On these occasions they had always been a party of at least four, and often of seven, when Mrs. Franklin and Dolly, Mrs. Kip and Commodore Etheridge joined in the excursion. Dolly in particular had surprised everybody by her unexpected strength; she had accompanied them whenever it had been possible. When it was not, she had urged her mother to take the vacant place. "Do go, His Grand, so that you can tell me about it. For it does amuse me so!" Walter's latest inspiration, the ball at Andalusia, having been arranged, he now suggested that they should slip out unobserved and finish the afternoon with a sail. "I noticed the _Owl and the Pussycat_ moored at the pier as we came by," he said. "If she is still there, Paul Archer is at the club, probably, and I can easily borrow her." "Anything to get away from these Apaches," Chase answered. "And I'm a good deal afraid, too, of that Evangeline Taylor! She has asked me three times, with such a voice from the tombs, if I feel well to-day, that she has turned me stiff." "Why on earth does that girl make such _awful_ face?" inquired Walter. Ruth gave way to laughter. "I can never make you two believe it, but it is really her deep sense of duty. She thinks that she ought to look earnest, or intelligent, or grateful, or whatever it may be, and so she constantly tries new ways to do it." "What way is it when she glares at a fellow's collar for fifteen minutes steadily," said Walter; "at close range?" "She _never_ did!" protested Ruth. "Yes--in the tea-room; _my_ collar. And every now and then she gave a ghastly smile." "She didn't know it was your collar; she was simply fixing her eyes upon a point in space, as less embarrassing than looking about. And she smiled because she thought she ought to, as it is a party." "A point in space! My collar!" grumbled Walter. At the gate they looked back for a moment. The guests, nearly a hundred in number, had gathered in a semicircle under a live-oak; they were gazing with fresh interest at the Indians, who had been drawn up before them. The six redskins were still in as close a row as though they had been handcuffed together; the serious spinsters had failed entirely in their attempts to break the rank, and have a gentle word with one or two of them, apart. The Rev. Mr. Harrison, who was to make an address, now advanced and began to speak; the listeners at the gate could hear his voice, though they were too far off to catch the words. The voice would go on for a minute or two, and pause. Then would follow the more staccato accents of the interpreter. "The horse-joke comes in, Walter, when that interpreter begins," said Chase. "Who knows what he is saying?" The interpreter, however, made a very good speech. It was, perhaps, less spiritual than Mr. Harrison's. It turned out afterwards that the thing which had made the deepest impression upon the Apaches was not the "lady's quiet home," nor the Sunday-school teachers, nor the cabinet-organ, nor even the dinner; it was the extraordinary length of "the young-squaw-with-her-head-in-the-sky," as they designated Evangeline Taylor. Ruth drove her ponies down to the Basin. The little yacht called the _Owl and the Pussycat_ was still moored at the pier; but Paul Archer, her owner, was not at the club, as Walter had supposed; he had gone to the Florida House to call upon some friends. Commodore Etheridge was in the club-room; he was forcing himself to stay away from Andalusia, for he had an alarming vision of its mistress, dressed in white, with the sunshine lighting up her sea-shell complexion and bringing out, amorously, the rich tints of her hair. Delighted to have something to do, he immediately took charge of Walter. "Write a line, Mr. Willoughby; write a line on your card, and our porter shall take it to the Florida House at once. In the meanwhile Mr. and Mrs. Chase can wait here. Not a bad place to wait in, Mrs. Chase? Simple, you see. Close to nature. And nature's great restorer" (for two of the club-men were asleep). The room was close to restorers of all sorts, for the land front was let to a druggist. The house stood on the wooden pier facing the little Plaza, across whose grassy space the old Spanish cathedral and the more modern Episcopal church eyed each other without rancour. The Plaza's third side was occupied by the post-office, which had once been the residence of the Spanish governor. The club-room was a large, pleasant apartment, with windows and verandas overlooking the water. There was a general straightening up of lounging attitudes when Mrs. Chase came in. Etheridge had already introduced Horace Chase to everybody at the club, and Chase, in his turn, had introduced almost everybody to his wife. The club, to a man, admired Mrs. Chase; while she waited, therefore, she held a little court. The commodore, meanwhile, kindly took upon himself, as usual, the duty of entertaining the Bubble. "Mr. Willoughby need not have gone to the Florida House in person; our porter could perfectly well have taken a note, as I suggested. Capital fellow, our porter; I never come South, Mr. Chase, without being struck afresh with the excellence of the negroes as servants; they are the best in the world; they're born for it!" "That's all right, if they're willing," Chase answered. "But not to force 'em, you know. That slave-market in the Plaza, now--" "Oh Lord! Slave-market! Have _you_ got hold of that story too?" interposed Etheridge, irritably. "It was never anything but a fish-market in its life! But I'm tired of explaining it; that, and the full-length skeleton hanging by its neck in an iron cage in the underground dungeon at the fort--if they're not true, they ought to be; that's what people appear to think! '_Si non ee veero, ee ben trovatoro_,' as the Italians say. And speaking of the fort, I suppose you have been to that ridiculous Indian party at Andalusia to-day? Mrs. Kip must have looked grotesque, out-of-doors? In white too, I dare say?" "Grotesque? Why, she's pretty," answered Chase. "Not to my eye," responded Etheridge, determinedly. "She has the facial outlines of a frog. Do you know the real reason why I didn't marry? I couldn't endure, sir, the prospect of an old woman's face opposite mine at table year after year. For our women grow old so soon--" As he brought this out, a dim remembrance of having said it to Horace Chase before came into his mind. Had he, or had he not? Chase's face betrayed nothing. If he had, what the devil did the fellow mean by not answering naturally, "Yes, you told me?" Could it be possible that he, Anthony Etheridge, had fallen into a habit of repeating?--So that people were accustomed--? He went off and pretended to look at a file of porpoises, who were going out to sea in a long line, like so many fat dark wheels rolling through the water. Chase, left alone, took up a newspaper. But almost immediately he threw it down, saying, "Well, I didn't expect to see _you_ here!" The person whom he addressed was a stranger, who came in at this moment, brought by a member of the club. He shook hands with Chase, and they talked together for a while. Then Chase crossed the room, and, smiling a little as he noted the semicircle round his wife, he asked her to come out and walk up and down the pier while they waited for Willoughby. Once outside, he said: "Ruthie, I want to have a talk with Patterson, that man you saw come in just now. I'm not very keen about sailing, anyhow. Will you let me off this time?" "Oh yes; I don't care about going," Ruth answered. "You needn't give it up because I do," said her husband, kindly; "you like to sail. Take the ancient swell in my place. He will be delighted to go, for it will make him appear so young. Just Ruth, Anthony, and Walter--three gay little chums together!" As Chase had predicted, the commodore professed himself "enchanted." He went off smilingly in Paul Archer's yacht, whose device of an owl and pussycat confounded the practically minded, while to the initiated--the admirers of those immortal honey-mooners who "ate with a runcible spoon"--it gave delight; a glee which was increased by the delicate pea-green hue of the pretty little craft. But in spite of his enchantment, the commodore soon brought the boat back. He had taken the helm, and, when he had shown himself and his young companions to everybody on the sea-wall; when he had dashed past the old fort; and then, putting about, had gone beating across the inlet to the barracks, he turned the prow towards the yacht club again. It was the hour for his afternoon whist, and he never let anything interfere with that. The excursion, therefore, had been a short one, and, as Walter walked home with Mrs. Chase, she lingered a little. "It's too early to go in," she declared. As they passed the second pier, a dilapidated construction with its flooring gone, she espied a boat she knew. "There is the _Shearwater_ just coming in. I am sure Mr. Kean would lend it to us. Don't you want to go out again?" The _Shearwater_ was an odd little craft, flat on the water, with a long, pointed, covered prow and one large sail. Ruth knew it well, for Mr. Kean was an old friend of the Franklin's, and, in former winters, he had often taken her out. "My object certainly is to please her," Walter said to himself. "But she _does_ keep one busy. Well, here goes!" Mr. Kean lent his boat, and presently they were off again. "Take me as far as the old light-house," Ruth suggested. "Easy enough going; but the getting back will be another matter," Walter answered. "We should have to tack." "I like tacking. I insist upon the light-house," Mrs. Chase replied, gayly. The little boat glided rapidly past the town and San Marco; then turned towards the sea. For the old light-house, an ancient Spanish beacon, was on the ocean side of Anastasia. "We can see it now. Isn't this far enough?" Walter asked, after a while. "No; take me to the very door; I've made a vow to go," Ruth declared. "But at this rate we shall never get back. And when we do, your husband, powerfully hungry for his delayed dinner, will be sharpening the carving-knife on the sea-wall!" "He is more likely to be sharpening pencils at the Magnolia. He is sure to be late himself; in fact, he told me so; for he has business matters to talk over with that Mr. Patterson." Walter had not known, until now, the name of the person who had carried off Chase; he had supposed that it was some ordinary acquaintance; he had no idea that it was the Chicago man whose name he had heard mentioned in connection with Chase's California interests. "David Patterson, of Chicago?" he asked. "Is he going to stay?" "No; he leaves to-morrow morning, I believe," replied Ruth, in an uninterested tone. "And here I am, sailing all over creation with this insatiable girl, when, if I had remained at the club, perhaps Chase would have introduced me; perhaps I might even have been with them now at the Magnolia," Walter reflected, with intense annoyance. At last she allowed him to put about. The sun was sinking out of sight. Presently the after-glow gave a second daylight of deep gold. Down in the south the dark line of the dense forest rose like a range of hills. The perfume from the orange groves floated seaward and filled the air. "I used to believe that I liked riding better than anything," remarked Ruth. "But ever since that little rush we had together in the dugout--do you remember? the night we arrived?--ever since then, somehow, sailing has seemed more delicious! For one thing, it's lazier." They were seated opposite each other in the small open space, Walter holding the helm with one hand, while with the other he managed the sail, and Ruth leaning back against the miniature deck. Presently she began to sing, softly, Schubert's music set to Shakespeare's words: "'Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise--'" "Not the lark already?" asked Walter. He was exerting all his skill, but their progress was slow; the _Shearwater_ crossed and recrossed, crossed and recrossed, gaining but a few feet in each transit. "'Arise! arise! My lady sweet, arise!'" sang Ruth. "Do you think I could get a rise out of those Minorcans?" suggested her companion, indicating a fishing-boat at a little distance. "Perhaps they could lend me some oars. I was a great fool to come out without them!" "Oh, don't get oars; that would spoil it. The tide has turned, and the wind is dying down; we can float slowly in. Everything is exactly right, and I am perfectly happy!" Walter, his mind haunted by that vision of Chase and Patterson at the Magnolia, did not at first take in what she had said. Then, a minute or two afterwards, her phrase returned to him, and he smiled; it seemed so naïve. "It's delightful, in a discontented world, to hear you say that, Mrs. Chase. Is it generally, or in particular, that you are so blissful? St. Augustine? or life as a whole?" "Both," replied Ruth, promptly. "For I have everything I like--and I like so many things! And everybody does whatever I want them to do. Why, you yourself, Mr. Willoughby! Because I love to dance, you have arranged that ball for to-morrow night. And when I asked you to take me out this second time in the _Shearwater_, you did it at once." "Ah, my lady, with your blue eyes and dark lashes, you little know why!" thought Walter, with an inward laugh. At last he got the boat up to the dilapidated pier again. It was long after dark. He took her to her door, and left her; she must explain her late arrival in her own way. Women, fortunately, are excellent at explanations. But Chase was not there. Twenty minutes afterwards he came in, late in his turn. "You didn't have dinner, Ruthie? I'm sorry you waited; I was detained." "I was very late myself," Ruth answered. "Even now I can't stay," Chase went on, hurriedly; "I came back to tell you, and to get a few things. I am going up to Savannah with Patterson for three or four days, on business. We are to have a special--a mule special--this evening, and hit a steamer. You'd better have your mother to stay with you while I'm away." "Yes. To-morrow." "She could come to-night, couldn't she?" "Yes; but it's late; I won't make her turn out to-night. With seven servants in the house, I am not afraid," Ruth answered. "I only thought you might be lonely?" "I'll sing all my songs to Petie Trone, Esq." He laughed and kissed her. "You must come back soon," she said. When he had gone she went up-stairs and changed her dress for a long, loose costume of pale pink tint, covered with lace; then, returning, she rang for dinner. Here, as in New York, there was a housekeeper, who relieved the young wife of all care. The dinner, in spite of the long postponement, was excellent; it was also dainty, for the housekeeper had learned Mrs. Chase's tastes. Mrs. Chase enjoyed it. She drank a glass of wine, and dallied over the sweets and the fruit. Afterwards, in the softly lighted drawing-room, she amused herself by singing half a dozen songs. Petie Trone, Esq., the supposed audience, was not fond of music, though the songs were sweet; he slinked out, and going softly up the stairs, deposited himself of his own accord in his basket behind the cheval-glass in the dressing-room. At eleven his mistress came up; she let Félicité undress her, and brush with skilful touch the long, thick mass of her hair. When the maid had gone, she read a little, leaning back in an easy-chair, with a shaded lamp beside her; then, letting the novel slip down on her lap, she sat there, looking about the room. Miss Billy Breeze had marvelled over the luxurious toilet table at L'Hommedieu; here the whole room was like that table. Presently its occupant put out her hand, and drew towards her a small stand which held her jewel-box. For she already had jewels, as Chase liked to buy them for her. He would have covered his wife with diamonds if Mrs. Franklin had not said (during that first visit at Asheville after the marriage), "Ruth is too young to wear diamonds, Mr. Chase; don't you think so?" Chase did not think so; but he had deferred to her opinion--at least, he supposed himself to be deferring to it when he bought only rubies and sapphires and pearls. His wife now turned over these ornaments. She put on the pearl necklace; then she took it off, and held it against her cheek. But she did not spend as much time as usual over the jewels. Often she entertained herself with them for an hour; it had been one of her husband's amusements to watch her. To-night, putting the case aside, she strolled to the window, opened it and looked out. The stars were shining brilliantly overhead; she could hear the soft lapping of the water against the sea-wall. From Anastasia came at intervals the flash of the light-house. "I was over there at sunset," she said to herself as she watched the gleam. Then closing the window, she walked idly to and fro, with her hands clasped behind her. "How happy I am!" she thought; or rather she did not think it, she felt it. She had no desire to sleep; the door of the bedroom stood open behind her, but she did not go in. She sat down on the divan, and let her head fall back among the cushions: "Everything is perfect--perfect. How delightful it is to live!" CHAPTER X Two days after the Indian party at Andalusia, the excursion which Mrs. Kip had called a "boat-drive" came off. Horace Chase was still absent; he had telegraphed to his wife that he could not return before the last of the week. As all the preparations had been made, the excursion was not postponed on his account. Nor was there any reason why it should be. It was not given in honor of his wife, especially; Ruth, after sixteen months of marriage, could hardly be called a bride. In addition, the little winter colony had learned that an hour or two of their leisurely pleasure-making was about as much as this man of affairs could enjoy (some persons said "could endure"); after that his face was apt to betray a vague boredom, although it was evident that (with his usual careful politeness) he was trying to conceal it. Walter Willoughby, meanwhile, was making the best of an annoying situation. He had lost the chance of being introduced to David Patterson, and with it the opportunity of learning something definite, at last, about Chase's Californian interests, and this seemed to him a great misfortune. But there was no use in moaning over it; the course to follow was not still further to lose the five days of Chase's absence in sulking, but to employ them in the only profitable way that was left open (small profit, but better than nothing)--namely, in cementing still further a friendly feeling between himself and Chase's wife, that butterfly young wife who had been the cause of so many of his disappointments. "Every little helps, I suppose," he said to himself, philosophically. "And as the thing she likes best, apparently, is to go and keep going, why, I'll take her own pace and outrace her--the little gad-about!" For, to Walter's eyes, Ruth appeared very young; mentally unformed as yet, child-like. His adjective "little" could, in truth, only be applied to her in this sense, for in actual inches Mrs. Chase was almost as tall as he was. Walter was of medium height, robust and compact. He had a well-shaped, well-poised head, which joined his strong neck behind with no hollow and scarcely a curve. His thick, dark hair was kept very short; but, with his full temples and facial outlines, this curt fashion became him well. He was not called handsome, though his features were clearly cut and firm. His gray eyes were ordinarily rather cold. But when he was animated--and he was usually very animated--young Willoughby looked full of life. He was fond of pleasure, fond of amusement. But this did not prevent his possessing, underneath the surface, a resolute will, which he could enforce against himself as well as against others. He intended to enjoy life. And as, according to his idea, there could be no lasting enjoyment without freedom from the pinch of anxiety about material things, he also intended to get money--first of all to get money. "For a few years, while one is young, to have small means doesn't so much matter," he had told himself. "But when one reaches middle age, or passes it, then, if one has children, care inevitably steps in. There are anxieties, of course, which cannot be prevented. But this particular one can be--with a certain amount of energy, and also of resolute self-control in the beginning. The 'have-a-good-time-while-you-are-young' policy doesn't compensate for having a bad time when you are old, in my opinion. And it's care that makes one old!" Horace Chase had left St. Augustine on Monday. The next evening, at Mrs. Kip's impromptu ball in the gymnasium, the junior partner of Willoughby, Chase, & Company devoted his time to Mrs. Chase with much skill. His attentions remained unobtrusive; he did not dance with her often. The latter, indeed, would not have been possible in any case; for Mrs. Chase was surrounded, from first to last, by all that St. Augustine could offer. Graceful as she was in all her movements, Ruth's dancing was particularly charming. And it was also striking; for, sinuous, lithe, soon excited, she danced because she loved it, danced with unconscious abandon. That night, her slender figure in the white ball dress, that floated backward in the rapid motion, her happy face with the starry eyes and beautiful color coming and going--this made a picture which those who were present remembered long. At ten o'clock she had begun to dance; at two, when many persons were taking leave, she was still on the floor; with her circle of admirers, it was now Mrs. Chase who was keeping up the ball. Her mother, who was staying with her during her husband's absence, had accompanied her to Andalusia. But there was no need to ask whether Mrs. Franklin was tired; Mrs. Franklin was never tired in scenes of gayety; she was as well entertained as her daughter. Walter had danced but twice with Mrs. Chase during the four hours. But always between her dances he had been on hand. If she had a fancy for spending a few moments on the veranda, he had her white cloak ready; if she wished for an ice, it appeared by magic; if there was any one she did not care to dance with, she could always say that she was engaged to Mr. Willoughby. It was in this way, in fact, that Mr. Willoughby had obtained his two dances. The last dance, however, was all his own. It was three o'clock; even the most good-natured chaperons had collected their charges, and the music had ceased. "How sorry I am! I do so long for just one waltz more," said Ruth. She spoke to her mother, but Walter overheard the words. He went across to the musicians (in reality he bribed them); then returning, he said: "I've arranged it, Mrs. Chase. You are to have that one waltz more." A few of the young people, tempted by the revived strains, threw aside their wraps and joined them, but practically they had the floor to themselves. Walter was an expert dancer, skilful and strong; he bore his partner down the long room, guiding her so securely that she was not obliged to think of their course; she could leave that entirely to him, and give herself up to the enjoyment of the motion. As they returned towards the music for the third time, she supposed that he would stop. But he did not; he swept her down again, and in shorter circles that made her, light as she was on her feet, a little giddy. "Isn't this enough?" she asked. But apparently he did not hear her. The floor began to spin. "Please stop," she murmured, her eyes half closing from the increasing dizziness. But her partner kept on until he felt that she was faltering; then, with a final bewildering whirl, he deposited her safely on a bench, and stood beside her, laughing a little. There was no one near them; Mrs. Franklin, Mrs. Kip, and the few who still remained, were at the other end of the room. Ruth, after a moment, began to laugh also, while she pressed her hands over her eyes to help herself see more clearly. "What possessed you?" she said. "Another instant and I should certainly have fallen; I couldn't see a thing!" "No, you wouldn't have fallen, Mrs. Chase; I could have held you up under any circumstances. But I wanted to make you for once acknowledge that we are not all so lethargic as you constantly accuse us of being." "Accuse?" said Ruth, surprised. She was still panting. "Yes, you accuse the whole world; you do nothing _but_ accuse. You are never preoccupied yourself, and so preoccupation in others seems to you stupidity. You are never tired; so the rest of us strike you as owlish and lazy." "Oh, but I'm often lazy myself," protested Ruth. "Precisely. No doubt when you go in for being lazy at all, you carry it further than any poor, dull, reasonable man would ever dream of doing," Walter went on. "I dare say you are capable of lying motionless on a sofa, with a novel, for ten hours at a stretch!" "Ten hours? That's nothing. Ten days," answered Ruth. "I have spent ten days at L'Hommedieu in that way many a time; Maud Muriel used to call it 'lucid stupor.'" "Lucid?" said Walter, doubtfully. "Do you think you can walk?" he went on, as her mirth still continued. "Because the music really has stopped this time, and I see your mother's eyes turning this way. Your laughs are perfectly beautiful, of course. But do they leave you your walking powers?" The musicians, seeing them rise, began suddenly to play again (for his bribe had been a generous one), and he took her back to her mother in a rapid _deux temps_. "Splendid! I like dancing better than anything else in the world," Ruth declared. "I thought it was sailing? However, whatever it is, please make use of me often, Mrs. Chase. When I've nothing to do I become terribly low-spirited: for my uncles are bent upon marrying me!" "Have they selected any special person?" inquired Mrs. Franklin, laughing, as he helped her to put on her cloak. "I think they have their eye on a widow, a widow of thirty-seven with a fortune," answered Walter, with exaggerated gloom. "Will she have you?" "Never in the world!" Walter declared; "that's just it! Why, therefore, should my uncles force me forward--such a tender flower as I am--to certain defeat? It is on that account that I have run away. I have come to hide in Florida--under your protection, Mrs. Chase." The meeting-place for the water-party the next day was St. Francis Barracks--the long, brown structure with pointed gables and deep shady verandas, which stood on the site of an old Spanish monastery, at the south end of the sea-wall. The troops stationed at St. Francis that winter belonged to the First Artillery; to-day the colonel and his family, the captain and his wife, and the two handsome lieutenants took part in the excursion; there were fifty people in all, and many yachts, from the big _Seminole_ down to the little _Shearwater_. Walter had _The Owl and the Pussycat_, and with him embarked Mrs. Franklin with her two daughters, Miss Franklin and Mrs. Chase; Mrs. Lilian Kip; and Commodore Etheridge. At two o'clock the little fleet sped gayly down the Matanzas. "Matanzas, Sebastian, St. Augustine," said Walter; "these names are all in character. It's an awful misfortune for your husband's budding summer resort in the North Carolina mountains, Mrs. Chase, that its name happens to be Asheville, after that stupid custom of tacking the French 'ville' to some man's name; (for I take it that Ashe is a name, and not cinders). In this case, the first settlers were more than usually asinine; for they had the beautiful Indian 'Swannanoa' ready to their hands." "Oh, but first settlers have no love for Indian names," commented Dolly. "How can they have? The Indians and the great forest--these are their enemies. To me there is something touching in our Higgsvilles and Slatervilles. I see the first log cabins in the little clearing; then a short, stump-bedecked street; then two or three streets and a court-house. The Higgs or the Slater was their best man, their leader, the one they looked up to. In North Carolina alone there are one hundred and ten towns or villages with names ending in 'ville.'" "North Carolina? Oh yes, I dare say!" remarked Etheridge. "And two hundred and forty-one in New York," added Dolly. "Well, we make up for it in other ways," said Mrs. Franklin. "If the men name the towns, the women name the children; I have known mothers to produce simply from their own imaginations such titles as Merilla, and Idelusia, for their daughters. I once knew a girl who had even been baptized Damask Rose." "What did they call her for short?" inquired Walter. "Oh, Mr. _Willoughby!_" said Lilian Kip, shocked. "Damask's mother was trying to solace herself with names, I fancy," Mrs. Franklin went on, "because by the terms of her husband's will (she was a widow), she forfeited all she had if she married again." "How outrageous?" exclaimed Mrs. Kip, bristling into vehemence. "If a woman has been a good wife to one man, is that any reason why she should be denied the _privilege_ of being a good wife to another?" "Privilege?" repeated Dolly. "Surely there is no greater one," said Mrs. Kip, with a sigh. "Love is so beautiful! And it is such a benefit! The more one loves, the better, I think. And the more _persons_ one loves, the more sweet and generous one's nature becomes. If any one has been bereaved, I am always _so_ glad to hear that they are in love again. Even if the love is unreturned" (here she gave a little swallow), "I still think it in itself the greatest blessing we have; and the most improving." After a friendly race towards the south, the fleet turned and came back; the company disembarked and walked across the narrow breadth of Anastasia Island to the ocean beach, where, at the Spanish light-house, the collation was to be served later in the day. The old beacon stood, at high tide, almost in the water; for, in two hundred years, the ocean had encroached largely upon the shore. Its square stone tower, which had been topped in the Spanish days with an iron grating and a bonfire, now displayed a revolving light, which flashed and then faded, flashed and faded, signalling out to sea the harbor of St. Augustine. Under the tower stood a coquina house for the keeper, and the whole was fortified, having a defensive wall, with angles and loop-holes. Nothing could have been more beautiful than the soft sapphire tint of the ocean, whose long rollers, coming smoothly in, broke with a musical wash upon the broad white beach which, firm as a pavement, stretched towards the south in long curves. Not a ship was in sight. Overhead sailed an eagle. "Oh, why did we land so soon?" said Ruth, regretfully. "We might have stayed out two hours longer. For we are not to have the supper--or is it the dinner?--at any rate, it's chowder--until sunset." "We can go out again, if you like," said Walter. Here Etheridge came up. The implacably clear light which comes from a broad expanse of sea was revealing every minute line in Mrs. Franklin's delicate face. "How wrinkled she looks!" was his self-congratulatory thought. "Even fifteen years ago she was finished--done!" Then he added, aloud: "I think I'll accompany you, if you _are_ going out again. The afternoon promises to be endlessly long here, with nothing to do but gawp for sea-beans, or squawk poetry!" This strenuous description of some of the amusements already in progress on the beach showed that, in the commodore's plans, something had gone wrong. "Are you really going, commodore?" asked Mrs. Franklin. "Then I'll put Ruth in your charge." "Put me in it, too," said Dolly. "I should much rather sail than sit here." "Oh no, Dolly. You never can take that walk to the landing a second time so soon," said the mother. And so it proved. Dolly started. But, after a few steps, she had to give it up. "I should think _you_ would like to go, His Grand?" she suggested. "I can't. I have promised to see to the chowder," answered Mrs. Franklin. "Sailing and sea-beans and poetry are all very well. But I have noticed that every one grows gloomy when the chowder is bad!" Etheridge, Ruth, and Walter Willoughby, therefore, recrossed the island and embarked. The commodore took the helm. "What boat is that ahead of us?" asked Walter. "Some of our people? Has any one else deserted the sea-beans?" "I dare say," replied Etheridge, carelessly. The commodore could manage a boat extremely well; the _Owl and the Pussycat_ flew after that sail ahead, in a line as straight as a plummet. "Why, it's Mrs. Kip," said Ruth, as they drew nearer. She had recognized the gypsy hat in the other boat. "Yes, with Albert Tillotson," added Walter. "What, that donkey?" inquired Etheridge, with well-feigned surprise (and an anger that required no feigning). "He can no more manage a boat than I can manage a comet! Poor Mrs. Kip is in actual danger of her life. The idea of that Tom Noddy of a Tillotson daring to take her out! I must run this boat up alongside, Mr. Willoughby, and get on board immediately. Common humanity requires it." "The commodore's common humanity is uncommonly like jealousy," said Walter to Ruth when the _Owl_ had dropped behind again after this manoeuvre had been successfully executed. "He is a clever old fellow! Of course he knew she was out, and he came with us on purpose. We'll keep near them, Mrs. Chase, and watch their faces; it will be as good as a play." To his surprise, Ruth, who was generally so ready to laugh, did not pay heed to this. "I am glad he has gone," she said; "for now we need not talk--just sail and sail! Let us go over so far--straight down towards the south." Her eyes had a dreamy expression which was new to him. "What next!" thought her companion. He glanced furtively at his watch. "I can keep on for half an hour more, I suppose." But when, at the end of that time, he put about, Ruth, who had scarcely spoken, straightened herself (she had been lying back indolently, with one hand behind her head), and watched the turning prow with regret. "_Must_ we go back so soon? Why?" "To look for sea-beans," answered Walter. "Are you aware, Mrs. Chase, of the awful significance of that New England phrase of condemnation, 'You don't know beans'? It will be said that _I_ don't know if I take you any farther. For the tide will soon turn, and the wind is already against us." But his tasks were not yet at an end; another idea soon took possession of his companion's imagination. "How wild Anastasia looks from here! I have never landed at this point. Can't we land now, just for a few moments? It would be such fun." "Won't it be more than fun, Mrs. Horace? A wild-goose--? Forgive the pun." On Anastasia there are ancient trails running north and south. Ruth, discovering one of these paths, followed it inland. "I wish we could meet something, I wish we could have an adventure!" she said. "There are bears over here; and there are alligators too at the pools. Perhaps this trail leads to a pool?" The surmise was correct; the path soon brought them within sight of a dark-looking pond, partly covered with lily leaves. Ruth, who was first (for the old Indian trail was so narrow that they could not walk side by side), turned back suddenly. "There really _is_ an alligator," she whispered. "He is half in and half out of the water. I am going to run round through the thicket, so as to have a nearer view of him." And hurrying with noiseless steps along the trail, she turned into the forest. He followed. "Don't be foolhardy," he urged. For she seemed to him so fearless that there was no telling what she might do. But when they reached the opposite side of the pool no alligator was visible, and Ruth, seating herself in the loop of a vine, which formed a natural swing, laughed her merriest. "You are an excellent actress," he said. "I really believed that you had seen the creature." "And if I had? They don't attack people; they are great cowards." "I have an admirable air of being more timid than she is!" he thought, annoyed. They returned towards the shore along a low ridge. On their way he saw something cross this ridge about thirty feet ahead of them--a slender dark line. He ran forward and looked down (for the ridge was four feet high). "Come quickly!" he called back to Ruth. "Your alligator was a base invention. But here is something real. He is hardly more than an infant," he continued, his eyes still fixed on the lower slope. "But he is of the blood royal, I can tell by the shape of his neck. I'll get a long branch, Mrs. Chase, and then, as you like adventures, you can see him strike." Where they stood, they were safe, for the snake (it was a young rattlesnake) would not come up the ascent; when he moved, he would glide the other way into the thicket. Hastily cutting a long wand from a bush, he gave it to her. "Touch him," he directed; "on the body, not on the head. Then you will see him coil!" He himself kept his eyes meanwhile on the snake; he did not look at her. But the wand did not descend. "Make haste," he urged, "or he will be off!" The wand came down slowly, paused, and then touched the reptile, who instantly coiled himself, reared his flat head, and struck at it with his fangs exposed. Walter, excited and interested, waited to see him strike again. But there was no opportunity, for the wand itself was dropping. He turned. Ruth, her face covered with her hands, was shuddering convulsively. "The snake has gone," he said, reassuringly; "he went off like a shot into the thicket, he is a quarter of a mile away by this time." For he was alarmed by the violence of the tremor that had taken possession of her. In spite of her tremor, she began to run; she hurried like a wild creature along the ridge until she came to a broad open space of white sand, over which no dark object could approach unseen; here she sank down, sobbing aloud. He was at his wits' end. Why should a girl, who apparently had no fear of bears or alligators, be frightened out of her senses by one small snake? "Supposing she should faint--that Dolly is always fainting! What on earth could I do?" he thought. Ruth, however, did not faint. But she sobbed and sobbed as if she could not stop. "It's just like her laughing," thought Walter, in despair. "Dear Mrs. Chase," he said aloud, "I am distracted to see how I have made you suffer. These Florida snakes do very little harm, unless one happens to step on them unawares. I did not imagine, I did not dream, that the mere sight--But that makes no difference; I shall never forgive myself; never!" Ruth looked up, catching her breath. "It was so dreadful!" she murmured, brokenly. "Did you see its--its mouth?" She was so white that even her lips were colorless; her blue eyes were dilated strangely. He grew more and more alarmed. Apparently she saw it, for she tried to control herself; and, after two or three minutes, she succeeded. "You must not mind if I happen to look rather pale," she said, timidly. "I am sometimes very pale for a moment or two. And then I get dreadfully red in the same way. Dolly often speaks of it. But it doesn't mean anything. I can go now," she added, still timidly. "She thinks I am vexed," he said to himself, surprised. He was not vexed; on the contrary, in her pallor and this new shyness she was more interesting to him than she had ever been before. As he knew that they ought to be on their way back, he accepted her offer to start, in spite of her white cheeks. But her steps were so weak, and she still trembled so convulsively, that he drew her hand through his arm and held it. Giving her in this way all the help he could, he took her towards the shore, choosing a route through open spaces, so that there should be no vision of any gliding thing in the underbrush near by. When they were off again, crossing the Matanzas on a long tack, she was still very pallid. "I haven't been clever," he thought. "At present she is unnerved by fright. But by to-morrow it will be anger, and she will say that it was my fault." While thinking of this, he talked on various subjects. But it was a monologue; for a long time Ruth made no answer. Then suddenly the color came rushing back to her cheeks. "_Please_ don't tell--don't tell any one how dreadfully frightened I was," she pleaded. "I never tell anything; I have no talent for narrative," he answered, much relieved to see the returning red. "But I am dreadfully cut up and wretched about that fright I was stupid enough to give you. I wish I could make you forget it, Mrs. Chase; forget it forever." "On the contrary, I am afraid I shall remember it forever," Ruth answered. Then she added, still timidly, "But you were so kind--It won't be _all_ unpleasant." "What a school-girl it is!" thought Walter. "And above all things, what a creature of extremes! She must lead Horace Chase a life! However, she is certainly seductively lovely." CHAPTER XI At the end of this week Horace Chase returned. And the next morning he paid a visit to his mother-in-law. He still used his "ma'am" when talking to her; she still called him "Mr. Chase." In mentioning him to others, she sometimes succeeded in bringing out a "Horace." But when the tall, grave-looking business man was before her in person, she never got beyond the more formal title. "My trip to Savannah, ma'am, was connected with business," Chase began, after he had gone through his usual elaborate inquiries about her health and "the health of Miss Dolly." "One of my friends, David Patterson by name, and myself, have been engaged for some time in arranging a new enterprise in which we are about to embark in California. Matters are now sufficiently advanced for me to mention that about May next we shall need a confidential man in New York to attend to the Eastern part of it. It is highly important to me, ma'am, to have for that position some one I know, some one I can trust. Mr. Patterson will go himself to California, and remain there, probably, a year or more. Meanwhile I, at the East, shall need just the right man under me; for _I_ have other things to see to; I cannot give all my time to this new concern. Do you think, ma'am, that Mr. Franklin could be induced to take this place? Under the circumstances, I should esteem it a favor." And here he made Jared's mother a little bow. "You are very kind," answered Mrs. Franklin. Having refused to know anything of the correspondence between Ruth and Genevieve, she had had until now no knowledge of the proposed New York place. "Jared's present position is certainly most wretched drudgery," she went on; "far beneath his abilities--which are really great." "Just so. And what should you recommend, ma'am, as the best way to open the subject? Shall I take a run up to Raleigh? Or shall I drop him a line? Perhaps you yourself would like to write?" The mother reflected. "If I do," she thought, "Jared will fancy that I have begged the place for him. If Ruth writes, he will be sure of it. If Mr. Chase writes, Jared will answer within the hour--a letter full of jokes and friendliness, but--declining. If Chase goes to Raleigh in person, Jared will decline verbally, and with even more unassailable good-humor. No, there is only one person in the world who could perhaps make him yield, and that person is Genevieve!" At this thought, her face, which always showed like a barometer her inward feelings, changed so markedly that her son-in-law hastened to interpose. "Don't bother about the ways and means, ma'am; I guess I can fix it all right." He spoke in a confident tone, in order to reassure her; for he had a liking for the "limber old lady," as he mentally called her. His confidence, however, was in a large measure assumed; where business matters were in question, the "offishness," as he termed it, of this ex-naval officer had seemed to him such a queer trait that he hardly knew how to grapple with it. "I was only thinking that my daughter-in-law would perhaps be the best person to speak to Jared," replied Mrs. Franklin at last. (The words came out with an effort.) "Gen? So she would; she is very clear-headed. But if she is to be the one, I must first let her know just what the place is, and all about it, and how can that be done, ma'am? Wouldn't Mr. Franklin see my letter?" "No. For she isn't in Raleigh with her husband; she is at Asheville." "Why, how's that?" inquired Chase, who had seen, from the first, Jared's deep attachment to his wife. "How indeed!" thought the mother. Her lips quivered. She compressed them in order to conceal it. The satisfaction which she had, for a time, felt in the idea that Genevieve was learning, at last, that she could not always control her husband--this had now vanished in the sense of her son's long and dreary solitude. For the wife had not been in Raleigh during the entire winter; Jared had been left to endure existence as best he could in his comfortless boarding-house. "My daughter-in-law has been very closely occupied at Asheville," she explained, after a moment. "They are improving their house there, you know, and she can superintend work of that sort remarkably well." "That's so," said Chase, agreeingly. "She is also much interested in a new wing for the Colored Home," pursued Mrs. Franklin; and this time a little of her deep inward bitterness showed itself in her tone. "Gen's pretty cute!" thought Chase. "She's not only feathering her own nest up there in Asheville, but at the same time she is starving out that wrong-headed husband of hers." Then he went on aloud: "Well, ma'am, if it's to be Mrs. Jared who is to attend to the matter for me, I guess I'll wait until I can put the whole thing before her in a nutshell, with the details arranged. That will be pretty soon now--as soon as I come back from California. For I must go to California myself before long." "Are you going to take Ruth? How I shall miss her!" said the mother, dispiritedly. "We shall not be gone a great while--only five or six weeks. On second thoughts, why shouldn't you come along, ma'am?--come along with us? I guess I could fix it so as you'd be pretty comfortable." "You are very kind. But I could not leave Dolly." "Of course not. I didn't mean that, ma'am; I meant that Miss Dolly should come along too. That French woman of Ruth's--Felicity--she's capital when travelling. Or we could have a trained nurse? They have very attractive nurses now, ma'am; real ladies; and good-looking too, and sprightly." "You are always thoughtful," answered Mrs. Franklin, amused by this description. "But it is impossible. Dolly can travel for two or three days, if we take great precautions; but a longer time makes her ill. Ruth is coming to lunch, isn't she? With Malachi? I am so glad you brought him; he doesn't have many holidays." "Well, ma'am, he was there in Savannah, buying a bell, or, rather, getting prices. A church bell, as I understood. He'd about got through, and was going back to Asheville, when I suggested to him to come along down to St. Augustine for three or four days. 'Come and look up your wandering flock'--that is what I remarked to him. For you know, ma'am, that with yourself and Miss Dolly, the commodore and Mrs. Kip, you make four--four of his sheep in Florida; including Miss Evangeline Taylor, four sheep and a first-prize lamb." Mrs. Franklin smiled. But she felt herself called upon to explain a little. "We are not of his flock, exactly; Mr. Hill has a mission charge. But though he is not our rector, we are all much attached to him." "He's a capital little fellow, and works hard; I've great respect for him. But somehow, ma'am, he's taken a queer way lately of stopping short when he is talking. Almost as though he had choked!" "So he has--choked himself off," answered Mrs. Franklin, breaking into a laugh. "When with you, he is constantly tempted to ask for money for the Mission, he says. He knows, however, that the clergy are always accused of paying court to rich men for begging purposes, and he is determined to be an exception. But he finds it uncommonly difficult." "How much does he want?" inquired Chase. Then he paused. "Perhaps his notions take the form of a church?" he went on. "I've been thinking a little of building a church, ma'am. You see, my mother was a great church-goer; she found her principal comfort in it. I've been very far from steady myself, I'm sorry to say; I haven't done much credit to her bringing-up. And so I've thought that I'd put up a church some day, as a sort of memory of her. Because, if she'd lived, she would have liked that better than anything else." "Do you mean an Episcopal church?" inquired Mrs. Franklin, touched by these words. "Well, she was a Baptist herself," Chase replied. "So perhaps I have rather a prejudice in favor of that denomination. But I'm not set upon it; I should think it might be built so as to be suitable for all persuasions. At any rate, I guess Hill and I could hit it off together somehow." Here Dolly came in, and a moment afterwards Ruth appeared with the Rev. Malachi Hill. Dolly greeted the young missionary with cordiality. "How is Asheville?" she inquired. "How is Maud Muriel?" Malachi's radiant face changed. "She is the same. When I see her coming, I do everything I can to keep out of the way. But sometimes there is no corner to turn, or no house to go into, and I _have_ to pass her. And then I know just how she will say it!" And, tightening his lips, he brought out a low "Manikin!" "Brace up," said Dolly. "You must look back at her and look her down; make her falter." "Oh, falter!" repeated poor Malachi, hopelessly. Another guest now appeared--Mrs. Kip. For Mrs. Franklin had invited them all to lunch before the jessamine hunt, which had been appointed for that afternoon. As it happened, Mrs. Kip's first question also was, "How is Miss Mackintosh?" "Unchanged. At least, she treats _me_ with the same contumely," answered the clergyman. "If you indulge yourself with such words as 'contumely,' Mr. Hill, people will call you affected," said Dolly, in humorous warning. "Now, Dolly, don't say that," interposed Mrs. Kip. "For unusual words are full of dignity. I don't know what I wouldn't give if _I_ could bring in, just naturally and easily, when I am talking, such a word, for instance, as jejune! And for clergymen it is especially distinguished. Though there is _one_ clerical word, Mr. Hill, that I do think might be altered, and that is closet. Why should we always be told to meditate in our closets? Generally there is no room for a chair; so all one can think of is people sitting on the floor among the shoes." Every one laughed. Mrs. Kip, however, had made her remark in perfect good faith. The entrance of Walter Willoughby completed the party, and lunch was announced. When the meal was over, and they came back to the parlor, they found Félicité in waiting with Petie Trone, Esq. Félicité, a French woman with a trim waist and large eyes, always looked as though she would like to be wicked. In reality, however, she was harmless, for one insatiable ambition within her swallowed up all else, namely, the ambition not to be middle-aged. As she was forty-eight, the struggle took all her time. "I bring to madame le petit trône for his promenade," she said, as, after a respectful salutation to the company, she detached the leader from the dog's collar. "Must that fat little wretch go with us?" Chase inquired, after the maid had departed. For answer, Ruth took up Mr. Trone and deposited him on her husband's knee. "Yes; and you are to see to him." "Is the squirrel down here too?" inquired Walter. "I haven't seen him." "Robert the Squirrel--" began Chase, with his hands in his trousers pockets; then he paused. "That's just like Robert the Devil, isn't it? I mean an opera, ma'am, of that name that they were giving in New York last winter," he explained to Mrs. Franklin, so that she should not think he was swearing. "Robert the Devil will do excellently well as a nickname for Bob," said Dolly. "It's the best he has had." "Well, at any rate, Robert the Squirrel isn't here," Chase went on. "He boards with Mr. Hill for the winter, Walter; special terms made for nuts. And, by-the-way, Hill, you haven't mentioned Larue; how is the senator? I'm keeping my eye on him for future use in booming our resort, you know. The Governor of North Carolina remarking to the Governor of South Carolina--you've heard that story? Well, sir, what we propose now is to have the _senator_ from North Carolina remark to the senator from South Carolina (and to all the other senators thrown in) that Asheville is bound to be the Lone Star of mountain resorts south of the Catskills." Lilian Kip's heart had given a jump at Larue's name; to carry it off, she took up a new novel which was lying on the table. (For Chase's order had been a perennial one: "all the latest articles in fiction," pursued Mrs. Franklin hotly, month after month.) "Oh, I am sure you don't like _this_," said Lilian, when she had read the title. "I have only just begun it," answered Mrs. Franklin. "But why shouldn't I like it? It is said to be original and amusing." "It is not _at all_ the book I should wish to put into the hands of Evangeline Taylor," replied Mrs. Kip, with decision. "The one unfailing test of the American mother for the entire literature of the world!" commented Dolly. The search for the first jessamine was in those days one of the regular amusements of a St. Augustine winter. Where St. George Street ends, beyond the two pomegranate-topped pillars of the old city gate, Mrs. Franklin's party came upon the other members of the searching expedition, and they all walked on together along the shell road. On the right, Fort San Marco loomed up, with the figures of several Indians on its top outlined against the sky. Beyond shone the white sand-hills of the North Beach. At the end of the road the searchers entered a long range of park-like glades; here the yellow jessamine, the loveliest wild flower of the Florida spring, unfolds its tendrils as it clambers over the trees and thickets, lighting up their evergreen foliage with its bell-shaped flowers. Dolly and Mrs. Franklin had accompanied the party in a phaeton. "I think I can drive everywhere, even without a road, as the ground is so level and open," Dolly suggested. "But you must serve as guide, Ruth. Please keep us in sight." But after a while Ruth forgot this injunction. Mrs. Franklin, always interested in whatever was going on, had already disappeared, searching for the jessamine with the eagerness of a girl. Dolly, finding herself thus deserted, stopped. But her brother-in-law, who had had his eye on her pony from the beginning, soon appeared. "What, alone?" he said, coming up. Upon seeing him, Dolly cleared her brow. "I don't mind it; the glades are so pretty." Chase examined the glades; but without any marked admiration in his glance. "Where is Ruth?" Dolly went on. "Just round the corner--I mean on the other side of that thicket. Walter has found some of the vine they are all hunting for, and she's in a great jubilation over it; she wanted to find it ahead of that Mr. Kean, who always gets it first." "Please tell her to bring me a spray of it. As soon as she can." Assuring himself that the pony felt no curiosity about the absence of a road under his feet, Chase, with his leisurely step, went in search of his wife. He found her catching jessamine, which Walter, who had climbed into a wild-plum tree, was throwing down. She had already adorned herself with the blossoms, and when she saw her husband approaching she went to meet him, and wound a spray round his hat. "Your sister wants some; she told me to tell you. She's back there a little way--on the left," said Chase. "Hullo! here comes a wounded hero;" for Petie Trone, Esq., had appeared, limping dolefully. "Never mind; I'll see to the little porpoise if you want to go to Dolly." He stooped and took up the dog with gentle touch. "He has probably been interviewing some prickly-pears." When Ruth had gone, Walter's interest in the jessamine vanished. He swung himself down to the ground. "Mrs. Chase has been telling me that you are thinking of going to California very soon?" he said, inquiringly. "Yes; I guess we shall get off next week," Chase answered, examining Trone's little paws. "I am going to be very bold," Walter went on. "I am going to ask you to take me with you." Chase's features did not move, but his whole expression altered; the half-humorous look which his face always wore when, in the company of his young wife, he was "taking things easy," as he called it, gave place in a flash to the cool reticence of the man of business. "Take you?" he inquired, briefly. "Why?" And then Willoughby, in the plainest and most direct words (a directness which was not, however, without the eloquence that comes from an intense desire), explained his wish to be admitted to a part, however small, in the California scheme. He allowed himself no reserves; he told the whole story of his father's spendthrift propensities, and his own small means in consequence. "I have a fixed determination to make money, Mr. Chase. I dare say you have thought me idle; but I should not have idled if I had had at any time the right thing to go into. Work? There is literally no amount of work that I should shrink from, if it led towards the fortune upon which I am bent. I can, and I will, work as hard as ever you yourself have worked." "I'm afraid you're looking for a soft snap," said Chase, shifting Mr. Trone to his left arm, and putting his right hand into his trousers pocket, where he jingled a bunch of keys vaguely. "If you will let me come in, even by a little edge only, I am sure you won't regret it," Walter went on. "Can't you recall, by looking back, your own determination to succeed, and how far it carried you, how strong it made you? Well, that is the way I feel to-day! You ought to be able to comprehend me. You've been over the same road." "The same road!" repeated Chase, ironically. "Let's size it up a little. I was taken out of school before I was fourteen--when my father died. From that day I had not only to earn every crumb of bread I ate, but help to earn the bread of my sisters too. Before I was eighteen I had worked at half a dozen different things, and always at the rate of thirteen or fourteen hours a day. By the time I was twenty I was old; I had already lived a long and hard life. Now your side: A good home; every luxury; school; college; Europe!" "You think that because I have been through Columbia, and because I once had a yacht (the yacht was in reality my uncle's), I shall never make a good business man," replied Walter. "Unfortunately, I have no means of proving to you the contrary, unless you will give me the chance I ask for. I don't pretend, of course, to have anything like your talents; they are your own, and unapproached. But I do say that I have ability; I _feel_ that I have." "It's sizzling, is it?" commented Chase. "Why don't you put it into the business you're in already, then; the steamship firm of Willoughby, Chase, & Co.? Boom that; put on steam, and boom it for all you're worth; your uncles and I will see you through. You say you only want a chance; why on earth don't you take the one that lies before you? If you wish to convince me you know something, _that's_ the way." "The steamship concern is too slow for me; I have looked into it, and I know. I might work at it for ten years, and with the small share I have in it I should not be very rich," Walter answered. "I'm in a hurry! I am willing to give everything on my side--all my time and my strength and my brains; but I want something good on the other." "Now you're shouting!" "The steamship firm is routine--regular; that isn't the way you made _your_ money," Walter went on. "My way is open to everybody. It isn't covered by any patent that I know of," remarked Chase, in his dry tones. "Yes, it is," answered Walter, immediately taking him up. "Or rather it was; the Bubble Baking-Powder was very tightly patented." Chase grinned a little over this sally. But he was not moved towards the least concession, and Walter saw that he was not; he therefore played his last card. "I have a great deal of influence with my uncles, I think; especially with my uncle Nicholas." "Put your money on Nicholas Willoughby, and you're safe, every time," remarked Chase, in a general way. "I don't know whether you and Patterson care for more capital in developing your California scheme?" Walter went on. "But if you do, I could probably help you to some." Chase looked at him. The younger man's eyes met his, bright as steel. The millionaire walked over to a block of coquina, which had once formed part of a Spanish house; here he seated himself, established Petie Trone comfortably on his knee, and lifting his hand, tilted back still farther on his head his jessamine-decked hat. "You've been blowing about being able to work, Walter. But we can get plenty of hard workers without letting 'em into the ring. And you've been talking about being sharp. Sharp you may be. But I rather guess that when it comes to _that_, Dave Patterson and I don't need any help. Capital, however, is another matter; it's always another matter. By enlarging our scheme at its present stage by a third (which we could do easily if your uncle Nicholas came in), we should make a much bigger pile." There was no second block of coquina; Walter remained standing. But his compact figure looked sturdy and firm as he stood there beside the other man. "I could not go to my uncle without knowing what I am to tell him," he remarked, after a moment. "Certainly not!" Chase answered. Then, after further reflection (this time Walter did not break the silence), he said: "Well, see here; I may as well state at the outset that unless your uncle will come in to a pretty big tune, we don't want him at all; 'twouldn't pay us; we'd prefer to play it alone. Now your uncles don't strike me as men who would be willing to take risks. You say you have influence with 'em, or rather with Nick. But I've got no proof of that. Of course it's possible; Nick has brought you up; he's got no son--only girls; perhaps he'd be willing to do for you what he'd do for a son of his own; perhaps he really would take a risk, to give you a first-class start. But I repeat that I've no proof of your having the least influence with him. What's more, I've a healthy amount of doubt about it! Oh, I dare say _you_ believe you've got a pull; you're straight as far as that goes. My notion is simply that you're mistaken, that you're barking up the wrong tree; Nicholas ain't that sort! However, as it happens to be the moment when we _could_ enlarge (and double the profits), I'll give you my terms. You have convinced me at least of one thing, and that is that you're very sharp set yourself as to money-making; you want tremendously to catch on. And it's _that_ I'm going to take as my security. In this way. In order to learn whether your uncle Nicholas, to oblige _you_, is willing to come in with Patterson and myself in this affair, you must first know what the affair is (as you very justly remarked); I must therefore tell you the whole scheme--show all my hand. Now, then, if I do this, and your uncle _doesn't_ take it up, then not only you don't get in yourself, but if I see the slightest indication that my confidence has been abused, I sell out of that steamship firm instanter, and, as I'm virtually the firm, you know what that will mean! And the one other property you have--that stock--you'll be surprised to see how it'll go down to next to nothing on the street. 'Twon't hurt _me_, you know. As for you, you'll deserve it all, and more, too, for having been a dunderhead!" "I accept the terms," answered Willoughby. "Under the circumstances, they're not even hard. If I fail, I _am_ a dunderhead!--I shall be the first to say it. But I sha'n't fail." (Even at this moment, though he was intensely absorbed, his eye was struck by the contrast between the keen, hard expression of Horace Chase's face and his flower-decked hat; between the dry tones of his voice and the care with which he still held his wife's little dog, who at this instant, after a long yawn, affectionately licked the hand that held him, ringing by the motion the three small silver bells with which his young mistress had adorned his collar.) "If I am to go to California with you next week, I have no time to lose," he went on, promptly. "For I must first go to New York, of course, to see my uncle." "Well, rather!" interpolated Chase. "Couldn't you tell me now whatever I have to know?" Walter continued. "This is as good a place as any. We might walk off towards that house on the right, near the shore; there is no danger of there being any jessamine _there_." Here Ruth appeared. "Haven't you found any more?" she asked, surprised. "Mr. Willoughby, you pretended to be so much interested! As for you, Horace, where is your spirit? I thought you liked to be first in everything?" "First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen," quoted Chase. "Here--you'd better put your monkey in the phaeton," he went on, passing over Mr. Trone. "He has a little rheumatism in his paw. But you must try to bear it." His voice had again its humorous tones; the penetrating look in his eyes had vanished. His wife standing there, adorned with jessamine, her face looking child-like as she stroked her dog, seemed to change the man of a moment before into an entirely different being. In reality it did not do this; but it brought out another part of his nature, and a part equally strong. Ruth had taken off her gloves; the gems which her husband had given her flashed on her hands as she lifted Mr. Trone to her shoulder and laid her cheek against his little black head. "We are going for a short walk, Willoughby and I," Chase said--"over towards that house on the shore. We'll be back soon." "That house is Dalton's," answered Ruth, looking in that direction. "Mrs. Dalton makes the loveliest baskets, Horace; won't you get me one? They are always a little one-sided, and that makes them much more original, you know, than those that are for sale in town." "Oh, it makes them more original, does it?" repeated Chase. When he returned, an hour later, he brought the basket. Walter Willoughby started that night for New York. CHAPTER XII Seven weeks after she had searched for the first jessamine, Ruth Chase was again at St. Augustine. But in the meanwhile she had made a long journey, having accompanied her husband to California. Chase had unexpectedly come back to Florida, to see David Patterson. When he reached New York on his return from the West, and learned that Patterson had been stricken down by illness at Palatka, he decided that the best thing he could do would be to go to Palatka himself immediately. Ruth was delighted. "That means St. Augustine for me, doesn't it? Mother and Dolly are still there. Oh, I _am_ so glad!" "Why, Ruthie, do you care so much about it as all that? Why didn't you say so before?" said Chase, looking up from his letters. "Then I could have taken you down there in any case. Whereas now it's only this accident of Patterson's being laid up that has made me decide to go. You must _tell_ me what you want, always. It's the only way we can possibly get along," he concluded, with mock severity. Ruth gazed at the fire; for in New York, at the end of March, it was still cold. "I love St. Augustine. I was _so_ happy there this winter," she said, musingly. "Shall I build you a house near the sea-wall?" inquired her husband, gathering up his letters and telegrams. As he left the room, he paused beside her long enough to pass his hand fondly over her hair. It was arranged that Walter Willoughby, who had returned with them from California, should also accompany them southward. For there were certain details of the Western enterprise which Patterson understood better than any one else did, as he had devoted his attention to them for six months; it now became important that these details should be explained to the younger man, in the (possible) case of Patterson's being laid up for some time longer. After one day in New York, therefore, Chase and his wife and young Willoughby started for the land of flowers. At Savannah a telegram met them: "Horace Chase, Pulaski House, Savannah. Come alone. Patterson." "When he's sick, he is always tremendously scared," commented Chase. "I suppose we shall have to humor him. But I'll soon stir him up, and make him feel better, Walter, and then I'll wire for you to come over at once. Probably within twenty-four hours." After taking his wife to St. Augustine, he crossed to Palatka alone. Walter was to wait at St. Augustine for further directions. The young New-Yorker agreed to everything. He was in excellent spirits; throughout the whole Californian expedition he had, in truth, been living in a state of inward excitement, though his face showed nothing of it. For his uncle had consented, and he (Walter) had got his foot into the stirrup at last. The ride might be breakneck, and it might be hard; but at least it would not be long, and it would end at the wished-for goal. Between two such riders as Patterson and Horace Chase (Horace Chase especially; best of all, Horace Chase!), he could not fall behind; they would sweep him along between them; he should come in abreast. A closer acquaintance with Chase had only increased his admiration for the man's extraordinary mind. "If ever there was a genius for directing big combinations, here's one with a vengeance!" he said to himself. On the second day after Chase's departure for Palatka, Ruth and her mother, in the late afternoon, drove across the Sebastian River by way of the red bridge, and thence to the barrens. These great tree-dotted Florida prairies possess a charm for far-sighted eyes; their broad, unfenced, unguarded expanses, stretching away on all sides, carpeted with flowers and ferns, and the fans of the dwarf-palmetto, have an air of freedom that is alluring. Walter Willoughby accompanied the two ladies, perched in the little seat behind. He had, in fact, nothing else to do, as Chase had as yet sent no telegram. They drove first to the Ponce de Leon spring. And Ruth made them drink: "so that we shall always be young!" Leaving the spring, they drove to another part of the barren. Here the violets grew so thickly that they made the ground blue. "I must have some," said Ruth, joyously. And leaving her mother comfortably leaning back in the phaeton under her white umbrella, she jumped out and began to gather the flowers with her usual haste and impetuosity. "Why don't you come and help?" she said to Walter. "You're terribly lazy. Tie the ponies to that tree, and set to work." Walter obeyed. But he only gathered eight violets; then he stopped, and stood fanning himself with his straw hat. "It is very warm," he said. "Won't you let me get pitcher-plants instead? There are ever so many over there. They are so large that eight of them will make a splendid show." Daily companionship for seven weeks had made him feel thoroughly at his ease with her. He had forgiven her for those old delays which she had unknowingly caused in his plans; he now associated her with his good-fortune, with his high hopes. She had been in the gayest spirits throughout their stay in California, and this, too, had chimed in with his mood. "Pitcher-plants!" said Ruth. "Horrid, murdering things! Let them alone." But they strolled that way to look at them; and then they walked on towards a ridge, where she was sure that they should find calopogon. Beyond the ridge there was a clear pool, whose amber-colored water rested on a bed of silver sand; along one side rose the tall, delicate plumes of the _Osmunda regalis_. "Isn't it lovely?" said Ruth. "I don't believe there is anything more beautiful in all Florida!" "Yes, one thing," thought Walter, "and that is Ruth Chase." For Ruth's beauty had deepened richly during the past half-year. It was not Walter alone who had noticed the change, every one spoke of it. At present his eyes could not but note it once more, as she stood there in her white dress under the ferns. Then suddenly his thoughts were diverted in another direction. "I'm sure that's for me!" he exclaimed. For he had discerned in the distance a little negro boy on horseback. "He is bringing me my telegram at last--I mean the one from your husband, Mrs. Chase, which I have been expecting for two days. The stupid is following the road. I wonder if I couldn't make him see me from here, so as to gain time?" And taking off his hat, he waved it high in the air. But the child kept on his course. "Perhaps I can make him hear," said Walter. He shouted, whistled, called. But all to no purpose. "We might as well go back towards the phaeton," he suggested. And they started. "What will the telegram be?" said Ruth, arranging her violets as she walked on. "Have you any idea?" "A very clear one; it will tell me to arrive at Palatka as soon as possible." "And, from Palatka, do you go back to New York?" "Yes; immediately." "We shall be in New York, too, by the middle of April. You are to stay in New York, aren't you?" "Yes. It is to be my post in the game which will end, we trust, in your husband's piling up still higher his great fortune, while _I_ shall have laid very solidly the foundation of mine. Good! that boy sees me at last." For the little negro, suddenly leaving the road, was galloping directly towards them over the barren, his bare feet flapping the flanks of his horse to increase its speed. Walter ran forward to meet him, took the telegram, tore open the envelope, and read the message within. Then, after rewarding the messenger (who went back to town in joyful opulence), he returned to Ruth. "Palatka?" she said, as he came up. "No. Something entirely different. And very unexpected. I am to go to California; I am to start to-morrow morning. And I am to stay there--live there. It will be for a year or two, I suppose; at any rate, until this new campaign of your husband's planning has been fought out and won--as won it surely will be. For Patterson, it seems, won't be able to go at present, and I am to take his place. Later, he hopes to be on the spot. But even then I am to remain, they tell me. My instructions will be here to-night by letter." He felt, inwardly, a great sense of triumph that he was considered competent--already considered competent--to take charge of the more important post. And as he put the telegram in his pocket, the anticipation of success came to him like a breeze charged with perfume; his pulses had a firm, quick beat; the future--a future of his own choosing--unrolled itself brightly before him. Ruth had made no reply. After a moment her silence struck him--struck him even in his preoccupation--and he turned to look at her. Her face had a strange, stiffened aspect, as though her breathing had suddenly been arrested. "Are you ill?" he asked, alarmed. "Oh no; I am only tired. Where is the phaeton? I have lost sight of it." "Over there; don't you see your mother's white parasol?" "Let us go back to her. But no--not just yet. I'll wait a moment or two, as I'm so tired." And, turning her back to him, she sat down on a fallen pine-tree, and rested her head on her hand. "I can bring the phaeton over here?" Walter suggested. "There is no road, but the ground is smooth." She shook her head. After a moment he began to talk; partly to fill the pause, partly to give expression to the thoughts that occupied his own mind--occupied it so fully that he did not give close heed to her. She was suddenly tired. Well, that was nothing unusual; it was always something sudden; generally a sudden gayety. At any rate, she could rest there comfortably until she felt able to go on. "It's very odd to me to think that to-morrow I shall be on my way to California again," he began. "That's what I get by being the poor one of the company, Mrs. Chase! Your husband, and Patterson, and my uncle, they sit comfortably at home; but they send _me_ from pillar to post without the least scruple. I don't mind the going. But the staying--that's a change indeed. To live in California--I have had a good many ideas in my mind, but I confess I have never had that." He laughed. But it was easy to see that the idea pleased him greatly. Ruth turned. Her eyes met his. And then, startled, amazed, the young man read in their depths something that was to him an intense surprise. At the same moment she rose. "I can go now. Mother will be wondering where I am," she said. He accompanied her in silence, his mind in a whirl. She said a few words on ordinary subjects. Every now and then her voice came near failing entirely, and she paused. But she always began again. Just before she reached the phaeton she took a gray gauze veil from her pocket, and tied it hastily across her face under her broad-brimmed hat. Mrs. Franklin was waiting for them in lazy tranquillity. While Walter untied the ponies, Ruth took the small seat behind. "Just for a change," she explained. Walter, therefore, in her vacant place, drove them back to town. Having taken Mrs. Franklin home, he left Ruth at her own door. "As I'm off early to-morrow morning, Mrs. Chase, I'll bid you good-by now," he said, as the waiting servant came forward to the ponies' heads. She gave him her hand. He could not see her face distinctly through that baffling gray veil. That evening at eleven o'clock he passed the house again; he was taking a farewell stroll on the sea-wall. As he went by, he saw that there was a light in the drawing-room. "She has not gone to bed," he thought. He jumped down from the wall, crossed the road, and, going up the steps, put his hand on the bell-knob. But a sudden temptation took possession of him, and, instead of ringing, he opened the door. "If her mother is with her, I'll pretend that I found it ajar," he said to himself. But there were no voices, all was still. His step had made no sound on the thick rugs, and, advancing, he drew aside a curtain. On a couch in a corner of the drawing-room was Ruth Chase, alone, her face hidden in her hands. She started to her feet as he came in. "After all, Mrs. Chase, I found that I wanted more of a good-by--" he began. And then, a second time, in her eyes he read the astonishing, bewildering story. "She is still unconscious of what it is," he thought. "If I go away at once--at once and forever--no harm is done. And that is what I shall do." This was his intention, and he knew that he should follow it. The very certainty, however, made him allow himself a moment or two of delay. For how beautiful she was, and how deeply she loved him! He could not help offering, as it were, a tribute to both; it seemed to him that he would be a boor not to do so. And then, before he knew it, he had gone further. "You see how it is with me," he began. "You see that I love you; I myself did not know it until now." (What was this he was telling her? And somehow, for the moment, it was true!) "Don't think that I do not understand," he went on. "I understand all--all--" While he was uttering these words he met her eyes again. And then he felt that he was losing his head. "What am I doing? I'm not an abject fool!" he managed to say to himself, mutely--mutely but violently. And he left the house. It took all his strength to do it. CHAPTER XIII Horace Chase, meanwhile, had arrived at Palatka, and opened the discussion with David Patterson which ended in the decision to despatch young Willoughby to California without delay. Having sent these instructions, he remained at Palatka two days longer, his intention being to cross, on the third day, to St. Augustine, get his wife and go back to New York, stopping on the way at Raleigh in order to see Jared. Always prompt, as soon as the question of the representative in California was settled, his thoughts had turned towards his brother-in-law; the proper moment had now arrived for fulfilling his promises concerning him. But in answer to this note to Ruth, mentioning this plan, there had come a long epistle from Mrs. Franklin. Ruth, she wrote, wanted to go north by sea; it was a sudden fancy that had come to her. Her wish was to go by the _Dictator_ to Charleston, and there change for the larger steamer. "As Dolly and I intend to start towards L'Hommedieu next week, Ruth's idea is that we could go together as far as Charleston; for the rest of the way, Félicité could look after her. You need not therefore take the trouble to come to St. Augustine at all, she says; you can go directly from Palatka to Raleigh. All this sounds a little self-willed. But, my dear Mr. Chase, if we spoiled her more or less in the beginning, you must acknowledge that _you_ have carried on the process! In the eighteen months that have passed since your marriage, have you ever refused compliance with even one of her whims? I think not. On the contrary, I fear you encourage them; you always seem to me to be waiting, with an inward laugh, to see what on earth she will suggest next!" Thus wrote the mother in a joking strain. Then, turning to the subject which was more important to her, she filled three sheets with her joyful anticipations concerning her son. "Insist upon his resigning his present place on the spot," she urged; "take no denial. Make him go _with_ you to New York. _Then_ you will be sure of him." "The old lady seems to think he will be a great acquisition," said Chase to himself, humorously. Her statement that he had, from the first, allowed his wife to follow her fancies unchecked was a true one. It amused him to do this, amused him to watch an idea dawn, and then, in a few minutes, take such entire possession of her that it shook her hard--only to leave her and vanish with equal suddenness. The element of the unexpected in her was a constant entertainment to him. Her heedlessness, her feminine indifference to logic, to the inevitable sequences of cause and effect--this, too, had given him many a moment of mirth. If her face had been less lovely, these characteristics would have worn, perhaps, another aspect. But in that case Horace Chase would not have been their judge; for it was this alluring beauty (unconsciously alluring) which had attracted him, which had made him fall in love with her. He was a man whose life, up to the time of his engagement to Ruth, had been irregular. But, though irregular, it had not been uncontrolled; he had always been able to say, "Thus far; no farther!" But though her beauty had been the first lure, he was now profoundly attached to his wife; his pride in her was profound, his greatest pleasure was to make her happy. "By sea to New York, is it?" he said to himself, as his eyes hastily glanced through the remainder of Mrs. Franklin's long letter (that is, the three sheets about Jared). "Well, she is a capital sailor, that's one comfort. Let's see; which of our steamers will she hit at Charleston?" He was not annoyed because Ruth had not written, herself; Ruth did not like to write letters. But it was a surprise to him that she should, of her own accord, relinquish an opportunity to see her brother. "I reckon she is counting upon my taking him up to New York with me, so that she'll see him on the dock waiting for her when her steamer comes in," he thought. "I guess she knows, too, that I'm likely to succeed better with Jared when _she's_ out of the business entirely. Franklin isn't going to be boosted by his sister--that's been his fixed notion all along. He doesn't suspect that his sister's nowhere in the matter compared with his wife; his whole position of being independent of _me_, and all that, has been so undermined and honeycombed by Gen, that, in reality, his sticking it out there at Raleigh is a farce! But he doesn't know it. It's lucky he don't!" * * * * * Ruth had her way, as usual. Chase went northward from Palatka to Savannah, where he had business; thence he was to go to Raleigh. His wife, meanwhile, remained in St. Augustine for one week longer, and her mother and sister, closing their own home, spent the time with her. Their last day came; they were to leave St. Augustine on the morrow. Early in the afternoon, Ruth disappeared. When they were beginning to wonder where she was, Félicité brought them a note. Mrs. Franklin read it, and laughed. "She has gone for a sail; by herself!" "She might have told us. We could have gone with her," said Dolly, irritably. "I don't like her being alone." "Oh, she is safe enough, as far as that goes," answered the mother, comfortably. "She has taken old Donato, who, in spite of his seventy years, is an excellent sailor; and he has, too, a very good boat." Dolly went to the window. "You are not in the least thinking of Ruth, mother! You are thinking of Jared; you are thinking that if he takes that place in New York, we must somehow get up there to see him this summer; and you are planning to go to that boarding-house on Staten Island that the commodore told you about." Mrs. Franklin, who really was thinking of Staten Island, rolled a lamplighter the wrong way. "It is happening oftener and oftener!" she said to herself. "Is she going to die?" And she glanced towards her invalid daughter with the old pang of loving pity quickened for the moment to trepidation. Dolly's back was turned; she was gazing down the inlet. The house, which was formerly the residence of General Worth, the Military Governor of Florida, commanded an uninterrupted view of the Matanzas north and south, and, over the low line of Anastasia Island, even the smallest sail going towards the ocean was visible. But in spite of this long expanse of water, Dolly could not see old Donato's boat. "His Grand suspects nothing! Are mothers always so blind?" she thought. "So secure? But she shall never know anything through _me_--dear old Grand! Ruth has of course gone to say good-bye to the places which are associated in her mind with that hateful Willoughby. If I could only have known it, I would have kept her from it at any price. These long hours alone which she covets so--they are the worst things, the worst!" Ruth's boat was far out of sight; at this moment she was landing on Anastasia at the point where she had disembarked with Walter on the day of the excursion. Telling the old Minorcan to wait for her, she sought for the little Carib trail, and followed it inland to the pool. Here she spent half an hour, seated in the loop of the vine where she had sat before. Then, rising, she slowly retraced their former course along the low ridge. Since Walter's departure--he had left St. Augustine at dawn after that strange evening visit--Ruth had been the prey of two moods, tossed from one to the other helplessly; for the feelings which these moods by turn excited were so strong that she had had no volition of her own--she had been powerless against them. One of these mental states (the one that possessed her now) was joy. The other was aching pain. For her fate had come upon her, as it was sure from the first to come. And it found her defenceless; those who should have foreseen it had neither guarded her against it, nor trained her so that she could guard herself. She had no conception of life--no one had ever given her such a conception--as a lesson in self-control; from her childhood all her wishes had been granted. It is true that these wishes had been simple. But that was because she had known no other standard; the degree of indulgence (and of self-indulgence) was as great as if they had been extravagant. If her disposition as a girl had been selfish, it was unconscious selfishness; for her mother, her elder sister, and her brother had never required anything from her save that she should be happy. With her joyous nature, life had always been delightful to her, and her marriage had only made it more delightful. For Horace Chase, unconsciously, had adopted the habit that the family had always had; they never expected Ruth to take responsibility, to be serious, and, in the same way, he never expected it. And he loved to see her contented, just as they had loved it. There was some excuse for them all in the fact that Ruth's contentment was a very charming thing--it was so natural and exuberant. And, on her side, this girl had married Horace Chase first of all because she liked him. What he had done for her brother, and his wealth--these two influences had come only second, and would not have sufficed without the first; her affection (for it was affection) had been won by his kindness to herself. Since their marriage his lavish generosity had pleased her, and gratified her imagination. But his delicate consideration for her--this girl nineteen years younger than himself--and his unselfishness, these she had not appreciated; she supposed that husbands were, as a matter of course, like that. As it happened, she had not a single girl friend who had married, from whose face (if not from whose words also) she might have divined other ways. Thus she had lived on, accepting everything in her easy, epicurean fashion, until into her life had come love--this love for Walter Willoughby. Walter devoting himself to Mrs. Chase for his own purposes, had never had the slightest intention of falling in love with her; in truth, such a catastrophe (it would have seemed to him nothing less) would have marred all his plans. He had wished only to amuse her. And, in the beginning, it had been in truth his gay spirits which had attracted Ruth, for she possessed gay spirits herself. She had been unaware of the nature of the feeling which was taking possession of her; her realization went no further than that life was now much more interesting; and, with her rich capacity for enjoyment, she had grasped this new pleasure eagerly. It was this which had made her beauty so much more rich and vivid. It was this which had caused her to exclaim, "How delightful it is to live!" If obstacles had interfered, the pain of separation might have opened her eyes, at an earlier period, to the nature of her attachment. But, owing to the circumstances of the case, the junior partner had been with Mr. and Mrs. Chase almost daily ever since their return from Europe. That announcement, therefore, out on the barrens--his own announcement--of his departure the next morning, and for an indefinite stay, had come upon her like the chill of sudden death. And then in the evening, while she was still benumbed and pulseless, had followed his strange, short visit, and the wild thrill of joy in her heart over his declaration of his own love for her. For he had said it, he had said it! These two conflicting tides--the pain of his absence and the joy of his love--had held entire possession of her ever since. But passionate though her nature was, in matters of feeling it was deeply reticent as well, and no one had noticed any change in her save Dolly, Dolly who had divined something from her sister's new desire to be alone. Never before had Ruth wished to be alone; but now she went off for long walks by herself; and this plan for returning to New York by sea--that was simply the same thing. From the moment of Ruth's engagement, Dolly had been haunted by a terrible fear. Disliking Horace Chase herself, she did not believe that he would be able to keep forever a supreme place in his wife's heart. And then? Would Ruth be content to live on, as so many wives live, with this supreme place unoccupied? It was her dread of this, a dread which had suddenly become personified, that had made her form one of almost all the excursions of this Florida winter; she had gone whenever she was able, and often when she was unable--at least, she would be present, she would mount guard. But in spite of her guardianship, something had evidently happened. What was it? Was this desire of Ruth's to be alone a good sign or a bad sign? Did it come from happiness or unhappiness? "If it is unhappiness, she will throw it off," Dolly told herself. "She hates suffering. She will manage, somehow, to rid herself of it." Thus she tried to reassure herself. Ruth gave not only the afternoon but the evening to her pilgrimage; she visited all the places where she had been with Walter. When the twilight had deepened to night, she came back to town, and, still accompanied by Donato, she went to the old fort, and out the shell road; finally she paid a visit to Andalusia. A bright moon was shining; over the low land blew a perfumed breeze. Andalusia was deserted, Mrs. Kip had gone to North Carolina. Bribing Uncle Jack, the venerable ex-slave who lived in a little cabin under the bananas near the gate, Ruth went in, and leaving her body-guard, the old fisherman, resting on a bench, she wandered alone among the flowers. "You see that I love you. I myself did not know it until now"--this was the talisman which was making her so happy; two brief phrases uttered on the spur of the moment, phrases preceded by nothing, followed by nothing. It was a proof of the simplicity of her nature, its unconsciousness of half-motives, half-meanings, that she should think these few words so conclusive. But to her they were final. Direct herself, she supposed that others were the same. She did not go beyond her talisman; she did not reason about it, or plan. In fact, she did not think at all; she only felt--felt each syllable take a treasure in her heart, and brooded over it happily. And as she wandered to and fro in the moonlight, it was as well that Walter did not see her. He did not love her--no. He had no wish to love her; it would have interfered with all his plans. But if he had beheld her now, he would have succumbed--succumbed, at least, for the moment, as he had done before. He was not there, however. And he had no intention of being there, of being anywhere near Horace Chase's wife for a long time to come. "I'll keep out of _that_!" he had said to himself, determinedly. It was midnight when at last Ruth returned home, coming into the drawing-room like a vision, in her white dress, with her arms full of flowers. "Well, have you had enough of prowling?" asked her mother, sleepily. "I must say that it appears to agree with you!" Even Dolly was reassured by her sister's radiant eyes. But later, when Félicité had left her mistress, then, if Dolly could have opened the locked door, her comfort would have vanished; for the other mood had now taken possession, and lying prone on a couch, with her face hidden, Ruth was battling with her grief. Pain was so new to her, sorrow so new! Incapable of enduring (this was what Dolly had hoped), many times during the last ten days she had revolted against her suffering, and to-night she was revolting anew. "I _will_ not care for him; it makes me too wretched!" Leaving the couch, she strode angrily to and fro. The three windows of the large room--it was her dressing-room--stood open to the warm sea-air; she had put out the candles, but the moonlight, entering in a flood, reflected her white figure in the long mirrors as she came and went. Félicité had braided her hair for the night, but the strands had become loosened, and the thick, waving mass flowed over her shoulders. "I will not think of him; I will _not_!" And to emphasize it, she struck her clinched hand with all her force on the stone window-seat. "It is cut. I'm glad! It will make me remember that I am _not_ to think of him." She was intensely in earnest in her resolve, and, to help herself towards other thoughts, she began to look feverishly at the landscape outside, as though it was absolutely necessary that she should now resee and recount each point and line. "There is the top of the light-house--and there is the ocean--and there are the bushes near the quarry." She leaned out of the window so as to see farther. "There is the North Beach; there is the fort and the lookout tower." Thus for a few minutes her weary mind followed the guidance of her will. "There is the bathing-house. And there is the dock and the club-house; and there is the Basin. Down there on the right is Fish Island. How lovely it all is! I wish I could stay here forever. But even to-morrow night I shall be gone; I shall be on the _Dictator_. And then will come Charleston. And then New York." (Her mind had now escaped again.) "And then the days--and the months--and the _years_ without him! Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?" And the pain descending, sharper than ever, she sank down, and with her arms on the window-seat and her face on her arms, and cried and cried--cried so long that at last her shoulders fell forward stoopingly, and her whole slender frame lost its strength, and drooped against the window-sill like a broken reed. Her despair held no plan for trying to see Walter, her destiny seemed to her fixed; her revolts had not been against that destiny, but against her pain. But something was upon her now which was stronger than herself, stronger than her love of ease, stronger than her dread of suffering. Dolly knew her well. But there were some depths which even Dolly did not know. Dawn found her still there, her hands and feet cold, her face white; she had wept herself out--there were no more tears left. The sun came up; she watched it mechanically. "Félicité mustn't find me here," she thought. She dragged herself to her feet; all her muscles were stiff. Then going to the bedroom, she fell into a troubled sleep. It would be too much to say that during the entire night her mind had not once turned towards her husband. She had thought of him now and then, much as she had thought of her mother; as, for instance--would her mother see any change in her face the next morning, after this night of tears? Would her husband see any at New York when he arrived? Whenever she remembered either one of them, she felt a sincere desire not to make them unhappy. But this was momentary; during most of the night the emotions that belonged to her nature swept over her with such force that she had no power, no will, to think of anything save herself. CHAPTER XIV Horace Chase, following the suggestion of Mrs. Franklin (a suggestion which had come in reality from Ruth), travelled northward to Raleigh from Palatka without crossing to St. Augustine. He went "straight through," as he called it; when he was alone he always went straight through. He was no more particular as to where he slept than he was as to what he ate. Reaching Raleigh in the evening, he went in search of his brother-in-law. He had not sent word that he was coming. "I won't give him time to trot out all his objections beforehand," he had said to himself. He intended to make an attempt to arrange the matter with Jared without calling in the aid of Genevieve. "If I fail, there'll always be time to bring her on the scene. If I succeed, it'll take her down a bit; and that won't hurt her!" he thought, with an inward smile. Ruth's "horrid Raleigh" looked very pretty as he walked through its lighted streets. The boarding-house where Jared had passed the winter proved to be an old mansion, which, in its day, had possessed claims to dignity; it was large, with two wings running backward, and the main building had a high pointed roof with dormer-windows. The front was even with the street; but the street itself was rural, with its two long lines of magnificent trees, which formed the divisions (otherwise rather vague) between the sidewalks and the broad expanse of the sandy roadway. Chase's knock was answered by a little negro boy, whose head did not reach the door-knob. "Mas' Franklin? Yassah. He's done gone out. Be in soon, I reckon," he added, hopefully. Chase, after a moment's reflection, decided to go in and wait. "Show you in de parlo,' or right up in his own room, boss?" demanded the infant, anxiously. "Dere's a party in de parlo'." This statement was confirmed by the sound of music from within. "A party, is there? I guess I'll go up, then," said Chase. The child started up the stairs. His legs were so short that he had to mount to each step with both feet, one after the other, before he could climb to the next. These legs and feet and his arms were bare; the rest of his small, plump person was clad in a little jacket and very short breeches of pink calico. There were two long flights of stairs, and a shorter flight to the attic; the pink breeches had the air of climbing an Alp. Presently Chase took up the little toiler, candle and all. "You can tell me which way to go," he said. "What's your name?" "Pliny Abraham, sah." "Do you like Mr. Franklin?" "Mas' Franklin is de bes' body in dishyer house!" declared Pliny Abraham, shrilly. "The best what?" "De bes' body. We'se got twenty-five bodies now, boss. Sometimes dere's twenty-eight." "Oh, you mean boarders?" "Yassah. Bodies." Jared's room was in the attic. Pliny Abraham, who had been intensely serious, began to grin as his bearer, after putting him down, placed a dime in each of his little pink pockets; then he dashed out of the room, his black legs disappearing so suddenly that Chase had the curiosity to follow to the top of the stairs and look over. Pliny had evidently slid down the banisters; for he was already embarked on the broader rail of the flight below. Twenty minutes later there was a step on the stair; the door opened, and Jared Franklin came in. "They didn't tell you I was here?" said Chase, as they shook hands. "No. Mrs. Nightingale is usually very attentive; too much so, in fact; she's a bother!" Jared answered. "To-night, however, there's a party down below, and she has the supper on her mind." "Is Pliny Abraham to serve it?" "You've seen him, have you?" said Jared, who was now lighting a lamp. "Confounded smell--petroleum!" And he threw up the sash of the window. "I'm on my way up to New York, and I came across from Goldsborough on purpose to see you, Franklin, on a matter of business," Chase began. "Ruth isn't with me this time; she took a notion to go north by sea. Your mother and sister, I expect, will be seeing her off to-morrow from Charleston; then, after a little rest for Miss Dolly, they're to go to L'Hommedieu." "They'll stop here, won't they?" asked Jared, who was standing at the window in order to get air which was untainted by the odor of the lamp. "Perhaps," Chase answered. He knew that Dolly and her mother believed that by the time they should reach Raleigh, Jared would have already left. "Well, the gist of the matter, Franklin, is about this," he went on. And then, tilting his chair back so that his long legs should have more room, and with his thumbs in the pockets of his waistcoat, he began deliberately to lie. For in the short space of time which had elapsed since his eyes first rested upon Ruth's brother, he had entirely altered his plan. His well-arranged arguments and explanations about the place in New York in connection with his California scheme--all these he had abandoned; something must be invented which would require no argument at all, something which should attract Jared so strongly that he would of his own accord accept it on the spot, and start northward the next morning. "Once in New York, in our big house there, with Gen (for I shall telegraph her to come on) and Ruth and the best doctors, perhaps the poor chap can be persuaded to give up, and take a good long rest," he thought. For he had been greatly shocked by the change in Jared's appearance. When he had last seen him, the naval officer had been gaunt; but now he was wasted. His eyes had always been sad; but now they were deeply sunken, with dark hollows under them and over them. "He looks _bad_," Chase said to himself, emphatically. "This sort of life's been too much for him, and Gen's got a good deal to answer for!" The only ornament of the whitewashed wall was a large photograph of the wife; her handsome face, with its regular outlines and calm eyes, presided serenely over the attic room of the lonely husband. To have to contrive something new, plausible, and effective, in two minutes' time, might have baffled most men. But Horace Chase had never had a mind of routine, he had always been a free lance; original conceptions and the boldest daring, accompanied by an extraordinary personal sagacity, had formed his especial sort of genius--a genius which had already made him, at thirty-nine, a millionaire many times over. His invention, therefore, when he unrolled it, had an air of perfect veracity. It had to do with a steamer, which (so he represented) a man whom he knew had bought, in connection with what might be called, perhaps, a branch of his own California scheme, although a branch with which he himself had nothing whatever to do. This man needed an experienced officer to take the steamer immediately from San Francisco to the Sandwich Islands, and thence on a cruise to various other islands in the South Pacific. "The payment, to a navy man like you, ought to be pretty good. But I can't say what the exact figure will be," he went on, warily, "because I'm not in it myself, you see. He's a good deal of a skinflint" (here he coolly borrowed a name for the occasion, the name of a capitalist well known in New York); "but he's sound. It's a _bona fide_ operation; I can at least vouch for that. The steamer is first-class, and you can pick out your own crew. There'll be a man aboard to see to the trading part of it; all _you've_ got to do is to sail the ship." And in his driest and most practical voice he went on enumerating the details. Jared knew that his brother-in-law had more than once been engaged in outside speculations on a large scale; his acquaintance, therefore, with kindred spirits, men who bought ocean steamers and sent them on cruises, did not surprise him. The plan attracted him; he turned it over in his mind to see if there were any reasons why he should not accept it. There seemed to be none. To begin with, Horace Chase had nothing to do with it; he should not be indebted to _him_ for anything save the chance. In addition, it would not be an easy berth, with plenty to get and little to do, like the place at Charleston; on the contrary, a long voyage of this sort would call out all he knew. And certainly he was sick of his present life--deathly sick! Chase had said to himself: "Fellows who go down so low--and he's at the end of _his_ rope; that's plain--go up again like rockets sometimes, just give 'em a chance." Jared, however, showed no resemblance to a rocket. He agreed, after a while, to "undertake the job," as Chase called it, and he agreed, also, to start the next morning with his brother-in-law for New York, where the final arrangements were to be made; but his assent was given mechanically, and his voice sounded weak, as though, physically, he had very little strength. Mentally there was more stir. "I shall be deuced glad to be on salt-water again," he said. "I dare say _you_ think it's a very limited life," he went on (and in the phrase there lurked something scornful). "Well," answered Chase, with his slight drawl, "that depends upon what a man wants, what he sets out to do." He put his hands down in the pockets of his trousers, and looked at the lamp reflectively; then he transferred his gaze to Jared. "I guess you've got a notion, Franklin, that I care for nothing but money? And that's where you make a mistake. For 'tain't the money; it's the making it. Making it (that is, in large sums) is the best sort of a game. If you win, there's nothing like it. It's sport, _that_ is! It's fun! To get down to the bed-rock of the subject, it's the power. Yes, sir, that's it--the power! The knowing you've got it, and that other men know it too, and feel your hand on the reins! For a big pile is something more than a pile; it's a proof that a man's got brains. (I mean, of course, if he has made it himself; I'm not talking now about fortunes that are inherited, or are simply rolled up by a rise in real estate.) As to the money taken alone, of course it's a good thing to have, and I'm going on making more as long as I can; I like it, and I know how. But about the disposing of it" (here he took his hands out of his pockets and folded his arms), "I don't mind telling you that I've got other ideas. My family--if I have a family--will be provided for. After that, I've a notion that I may set aside a certain sum for scientific research (I understand that's the term). I don't know much about science myself; but I've always felt a sort of general interest in it, somehow." "Oh, you intend to be a benefactor, do you?" said Jared, ironically. "I hope, at least, that your endowment won't be open to everybody. It's only fair to tell you that, in _my_ opinion, one of the worst evils of our country to-day is this universal education--education of all classes indiscriminately." Chase looked at him for a moment in silence. Then, with a quiet dignity which was new to the other man, he answered, "I don't think I understand you." "Oh yes, you do," responded Jared, with a little laugh. But he felt somewhat ashamed of his speech, and he bore it off by saying, "Are you going to found a new institution? Or leave it in a lump to Harvard?" "I haven't got as far as that yet. I thought perhaps Ruth might like to choose," Chase answered, his voice softening a little as he pronounced his wife's name. "Ruth? Much _she_ knows about it!" said the brother, amused. In his heart he was thinking, "Well, at any rate, he isn't one of the blowers, and that's a consolation! He is going to 'plank down' handsomely for 'scientific research.' (I wonder if he thinks they'll research another baking-powder!) But he isn't going to shout about it. The fact is that this is the first time I have ever heard him speak of himself, and his own ideas. What he said just now about making money, that's his credo, evidently. Pretty dry one! But, for such a fellow as he is, natural enough, I suppose." Chase's credo, if such it was, was ended; he showed no disposition to speak further of himself; on the contrary, he turned the conversation towards his companion. For as the minutes had passed, more and more Jared seemed to him ill--profoundly changed. "I'm afraid, Franklin, that your health isn't altogether first-class nowadays?" he said, tentatively. "Oh, I'm well enough, except that just now there's some sort of an intermittent fever hanging about me. But it's very slight, and it only appears occasionally; I dare say it will leave me as soon as I'm fairly out of this hole of a place," Jared answered, in a dull tone. "He must be mighty glad to get away, and yet he doesn't rally worth a cent," thought Chase, with inward concern. "I say," he went on, aloud, "as there's a party in the house, why not come along down to the hotel and sleep there? I'm going to have some sort of a lunch when I go back; you might keep me company?" Jared, however, made a gesture of repugnance. "I couldn't eat; I've no appetite. The party doesn't trouble me--I'll go to bed. There'll be plenty to do in the morning, if we are to catch that nine o'clock train." Chase therefore took leave, and Jared accompanied him down to the street door. Dancing was going on in the parlors on each side of the hall, and the two, as they passed, caught a glimpse of pretty girls in white, with flowers in their hair. After making an early appointment for the next day, Chase said good-night, and turned down the tree-shaded street towards his hotel. His step was never a hurried one; he had not, therefore, gone far when a person, who had left the house two minutes after his own departure, succeeded in overtaking him. "If you please--will you stop a moment?" said this person. She was panting, for she had been running. Chase turned; by the light from a street-lamp, which reached them flickeringly through the foliage, he saw a woman. Her face was in the shadow, but a large flower, poised stiffly on the top of her head, caught the light and gleamed whitely. "I am Mrs. Nightingale," she began. "Mr. Franklin, the gentleman you called awn this evenin', is a member of my family. And I've been right anxious about Mr. Franklin; I'm thankful somebody has come who knows him. For indeed, sir, he's more sick than he likes to acknowledge. I've been watchin' for you to come down; but when I saw _he_ was with you, I had to wait until he'd gone up again; then I slipped out and ran after you." "I've been noticing that he looked bad, ma'am," Chase answered. "Oh, sir, somebody ought to be with him; he has fever at night, and when it comes awn, he's out of his head. I've sat up myself three nights lately to keep watch. He locks his do'; but there's an empty room next to his where I stay, so that if he comes out I can see that he gets no harm." "He walks about, then?" "In his own room--yes, sir; an' he talks, an' raves." "Couldn't you have managed to have him see a doctor, ma'am?" "I've done my best, but he won't hear of it. You see, it only comes awn every third night or so, an' he has no idea himself how bad it is. In the mawnin' it's gone, an' then all he says is that the breakfast is bad. He goes to his business every day regular, though he looks so po'ly. And he doesn't eat enough to keep a fly alive." Chase reflected. "I'll have a doctor go with us on the sly to-morrow," he thought, "and I'll engage a whole sleeper at Weldon to go through to New York. I'll wire to Gen to start at once; she needn't be more than a day behind us if she hurries." Then he went on, aloud: "Do you think he is likely to be feverish to-night, ma'am?" "I hope not, sir, as last night was bad." "I guess it will be better, then, not to wake him up and force a doctor upon him now, as he told me he was going to bed. I intend to take him north with me to-morrow morning, ma'am, and in the meantime--that little room you spoke of next to his--_I'll_ occupy it to-night, if you'll let me? I'll just go down to the hotel and get my bag, and be back soon. I'm his brother-in-law," Chase continued, shaking hands with her, "and we're all much obliged, ma'am, for what you've done; it was mighty kind--the keeping watch at night." He went to his hotel, made a hasty supper, and returned, bag in hand, before the half-hour was out. Mrs. Nightingale ushered him down one of the long wings to her own apartment at the end, a comfortless, crowded little chamber, full of relics of the war--her husband's sword and uniform (he was shot at Gettysburg); his portrait; the portrait of her brother, also among the slain; photographs of their graves; funeral wreaths and flags. "Excuse my bringin' you here, sir; it's the only place I have. Mr. Franklin hasn't gone to bed yet; I slipped up a moment ago to see, and there was a light under his do'. I'm afraid it would attract his attention if you should go up now, sir, for he knows that the next room is unoccupied." "_You've_ occupied it, ma'am. But I guess you know how to step pretty soft," Chase answered, gallantly. For now that he saw this good Samaritan in a brighter light, he appreciated the depth of her charity. The mistress of the boarding-house was the personification of chronic fatigue; her dim eyes, her worn face, her stooping figure, and the enlarged knuckles and bones of her hands, all told of hard toil and care. Her thin hair was re-enforced behind by huge palpably false braids of another shade, and the preposterous edifice, carried over the top of the head, was adorned, in honor of the party, by the large white camellia, placed exactly in the centre--"like a locomotive head-light," Chase thought--which had attracted his notice in the street. But in spite of her grotesque coiffure, no one with a heart could laugh at her. The goodness in her faded face was so genuine and beautiful that inwardly he saluted it. "She's the kind that'll never be rested _this_ side the grave," he said to himself. Left alone in her poor little temple of memories, he went to the window and looked out. It was midnight, and the waning moon--the same moon which had been full when Ruth made her happy pilgrimage at St. Augustine--was now rising in its diminished form; diminished though it was, it gave out light enough to show the Northerner that the old house had at the back, across both stories, covered verandas--"galleries," Mrs. Nightingale called them. Above, the pointed roof of the main building towered up dark against the star-decked sky, and from one of its dormer-windows came a broad gleam of light. "That's Jared's room," thought Chase. "He is writing to Gen, telling her all about it; sick as he is, he sat up to do it. Meanwhile _she_ was comfortably asleep at ten." At last, when Jared had finally gone to bed, Mrs. Nightingale (who made no more sound than a mouse) led the way up to the attic. Chase followed her, shoeless, treading as cautiously as he could, and established himself in the empty room with his door open, and a lighted candle in the hall outside. By two o'clock the party down-stairs was over; the house sank into silence. There had been no sound from Jared. "He's all right; I shall get him safely off to-morrow," thought the watcher, with satisfaction. "At New York, if he's well enough to talk, I shall have to invent another yarn about that steamer. But probably the doctors will tell him on the spot that he isn't able to undertake it. So that'll be the end of _that_." His motionless position ended by cramping him; the chair was hard; each muscle of both legs seemed to have a separate twitch. "I might as well lie down on the bed," he thought; "there, at least, I can stretch out." He was awakened by a sound; startled, he sat up, listening. Jared, in the next room, was talking. The words could not be distinguished; the tone of the voice was strange. Then the floor vibrated; Jared had risen, and was walking about. His voice grew louder. Chase noiselessly went into the hall, and stood listening at the door. There was no light within, and he ventured to turn the handle. But the bolt was fast. A white figure now stole up the stairs and joined him; it was Mrs. Nightingale, wrapped in a shawl. "Oh, I heard him 'way from my room! He has never been so bad as this before," she whispered. Chase had always been aware that the naval officer disliked him; that is, that he had greatly disliked the idea of his sister's marriage. "If he sees me now, when he is out of his head, will it make him more violent? Would it be better to have a stranger go in first?--the doctor?"--these were the questions that occupied his mind while Mrs. Nightingale was whispering her frightened remark. From the room now came a wild cry. That decided him. "I am going to burst in the lock," he said to his companion, hurriedly. "Call up some one to help me hold him, if necessary." His muscular frame was strong; setting his shoulder against the door, after two or three efforts he broke it open. But the light from the candle outside showed that the room was empty, and, turning, he ran at full speed down the three flights of stairs, passing white-robed, frightened groups (for the whole house was now astir), and, unlocking the back door, he dashed into the court-yard behind, his face full of dread. But there was no lifeless heap on the ground. Then, hastily, he looked up. Dawn was well advanced, though the sun had not yet risen; the clear, pure light showed that nothing was lying on the roof of the upper gallery, as he had feared would be the case. At the same instant, his eyes caught sight of a moving object above; coming up the steep slope of the roof from the front side, at first only the head visible, then the shoulders, and finally the whole body, outlined against the violet sky, appeared Jared Franklin. He was partly dressed, and he was talking to himself; when he reached the apex of the roof he paused, brandishing his arms with a wild gesture, and swaying unsteadily. Several persons were now in the court-yard; men had hurried out. Two women joined them, and looked up. But when they saw the swaying figure above, they ran back to the shelter of the hall, veiling their eyes and shuddering. In a few moments all the women in the house had gathered in this lower hall, frightened and tearful. Chase, meanwhile, outside, was pulling off his socks. "Get ladders," he said, quickly, to the other men. "I'm going up. I'll try to hold him." "Oh, how _can_ you get there?" asked Mrs. Nightingale, sobbing. "The same way he did," Chase answered, as he ran up the stairs. The men remonstrated. Two of them hurried after him. But he was ahead, and, mounting to the sill of Jared's window, he stepped outside. Then, not allowing himself to look at anything but the apex directly above him, he walked slowly and evenly towards it up the steep incline, his head and shoulders bent forward, his bare feet clinging to the moss-grown shingles, while at intervals he touched with the tips of his fingers the shingles that faced him, as a means of steadying himself. Down in the court-yard no word was now spoken. But the gazers drew their breath audibly. Jared appeared to be unaware of any one below; his eyes, though wide open, did not see the man who was approaching. Chase perceived this, as soon as he himself had reached the top, and he instantly took advantage of it; he moved straight towards Jared on his hands and knees along the line of the ridge-pole. When he had come within reach, he let himself slip down a few inches to a chimney that was near; then, putting his left arm round this chimney as a support, he stretched the right upward, and with a sudden grasp seized the other man, throwing him down and pinning him with one and the same motion. Jared fell on his back, half across the ridge, with his head hanging over one slope and his legs and feet over the other; it was this position which enabled Chase to hold him down. The madman (his frenzy came from a violent form of inflammation of the brain) struggled desperately. His strength seemed so prodigious that to the watchers below it appeared impossible that the rescuer could save him, or even save himself. The steep roof had no parapet; and the cruel pavement below was stone; the two bodies, grappled in a death-clutch, must go down together. "Oh, _pray_! Pray to God!" called a woman's voice from the court below. She spoke to Chase. But at that moment nothing in him could be spared from his own immense effort; not only all the powers of his body, but of his heart and mind and soul as well, were concentrated upon the one thing he had to do. He accomplished it; feeling his arm growing weak, he made a tremendous and final attempt to jam down still harder the breast he grasped, and the blow (for it amounted to a blow) reduced Jared to unconsciousness; his hands fell back, his ravings ceased. His strength had been merely the fictitious force of fever; in reality he was weak. The ladders came. Both men were saved. "Come, now, if the roof had been only three inches above the ground--how then?" Chase said, impatiently, as, after the visit of a doctor and the arrival of two nurses, he came down for a hasty breakfast in Mrs. Nightingale's dining-room, where the boarders began to shake hands with him, enthusiastically. "The thing itself was simple enough; all that was necessary was to act as though it _was_ only three inches." CHAPTER XV A week later, early in the evening, a four-horse stage was coming slowly down the last mile or two of road above the little North Carolina village of Old Fort at the eastern base of the Blue Ridge. It was a creaking, crazy vehicle, thickly encrusted with red clay. But as it had pounded all the way from Asheville by the abominable mountain-road, no doubt it had cause to be vociferous and tarnished. Above, the stars were shining brightly; and the forest also appeared to be starlit, owing to the myriads of fire-flies that gleamed like sparks against the dark trees. A man who was coming up the road hailed the stage as it approached. "Hello! Is Mr. Hill inside? The Rev. Mr. Hill of Asheville?" "Yes," answered a voice from the back seat of the vehicle, and a head appeared at the window. "What--Mr. Chase? Is that you?" And, opening the door, Malachi Hill, with his bag in his hand, jumped out. "I came up the road, thinking I might meet you," Horace Chase explained. "Let's walk; there's something I want to talk over." They went on together, leaving the stage behind. "I've got a new idea," Chase began. "What do you say to going up to New York to get my wife? I had intended to go for her myself, as you know, starting from here to-night, as soon as I had put the other ladies in your charge, to take back to Asheville. But Mrs. Franklin looks pretty bad; and Dolly--she might have one of her attacks. And, take it altogether, I've begun to feel that it's my business to go with 'em all the way. For it's a long drive over the mountains at best, and though the night's fine so far, there's no moon, and the road is always awful. I have four men from Raleigh along--the undertaker (who is a damn fool, always talking), and his assistants; and so there'll be four teams--a wagon, the two carriages, and the hearse. I guess I know the most about horses, and if you can fix it so as to take my place, I'll see 'em through." "Certainly. I am anxious to help in any way you think best," answered Malachi. "I wish I could start at once! But the stage is so late to-night that, of course, the train has gone?" "That's just it--I kept it," Chase answered; "I knew one of us would want to take it. You'll have to wait over at Salisbury in the usual stupid way. But as Ruth can't be here in time for the funeral, it's not of vital importance. The only thing that riles me is that, owing to that confounded useless wait, you can't be on the dock to meet her when her steamer comes in at New York; you won't be able to get there in time. There'll be people, of course--I've telegraphed. But no one she knows as well as she knows you." Reaching the village, they walked quickly towards the railroad and finished their talk as they stood beside the waiting train. There was no station, the rails simply came to an end in the main street. A small frame structure, which bore the inscription "Blue Ridge Hotel," faced the end of the rails. "He's in there," said Chase, in a low tone, indicating a lighted window of this house; "that room on the ground-floor. And the old lady--she is sitting there beside him. She is quiet, she doesn't say anything. But she just sits there." "Mrs. Jared and Miss Dolly are with her, aren't they?" said the young clergyman. "Well, Dolly is keeping Gen in the other room across the hall as much as she _can_. For Dolly tells me that her mother likes best to sit there alone. Women, you know, about their sons--sometimes they're queer!" remarked Chase. "The mother's love--yes," Malachi answered, his voice uncertain for a moment. He swallowed. "There isn't a man who doesn't feel, sooner or later, after it has gone, that he hasn't prized it half enough--that it was the best thing he had! It was brain-fever, wasn't it?" he went on, hurriedly, to cover his emotion. For he, too, had been an only son. "Yes, and bad. He was raving; he knocked down one of the doctors. After the fever left him, it was just possible, they told me, that he might have pulled through, if he had only been stronger. But he was played out to begin with; I discovered that myself as soon as I reached Raleigh. Gen got there in time to see him. But the old lady was too late; and pretty hard lines for her! She kept telegraphing from different stations as she and Dolly hurried up from Charleston; and I did my best to hearten her by messages that met her here and there; but she missed it. By only half an hour. When I saw that it had come--that he was sinking and she wouldn't find him alive--I went out and just cursed, cursed the luck! For Gen had his last words, and everything. And his poor old mother had nothing at all." Here the conductor came up. "Ready?" said Chase. "All right, here's your through ticket, Hill--the one I bought for myself. And inside the envelope is a memorandum, with the number and street of our house in New York, and other items. I'm no end obliged to you for going." They shook hands cordially. "When you come back, don't let my wife travel straight through," added the husband. "Make her stop over and sleep." "I'll do my best," answered Hill, as the train started. In deference to the mourning party which it had brought westward, there was no whistle, no ringing of the bell; the locomotive moved quietly away, and the clergyman, standing on the rear platform, holding on by the handle of the door, watched as long as he could see it the lighted window of the room where lay all that was mortal of Jared Franklin. An hour later the funeral procession started up the mountain. First, there was a wagon, with the undertaker and his three assistants. Then followed the large, heavy hearse drawn by four horses. Next came a carriage containing Mrs. Franklin and Dolly; and, finally, a second carriage for Genevieve and Horace Chase. "Poor mamma is sadly changed," commented Genevieve to her companion. "She insisted upon being left alone with the remains at the hotel, you know; and now she wishes her carriage to be as near the hearse as possible. Fortunately, these things are very unimportant to me, Horace. I do not feel, as they do, that Jay is _here_. My husband has gone--gone to a better world. He knew that he was going; he said good-bye to me so tenderly. He was always so--_so_ kind." And covering her face, Genevieve gave way to tears. "Yes, he thought the world and all of you, Gen. There's no doubt about that," Chase answered. He did full justice to the sobbing woman by his side. He was more just to her than her husband's family had ever been, or ever could be; he had known her as a child, and he comprehended that according to her nature and according to her unyielding beliefs as to what was best, she had tried to be a good wife. In addition (as he was a man himself), he thought that it was to her credit that her husband had always been fond of her, that he had remained devoted to her to the last. "That doesn't go for nothing!" he said to himself. The ascent began. The carriages plunged into holes and lurched out of them; they jolted across bits of corduroy; now and then, when the track followed a gorge, they forded a brook. The curves were slippery, owing to the red clay. Then, without warning, in the midst of mud would come an unexpected sharp grind of the wheels over an exposed ledge of bare rock. Before midnight clouds had obscured the stars and it grew very dark. But the lamps on the carriages burned brightly, and a negro was sent on in advance carrying a pitch-pine torch. In the middle of the night, at the top of the pass, there was a halt. Chase had made Genevieve comfortable with cushions and shawls, and soon after their second start she fell asleep. Perceiving this, he drew up the window on her side, and then, opening the carriage-door softly, he got out; it was easy to do it, as all the horses were walking. Making a detour through the underbrush, so that he should not be seen by Mrs. Franklin and Dolly in case they were awake, he appeared by the side of the hearse. "Don't stop," he said to the driver, in a low tone; "I'm going to get up there beside you." He climbed up and took the reins. "I'll drive the rest of the way, or at least as far as the outskirts of the town. For between here and there are all the worst places. You go on and join that fellow in front. You might carry a second torch; you'll find some in the wagon." The driver of the hearse, an Asheville negro, who knew Chase, gave up his seat gladly. There were bad holes ahead, and there was a newly mended place which was a little uncertain; he would not have minded taking the stage over that place (none of the Blue Ridge drivers minded taking the stage anywhere), but he was superstitious about a hearse. "Fo' de Lawd, I'm glad to be red of it!" he confided to the other negro, as they went on together in advance with their flaring torches. "It slips an' slews when dey ain't no 'casion! Sump'n mighty quare 'bout it, I tell you _dat_!" Presently the plateau came to an end, and the descent began. Rain was now falling. The four vehicles moved slowly on, winding down the zigzags very cautiously in the darkness, slipping and swaying as they went. After half an hour of this progress, the torch-bearers in front came hurrying back to give warning that the rain had loosened the temporary repairs of the mended place, so that its edge had given away; for about one hundred and forty yards, therefore, the track was dangerously narrow and undefended, with the sheer precipice on one side and the high cliff on the other; in addition, the roadway slanted towards this verge, and the clay was very slippery. Chase immediately sent word back to the drivers of the carriages behind to advance as slowly as was possible, but not to stop, for that might waken the ladies; then, jumping down from the hearse, and leaving one of the negroes in charge of his team, he hurried forward to make a personal inspection. The broken shelf, without its parapet, certainly looked precarious; so much so that the driver of the wagon, when he came up, hesitated. Chase, ordering him down, took his place, and drove the wagon across himself. Whereupon the verbose undertaker began to thank him. "Don't worry; I didn't do it for _you_" answered Chase, grimly. "If you'd gone over, you'd have carried away more of the track; that was all." Going back, he resumed his place on the hearse. Then speaking to his horses, he guided them on to the shelf. Here he stood, in order to see more clearly, the men on the far side watching him breathlessly, and trying meanwhile (at a safe distance) to aid him as much as they could, by holding their torches high. The ponderous hearse began to slip by its own weight towards the verge. Then, with strong hand, Chase sent his team sharply towards the cliff that towered above them, and kept them grinding against it as they advanced, the two on the inside fairly rubbing the rock, until, by main strength, the four together had dragged their load away. But in a minute or two it began over again. It happened not once merely, but four times. And, the last time, the hind wheels slipped so far, in spite of Chase's efforts, that it seemed as if they would inevitably go over, and drag the struggling horses with them. But Chase was as bold a driver as he was speculator. How he inspired them, the horror-stricken watchers could not discover; but the four bays, bounding sharply round together, sprang in a heap, as it were, at the rocky wall on the left, the leaders rearing, the others on top of them; and by this wild leap, the wheels (one of them was already over) were violently jerked away. It was done at last; the dark, ponderous car stood in safety on the other side, and the spectators, breathing again, rubbed down the wet horses. Then Horace Chase went back on foot, and, in turn, drove the two carriages across. Through these last two transits not a word was spoken by any one; he mounted soundlessly, so that Genevieve slept on undisturbed, and Mrs. Franklin and Dolly, unaware of the danger or of the new hand on the reins, continued to gaze vaguely at the darkness outside, their thoughts pursuing their own course. Finally, leaving one of the negroes on guard to warn other travellers of the wash-out and its perils, Chase resumed his place on the hearse, and the four vehicles continued their slow progress down the mountain. After a while, the first vague clearness preceding dawn appeared; the rain ceased. Happening to turn his head fifteen minutes later, he was startled to see, in the dim light, the figure of a woman beside the hearse. It was Mrs. Franklin. The road was now smoother, and she walked steadily on, keeping up with the walk of the horses. As the light grew clearer, she saw who the driver was, and her eyes met his with recognition. But her rigid face seemed to have no power for further expression; it was set in lines that could not alter. Chase, on his side, bowed gravely, taking off his hat; and he did not put it on again, he left it on the seat by his side. He made no attempt to stop her, to persuade her to return to her carriage; he recognized the presence of one of those moods which, when they take possession of a woman, no power on earth can alter. As they came to the first outlying houses of Asheville, he gave up his place to the negro driver, and getting down on the other side of the hearse, away from Mrs. Franklin, he went back for a moment to Dolly. "You must let her do it! _Don't_ try to prevent her," Dolly said, imperatively, in a low tone, the instant she saw him at the carriage door. "I'm not thinking of preventing her," Chase answered. Waiting until the second carriage passed, he looked in; Genevieve was still asleep. Then, still bareheaded, he joined Mrs. Franklin, and, without speaking, walked beside her up the long, gradual ascent which leads into the town. The sun now appeared above the mountains; early risers coming to their windows saw the dreary file pass--the wagon and the two carriages, heavy with mud; the hearse with four horses, and the mother walking beside it. As they reached the main street, Chase spoke. "The Cottage?" "No; home," Mrs. Franklin answered. As the hearse turned into the driveway of L'Hommedieu, she passed it, and, going on in advance, opened the house door; here, waving away old Zoe and Rinda, who came hurrying to meet her, she waited on the threshold until the men had lifted out the coffin; then, leading the way to the sitting-room, she pointed to the centre of the floor. "Oh, not to _our_ house?" Genevieve whispered, as she alighted, her eyes full of tears. But Dolly, to whom she spoke, limped in without answering, and Mrs. Franklin paid no more heed to her daughter-in-law, who had followed her, than as though she did not exist. Genevieve, quivering from her grief, turned to Horace Chase. He put his arm round her, and led her from the sitting-room. "Give way to her, Gen," he said, in a low tone. "She isn't well--don't you see it? She isn't herself; she has been walking beside that hearse for the last hour! Let her do whatever she likes; it's her only comfort. And now I am going to take you straight home, and you must go to bed; if you don't, you won't be able to get through the rest--and you wouldn't like that. I'll come over at noon and arrange with you about the funeral; to-morrow morning will be the best time, won't it?" And half leading, half carrying her, for Genevieve was now crying helplessly, he took her home. When he came back, Dolly was in the hall, waiting for him. There was no one in the sitting-room save Mrs. Franklin; he could see her through the half-open door. She was sitting beside the coffin, with her head against it, and one arm laid over its top. Her dress was stained with mud; she had not taken off her bonnet; her gloves were still on. Dolly closed the door, and shut out the sight. "You ought to see to her; she must be worn out," Chase said, expostulatingly. "I'll do what I can," Dolly answered. "But mother has now no desire to live--that will be the difficulty. She loves Ruth, and she loves me. But not in the same way. Her father, her husband, and her son--these have been mother's life. And now that the last has gone, the last of the three men she adored, she doesn't care to stay. That is what she is thinking now, as she sits there." "Come, you can't possibly know what she is thinking," Chase answered, impatiently. "I always know what is in mother's mind; I wish I didn't!" said Dolly, her features working convulsively for a moment. Then she controlled herself. "I am sorry you came all the way back with us, Mr. Chase. It wasn't necessary as far as _we_ were concerned. We could have crossed the mountain perfectly well without you. But Ruth--that is another affair, and I wish you had gone for her yourself, instead of sending Mr. Hill! You must be prepared to see Ruth greatly changed. I should not be surprised if she should arrive much broken, and even ill. She was very fond of Jared. She will be overwhelmed--" Here, feeling that she was saying too much, the elder sister abruptly disappeared. Chase, left alone, went out to see to the horses. The men were waiting at the gate, the carriages and the hearse were drawn up at a little distance; the undertaker and his assistants were standing in the garden. "Get your breakfast at the hotel; I'll send for you presently," he said to the latter. Then he paid the other men, and dismissed them. "You go and tell whoever has charge, to have that bad bit of road put in order to-day," he directed. "Tell them to send up a hundred hands, if necessary. I'll pay the extra." CHAPTER XVI The morning after the funeral, Chase, upon coming down to breakfast, found Mrs. Franklin already in the sitting-room. She had not taken the trouble to put on the new mourning garb which had been hastily made for her; her attire was a brown dress which she had worn in Florida. She sat motionless in her easy-chair, with her arms folded, her feet on a footstool, and her face had the same stony look which had not varied since she was told, upon her arrival at Raleigh, that her son was dead. "Well, ma'am, I hope you have slept?" Chase asked, as he extended his hand. She gave him hers lifelessly. "Yes; I believe so." "Ruth will soon be here now," her son-in-law went on, as he seated himself. "I told Hill not to let her travel straight through, for it would only tire her; and she needs to keep well, ma'am, so as to be of use to you. I'm going to drive over to Old Fort to-day, starting late--about six o'clock, I guess. I've calculated that if Ruth spent a night in New York (as she probably did, waiting for Hill to get there), and if she stops over one night on the way, she would reach Old Fort to-morrow noon. Then I'll bring her right on to L'Hommedieu." "Yes, bring her. And let her stay." "As long as ever you like, ma'am. I can't hold on long myself just now, but I'll leave her with you, and come for her later. I am thinking of taking a house at Newport for the summer; I hope that you and Miss Dolly will feel like spending some time there with Ruth? Say August and September?" "I shall travel no more. Leave her with me; it won't be for long." "You must cheer up, ma'am--for your daughters' sake." "Ruth has you," Mrs. Franklin responded. "And _you_ are good." Her tone remained lifeless. But it was evident that her words were sincere; that a vague sense of justice had made her rouse herself long enough to utter the commendation. "That's a mistake. I've never laid claim to anything of _that_ sort," Chase answered rather curtly, his face growing red. "When I say '_good_' I mean that you will be good to Ruth," said the mother; "it is the only sort of goodness I care for! At present you don't like Dolly. But Dolly is so absolutely devoted to her sister that you will end by accepting her, faults and all; you won't mind her little hostilities. I can therefore trust them both to you--I do so with confidence," she added. And, with her set face unchanged, she made him a little bow. "Why talk that way, ma'am? We hope to have you with us many years longer," Chase answered. "A green old age is a very fine thing to see." (He thought rather well of that phrase.) "My grandmother--she stuck it out to ninety-eight, and I hope you'll do the same." "Probably she wished to live. I have no such desire. As I sat here beside my son the morning we arrived, I knew that I longed to go, too. I want to be with him--and with my husband--and my dear father. My life here has now come to its end, for _they_ were my life." "That queer Dolly knew!" thought Chase. "But perhaps they've talked about it?" He asked this question aloud. "Have you told your daughter that, ma'am?" "Told my poor Dolly? Of course not. Please go to breakfast, Mr. Chase; I am sure it is ready." Chase went to the dining-room. A moment later Dolly came in to pour out the coffee. "Is there anything I can do for you this morning?" Chase asked, as he took a piece of Zoe's hot corn-bread. "I am going to drive over to Old Fort this afternoon, and wait there for Ruth, for I've calculated the trains, and I reckon that she and Hill will reach there to-morrow." Dolly looked at him for a moment. Then she said: "You have a great deal of influence with Genevieve; perhaps you could make her understand that for the present it is better that she should not try to see mother. Tell her that mother is much more broken than she was yesterday; tell her that she is very nervous; tell her, in short, anything you please, provided it keeps her away!" Dolly added, suddenly giving up her long effort to hide her bitter dislike. Chase glanced at her, and said nothing; he ate his corn-bread, and finished his first cup of coffee in silence. Then, as she poured out the second, he said: "Well, she might keep away entirely? She might leave Asheville? She has a brother in St. Louis, and she likes the place, I know; I've heard her say so. If her property here could be taken off her hands--at a good valuation--and if a well-arranged, well-furnished house could be provided for her there, near her brother, I guess she'd go. I even guess she'd go pretty quick," he added; "she'd be a long sight happier there than here." For though he had no especial affection for Genevieve, he at least liked her better than he liked Dolly. Dolly, however, was indifferent to his liking or his disliking. "_Oh!_" she said, her gaze growing vague in the intensity of her wish, "if it could only be done!" Then her brow contracted, she pushed her plate away. "But we cannot possibly be so much indebted to you--I mean so much _more_ indebted." "You needn't count yourself in, if it worries you," Chase answered with his deliberate utterance. "For I should be doing it principally for Ruth, you know. When she comes, the first thing she'll want to do, of course, is to make her mother comfortable. And if Gen's clearing out, root and branch, will help that, I rather guess Ruth can fix it." "You mean that _you_ can." "Well, we're one; I don't think that even _you_ can quite break that up yet," Chase answered, ironically. Then he went on in a gentler tone: "I want to do everything I can for your mother. She has always been very kind to me." And Dolly was perfectly well aware that, as he looked at her (looked at her yellow, scowling face), his feeling for her had become simply pity, pity for the sickly old maid whom no one could possibly please--not even her sweet young sister. Soon after breakfast Chase went to the Cottage. Genevieve received him gratefully. Her cheeks were pale; her eyes showed the traces of the tears of the previous day, the day of the funeral. Her visitor remained two hours. Then he rose, saying, "Well, I must see about horses if I am to get to Old Fort to-night. I shall tell Ruth about this new plan of ours, Gen. She'll be sure to like it; she'll enjoy going to St. Louis to see you; we'll both come often. And you'll be glad of a change yourself. The other house, too, is likely to be shut up. For, though they don't say so yet, I guess the old lady and Dolly will end by spending most of their time with Ruth, in New York." "I must go over and see mamma at once," answered Genevieve. "I must have her opinion, first of all. I shall ask mamma's advice more than ever now, Horace; it will be my pleasure as well as my duty. For Jay was very fond of his mother; he often told me--" Her voice quivered, and she stopped. "Now, Gen, listen to me," said Chase, taking her hand. "Don't go over there at all to-day. And, when you go to-morrow, and later, don't try to see the old lady; wait till she asks for you. For she is all unhinged; I've just come from there, and I know. She is very nervous, and everything upsets her. It won't do either of you any good to meet at present; it would only be a trial to you both. And Dolly says so, too. Promise me that you'll take care of yourself; promise me especially that you won't leave the house at all to-day, but stay quietly at home and rest." Genevieve promised. But after he had gone, the sense of duty that was a part of her nature led her to reconsider her determination. That her husband should have been laid in his grave only twenty-four hours before, and that she, the widow, should not see his bereaved mother through the whole day, when their houses stood side by side; that they should not mingle their tears, and their prayers also, while their sorrow was still so new and so poignant--this seemed to her wrong. In addition, it seemed hardly decent. The mother was ill and broken? So much the more, then, was it her duty to go to her. At four o'clock, therefore, she put on her bonnet and its long crape veil, and her black mantle, and crossed the meadow towards L'Hommedieu. Mrs. Franklin was still sitting in the easy-chair with her arms folded, as she had sat in the morning when Chase came in. The only difference was that now a newspaper lay across her lap; she had hastily taken it from the table, and spread it over her knees, when she recognized her daughter-in-law's step on the veranda. Genevieve came in. She was startled at first by the sight of the brown dress, which happened to have red tints as well as brown in its fabric. But it was only another cross to bear; her husband's family had always given her so many! "I hope you slept last night, mamma?" she said, bending to kiss Mrs. Franklin's forehead. "Yes, I believe so," the elder woman answered, mechanically, as she had answered Chase. She was now indefinitely the elder. Between the wife of forty, and the slender, graceful, vivacious mother of fifty-eight, there had been but the difference of one short generation. But now the mother might have been any age; her shoulders were bent, her skin looked withered, and all the outlines of her face were set and sharpened. Genevieve took off her crape mantle, folding it (with her habitual carefulness) before she laid it on a chair. "You must let me see to your mourning, mamma," she said, as she thus busied herself. "I suppose your new dress doesn't fit you? It was made so hastily. I shall be sitting quietly at home for the present, day after day, and it will occupy me and take my thoughts from myself to have some sewing to do. And I know how to cut crape to advantage also, for I was in mourning so long when I was a girl." Mrs. Franklin made no reply. Her daughter-in-law, seating herself beside her, stroked back her gray hair. "You look so tired! And I am afraid Dolly is tired out also, as she isn't with you?" "I sent her to bed half an hour ago; for I am afraid one of her attacks is coming on," Mrs. Franklin answered, her lips compressing themselves as she endured the caress. Genevieve's touch was gentle. But Mrs. Franklin did not like to have her hair stroked. "Poor Dolly! But, surely, it is not surprising. I must see her before I go back. But shall I go back, mamma? As you are alone, wouldn't it be better for me to stay with you for the rest of the day? I could read to you; I should love to do it. It seems providential that my dear copy of _Quiet Hours_ should have come back from Philadelphia only yesterday; I had sent it to Philadelphia, you know, to be rebound. But there have been greater providences still; for instance, how I was able to get to Raleigh in time to see our dear one. For the stage had gone when Horace's telegram came, and Mr. Bebb's having arranged, by a mere chance, to drive to Old Fort with that pair of fast horses at the very _moment_ I wished to start--surely that was providential? But you look so white; do let me get you some tea? Or, better still, won't you go to bed? I should so love to undress you, and bathe your face with cologne." Mrs. Franklin shook her head; through her whole life she had detested cologne. On the top of her dumb despair, on the top of her profound enmity, rose again (a consciousness sickening to herself) all the petty old irritations against this woman; against her "providential"; her _Quiet Hours_; her "surely"; her "cutting crape to advantage"; and even her "cologne." She closed her eyes so that at least she need not _see_ her. "I have had a letter from my sister," Genevieve went on. "I brought it with me, thinking that you might like to hear it, for it is so _beautifully_ expressed. As you don't care to lie down, I'll read it to you now. My sister reminds me, mamma, that in the midst of my grief I ought to remember that I have had one great blessing--a blessing not granted to all wives; and that is, that from the first moment of our engagement to his last breath, dear Jay was perfectly devoted to me; he never looked--he never cared to look--at any one else!" Mrs. Franklin refolded her arms; her hands, laid over her elbows, tightened on her sleeves. Genevieve began to read the letter. But when she came to the passage she had quoted, the tears began to fall. "I won't go on," she said, as she wiped them away. "For we must not dwell upon our griefs--don't you think so, mamma? Not _purposely_ remind ourselves of them; surely that is unwise. I have already arranged to give away Jay's clothes, for instance--give them to persons who really need them. For as long as they are in the house I can't help cr-crying whenever I see them." Her voice broke, and she stopped; her effort at self-control, both here and at home, was sincere. She replaced the letter in her pocket. And as she did so, the crape of her sleeve, catching on the edge of the newspaper which lay over Mrs. Franklin's knees, drew it so far to one side that it fell to the floor. And there, revealed on the mother's lap, lay a little heap: a package of letters in a school-boy hand; a battered top, and one or two other toys; a baby's white robe yellow with age; some curls of soft hair, and a little pair of baby shoes. "Oh, mamma, are you letting yourself brood over these things? Surely it is not wise? Let me put them away." But Mrs. Franklin, gathering her poor treasures from Genevieve's touch, placed them herself in her secretary, which she locked. Then she began to walk to and fro across the broad room--to and fro, to and fro, her step feverishly quick. After a minute, Genevieve followed her. "Mamma, try to be resigned. Try to be calm." Mrs. Franklin stopped. She faced round upon her daughter-in-law. "You dare to offer advice to me, you barren woman? You tell me to be resigned? What do _you_ know of a mother's love for her son--you who have never borne a child? You can comprehend neither my love nor my grief. Providential, is it, that you reached Raleigh in time? Providence is a strange thing if it assists _you_. For you have killed your husband--killed him as certainly as though you had given him slow poison. You broke up his life--the only life he loved; you never rested until you had forced him out of the navy. And then, your greed for money made you urge him incessantly to go into business--into business for himself, which he knew nothing about. You gave him no peace; you drove him on; your determination to have all the things _you_ care for--a house of your own and a garden; chairs and tables; handsome clothes; money for _charities_" (impossible to describe the bitterness of this last phrase)--"these have been far more important to you than anything else--than his own happiness, or his own welfare. And, lately, your process of murder has gone on faster. For he has been very ill all winter (I know it _now_!) and you have not been near him; you have stayed here month after month, buying land with Ruth's money, filling your pockets and telling him nothing of it, adding to your house, and saying to yourself comfortably meanwhile that this wise course of yours would in the end bring him round to your views. It _has_ brought him round--to his death! His life for years has been wretched, and you were the cause of the misery. For it was his feeling of being out of his place, his gradual discouragement, his sense of failure, that finally broke down his health. If he had never seen _you_, he might have lived to be an old man, filling with honor the position he was fitted for. Now, at thirty-nine, he is dead. He was faithful to you, you say? He was. And it is my greatest regret! I do not wish ever to see your face again. For he was the joy of my life, and you were the curse of his. Go!" These sentences, poured out in clear, vibrating tones, had filled Genevieve with horror. And something that was almost fear followed as the mother, coming nearer, her eyes blazing in her death-like face, emphasized her last words by stretching out her arm with a gesture that was fiercely grand--the grandeur of her bereavement and her despair. Genevieve escaped to the hall. Then, after waiting for a moment uncertainly, she hurried home. When the sound of her footsteps had died away, Mrs. Franklin went to the secretary and took out again the dress and the top, the little shoes and the baby-curls; seating herself, she began to rearrange them. But her hands only moved for a moment or two. Then her head sank back, her eyes closed. CHAPTER XVII As it happened, Horace Chase was the next person who entered the parlor. He was touched when he saw the old-looking figure, with the pathetic little heap in its lap. But when he perceived that the figure was unconscious, he was much alarmed; summoning help, he sent hastily for a doctor. After being removed to her own room, Mrs. Franklin was extremely restless; she moved her head incessantly from side to side on the pillow, and she seemed to be half blind; her mind wandered, and her voice, as she spoke incoherently, was very weak. Then suddenly she sank into a lethargic slumber. The doctor waited to see in what condition she would waken; for there were symptoms he did not like. Miss Billy, meanwhile, was installed as nurse. Mrs. Kip, Maud Muriel, and Miss Billy had visited this house of mourning many times since the arrival of the funeral procession two days before, with the mother walking beside the coffin of her son. And now that this poor mother was stricken down, they all came again, anxious to be of use. Chase, who had always liked her gentle ways, selected Miss Billy. Dolly knew nothing of her mother's prostration; for her pain (her old enemy), having been deadened by an opiate, she was sleeping. In order that she should not suspect what had happened, Miss Billy did not show herself at all in Dolly's room; Rinda, who was accustomed to this service, was established there on a pallet, ready to answer if called. Chase had decided that he would wait for the doctor's report before starting on his drive across the mountain; it would be satisfactory to have something definite to tell Ruth. It was uncertain when that report would come. But as he intended to set out, in spite of the darkness, the first moment that it was possible, there was no use in going to bed. Alone in the parlor, therefore, he first read through all the newspapers he could find. Then, opening the window, he smoked a cigar or two. Finally, his mind reverted, as it usually did when he was alone, to business; drawing a chair to the table, he took out some memoranda and sat down. Midnight passed. One o'clock came. Two o'clock. He still sat there, absorbed. Mrs. Franklin's reading-lamp, burning brightly beside him, lighted up his hard, keen face. For it looked hard now, with its three deeply set lines, one on each side of the mouth, and one between the eyes; and the eyes themselves were hard and sharp. But though the business letter he was engaged upon was a masterpiece of shrewdness (as those who received it would not fail to discover sooner or later), and though it dealt with large interests that were important, the faintest sound upstairs would have instantly caught the attention of its writer. On a chair beside him were railroad time-tables, and a sheet of commercial note-paper with two lines of figures jotted down in orderly rows side by side; these represented the two probabilities regarding the trains which his wife might take--their hours of departure and their connections. He had received no telegrams, and this had surprised him. "What can the little chap be about?" he had more than once thought. His adjective "little" was not depreciatory; Malachi Hill was, in fact, short. In addition, his fresh, pink-tinged complexion and bright blue eyes gave him a boyish air. To Horace Chase, who was over six feet in height, and whose dark face looked ten years older than it really was, the young missionary (whom he sincerely liked) seemed juvenile; his youthful appearance, in fact, combined with his unmistakable "grit" (as Chase called it), had been the thing which had first attracted the notice of the millionaire. A little before three there was a sound. But it was not from upstairs, it was outside; steps were coming up the path from the gate. The man in the parlor went into the hall; and as he did so, to his surprise the house-door opened and his wife came in. Behind her there was a momentary vision of Malachi Hill. The clergyman, however, did not enter; upon seeing Horace Chase, he closed the door quietly and went away. Ruth's face, even to the lips, was so white that her husband hastily put his arm round her; then he drew her into the sitting-room, closing the door behind them. "Where is he?" Ruth had asked, or rather, her lips formed the words. "Didn't you _wait_ for me?" "My darling, he was buried yesterday," Chase answered, sitting down and drawing her into his arms. "Didn't Hill tell you?" "Yes, but I didn't believe it. I thought you would wait for me; I thought you would _know_ that I wanted to see him." "No one saw him after we left Raleigh, dear. The coffin was not opened again." "If I had been here, mother would have--_mother_ would have--" "It was your mother who arranged everything," Chase explained gently, as with careful touch he took off her hat, and then her gloves; her hands were icy, and he held them in his to warm them. "Where _is_ mother? And Dolly? Weren't they expecting me? Didn't they _know_ I would come?" "Your mother is sick upstairs. No, don't get up--you can't see her now; she is asleep, and mustn't be disturbed. But the first moment she wakes up the doctor is to let me know, and then you shall go to her right away. Miss Breeze is up there keeping watch. Dolly has broken down, too. But Dolly's case is no worse than it has often been before, and you'd better let her sleep while she can. And now, will you stay here with me, Ruthie, till the doctor comes? Or would you rather go to bed? If you'll go, I promise to tell you the minute your mother wakes." He put his hand on her head protectingly, and kissed her cheek. Her face was cold. Her whole frame had trembled incessantly from the moment of her entrance. "My darling little girl, how tired you are!" "Tell me everything--everything about Jared," Ruth demanded, feverishly. Though she was so white, it was evident that she had not shed tears; her eyes were bright, her lips were parched. Her husband, with his rough-and-ready knowledge of women, knew that it would be better for her to "have her cry out," as he would have phrased it; it would quiet her excitement and subdue her so that she would sleep. As she could not eat, he gave her a spoonful of brandy from his own flask, and wrapped her cold feet in his travelling-shawl; then, putting her on the sofa, he sat down beside her, and, holding her tenderly in his arms, he told her the story of Jared's last hours. His account was truthful, save that he softened the details. In his narrative Mrs. Nightingale's shabby house became homelike and comfortable, and Jared's bare attic a pleasant place; Mrs. Nightingale herself (here there was no need for exaggeration) was an angel of kindness. He dwelt upon Jared's having agreed to go with him to New York. "I had planned to start at nine o'clock the next morning, Ruthie, having a doctor along without his knowing it; and I had ordered a private car--a Pullman sleeper--to go through to New York; once there, I thought you could make him take a good long rest. That kind woman had been sitting up at night in the room next to his. So I fixed that by taking the same room myself. I didn't undress, but I guess I fell asleep; and I woke up hearing him talking. And then he walked about the room, and he even climbed out on the roof; but we soon got him back all right. Everything possible was done, dear; the best doctor in Raleigh, and a nurse--two of 'em. But it was no use. It was brain-fever, or inflammation of the brain rather, and after it had left him he was too weak to rally. They thought everything of him at Raleigh; your mother wanted him brought here, and when we went to the depot, everybody who had ever known him turned out, so that there was a long procession; and all the ladies of his boarding-house brought flowers. At Old Fort, I had intended to let Hill (I had wired to him to meet us there) take charge of them across the mountains, for I wanted to go to New York to get _you_. But the night was dark, and the road is always so bad that I thought, on the whole, you'd rather have me stay with your mother. And she has been tolerably well, too, until this afternoon, when she had an attack of some sort. But I guess it's only that she is overtired; the doctor will probably come down and tell us so before long." "I _wanted_ to see him," repeated Ruth, her eyes still dry and bright. "It was very little to do for me, I think. If I could have just taken his poor hand once--even if it _was_ dead! Everybody else got there in time to speak to him, to say good-by." "No; your mother didn't get there," Chase explained. "She didn't get there? And Genevieve _did?_ I know it by your face. Let me go to mother--poor mother! Let me go to her, and _never_ leave her again." "You shall go the instant she wakes; you shall stay with her as long as you like," Chase answered, drawing her down again, and putting his cheek against her head as it lay on his breast. "There is nothing in the world I wouldn't do for your mother; you have only to choose. And for Dolly, too. You shall stay with them; or they can go with you; or anything you think best, my poor little girl." Ruth still trembled, and no tears came to her relief. Her cry, "And Genevieve _did?_" had struck him. "How they all hate her?" he thought. He had seen Genevieve since Mrs. Franklin's attack; he had gone over for a moment to tell her what had happened. Genevieve, when driven from L'Hommedieu, had taken refuge in her own room at the Cottage; here, behind her locked door, she had spent a long hour in examining herself searchingly, examining her whole married life. Her hands had trembled as she looked over her diaries, and as she turned the pages of her "Questions for the Conscience." But with all her efforts she could not discern any point where she had failed. Finally, at the end of the examination, she summed the matter up more calmly: "It _was_ best for Jared to be out of the navy; he was forming habits there that I understood better than his mother. And I _know_ that I am not avaricious. I know that I have always tried to do what was best for him, that I have tried to elevate him and help him in every way. I have worked hard--hard. I have never ceased to work. It is all a falsehood, or, rather, it is a delusion; for she is, she _must_ be, insane." Having reached this conclusion (with Genevieve conclusions were final), she put away her diaries and went down-stairs to tea. When Chase came in and told what had happened, she said, with the utmost pity, "I am _not_ surprised! When she comes out of it, I fear you will find, Horace, that her mind is affected. But surely it is natural. Mamma's mind--poor, dear mamma!--never was very strong; and, in this great grief which has overwhelmed us all, it has given way. We must make every allowance for her." She told him nothing of her terrible half-hour at L'Hommedieu. She never told any one. Silence was the only proper course--a pitying silence over Jay's poor mother, his crazed mother. Ruth had paid no heed to her husband's soothing words, his promise to do everything that he possibly could for her mother and Dolly. "What did Jared say? You were with him before he was ill. Tell me everything, everything!" He tried to satisfy her. Then he attempted to draw her thoughts in another direction. "How did you get here so soon, Ruthie? I told Hill to make you stop over and sleep." "Sleep!" repeated Ruth. "I only thought of one thing, and that was to get here in time to see him." She left the sofa. "You ought to have waited for me. It would have been better if you had. _Jared_ was the one I cared for. One look at his face, even if he _was_ dead. Where did they put him when they brought him home? For I know mother had him here, here and not at the Cottage. It was in this room, wasn't it? In the centre of the floor?" She walked to the middle of the room and stood there. "_Jared_ could have helped me," she said, miserably. "Why did they take my _brother_--the one person I had!" The door opened and the doctor entered. "_You_ here, Mrs. Chase? I didn't know you had come." He hesitated. "What is it?" said Ruth, going to him. "Tell me! _Tell_ me." The doctor glanced at Chase. Chase came up, and took his wife's hand protectingly. "You may as well tell her." "It is a stroke of paralysis," explained the doctor, gravely. "But she'll _know_ me?" cried Ruth in an agony of tears. "She _may_. You can go up if you like." But the mother saw nothing, heard nothing on earth again. She might live for years. But she did not know her own child. Chase came at last, and took his wife away. "Oh, be good to me, Horace, or I shall die! I think I _am_ dying now," she added in sudden terror. She clung to him in alarm. His immense kindness was now her refuge. CHAPTER XVIII In spite of all there was to see that afternoon, Dolly Franklin had chosen to remain at home; she sat alone in the drawing-room, adding silken rows to her stocking of the moment. Wherever Ruth was, that was now Dolly's home; since Mrs. Franklin's death, two years before, Dolly had lived with her sister. The mother had survived her son but a month. Her soul seemed to have departed with the first stroke of the benumbing malady; there was nothing but the breathing left. At the end of a few weeks, even the breathing ceased. Since then, L'Hommedieu had been closed, save for a short time each spring. Horace Chase had bought a cottage at Newport, and his wife and Dolly had divided their time between Newport and New York. This winter, however, Chase had reopened his Florida house, the old Worth place, at St. Augustine; for Ruth's health appeared to be growing delicate; at least she had a dread of the cold, of the icy winds, and the snow. "Well, we'll go back to the land of the alligators," said Chase; "we'll live on sweet potatoes and the little oysters that grow round loose. You seem to have forgotten that you own a shanty down there, Ruthie?" At first Ruth opposed this idea. Then suddenly she changed her mind. "No, I'll go. I want to sail, and sail!" "So do I," said Dolly. "But why shouldn't we try new waters? The Bay of Naples, for instance? Mr. Chase, if you cannot go over at present, you could come for us, you know, whenever it was convenient?" Dolly expended upon her idea all the eloquence she possessed. But Horace Chase never liked to have his wife beyond the reach of a railroad. He himself often made long, rapid journeys without her. But he was unwilling to have her "on the other side of the ferry," as he called it, unless he could accompany her; and at present there were important business interests which held him at home. As Ruth also paid small heed to Dolly's brilliant (and wholly imaginary) pictures of Capri, Ischia, and Sorrento, the elder sister had been forced (though with deep inward reluctance) to yield; since December, therefore, they had all been occupying the pleasant old mansion that faced the sea-wall. To-day, four o'clock came, and passed. Five o'clock came, and passed; and Dolly still sat there alone. At last she put down her knitting, and, taking her cane, limped upstairs and peeped into her sister's dressing-room. Ruth, who was lying on the lounge with her face hidden, appeared to be asleep. Dolly, therefore, closed the door noiselessly and limped down again. Outside the weather was ideally lovely. The beautiful floral arch which had been erected in the morning still filled the air with its fragrance, though the tea-roses of which it was composed were now beginning to droop. St. Augustine, or rather the visitors from the North, who at this season filled the little Spanish town, had set up this blossoming greeting in honor of a traveller who was expected by the afternoon train. This traveller had now arrived; he had passed through the floral gateway in the landau which was bringing him from the station. The arch bore as its legend: "The Ancient City welcomes the great Soldier." The quiet-looking man in the landau was named Grant. At length Dolly had a visitor; Mrs. Kip was shown in. A moment later the Reverend Malachi Hill appeared, his face looking flushed, as though he had been in great haste. Mrs. Kip's eyes had a conscious expression when she saw him. She tried to cover it by saying, enthusiastically, "How _well_ you do look, Mr. Hill! You look so fresh; really _classic_." The outline of the clergyman's features was not the one usually associated with this adjective. But Mrs. Kip was not a purist; it was classic enough, in her opinion, to have bright blue eyes and golden hair; the accidental line of the nose and mouth was less important. "Yes, my recovery is now complete," Malachi answered; "I must go back to my work in a day or two. But I wish it hadn't been measles, you know. Such a ridiculous malady!" "Oh, don't say that; measles are so sweet, so domestic. They make one think of dear little children; and lemons," said Mrs. Kip, imaginatively. "And then, when they are getting well, all sorts of toys!" While she was speaking, Anthony Etheridge entered. And he, too, looked as if he had been making haste. "What, Dolly, neither you nor Ruth out on this great occasion? Are you a bit of a copperhead?" "No," Dolly answered. "I haven't spirit enough. _My_ only spirit is in a lamp; I have been making flaxseed tea and hot lemonade for Ruth, who has a cold." "Does she swallow your messes?" Etheridge asked. "Never. But I like to fuss over them, and measure them out, and _stir_ them up!" "Just as I do for Evangeline Taylor," remarked Mrs. Kip, affectionately. "Lilian, isn't Evangeline long enough without that Taylor?" Dolly suggested. "I have always meant to ask you." "I do it as a remembrance of her father," replied Lilian, with solemnity "For I myself am a Taylor no longer; _I_ am a Kip." "Oh, is that it? And if you should marry again, what then could you do (as there is no second Evangeline) for your present name?" Dolly inquired, gravely. "I have thought of that," answered the widow. "And I have decided that I shall keep it. It shall precede any new name I may take; I should make it a condition." "You are warned, gentlemen," commented Dolly. Etheridge for an instant looked alarmed. Then, as he saw that Malachi had reddened violently, he grew savage. "Kip-Hill? Kip-Larue? Kip-Willoughby?" he repeated, as if trying them. "Walter Willoughby, however, is very poor dependence for you, Mrs. Lilian; for he is evidently here in the train of the Barclays. He arrived with them yesterday, and he tells me he is going up the Ocklawaha; I happen to know that the Barclays are taking that trip, also." Walter Willoughby's name had rendered Mrs. Kip visibly conscious a second time. The commodore's allusion to "the Barclays," and to Walter's being "in their train," had made no impression upon her. They were presumably ladies; but Lilian's mind was never troubled by the attractions of other women, she was never jealous. One reason for this immunity lay in the fact that she was always so actively engaged in the occupation of loving that she had no time for jealousy; another was that she had in her heart a soft conviction, modest but fixed, regarding the power of her own charms. As excuse for her, it may be mentioned that the conviction was not due to imagination, it was a certainty forced upon her by actual fact; from her earliest girlhood men had been constantly falling in love with her, and apparently they were going to continue it indefinitely. But though not jealous herself, she sympathized deeply with the pain which this tormenting feeling gave to others, and, on the present occasion, she feared that Malachi might be suffering from the mention of Walter Willoughby's name, and that of Achilles Larue, in connection with her own; she therefore began to talk quickly, as a diversion to another subject. "Oh, do you know, as I came here this afternoon I was reminded of something I have often meant to ask you--ask all of you, and I'll say it now, as it's in my mind. Don't you know that sign one so often sees everywhere--'Job Printing'? There is one in Charlotte Street, and it was seeing it there just now as I passed that made me think of it again. I suppose it must be some especial kind of printing that they have named after Job? But it has always seemed to me so odd, because there was, of course, no printing at all, until some time after Job was dead? Or do you suppose it means that printers have to be so _very_ patient (with the bad handwriting that comes to them), that they name _themselves_ after Job?" Dolly put down her knitting. "Lilian, come here and let me kiss you. You are too enchanting!" Mrs. Kip kissed Dolly with amiability. She already knew--she could not help knowing--that she was too enchanting. But it was not often a woman's voice that mentioned the fact. "It is late, I must go," she said. "Mr. Hill, if you--if you want those roses for Mrs. Chase's bouquet, this is the best time to gather them." Malachi Hill found his hat with alacrity, and they went out together. And then Etheridge took refuge in general objurgations. "I'm dead sick of Florida, Dolly! It's so monotonous. So flat, and deep in sand. No driving is possible. One of the best drives I ever had in my life was in a sleigh; right up the Green Mountains. The snow was over the tops of the fences, and the air clear as a bell!" "Do the Green Mountains interest the little turtle-dove who has just gone out?" Dolly inquired. "Little turtle-fool! She makes eyes at every young idiot who comes along." "Oh no, she only coos. It's her natural language. I won't answer as to Achilles Larue, commodore, for that is a long-standing passion; she began to admire his fur-lined overcoat, his neat shoes, his 'ish,' and his mystic coldness within a month after the departure of her second dear one. But as to her other flames, I think you could cut them out in her affections if you would give your mind to it seriously; yes, even the contemporary Willoughby. But you'll never give your mind to it, you're a dog in the manger! You have no intention of marrying her yourself. Yet you don't want any one else to marry her. Isn't it tremendously appropriate that she happens to own an orange-grove? Orange-blossoms always ready." "Contemporary?" Etheridge repeated, going back to the word that had startled him. "Yes. Haven't you noticed how vividly contemporary young fellows of Walter's type are? They have no fixed habits; for fixed habits are founded in retrospect, and they never indulge in retrospect. Anything that happened last week seems to them old; last year, antediluvian. They live in the moment, with an outlook only towards the future. This makes them very 'actual' wooers. As my brother-in-law would phrase it, they are 'all there!'" "Nonsense!" said Etheridge. But as he went home to his own quarters (to take a nap so as to be fresh for the evening), he turned over in his thoughts that word "contemporary!" And he made up his mind that from that hour he would mention no event which had occurred more than one year before; he would tell no story which dated back beyond the same period of time; he would read only the younger authors (whom he loathed without exception); he would not permit himself to prefer any particular walking-stick, any especial chair. At the club he would play euchre instead of whist; and if there was any other even more confoundedly modern and vulgar game, he would play that. Habits, indeed? Stuff and nonsense! Left alone, Dolly went upstairs a second time. But Ruth's door was now locked. The elder sister came back therefore to the drawing-room. Her face was anxious. She banished the expression, however, when she heard her brother-in-law's step in the hall; a moment later Horace Chase entered, his hands full of letters, and newspapers piled on his arm; he had come from the post-office, where the afternoon mail had just been distributed. "Where is Ruth? Still asleep?" he asked. "I think not; I heard Félicité's voice speaking to her just now, when I was upstairs," Dolly answered. "They're taking another look at that new frock," Chase suggested, jocosely, as he seated himself to reread his correspondence (for he had already glanced through each letter in the street). "Where is Hill?" he went on rather vaguely, his attention already attracted by something in the first of these communications. "He came in, after the welcoming ceremonies, red in the face from chasing Mrs. Kip. And the commodore appeared a moment later, also breathless, and in search of her. But Malachi was selected to walk home with the fair creature. And then the commodore trampled on Florida, and talked of the Green Mountains." Dolly's tone was good-natured. But beneath this good-nature Chase fancied that there was jealousy. "Eh--what's that you say?" he responded, bringing out his words slowly, while he bestowed one more thought upon the page he was reading before he gave her his full attention. "The little Kip? Well, Dolly, she is a very sweet little woman, isn't she?" he went on, reasonably, as if trying to open her eyes gently to a fact that was undeniable. "But I didn't know that Hill had a fancy in that quarter. If he has, we must lend him a hand." For Chase had a decided liking for Malachi; the way the young clergyman had carried through that rapid journey to New York and back, after Jared Franklin's death, had won his regard and admiration. Malachi had not stopped at Salisbury; his train went no farther, but he had succeeded in getting a locomotive, by means of which, travelling on all night, he had made a connection and reached New York in time after all to meet Ruth's steamer. As it came in, there he was on the dock, dishevelled and hungry, but there. And then when Ruth, frenzied by the tidings he brought (for it really seemed to him almost frenzy), had insisted upon starting on her journey to L'Hommedieu without an instant's delay, he had taken her, with Félicité, southward again as rapidly as the trains could carry them. His money was exhausted, but he did not stop; he travelled on credit, pledging his watch; it was because he had no money that he had not telegraphed. At Old Fort he procured a horse and light wagon, also on trust, and though he had already spent four nights without sleep, he did not stop, but drove Ruth across the mountains in the darkness on a sharp trot, with the utmost skill and daring, leaving Félicité to follow by stage. The sum which Chase had placed in the envelope with the ticket had been intended merely for his own expenses; the additional amount which was now required for Ruth and her maid soon exhausted it, together with all that he had with him of his own. Ruth's state of tension--for she was dumb, white, and strange--had filled him with the deepest apprehension; she did not think of money, and he could not bear to speak to her of it. Such a contingency had not occurred to Chase, who knew that his wife had with her more money than the cost of half a dozen such journeys; for her purse was always not only full, but over-full; it was one of his pleasures to keep it so. When, afterwards, he learned the facts (from Ruth herself, upon questioning her), he went off, found Malachi, and gave him what he called "a good big grip" of the hand. "You're a trump, Hill, and can be banked on every time!" Since then he had been Malachi's friend and advocate on all occasions, even to the present one of endeavoring to moderate the supposed jealousy of his sister-in-law regarding Lilian Kip. After this kindly meant attempt of his, Dolly did not again interrupt him; she left him to finish his letters, while she went on with her knitting in silence. Mrs. Franklin's prophecy, that Chase would end by liking Dolly for herself, had not as yet come true. Ruth's husband accepted the presence of his wife's sister under his roof; as she was an invalid, he would not have been contented to have her elsewhere. Dolly's life now moved on amid ease and comfort; she had her own attendant, who was partly a lady's-maid, partly a nurse; she had her own phaeton, and, when in New York, her own coupé. If she was to live with Ruth at all, there was, indeed, no other way; she could not do her own sister the injustice of remaining a contrast, a jarring note by her side. Chase was invariably kind to Dolly. Nevertheless Dolly knew that her especial combination of ill-health and sarcasm seemed to him incongruous; she could detect in his mind the thought that it was odd that a woman so sickly, with the added misfortune of a plain face, should not at least try to be amiable, since it was the only rôle she could properly fill. Her little hostilities, as her mother had called them, were now necessarily quiescent. But she had the conviction that, even if they had remained active, her tall brother-in-law would not have minded them; he would have taken, probably, a jocular view of them; and of herself as well. When the last letter was finished, and she saw her companion begin on his newspapers, she spoke again: "I don't think Ruth ought to go to that reception to-night; she is not well enough." "Why, I thought it was nothing but a very slight cold," Chase said, turning round, surprised. "She mustn't think of going if she's sick. She _wants_ to go; she telegraphed for that dress." "Yes; last week. But that was before--before she felt ill. If she goes now, it will be only because _you_ care for it." "Oh, shucks! _I_ care for it! What do I care for that sort of thing? I'll go and tell her to give the whole right up." He rose, leaving his newspapers on the floor (Chase always wanted his newspapers on the floor, and not on a table), and went towards the door. But, at the same instant, Ruth herself came in. "I was just going up to tell you, Ruthie, that I guess we won't turn out to-night after all--I mean to that show at the Barracks. I reckon they can manage without us?" "Oh, but I want to see it," said Ruth. "If you are tired, I can go with Mrs. Kip." "Well, who's running this family, anyway?" Chase demanded, going back to his seat, not ill-pleased, however, that Dolly should see that her information concerning her sister was less accurate than his own. But his care regarding everything that was connected with his wife made him add, "You'll give it up if I want you to, Ruthie?" "You don't. It's Dolly!" Ruth declared. "Dolly-Dulcinea, I have changed my mind. I did not want to go this morning; I did not want to go this noon. But, at half-past five o'clock precisely, I knew that I must go or perish! Nothing shall keep me away." And, gayly waving her hand to her sister, she went into the music-room, which opened from the larger apartment, and, seating herself at the piano, began to play. Chase returned to his reading; his only comment to Dolly was, "She seems to _look_ pretty well." And it was true that Ruth looked not only well, but brilliant. After a while they heard her begin to sing: "My short and happy day is done; The long and dreary night comes on; And at my door the Pale Horse stands, To carry me to unknown lands. "His whinny shrill, his pawing hoof, Sound dreadful as a gathering storm; And I must leave this sheltering roof, And joys of life so soft and warm." "_Don't_ sing that!" called Dolly, sharply. "Why not let her do as she likes?" suggested Chase, in the conciliatory tone he often adopted with Dolly. To him all songs were the same; he could not tell one from the other. At this moment Malachi Hill entered, with his arms full of roses. "Long stalks?" said Ruth, hurrying to meet him. "Lovely! Now you shall help me make my posy. What shall I bring home for you in my pocket, Mr. Hill? Ice-cream?" "Well, the truth is I am thinking of going myself," answered Malachi, coloring a little. "It has been mentioned to me that I ought to go--as a representative of the clergy. It is not in the least a ball, they tell me; it is a reception--a reception to General Grant. The young people may perhaps dance a little; but not until after the general's departure." "Capital idea," said Chase, adding a fourth to his pile of perused sheets on the floor. "And don't go back on us, Hill, by proposing to escort some one else. Ruth wants to make an impression on the general, and, three abreast, perhaps we can do it." Suddenly Ruth went to her sister. "Dolly, you must go too. Now don't say a word. You can go early and have a good seat; and as to dress, you can wear your opera-cloak." "Oh no--" began Dolly. But Ruth stopped her. "You must. I want you to _see_ me there." "Well, who's conceited, I'd like to know?" commented Chase, as he read on. But Ruth's face wore no expression of conceit; its expression was that of determination. With infinite relief Dolly saw this. "I'll go," she said, comprehending Ruth's wish. The reception was given by a West Point comrade of General Grant's, who happened to be spending the winter in Florida. As he had left the army many years before, he was now a civilian, and the participation of St. Francis Barracks in the affair was therefore accidental, not official. For the civilian, being a man of wealth, had erected for the occasion a temporary hall or ball-room, and had connected it by a covered passage with the apartments of his brother, who was an artillery officer, stationed that winter at this old Spanish post. At ten o'clock, this improvised hall presented a gay appearance, owing to the flowers with which it was profusely decorated, to the full dress of the ladies, and to the uniforms; for the army had been reinforced by a contingent from the navy, as two vessels belonging to the Coast Survey were in port. The reticent personage to whom all this homage was offered looked as if he would like to get rid of it on any terms. He had commanded great armies, he had won great battles, and that seemed to him easy enough. But to stand and have his hand shaken--this was an ordeal! A lane had been kept open through the centre of the long room in order to facilitate the presentations. At half-past ten, coming in his turn up this avenue, the tall figure of Horace Chase could be seen; his wife was with him, and they were preceded by the Rev. Malachi Hill. Chase, inwardly amused by the ceremony, advanced towards Grant with his face very solemn. But for the moment no one looked at him; all eyes were turned towards the figure by his side. Half an hour earlier, as he sat alone in his drawing-room, waiting (and reading another newspaper to pass away the time), Ruth had come to him. As he heard her enter, he had looked up with a smile. Then his face altered a little. "What! no diamonds?" he said. Ruth wore the new dress about which he had joked, but no ornaments save a string of pearls. "It shall be just as you like," she answered, in a steady voice. "Oh no, Ruthie; just as _you_ like." He admired diamonds, and now that she was nearly twenty-three, he had said to himself that even her mother, if she had lived, would no longer have objected to her wearing them. He had therefore bought for her recently a superb necklace, bracelets, and other ornaments, and he had pleased himself with the thought that for this official occasion they would be entirely appropriate. Ruth, reading his disappointment in his eyes, went out, and returned a few minutes later adorned with all his gifts to the very last stone. And now, as she came up the lane in the centre of the crowded room, the gems gleamed and flashed, gleamed on her neck, on her arms, in her hair, and in the filmy lace of her dress. Always tall, she had grown more womanly, and she could therefore bear the splendor. To-night, in addition, her own face was striking, for her color had returned, and her extraordinarily beautiful eyes were at their best--lustrous and profound. It had always been said of Ruth that her beauty came and went. To-night it had certainly come, and to such a degree that it spurred Etheridge to the exclamation, in an undertone: "Too many diamonds. But, by George, she shines them down!" After the presentation was over Chase stepped aside, and, with his wife, joined Dolly. Dolly had a very good place; draped in her opera-cloak, which was made of a rich Oriental fabric, she looked odd, ugly, and distinguished. "Everybody is here except the Barclays," Etheridge announced. "There can't be a soul left in any of the hotels. And all the negroes in town are on the sea-wall outside, ready to hurrah when the great man drives away." "Here's Walter. He is coming this way--he is looking for _us_," said Chase. "How are you, Walter?" "Mrs. Chase! Delighted to meet you again," said Willoughby, shaking hands with Ruth with the utmost cordiality. "My sister is here also," Ruth answered, moving aside so that he could see Dolly. And then Walter greeted Miss Franklin with the same extreme heartiness. "Bless my soul, what enthusiasm!" commented Etheridge. "One would suppose that you had not met for years." "And we haven't," said Ruth, surveying Walter, coolly. "Mr. Willoughby has changed. He has a sort of Chinese air." "Willoughby has been living in California for two years, commodore; didn't you know that?" Chase explained, inwardly enjoying his wife's sally. "_I've_ been to California four times since then. But as he hasn't been east, the ladies have lost sight of him." "Are you returning to the Pacific?" Etheridge inquired of the younger man, "so as to look more Chinese still?" "The Celestial air I have already caught will have to do," Walter answered, laughing. "California is a wonderfully fascinating country. But I am not going back; the business which took me there is concluded." Horace Chase smiled, detecting the triumph under these words. For his Pacific-coast enterprise had been highly successful, and Walter had carried out his part of it with great energy and intelligence, and had profited accordingly. That particular partnership was now dissolved. When the dancing began, Ruth declined her invitations. "It isn't necessary to stay any longer, is it?" Dolly suggested in a low tone. "The carriage is probably waiting." Here Chase, who had left them twenty minutes before, came up. "I've been seeing the general off," he said. "Well--he appeared middling glad to go! No dancing, Ruthie?" For he always remembered the things that amused his wife, and dancing, he knew, was high on her list. And then, with that overtouch which it is so often the fate of an elder sister to bestow, Dolly said, "I really think she had better not try it. She is not thoroughly strong yet--after her cold." This second assertion of a knowledge superior to his own annoyed Chase. And Ruth perceived it. "I am perfectly well," she answered. And, accepting the next invitation, she began to dance. She danced with everybody. Walter Willoughby had his turn with the rest. A week later, Chase, coming home at sunset, looked into the drawing-room. His wife was not there, and he went upstairs in search of her. He found her in her dressing-room, with a work-basket by her side. "Well! I've never seen you _sew_ before," he declared, amused by this new industry. "I've had letters that make it necessary for me to go north, Ruthie. You'll be all right here, with Dolly, won't you?" He had seated himself, and was now glancing over a letter. "Don't go," said Ruth, abruptly. And she went on sewing with her unnecessarily strong stitches; her mother had been wont to say of her that, if she sewed at all, the results were like iron. Petie Trone, Esq., aged but still pretty, had been reposing on the lounge by her side. But the moment Chase seated himself, the little patriarch had jumped down, gone over, and climbed confidently up to his knees, where, after turning round three times, he had finally settled himself curled up like a black ball, with his nose on his tail. "Oh, I must," Chase answered. "There's something I've got to attend to." And he continued to study the letter. "Take me with you, then," said Ruth, going on with her rocklike seam. "What's that? Take you?" her husband responded, still absorbed. "Not this time, I guess. For I'm going straight through to Chicago. It would tire you." "No; I should like it; I don't want to stay here." She put down her work; going to one of the tables, she stood there with her back towards him, turning things over, but hardly as though she perceived what they were. Chase finished his letter. Then, as he replaced it in his pocket, he saw that she had risen, and, depositing Mr. Trone on the lounge, he went to her and put his arm round her shoulders. "I'd take you if I could, Ruthie," he said, indulgently, beginning a reasonable argument with her. "But my getting to Chicago by a certain date is imperative, and to do it I've got to catch to-night's train and go through, and that would be too hard travelling for you. Besides, you would lose all the benefit of your Southern winter if you should hurry north now, while it is still so cold; that is always a mistake--to go north too early. Your winter here has done you lots of good, and that's a great pleasure to me. I want to be proud of you next summer at Newport, you know." And he pinched her cheek. Ruth turned and looked at him. "_Are_ you proud of me?" "Oh no!" answered Chase, laughing. "Not at all!" Then, after a moment, he went on, his tone altering. "I like to work a big deal through; I'm more or less proud of that, I reckon. But down below everything else, Ruthie, I guess my biggest pride is just--_you_." He was a man without any grace in speech. But certain tones of his voice had an eloquence of their own. Ruth straightened herself. "I will do what you wish. I will stay here--as you prefer it. And you must keep on being proud of me. You must be proud of me always, _always_." This made her husband laugh a second time. "It's a conceit that's come to stay, Mrs. Chase. You may put your money on it!" CHAPTER XIX As he walked down the sea-wall to his hotel after the Grant reception, Walter Willoughby said to himself that Mrs. Chase's coldness was the very thing he desired, the thing he had been hoping for, devoutly, for more than two years. The assertion was true. But though he had hoped, he had hardly expected that her indifference would have become so complete. If he did not exactly enjoy it, it had at least the advantage of leaving him perfectly free. For purposes of his own (purposes which had nothing to do with her), he had found it convenient to come to Florida this winter. And now that St. Augustine was reached, these same private purposes made him desire to remain there rather longer than he had at first intended. After the Grant reception he told himself with relief that there was now no reason, "no reason on earth," why he should not stay as long as it suited him to do so. He therefore remained. He joined in the amusements of the little winter-colony, the riding, driving, sailing, walking, and fishing parties that filled the lovely days. Under these conditions two weeks went by. Horace Chase had not as yet returned; he was engaged in one of those bold enterprises of a speculative nature which he called "a little operation;" occasionally he planned and carried through one of these campaigns alone. On the last night of this second week Ruth came into her sister's room. It was one o'clock, but Dolly was awake; the moonlight, penetrating the dark curtains, showed her who it was. "Is that you, Ruth?" "Yes," Ruth answered. "Dolly, I want to go away." Dolly raised herself, quickly. "Whenever you like," she answered. "We can go to-morrow morning by the first train; they can pack one trunk, and the rest can be sent after us. I shall be quite well enough to go." For Dolly had been in bed all day, suffering severely; it was the only day for two weeks which she had not spent, hour by hour, with her sister. "You will have had a telegram from Mr. Chase," she went on; "we can say that as explanation." Ruth turned away. She left the details to her sister. "Oh, don't go off and shut yourself up. Stay here with me," pleaded Dolly, entreatingly. "I'd rather be alone," Ruth began. But her voice broke. "No, I'm afraid! I _will_ stay here. But you mustn't talk to me, Dolly." "Not a word," Dolly responded; "if you will tell me, first, where you have been?" "Oh, only at Andalusia, as you know," Ruth answered, in the same exhausted tone. "It isn't very late; every one stayed till after twelve. And I came home as I went; that is, with Colonel and Mrs. Atherton; they left me just now at the door." "Alone?" "No; with Walter Willoughby. But he did not come in; he only stood there on the steps with me for a moment; that's all." While Ruth was saying this, she had taken off her hat and gloves; then, in the dim light, Dolly saw her sink down on the divan, and lie there, motionless. The elder sister crept towards her on the outside of the bed (for the divan was across its foot), and covered her carefully with a warm shawl; then, faithful to her promise, she returned to her place in silence. And neither of them spoke again. On the divan Ruth was not fighting a battle; she had given up, she was fleeing. When, two years before, absorbed in her love for Walter, she had insisted upon that long, solitary voyage northward from Charleston, so that she could give herself up uninterruptedly to her own thoughts, alone with them and the blue sea, the tidings which had met her at New York as she landed--the tidings of her brother's death--had come upon her almost like a blinding shaft of lightning. It was as if she, too, had died. And she found her life again only partially, as she went southward in the rushing trains, as she crossed the mountains in the wagon, and arrived by night at dimly lighted L'Hommedieu. Sleepless through both journeys--the voyage northward and the return by land--worn out by the intense emotions which, in turn, had swept over her, she had reached her mother's door at last so exhausted that her vital powers had sunk low. Then it was that the gentle care of the man who knew nothing of the truth had saved her--saved her from the dangerous tension of her own excitement, and, later, from a death-like faintness which, if prolonged, would have been her end. For when she beheld the changed, drawn, unconscious face of her mother, that "mother" who had seemed to her as much a fixed part of her life as her own breath, her heart had failed her, failed not merely in the common meaning of the phrase, but actually; its pulsations grew so weak that a great dread seized her--the instinctive shrinking of her whole young being from the touch of death. In her terror, she had fled to her husband, she had taken refuge in his boundless kindness. "Oh, I am dying, Horace; I _must_ be dying! Save me!" was her frightened cry. For she was essentially feminine. In her character, the womanhood, the sweet, pure, physical womanhood, had a strong part; it had not been refined away by over-development of the mental powers, or reduced to a subordinate position by ascetic surroundings. It remained, therefore, what nature had made it. And it gave her a great charm. But its presence left small place for the more masculine qualities, for stoical fortitude and courage; she could not face fear; she could not stand alone; and she had always, besides, the need to be cherished and protected, to be held dear, very dear. This return to her husband was sincere as far as it carried her. From one point of view, it might be said that she had never left him. For her love for Walter had contained no plan; and her girlish affection for Horace Chase remained what it always had been, though the deeper feelings were now awake underneath. Time passed; the days grew slowly to months, and the months at last became a long year, and then two. Little by little she fell back into her old ways; she laughed at Dolly's sallies, she talked and jested with her husband. She sometimes asked herself whether those buried feelings would ever rise and take possession of her again. But Walter remained absent--that was the thing that saved her. A personal presence was with her always a powerful influence. But an absence was equally powerful in its quieting effect; it produced temporarily more or less oblivion. She had never been able to live on memories. And she had a great desire at all times to be happy. And, therefore, to a certain degree, she did become happy again; she amused herself with fair success at Newport and New York. And then Walter had re-entered the circle of her life. And by a fatality this had come to her at St. Augustine. On the morning of the day of the Grant reception, she had suddenly learned that he was in town. And she knew (it came like a wave over her) that she dreaded the meeting. There had been no spoken confidences between the sisters. But Dolly had instantly extended all the protection that was in her power, and even more; for she had braved the displeasure of her brother-in-law by maintaining that his wife was ill, and that she (Dolly) knew more of the illness than he did. And then, suddenly, this elder sister was put in the wrong. For Ruth herself appeared, declaring gayly that she was well, perfectly well. The gayety was assumed. But the declaration that she was well was a truthful one; she was not only well, but her heart was beating with excitement. For the idea had taken possession of her that this was the very opportunity she needed to prove to herself (and to Dolly also) that she was changed, that she was calm and indifferent. And it would be a triumph also to show this indifference to Walter. Her acts, her words, her every intonation should make this clear to him; delightfully, coldly, brilliantly clear! Yet, into this very courage had come, as an opposing force, that vague premonition which had made her suddenly begin to sing "The Stirrup Cup." But a mood of renewed gayety had followed; she had entered the improvised ball-room with pulses beating high, sure that all was well. Before the evening was over she knew that all was ill; she knew that at the bottom of everything what had made her go thither was simply the desire to see Walter Willoughby once more. When, a few days later, her husband told her that he was going north, with one of her sudden impulses she said, "Take me with you." He had not consented. And she knew that she was glad that he had not. Certain tones of his voice, however, when he spoke of his pride in her, had touched her deeply; into her remembrance came the thought of all he had done for her mother, all he had done for Jared, and she strengthened herself anew: she would go through with it and he should know nothing; he should remain proud of her always, always. But this was not a woman who could go on unmoved seeing daily the man she loved; those buried feelings rose again to the surface, and she was powerless to resist them. All she could do (and this required a constant effort) was to keep her cold manner unaltered. Walter, meanwhile, was not paying much heed to Mrs. Chase. At the Grant reception, he had been piqued by her sarcasms; he had smarted under the surprise which her laughing coolness and gayety gave him. But this vexation soon faded; it was, after all, nothing compared with the great desire which he had at this particular moment to find himself entirely free from entanglements of that nature. He was therefore glad of her coldness. He continued to see her often; in that small society they could not help but meet. And occasionally he asked himself if there was nothing underneath this glittering frost? No least little scrap left of her feeling of two years before? But, engrossed as he was with his own projects, this curiosity remained dormant until suddenly these projects went astray; they encountered an obstacle which for the time being made it impossible for him to pursue them further. This happened at the end of his second week in St. Augustine. Foiled, and more or less irritated, and having also for the moment nothing else to do, he felt in the mood to solace himself a little with the temporary entertainment of finding out (of course in ways that would be unobserved by others) whether there was or was not anything left of the caprice which the millionaire's pretty wife had certainly felt for him when he was in Florida before. For that was his idea of it--a caprice. He saw only one side of Ruth's nature; to him she seemed a thoughtless, spoiled young creature, highly impressionable, but all on the surface; no feeling would last long with her or be very deep, though for the moment it might carry her away. What he did was so little, during this process of finding out, and what he said was so even less, that if related it would not have made a narrative, it would have been nothing to tell. But the woman he was studying was now like a harp: the lightest touch of his hand on the strings drew out the music. And when, therefore, upon that last night, taking advantage of the few moments he had with her alone at her door, after her friends from the Barracks had passed on--when he then said a word or two, to her it was fatal. His phrase meant in reality nothing; it was tentative only. But Ruth had no suspicion of this; her own love was direct, uncomplicated, and overmastering; she supposed that his was the same. She looked at him dumbly; then she turned, entering the house with rapid step and hurrying up the stairs, leaving the sleepy servant who came forward to meet her to close the door. Fatal had his words been to her; fatally sweet! The two sisters left St. Augustine the next morning; in the evening they were far down the St. John's River on their way to Savannah. They sat together near the bow of the steamer, watching in silence the windings of the magnificent stream; the moonlight was so bright that they could see the silvery long-moss draping the live-oaks on shore, and, in the tops of signal cypresses, bare and gaunt, the huge nests of the fish-hawks, like fortifications. "Poor Chase! covering her with diamonds, and giving her everything; while _I_ can turn her round my finger!" Walter said to himself when he heard they had gone. On the day of his wife's departure--that sudden departure from St. Augustine of which he as yet knew nothing, Horace Chase, in Chicago, was bringing to a close his "little operation"; by six o'clock, four long-headed men had discovered that they had been tremendously out-generalled. Later in the evening, three of these men happened to be standing together in a corridor of one of the Chicago hotels, when the successful operator, who was staying in the house, came by chance through the same brightly lighted passage-way. "I guess you think, Chase, that you've got the laugh on us," said one of the group. "But just wait a month or two; we'll make you walk!" "Oh, the devil!" answered Chase, passing on. "He's as hard as flint!" said the second of the discomfited trio, who, depressed by his losses (which to him meant ruin), had a lump in his throat. "There isn't such a thing as an ounce of feeling in Horace Chase's _whole_ composition, damn him!" CHAPTER XX His little campaign over, Horace Chase made his preparations for returning to Florida. These consisted in hastily throwing into a valise the few things which he had brought with him, and ringing the bell to have a carriage called so that he could catch the midnight train. As he was stepping into this carriage, a telegram was handed to him. "Hold on a minute," he called to the driver, as he opened it. "We are on our way to Savannah," he read. "You will find us at the Scriven House. Ruth not well." And the signature was "Dora Franklin." "Drive on," he called a second time, and as the carriage rolled towards the station he said to himself, "That Dolly! Always trying to make out that Ruth's sick. I guess it's only that she's tired of Florida. She wanted to leave when _I_ came north; asked me to take her." But when he reached Savannah, he found his wife if not ill, at least much altered; she was white and silent, she scarcely spoke; she sat hour after hour with her eyes on a book, though the pages were not turned. "She isn't well," Dolly explained again. "Then we must have in the doctors," Chase answered, decisively. "I'll get the best advice from New York immediately; I'll wire at once." "Don't; it would only bother her," objected Dolly. "They can do no more for her than we can, for it is nothing but lack of strength. Take her up to L'Hommedieu, and let her stay there all summer; that will be the best thing for her, by far." "That's the question; will it?" remarked Chase to himself, reflectively. "Do I know her, or do I not?" urged Dolly. "I have been with her ever since she was born. Trust me, at least where _she_ is concerned; for she is all I have left in the world, and I understand her every breath." "Of course I know you think no end of her," Chase answered. But he was not satisfied; he went to Ruth herself. "Ruthie, you needn't go to Newport this summer, if you're tired of it; you can go anywhere you like, short of Europe (for I can't quite get abroad this year). There are all sorts of first-rate places, I hear, along the coast of Maine." "I don't care where I go," Ruth answered, dully, "except that I want to be far away from--from the tiresome people we usually see." "Well, that means far away from Newport, doesn't it? We've been there for two summers," Chase answered, helping her (as he thought) to find out what she really wanted. "Would you like to go up the lakes--to Mackinac and Marquette?" "No, L'Hommedieu would do, perhaps." "Yes, Dolly's plan. Are you doing it for _her_?" "Oh," said Ruth, with weary truthfulness, "don't you know that I never do things for Dolly, but that it's always Dolly who does things for me?" Her husband took her to L'Hommedieu. She seemed glad to be there; she wandered about and looked at her mother's things; she opened her mother's secretary and used it; she sat in her mother's easy-chair, and read her books. There was no jarring element at hand; Genevieve, beneficent, much admired, and well off, had been living for two years in St. Louis; her North Carolina cottage was now occupied by Mrs. Kip. Chase had the inspiration of sending for Kentucky Belle, and after a while Ruth began to ride. This did her more good than anything else; every day she was out for hours among the mountains with her husband, and often with the additional escort of Malachi Hill. One morning they made an expedition to the wild gorge where the squirrel had received his freedom two years before; Ruth dismounted, and walked about under the trees, looking up into the foliage. "He's booming; he's got what _he_ likes," said Chase--"your Robert the Squirrel; or Robert the Devil, as Dolly called him." "Oh, I don't want him back," Ruth answered; "I am glad he is free. Every one ought to be free," she went on, musingly, as though stating a new truth which she had just discovered. "I came out nearly every week, Mrs. Chase, during the first six months, with nuts for him," said Malachi, comfortingly. "I used to bring at least a quart, and I put them in a particular place. Well--they were always gone." As they came down a flank of the mountain overlooking the village, Chase surveyed the valley with critical eyes. "If we really decide to take this thing up at last--Nick and Richard Willoughby, and myself, and one or two more--my own idea would be to have a grand combine of all the advantages possible," he began. "In the United States we don't do this thing up half so completely as they do abroad. Over there, if they have mountains--as in Switzerland, for instance--they don't trust to that alone, they don't leave people to sit and stare at 'em all day; they add other attractions. They have boys with horns, where there happen to be echoes; they illuminate the waterfalls; girls dressed up in costumes milk cows in arbors; and men with flowers and other things stuck in their hats, yodel and sing. All sorts of carved things, too, are constantly offered for sale, such as salad-forks, paper-cutters, and cuckoo clocks. Then, if it isn't mountains, but springs, they always have the very best music they can get, to make the water go down. It would be a smart thing to have the sulphur near here brought into town in pipes to a sort of park, where we could have a casino with a hall for dancing, and a restaurant where you could always get a first-class meal. And, outside, a stand for the band. And then in the park there ought to be, without fail, long rows of bright little stores for the ladies--like those at Baden-Baden, Ruthie? No large articles sold, but a great variety of small things. Ladies always like that; they can drink the water, listen to the music, and yet go shopping too, and buy all sorts of little knick-knacks to take home as presents; it would be extremely popular. The North Carolina garnets and amethysts could be sold; and specimens of the mica and gold and the native pink marble could be exhibited. Then those Cherokee Indians out Qualla way might be encouraged to come to the park with their baskets and bead-work to sell. And there must be, of course, a museum of curiosities, stuffed animals, and mummies, and such things. There's a museum opposite that lion cut in the rock at Lucerne Hill--I guess you've heard of it? It attracts more interest than the lion himself; I've watched, and I know; ten out of twelve of the people who come there, look two minutes at the lion, and give ten at least to the museum. Then it wouldn't be a half-bad idea to get hold of an eminent doctor; we might make him a present of half a mountain as an inducement. Larue, by the way, won't be of much use to our boom, now that he isn't a senator any longer. Did they kick him out, Hill, or freeze him out?" "Well--he resigned," answered Malachi, diplomatically. "You see, they wanted the present senator--a man who has far more magnetism." "Larue never _was_ 'in it'; I saw that from the first," Chase commented. "Well, then, in addition, there must, of course, be a hospital in the town, so that the ladies can get up fairs for it each year at the height of the season; they find the _greatest_ interest in fairs; I've often noticed it. Then I should give _my_ vote for a good race-course. And, finally, all the churches ought to be put in tip-top condition--painted and papered and made more attractive. But that, Hill, we'll leave to you." Malachi laughed. He admired Horace Chase greatly, but he had long ago despaired of making him pay heed to certain distinctions. "I think I won't meddle with the other churches if you will only help along ours," he answered; "our Church school here, and my mountain missions." "All right; we'll boom them all," said Chase, liberally. "There might be a statue of Daniel Boom in the park, near the casino," he went on in a considering tone; "he lived near here for some time. Though, come to think of it, his name was Boone, wasn't it?--just missed being appropriate! Well, at any rate, we can have a statue of Colonel David Vance, and of Dr. Mitchell, who is buried on Mitchell's Peak. And of David L. Swain." "Have you any especial sculptor in view?" inquired Malachi, who was not without a slight knowledge of art. "No. But we could get a good marble-cutter to take a contract for the lot; that would be the easiest way, I reckon." Malachi could not help being glad, revengefully glad, that at least there was no mention of Maud Muriel. Only the day before the sculptress had greeted him with her low-breathed "Manikin!" as he came upon her in a narrow winding lane which he had incautiously entered. A man may be as dauntless as possible (so he told himself), but that does not help him when his assailant is a person whom he cannot knock down--"a striding, scornful, sculping spinster!" "She had better look out!" he had thought, angrily, as he passed on. His morning ride over, Chase took a fresh horse after lunch, and went down to Crumb's. Nicholas Willoughby, struck by the wildness and beauty of these North Carolina mountains, had built a cottage on the high plateau above Crumb's, the plateau which Chase had named "Ruth's Terrace" several years before. During the preceding summer, Nicholas had occupied this house (which he called The Lodge) for a month or more. This year, having lent it to some friends for August and September, he had asked Chase to see that all was in order before their arrival. While Chase was off upon this errand, Ruth and Dolly were to go for a drive along the Swannanoa. But first Dolly stopped at Miss Mackintosh's barn; her latest work was on exhibition there. This was nothing less than a colossal study in clay of the sculptress's own back from the nape of the neck to the waist; Dolly, who had already had a view of this masterpiece, was now bringing Ruth to see it, with the hope that it would make her laugh. It did. Her old mirth came back for several minutes as she gazed at the rigidly faithful copy of Maud Muriel's shoulder-blades, her broad, gaunt shoulders, and the endless line of conscientiously done vertebræ adorning her spine. Mrs. Kip was there, also looking. "Maud Muriel, how could you _see_ your back?" she inquired. "Hand-glass," replied the sculptress, briefly. "Well, to me it looks hardly proper," commented Mrs. Kip; "it's so--_exposed_. And then, without any head or arms, it seems so mutilated; like some awful thing from a battle-field! I don't think it's necessary for lady artists to study anatomy, Maud Muriel; it isn't expected of them; it doesn't seem quite feminine. Why don't you carve angels? They _have_ no anatomy, and, of course, they need none. Angels, little children, and flowers--I think those are the most appropriate subjects for _lady_ artists, both in sculpture and in painting." Then, seeing Maud Muriel begin to snort (as Dolly called the dilation of the sculptress's nostrils when she was angry), Mrs. Kip hurried on, changing the subject as she went. "But sculpture certainly agrees with you, Maudie dear. I really think your splendid hair grows thicker and thicker! You could always earn your living (if you had occasion) by just having yourself photographed, back-view, with your hair down, and a placard--'Results of Barry's Tricopherus.' Barry would give _anything_ to get you." Maud Muriel was not without humor, after her curt fashion. "Well, Lilian," she answered, "_you_ might be 'Results of Packer's Granulated Food,' I'm sure. You look exactly like one of the prize health-babies." "Oh no!" cried Mrs. Kip, in terror, "I'm not at _all_ well, Maud Muriel. Don't tell me so, or I shall be ill directly! Neither Evangeline Taylor nor I are in the _least_ robust; we are _both_ pulmonic." At this moment Evangeline herself appeared at the door, accompanied by her inseparable Miss Green, a personage who was the pride of Mrs. Kip's existence. This was not for what she was, but for her title: "Evangeline Taylor and her governess"--this to Mrs. Kip seemed almost royal. She now hurried forward to meet her child, and, taking her arm, led her away from the torso to the far end of the barn, where two new busts were standing on a table, one of them the likeness of a short-nosed, belligerent boy, and the other of a dreary, sickly woman. "Come and look at these _sweet_ things, darling." And then Ruth broke into a second laugh. "Mrs. Chase," said Maud Muriel, suddenly, "I wish _you_ would sit to me." "No. Ask her husband to sit," suggested Dolly. "You know you like to do men best, Maud Muriel." "Well, generally speaking, the outlines of a man's face are more distinct," the sculptress admitted. "And yet, Dolly, it doesn't always follow. For, generally speaking, women--" "Maud Muriel, I am _never_ generally speaking, but always particularly," Dolly declared. "Do Mr. Chase. He will come like a shot if you will smoke your pipe; he has been dying to see you do it for three years." "I have given up the pipe; I have cigars now," explained Maud, gravely. "But I do not smoke here; I take a walk with a cigar on dark nights--" "Sh! Don't talk about it now," interrupted Mrs. Kip, warningly. For Evangeline Taylor, having extracted all she could from the "sweet things," was coming towards them. There was a good deal to come. Her height was now six feet and an inch. Her long, rigid face wore an expression which she intended to be one of deep interest in the works of art displayed before her; but as she was more shy than ever, her eyes, as she approached the group, had a suppressed nervous gleam which, with her strange facial tension, made her look half-mad. "Dear child!" said the mother, fondly, as Ruth, to whom the poor young giant was passionately devoted, made her happy by taking her off and talking to her kindly, apart. "She has the true Taylor eyes. So profound! And yet so dove-like!" Here the head of Achilles Larue appeared at the open door, and Lilian abandoned the Taylor eyes to whisper quickly, "Oh, Maud Muriel, do cover that dreadful thing up!" "Cover it up? Why--it is what he has come to see," answered the intrepid Maud. The ex-senator inspected the torso. "Most praise-worthy, Miss Mackintosh. And, in execution, quite--quite fairish. Though you have perhaps exaggerated the anatomical effect--the salient appearance of the bones?" "Not at all. They are an exact reproduction from life," answered Maud, with dignity. Lilian Kip, still apprehensive as to the influence of the torso upon a young mind, sent her daughter home to play "battledoor and shuttlecock, dear" (Evangeline played "battledoor and shuttlecock, dear," every afternoon for an hour with her governess, to acquire "grace of carriage"); Larue was now talking to Ruth, and Lilian, after some hesitation, walked across the barn and seated herself on a bench at its far end (the only seat in that resolute place); from this point she gazed and gazed at Larue. He was as correct as ever--from his straight nose to his finger-tips; from his smooth, short hair, parted in the middle, to his long, slender foot with its high in-step. Dolly, tired of standing, came after a while and sat down on the bench beside the widow. They heard Achilles say, "No; I decided not to go." Then, a few minutes later, came another "No; I decided not to do that." "All his decisions are _not_ to do things," commented Dolly, in an undertone. "When he dies, it can be put on his tombstone: 'He was a verb in the passive voice, conjugated negatively.' Why, what's the matter, Lilian?" "It's nothing--I am only a little agitated. I will tell you about it some time," answered Mrs. Kip, squeezing Dolly's hand. Ruth, tired of the senator, looked across at Dolly. Dolly joined her, and they took leave. Maud Muriel followed them to the door. "I _should_ like to do your head, Ruth." "No; you are to do Mr. Chase's," Dolly called back from the phaeton. "She has been in love with your husband from the first," she went on to her sister, as she turned her pony's head towards the Swannanoa. And then Ruth laughed a third time. But though Dolly thus made sport, in her heart there was a pang. She knew--no one better--that her sister's face had changed greatly during the past three months. Now that his wife was well again, Chase himself noticed nothing. And to the little circle of North Carolina friends Ruth was dear; they were very slow to observe anything that was unfavorable to those they cared for. To-day, however, Maud Muriel's unerring scent for ugliness had put her (though unconsciously) upon the track, and, for the first time in all their acquaintance, she had asked Ruth to sit to her. It was but a scent as yet; Ruth was still lovely. But the elder sister could see, as in a vision, that with several years more, under the blight of hidden suffering, her beauty might disappear entirely; her divine blue eyes alone could not save her if her color should fade, if the sweet expression of her mouth should alter to confirmed unhappiness, if her face should grow so thin that its irregular outlines would become apparent. Two hours later there was a tap at Miss Billy Breeze's door, at the Old North Hotel. "Come in," said Miss Billy. "Oh, is it you, Lilian? I am glad to see you. I haven't been out this afternoon, as it seemed a little coolish!" Mrs. Kip looked excited. "Coolish, Billy?" she repeated, standing still in the centre of the room. "Ish? _Ish?_ And I, too, have said it; I don't pretend to deny it. But it is over at last, and I am free! I have been--been different for some time. But I did not know _how_ different until this very afternoon. I met him at Maud Muriel's barn, soon after two. And I sat there, and looked at him and _looked_ at him. And suddenly it came across me that _perhaps_ after all I didn't care _quite_ so much for him. I was so nervous that I could scarcely speak, but I did manage to ask him to take a little stroll with me. For you see I wanted to be perfectly _sure_. And as he walked along beside me, putting down his feet in that precise sort of way he does, and every now and then saying 'ish'--like a great light in the dark, like a falling off of _chains_, I knew that it was at last at an end--that he had ceased to be all the world to me. And it was such an _enormous_ relief that when I came back, if there had been a circus or a menagerie in town, I give you my word I should certainly have gone to it--as a celebration! And then, Billy, I thought of _you_. And I made up my mind that I would come right straight over here and ask you--_Is_ he worth it? What has Achilles Larue ever done for either of us, Billy, but just snub, snub, snub? and crush, crush, crush? If you could only feel what a joy it is to have that tiresome old ache gone! And to just _know_ that he is hateful!" And Lilian, much agitated, took Billy's hand in hers. But Billy, dim and pale, drew herself away. "You do him great injustice, Lilian. But he has never expected the ordinary mind to comprehend him. Your intentions, of course, are good, and I am obliged to you for them. But I am not like you; to me it is a pleasure, and always will be, as well as a constant education, to go on admiring the greatest man I have ever known!" "Whether he looks at you or not?" demanded Lilian. "Whether he looks at me or not," answered Billy, firmly. "If you had ever been _married_, Wilhelmina, you would know that you could not go on forever living on _shadows_!" declared the widow as she took leave. "Shadows may be all very well. But we are human, after all, and we need _realities_." Having decided upon a new reality, her step was so joyous that Horace Chase, coming home from his long ride to Crumb's, hardly recognized her, as he passed her in the twilight. At L'Hommedieu he found no one in the sitting-room but Dolly. "Ruth is resting after our drive," explained the elder sister. "I took her first to the barn to see Maud Muriel's torso, and that made her laugh tremendously. Well, is The Lodge in order?" "Yes, it's all right; Nick's friends can come along as soon as they like," Chase answered. "And are none of the Willoughbys to be there this summer?" Dolly went on. "No; Nick has gone to Carlsbad--he isn't well. And Richard is off yachting. Walter has taken a cottage at Newport." Dolly already knew this latter fact. But she wished to hear it again. Rinda now appeared, ushering in Malachi Hill. The young clergyman was so unusually erect that he seemed tall; his face was flushed, and his eyes had a triumphant expression. He looked first at Dolly, then at Chase. "I've done it!" he announced, dashing his clerical hat down upon the sofa. "That Miss Mackintosh has called me 'Manikin' once too often. She did it again just now--in the alley behind your house. And I up and kissed her!" "You didn't," said Chase, breaking into a roaring laugh. "Yes; I did. For three whole years and more, Mr. Chase, that woman has treated me with perfectly outrageous contempt. She has seemed to think that I was nothing at all, that I wasn't a man; she has walked on me, stamped on me, shoved me right and left, and even kicked me, as it were. I have felt that I couldn't stand it _much_ longer. And I have tried to think of a way to take her down. Suddenly, just now, it came to me that nothing on earth would take her down quite so much as that. And so when she came out with her accustomed epithet, I just gave her a hurl, and did it! It is true I'm a clergyman, and I have acted as though I had kept on being only an insurance agent. But a man is a man after all, in spite of the cloth," concluded Malachi, belligerently. "Oh, don't apologize," said Dolly. "It's too delicious!" And then she and Horace Chase, for once of the same mind, laughed until they were exhausted. Meanwhile the sculptress had appeared in Miss Billy's sitting-room. She came in without knocking, her footfall much more quiet than usual. "Wilhelmina, how old are you?" she demanded, after she had carefully closed the door. "Why--you know. I am thirty-nine," Billy answered, putting down with tender touch the book she was reading (_The Blue Ridge in the Glacial Period_). "And I am forty," pursued Maud, meditatively. "It is never too late to add to one's knowledge, Wilhelmina, if the knowledge is accurate; that is, if it is observed from life. And I have stopped in for a moment, on my way home, to mention something which _is_ so observed. You know all the talk and fuss there is in poetry, Wilhelmina, about kisses (I mean when given by a man)? I am now in a position to tell you, from actual experience, what they amount to." She came nearer, and lowered her voice. "They are _very far indeed_ from being what is described. There is nothing in them. Nothing whatever!" CHAPTER XXI Horace Chase spent the whole summer at L'Hommedieu, without any journeys or absences. His wife rode with him several times a week; she drove out with Dolly in the phaeton; she led her usual life. Usual, that is, to a certain extent; for, personally, she was listless, and the change in her looks was growing so much more marked that at last every one, save her husband, noticed it. When September came, Chase went to New York on business. He was absent two weeks. When he returned he found his wife lying on the sofa. She left the sofa for a chair when he came in; but, after the first day, she no longer made this effort; she remained on the couch, hour after hour, with her eyes closed. Once or twice, when her husband urged it, she rode out with him. But her figure drooped so, as she sat in the saddle, that he did not ask her to go again. He began to feel vaguely uneasy. She seemed well; but her silence and her pallor troubled him. As she herself was impenetrable--sweet, gentle, and dumb--he was finally driven to speak to Dolly. "You say she seems well," Dolly answered. "But that is just the trouble; she seems so, but she is not. What she needs, in my opinion, is a complete change--a change of scene and air and associations of all kinds. Take her abroad for five or six years, and arrange your own affairs so that you can stay there with her." "Five or six years? That's a large order; that's _living_ over there," Chase said, surprised. "Yes," answered Dolly, "that is what I mean. Live there for a while." Then she made what was to her a supreme sacrifice: "_I_ will stay here. I won't try to go." This was a bribe. She knew that her brother-in-law found her constant presence irksome. "Of course I wouldn't hesitate if I thought it would set her up," said Chase. "I'll see what she says about it." "If you consult her, that will be the end of the whole thing," answered Dolly; "you will never go, and neither will she. For she will feel that you would be sure to dislike it. You ought to arrange it without one syllable to her, and then _do_ it. And if I were you, I wouldn't postpone it too long." "What do you talk that way for?" said Chase, angrily. "You have no right to keep anything from me if you _know_ anything. What do you think's the matter with her, that you take that tone?" "I think she is dying," Dolly answered, stolidly. "Slowly, of course; it might require three or four years more at the present rate of progress. If nothing is done to stop it, by next year it would be called nervous prostration, perhaps. And then, the year after, consumption." Chase sprang up. "How dare you sit there and talk to me of her dying?" he exclaimed, hotly. "What the hell do you mean?" Dolly preserved her composure unbroken. "She has never been very strong. Nobody can know with absolute accuracy, Mr. Chase; but at least I am telling you exactly what I think." "I'll take her abroad at once. I'll live over there forever if it will do any good," Chase answered, turning to go out in order to hide his emotion. "Remember, if you tell her about it beforehand, she will refuse to go," Dolly called after him. Always prompt, that same afternoon Chase started northward. He was on his way to New York, with the intention of arranging his affairs so that he could leave them for several years. It would be a heavy piece of work. But work never daunted him. The very first moment that it was possible he intended to return to L'Hommedieu, take his wife, and go abroad by the next steamer, allowing her not one hour for demur. In the meanwhile, she was to know nothing of the project; it was to take her by surprise, according to Dolly's idea. Dolly spent the time of his absence in trying to amuse her sister, or at least in trying to occupy her and fill the long days. These days, out of doors, were heavenly in their beauty; the atmosphere of paradise, as we imagine paradise, was now lent to earth for a time; a fringe of it lay over the valley of the French Broad. The sunshine was a golden haze; the hue of the mountains was like violet velvet; there was no wind, the air was perfectly still; in all directions the forest was glowing and flaming with the indescribably gorgeous tints of the American autumn. For a time Ruth had seemed a little stronger; she had taken two or three drives in the phaeton. Then her listlessness came back with double force. One afternoon Dolly found her lying with her head on her arm (like a flower half-broken from its stalk, poor Dolly thought). But the elder sister began bravely, with a laugh. "Well, it's out, Ruth. It is announced to-day, and everybody knows it. I mean the engagement of Malachi and the fair Lilian. But somebody ought really to speak to them, it is a public matter; it ought to be in the hands of a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to the Future. Think of her profile, and then of his, and imagine, if you can, a combination of the two let loose upon an innocent world!" Ruth smiled a little, but the smile was faint. She lay for some minutes longer with closed eyes, and then, wearily, she sat up. "Oh, I am so tired of this room! I believe I'll go out, after all. Please call Félicité, and order the phaeton." "A drive? That is a good idea, as it is such a divine afternoon," said Dolly. "I will go with you." "Oh no--with your lame arm." (For rheumatism had been bothering Dolly all day.) "If you are afraid to have me go alone, I can take Félicité." "Very well," said Dolly, who thwarted Ruth now in nothing. "May I sit here while you dress?" "If you like," answered Ruth, her voice dull and languid. Dolly pretended to knit, and she made jokes about the approaching nuptials. "It is to come off during Christmas week, they say. The bishop is to be here, but he will only pronounce the benediction, for Lilian prefers to have Mr. Arlington perform the ceremony. You see, she is accustomed to Mr. Arlington; she usually has him for her marriages, you know." But in Dolly's heart, as she talked, there were no jokes. For as Félicité dressed Ruth, the elder sister could not help seeing how wasted was the slender figure. And when the skilful hand of the Frenchwoman brushed and braided the thick hair, the hollows at the temples were conspicuous. Félicité, making no remark about it, shaded these hollows with little waving locks. But Ruth, putting up her hands impatiently, pushed the locks all back. When she returned from her drive two hours later, the sun was setting. She entered the parlor with rapid step, her arms full of branches of bright leaves which she had gathered. Their tints were less bright than her cheeks, and her eyes had a radiance that was startling. Dolly looked at her, alarmed, though (faithful to her rule) she made no comment. "Can it be fever?" she thought. But this was not fever. Ruth decorated the room with her branches. She said nothing of importance, only a vague word or two about the sunshine, and the beauty of the brilliant forest; but she hummed to herself, and finally broke into a song, as with the same rapid step she went upstairs to her room. A few moments later Miss Billy Breeze was shown in. "I couldn't help stopping for a moment, Dolly, because I am so perfectly delighted to see that dear Ruth is _so_ much better; she passed me a little while ago in her phaeton, looking really brilliant! Her old self again. After all, the mountain air _has_ done her good. I was so glad that (I don't mind telling you)--I went right home and knelt down and thanked God," said the good little woman, with the tears welling up in her pretty eyes. Miss Billy stayed nearly half an hour. Just before she went away she said (after twenty minutes of excited talk about Lilian and Malachi), "Oh, I saw Mr. Willoughby in the street this afternoon; he had ridden up from The Lodge, so Mr. Bebb told me. I didn't know he was staying there?" "Why, has he come back from Carlsbad?" asked Dolly, surprised. "Oh, I don't mean Mr. Nicholas Willoughby," answered Billy, "I mean Walter; the nephew, you know. The one who was groomsman at Ruth's wedding." CHAPTER XXII Ruth had seen Walter. It was this which had given her that new life. Tired of Félicité's "flapping way of driving," as she called it, she had left the phaeton for a few moments, and was sitting by herself in the forest, with her elbow on her knee and her chin resting on the palm of her hand; her eyes, vaguely fixed on a red bush near by, had an indescribably weary expression. Her figure was out of sight from the place where the phaeton and the maid were waiting; her face was turned in the other direction. In this direction there was at some distance a second road, and along this track she saw presently a man approaching on horseback. Suddenly she recognized him. It was Walter Willoughby. He slackened his speed for a moment to say a word or two to a farmer who was on his way to Asheville with a load of wood; then, touching his horse with his whip, he rode on at a brisk pace, and in a moment more was out of sight. Ruth had started to her feet. But the distance was too great for her to call to him. Straight as the flight of an arrow she ran towards the wagon, which was pursuing its way, the horses walking slowly, the wheels giving out a regular "scrunch, scrunch." "The gentleman who spoke to you just now--do you know where he is staying?" "Down to Crumb's; leastways that new house they've built on the mountain 'bove there. He 'lowed I might bring him down some peaches! But _peaches_ is out long ago," replied the man. Ruth returned home. She went through the evening in a dream, listening to Dolly's remarks without much answer; then, earlier than usual, she sought her own room. She fell asleep instantly, and her sleep was so profound that Dolly, who stole softly to the door at midnight and again at one o'clock, to see if all was well, went back to her room greatly cheered. For this was the best night's rest which Ruth had had for months. The elder sister, relieved and comforted, soon sank into slumber herself. Ruth's tranquil rest came simply from freedom, from the end of the long struggle which had been consuming her strength and her life. The sudden vision of the man she loved, his actual presence before her, had broken down her last barrier; it had given way silently, as a dam against which deep water has long pressed yields sometimes without a sound when the flood rises but one inch higher. She slept because she was going to him, and she knew that she was going. She had been vaguely aware that she could not see Walter again with any security. It was this which had made her take refuge in her mother's old home in the mountains, far away from him and from all chance of meeting him. She could not trust herself, but she could flee. And she had fled. This, however, was the limit of her force; her will had not the power to sustain her, to keep her from lassitude and despair; and thus she had drooped and faded until to her sister had come that terrible fear that the end would really be death. When Walter appeared, she was powerless to resist further, she went to him as the needle turns to the pole. Her love led her like a despot, and it was sweet to her to be thus led. Her action was utterly uncalculating; the loss of her home was as nothing to her; the loss of her good-repute, nothing; her husband, her sister, the whole world--all were alike forgotten. She had but one thought, one idea--to go to him. She woke an hour before dawn; it was the time she had fixed upon. She left her bed and dressed herself, using the brilliant moonlight as her candle; with soft, quick steps she stole down the stairs to the kitchen, and taking a key which was hanging from a nail by the fireplace, she let herself out. The big watch-dog, Turk, came to meet her, wagging his tail. She went to the stable, unlocked the door, and leaving it open for the sake of the light, she saddled Kentucky Belle. Then she led the gentle creature down the garden to a gate at its end which opened upon the back street. Closing this gate behind her so that Turk should not follow, she mounted and rode away. The village was absolutely silent; each moonlit street seemed more still than the last. When the outskirts were left behind, she turned her horse towards the high bridle-path, whose general course was the same as that of the road along the river below, the road which led to the Warm Springs, passing on its way the farm of David Crumb. As she did these things, one after the other, she neither thought nor reasoned; her action was instinctive. And the ride was a revel of joy; her cheeks were flushed with rose, her eyes were brilliant, her pulses were beating with a force and health which they had not known for months; she sang to herself little snatches of songs, vaguely, but gayly. The dawn grew golden, the sun came up. The air was perfectly still and softly hazy. Every now and then a red leaf floated gently down from its branch to the ground; the footfalls of Kentucky Belle were muffled in these fallen leaves. The bridle-path, winding along the flanks of the mountain, was longer than the straighter road below. It was eight o'clock before it brought her in sight of Crumb's. "I must leave Kentucky Belle in good hands," she thought. A steep track led down to the farm. The mare followed it cautiously, and brought her to Portia's door. "Can your husband take care of my horse for an hour or two?" she asked, smiling, as Portia came out. "Is he at home?" "He's at home. But he ain't workin' to-day," Mrs. Crumb replied; "he's ailin' a little. But _I'll_ see to yer mare." Ruth dismounted; patting Kentucky Belle, she put her cheek for a moment against the beautiful creature's head. "Good-bye," she whispered. "I am going for a walk," she said to Portia. "Take a snack of sump'n' nerrer to eat first?" Portia suggested. But Ruth shook her head; she was already off. She went down the river road as though she intended to take her walk in that direction. But as soon as the bend concealed her from Portia's view she turned into the forest. The only footpath to the terrace, "Ruth's Terrace," where Nicholas Willoughby had built his cottage, was the one which led up from Crumb's; Ruth's idea was that she should soon reach this track. But somehow she missed it; she gave up the search, and, turning, went straight up the mountain. This slope also was covered with the fallen leaves, a carpet of red and gold. She climbed lightly, joyously, pulling herself up the steepest places by the trunks of the smaller trees. Her color brightened. Taking some of the leaves, she twisted their stalks round the buttons of her habit so as to make a red-and-gold trimming. When she reached the summit she knew where she was, for she could now see the cliffs on the other side of the French Broad. They told her that she had gone too far to the left; and, turning, this time in the right direction, she made her way through the forest along the plateau, keeping close to its verge as a guide. As the chimneys of the Lodge came into view, she reminded herself that she wished to see Walter first--Walter himself, and not the servants. She had already paid several visits to The Lodge; she knew the place well. A good carriage-road led to it through a ravine which opened three miles below Crumb's; Nicholas Willoughby had constructed this new ascent. But he had not built any fences or walls, and she could therefore approach without being seen by keeping among the trees. At the side there was a thicket, which almost touched one end of the veranda; she stole into this thicket, and noiselessly made her way towards the house. When she reached the nearest point which she could attain unseen, she paused; her idea was to wait here until Walter should come out. For he would be sure to come before long. The veranda was always the sitting-room; it commanded that wide view of the mountains far and near which had caused Nicholas Willoughby, at the cost of much money and trouble, to perch his cottage just here. The friends to whom he had lent The Lodge had left it ten days before, as Ruth knew. A man and his wife were always in charge, but when they were alone the front of the house was kept closed. To-day the windows were all open, a rising breeze swayed the curtains to and fro, and there were numerous other signs of Walter's presence; on the veranda were several easy-chairs and a lounge, besides a table with books and papers. And wasn't that the hat he had worn when she saw him talking to the farmer the day before? Yes, it was the same. "What time can it be?" she thought. She had not her watch with her--the costly diamond-decked toy which Horace Chase had given her; she had left it with her rings on the toilet-table at L'Hommedieu. Her wedding-ring was there also. But this was not from any plan about it; she always took off her rings at night. She had simply forgotten to put them on. After ten minutes of waiting her heart gave a leap--she heard Walter's voice within the house. "That is a woman answering. He is talking to the housekeeper," she said to herself. But presently there seemed to be three voices. "It is another servant," she thought. Then, before she had time to recognize that the intonations were not those of the mountain women (who were the only resource as servants in this remote spot), Walter Willoughby himself came into view, pushing aside the curtains of one of the long windows that opened on the veranda. But before Ruth could detach herself from the branches that surrounded her, he had drawn back again to make room for some one else, and a lady came out. He followed this lady; he took his seat familiarly upon the lounge where she had placed herself. It was Marion Barclay, the handsome, inanimate girl who, with her father and mother, had spent some weeks at St. Augustine during the preceding winter. Marion was no longer inanimate. The fault of her finely chiselled face had been its coldness; but there was no coldness now as Walter Willoughby took her hand and pressed it to his lips. At this moment Mrs. Barclay, Marion's mother, appeared. "Well, Darby and Joan," she said, smiling, as she established herself in the most comfortable chair. Mrs. Barclay had favored Walter's suit from the first. It was her husband who had opposed it. Christopher Barclay had, in fact, opposed it so strongly that at St. Augustine he had dismissed young Willoughby with a very decided negative. It was while held at bay by this curt refusal that young Willoughby had entertained himself for a time by a fresh study of Mrs. Horace Chase. This, however, had been but a brief diversion; he had never had the least intention of giving up Marion, and he had renewed his suit at Newport as soon as the summer opened. This time he had been more successful, and finally he had succeeded in winning Christopher Barclay to the belief that he would know how to manage his daughter's fortune, as, from the first, he had won Mrs. Barclay to the conviction that he would know how to manage her daughter's heart. Marion herself meanwhile had never had the slightest doubt as to either the one or the other. The engagement was still very new. As Mr. Barclay had investments at Chattanooga to look after, the little party of four had taken these beautiful October days for an excursion to Tennessee. Mrs. Barclay had heard that one of the elder Willoughbys had built a cottage "not far from the Great Smoky Mountains," and as the paradisiacal weather continued, with the forests all aglow and the sky a mixture of blue and gold, she suggested that they should go over from Chattanooga and take a look at it. Walter had therefore arranged it. From the Warm Springs he himself had ridden on in advance, in order to have the house opened; this was the moment when he had made his brief visit to Asheville for the purpose of ordering supplies. The Barclays were to come no farther eastward than The Lodge; they were to return in a day or two to Warm Springs, and thence back to Chattanooga. Even if he had known that Ruth Chase was at L'Hommedieu, Walter would not have been deterred from pleasing Mrs. Barclay by any thought of her vicinity; but, as it happened, he supposed that she was in New York. For a recent letter from Nicholas Willoughby had mentioned that Chase himself was there, and that he was going abroad with his wife for several years, sailing by the next Wednesday's Cunarder. "Darby and Joan?" Walter had repeated, in answer to Mrs. Barclay's remark. "That is exactly what I am after, mother. Come, let us settle the matter now on the spot--the _bona fide_ Darby-and-Joan-ness. When shall it begin?" "'Mother'!" commented Mrs. Barclay, laughing. "You have not lost much in your life through timidity, Walter; I venture to say that." "Nothing whatever," Walter replied, promptly. "Shall we arrange it for next month? I have always said I should select November for my wedding, to see how my wife bears bad weather." "No, no. Not quite so soon as that," answered Mrs. Barclay. "But early in the year perhaps," she went on, consentingly, as she looked at her daughter's happy blushing face. Ruth heard every word; the veranda was not four yards distant; through the crevices in the foliage she could see them all distinctly. She had immediately recognized the Barclays. Anthony Etheridge's speech about Walter's being in their train came back to her, and other mentions of their name as well. But this was mechanical merely; what held her, what transfixed her, was Walter's own countenance. Marion Barclay, Mrs. Barclay, all the rumors that Etheridge could collect, these would have been nothing to her if it had not been for that--for Walter's face. And Walter was, in truth, very happy. Marion was everything that he wished his wife to be: she was accomplished and statuesque; to those she liked she could be charming; her features had the distinction which he had always been determined that his wife should possess. He was not marrying her for her fortune, though he was very glad she had that, also. He was much in love with her, and it was this which Ruth had perceived--perceived beyond a doubt. For ten minutes she stood there motionless, her eyes resting upon him. Then, feeling a death-like chill coming, she had just sense enough, just life enough left, to move backward noiselessly through the smooth leaves until she had reached the open forest beyond. As a whole life passes before the eyes of a drowning man, in the same way she saw as in a vision her long mistake, and her one idea was to get to some spot where he could not see her, where he would never find her, before she sank down. She glanced over her shoulder; yes, the thicket concealed her in that direction. Then she looked towards the verge; her hurrying steps took her thither. Sitting down on the edge, she let herself slip over, holding on by a little sapling. It broke and gave way. And then the figure in the dark riding-habit, which was still adorned gayly with the bright leaves, disappeared. CHAPTER XXIII Dolly Franklin woke soon after dawn. A moment later she stole to Ruth's door and listened. There was no sound within, and, hoping that the tranquil slumber still continued, the elder sister turned the door-handle and looked in. The window-curtains were drawn widely aside, as Ruth had arranged them several hours before, in order to let in the moonlight; the clear sunshine showed that the bed was tenantless, the room empty. Dolly entered quickly, closing the door behind her. But there was no letter bearing her name fastened to the pin-cushion or placed conspicuously on the mantel-piece, as she had feared. The rings, watch, and purse lying on the toilet-table next attracted her attention; she placed them in a drawer and locked it, putting the key in her pocket. Then, with her heart throbbing, she looked to see what clothes had been taken. "The riding-habit and hat. She has gone to The Lodge! She has found out in some way that he is staying there. Probably she is on Kentucky Belle." After making sure that there were no other betrayals in Ruth's deserted room, the elder sister returned to her own apartment and rang for her English maid, Diana Pollikett. Diana was not yet up. As soon as possible she came hurrying in, afraid that Miss Franklin was ill. "Call Félicité," ordered Dolly. Then when the two returned together, the sallow Frenchwoman muffled in a pink shawl, Dolly said: "Mrs. Chase has gone off for an early ride. I dare say that she thought it would be amusing to take me by surprise." And she laughed. But that there was anger underneath her laugh was very evident. "Félicité, go down and see if I am not right," she went on. "I think you will find that her horse is gone." Her acting was so perfect--the feigned mirth, with the deep annoyance visible beneath it--that the two maids were secretly much entertained; Mrs. Chase's escapade and her sharp-eyed sister's discomfiture were in three minutes known to everybody in the house. "Your mademoiselle, she tr'ry to keep _my_ young madame a _leetle_ too tight," commented Félicité in confidence to Miss Pollikett. Dolly, having set her story going, went through the form of eating her breakfast. Then, as soon as she could, without seeming to be in too great haste, she drove off in her own phaeton, playing to the end her part of suppressed vexation. She was on her way to The Lodge. It was a long drive, and the road was rough; the gait of her old pony was never more than slow; but she had not dared to take a faster horse, lest the unusual act should excite surprise. "Oh, Prosper, _do_ go on!" she kept saying, pleadingly, to the pony. But with all her effort it was two o'clock before she reached Crumb's, Prosper's jog-trot being hardly faster than a walk. As the farm-house at last came into sight, she brushed away her tears of despair and summoned a smile. "My sister is here, or she has been here, hasn't she?" she said, confidently, to Mrs. Crumb, who, at the sound of the wheels, had come to the door. "Yes, she's been yere. She's gone for a walk," Portia answered. "She left her mare; but she wouldn't stop to eat anything, though she must have quit town mortial early." "Oh, she had breakfast before she started," lied Dolly, carelessly. "And I have brought lunch with me; we are to eat it together. But I am very late in getting here, my fat old pony is so slow! Which way has she gone?" "Straight down the road," replied Portia. "An' when you find her, I reckon you'd both better be thinkin' of gettin' todes home befo' long. For the fine weather's about broke; there's a change comin'." "Down the road--yes," thought Dolly. "But as soon as she was out of sight she went straight up the mountain! Oh, if I could only do it too! It is _so_ much shorter." But as she feared her weak ankle might fail, all she could do was to drive up by the new road, the road which Nicholas Willoughby had built through the ravine below. She went on, therefore; there were still three miles to cover before this new road turned off. It was the only well-made carriage-track in the county. First it followed the ravine, crossing and recrossing the brook at its bottom; then, leaving the gorge behind, it wound up the remainder of the ascent in long zigzags like those of the Alpine passes. The breeze, which had stirred the curtains of The Lodge when Ruth was standing in the thicket, had now grown into a wind, and clouds were gathering. But Dolly noticed nothing. Reaching the new road at last, she began the ascent. When about a third of the way up, she thought she heard the sound of wheels coming down. The zigzag next above hers was fringed with trees, so that she could see nothing, but presently she distinguished the trot of two horses. Was it Ruth with Walter Willoughby? Were they already taking flight? Fiercely Dolly turned her phaeton straight across the road to block the way. "She shall never pass me. I will drag her from him!" The bend of the zigzag was at some distance; she waited, motionless, listening to the wheels above as they came nearer and nearer. Then round the curve into view swept a pair of horses and a light carriage. The top of the carriage was down; she could see that it held four persons; on the back seat was a portly man with gray hair, and with him a comfortable-looking elderly lady; in front was a tall, fair-haired girl, and by her side--Walter Willoughby. In the first glance Dolly had recognized Walter's companions. And the radiant face of Marion Barclay, so changed, so happy, told her all. She drew her pony straight, and, turning out a little so as to make room, she passed them with a bow, and even with a smile. Walter seemed astonished to see her there. But he had time to do no more than return her salutation, for he was driving at a sharp pace, and the descent was steep. He looked back. But her pony was going steadily up the zigzag, and presently turning the bend the phaeton disappeared. "This road leads only to The Lodge; I cannot imagine why Miss Franklin is going there now," he commented. "Or what she is doing here in any case, so far from L'Hommedieu." "L'Hommedieu? What is that? Oh yes, I remember; Anthony Etheridge told me that the Franklins had a place with that name (Huguenot, isn't it?) in the North Carolina mountains somewhere," remarked Mrs. Barclay. "What has become, by-the-way, of the pretty sister who married your uncle's partner, Horace Chase? She wasn't in Newport this summer. Is she abroad?" "No. But she is going soon," Walter answered. "My last letter from my uncle mentioned that Chase was in New York, and that he had taken passage for himself and his wife in the Cunarder of next Wednesday." "Dear me! those clouds certainly look threatening," commented Mrs. Barclay, forgetting the Chases, as a treeless space in front gave her for a moment a wider view of the sky. It was this change in the weather which had altered their plans. Nicholas Willoughby's mountain perch, though an ideal spot when the sky was blue, would be dreary enough in a long autumn storm; the Barclays and their prospective son-in-law were therefore hastening back to the lowlands. Dolly reached the summit. And as the road brought her nearer to The Lodge, she was assailed by sinister forebodings. The first enormous relief which had filled her heart as she read the story told by the carriage, was now darkened by dread of another sort. If Ruth too had seen Marion, if Ruth too had comprehended all--where was she? From the untroubled countenances of the descending party, Dolly was certain that they, at least, had had no glimpse of Ruth; no, not even Walter. Dolly believed that men were capable of every brutality. But Walter's expression, when he returned her bow, had not been that of assumed unconsciousness, or assumed anything; there was no mistaking it--he was happy and contented; he looked as though he were enjoying the rapid motion and his own skilful driving, but very decidedly also as though all the rest of his attention was given to the girl by his side. "He has not even seen her! And he cares nothing for her; it is all a mistake! Now let me only find her and get her home, and no one shall _ever_ know!" Dolly had said to herself with inexpressible relief. But then had followed fear: _could_ she find her? When the chimneys of The Lodge came into sight she drove her pony into the woods and tied him to a tree. Then she approached the house cautiously, going through the forest and searching the carpet of fallen leaves, trying to discover the imprint of footsteps. "If she came here (and I _know_ she did), is there any place from which, herself concealed, she could have had a glimpse of Marion? That thicket, perhaps? It stretches almost to the veranda." And limping to this copse, Dolly examined its outer edge closely, inch by inch. She found two places where there was a track; evidently some one had entered at one of the points, and penetrated to a certain distance; then had come out in a straight line, backward. Dolly entered the thicket herself and followed this track. It brought her to a spot whence she had a clear view of the veranda. All signs of occupation were already gone; the chairs and tables had been carried in, the windows had been closed and barred. "If she stood here and saw them, and then if she moved backward and got herself out," thought Dolly, "where did she go next?" When freed from the thicket, she knelt down and looked along the surface of the ground, her eyes on a level with it; she had seen the negroes find small articles in that way--a button, or even a pin. After changing her place two or three times, she thought she discerned a faint indication of footsteps, and she followed this possible trail, keeping at some distance from it at one side so that it should not be effaced, and every now and then stooping to get another view of it, horizontally. For the signs were so slight that it was difficult to see them--nothing but a few leaves pressed down a little more than the others, here and there. The trail led her to the edge of the plateau. And here at last was something more definite--flattened herbage, and a small sapling bent over the verge and broken, as though some one had borne a weight upon it. "She let herself slip over the edge," thought Dolly. "She is down there in the woods somewhere. Oh, how shall I find her!" The October afternoon would be drawing to its close before long, and this evening there would be no twilight, for black clouds were covering the sky, and the wind was beginning to sway the boughs of the trees above. In spite of her lameness, Dolly let herself down over the edge. There was no time to lose; she must find her sister before dark. The slope below was steep; she tried to check her sliding descent, but she did not succeed in stopping herself until her clothes had been torn and her body a good deal bruised. When at last her slide was arrested, she began to search the ground for a second trail. But if there had been one, the leaves obscured it; not only were they coming down in showers from above, but the wind every now and then scooped up armfuls of those already fallen, and whirled them round and round in eddying spirals. Keeping the peeled sapling above her as her guide, Dolly began to descend, going first to the right for several yards, then to the left, and pausing at the end of each zigzag to examine the forest beyond. With her crippled ankle her progress was slow. She lost sight, after a while, of the sapling. But as she had what is called the sense of locality, she was still able to keep pretty near the imaginary line which she was trying to follow. For her theory was that Ruth had gone straight down; that, once out of sight from that house, she had let herself go. Light though she was on her feet, she must have ended by falling, and then, if there was a second ledge below--"But I won't think of that!" Dolly said to herself, desperately. She was now so far from the house that she knew she could not be heard. She therefore began to call "Ruth! Ruth!" But there was no reply. "I will count, and every time I reach a hundred I will call. Oh why, just this one day, should it grow dark so early, after weeks of the clearest twilight?" Drops began to fall, and finally the rain came down in torrents. She crouched beside a large tree, using its trunk as a protection as much as she could. Her hat and jacket were soon wet through, but she did not think of herself, she thought only of Ruth--Ruth, who had been fading for months--Ruth, out in this storm. "But I'll find her and take her back. And no one shall ever know," thought the elder sister, determinedly. After what seemed a long time the rain grew less dense. The instant she could see her way Dolly resumed her search. The ground was now wet, and her skirts were soon stained as she moved haltingly back and forth, holding on by the trees. "Ruth! Ruth?" At the end of half an hour, when it was quite dark, she came to a hollow lined with bushes. She hesitated, but her determination to make her search thorough over every inch of the ground caused her to let herself down into it by sense of feeling, holding on as well as she could by the bushes. And there at the bottom was the body of her sister. "O God, _don't_ let her be dead!" she cried, aloud. Drying the palm of her hand, she unbuttoned the soaked riding-habit and felt for the heart. At first there seemed to be no beating. Then she thought she perceived a faint throb, but she could not be sure; perhaps it was only her intense wish transferred to the place. Ruth's hat was gone, her hair and her cold face were soaked. "If I could only _see_ her! Poor, poor little girl!" said Dolly, sobbing aloud. Presently it began to rain again with great violence; and then Dolly, in a rage, seated herself on the soaked ground at the bottom of the hollow, took her sister's lifeless form in her arms, and held it close. "She is _not_ dead, for she isn't heavy; she is light. If she had been dead I _couldn't_ have lifted her." She dried Ruth's face. She began to chafe her temples and breast. After half an hour she thought she perceived more warmth, and her cramped arm redoubled its effort. The rain was coming down in sheets, but she did not mind it now, for she felt a breath, a sigh. "Ruth, do you know me? It is Dolly; no one but Dolly." Ruth's eyes opened, though Dolly could not see them. Then she said, "Dolly, he loves some one else." That was all; she did not speak again. The storm kept on, and they sat there together, motionless. Ruth's clothes were so wet that they were like lead. At length the black cloud from which that especial deluge had come moved away, and fitful moonlight shone out. Now came the anxious moment: would Ruth be able to walk? At first it seemed as if she could not even rise, her whole body was so stiff. She was also extremely weak; she had eaten nothing since the night before, and the new life which had inspired her was utterly gone. But Dolly, somehow, made herself firm as iron; standing, she lifted her sister to her feet and held her upright until, little by little, she regained breath enough to take one or two steps. Then slowly they climbed from the hollow. With many pauses they went down the mountain; from this point, fortunately, its slope was not quite so steep. How she did it Dolly never knew, but the moment came at last when she saw a lighted window, and made her way towards it. And the final moment also came when she arrived at a door. Her arm was still supporting her pale young sister, who leaned against her. Ruth had not spoken; she had moved automatically; her senses were half torpid. The lighted window was that of Portia Crumb. Portia had not gone to bed. But she was not sitting up on their account; she supposed that they had found shelter at one of several small houses that were scattered along the river road in the direction which they had taken. She was sitting up in order to minister to her "Dave." David Crumb's fits of drunkenness generally lasted through two days. When he came to himself, his first demand was for coffee, and his wife, who never could resist secretly sympathizing a little with the relief which her surly husband was able to obtain for a time from the grief which gnawed incessantly at her own poor heart--his wife always remained within call to give him whatever he needed. And, oddly enough, these vigils had become almost precious to Portia. For occasionally at these moments David of his own accord would talk of his lost boys--the only times he ever mentioned them or permitted his wife to do so. And now and then he would allow her to read her Bible to him, and even to sing a hymn perhaps, to which he would contribute in snatches a growling repentant bass. Portia's coffee-pot now stood on the hot coals of her kitchen fireplace; she had been occupying the time in spinning, and in chanting softly to herself, as the rain poured down outside: [Illustration: musical notation: Je -_ru_ -sa-lem, my hap-py _home_, Name ev-er de-ar tu _me_, When _shell_ my la-ber-rs hev an end? Thy joys when shell I see ? Thy-y joys when _shell-el_ I see?] Then, hearing some one at the outer door, she had come to open it. "Good Lors! Miss Dolly! Here!--lemme help you! Bring her right into the kitchen, an' put her down on the mat clost to the fire till I get her wet close off!" CHAPTER XXIV HORACE CHASE, having by hard work arranged his far-stretching affairs so that he could leave them, reached L'Hommedieu late in the evening of the day of Ruth's flight. He had not telegraphed that he was coming; his plan was to have his wife well on her way to New York and the Liverpool steamer almost before she knew it. She had always been fond of the unexpected; this fondness would perhaps serve him now. When he reached the old house, to which his money had given a new freshness, there was no one to meet him but Dolly's Diana. Diana, in her moderate, unexcited way, began to tell him what had happened. But she was soon re-enforced by Félicité, whose ideas (regarding the same events) were far more theoretic. "Miss Franklin had a lunch prepared, and took it with her," Diana went on. "Eet ended in a peekneek," interrupted Félicité. "The leaf was so red, and the time so beautiful, monsieur; no clouds, and the sky of a blue! Then suddenlee the rain ees come. No doubt they have entered in a house to wait till morning." "Which road did my wife take?" inquired Chase, his tone anxious. "Ah, monsieur, no one _see_ herr, she go so early. Eet was herr joke--to escape a leetle from herr sistare, if eet is permit to say eet; pardon." "Which way, then, did Miss Franklin go?" continued Chase, impatiently. Both women pointed towards the left. "She went _down_ the street. _That_ way." "Down the street? That's no good. What I want to know is which road she took after leaving town?" But naturally neither Félicité nor Miss Pollikett could answer this question; they had not followed the phaeton. Chase rang the bell, and sent for one of the stablemen. "Let Pompey and Zip go and ask at all the last houses (where the three roads that can be reached from the end of this street turn off) whether any one noticed Miss Franklin drive past this morning? They all know her pony and trap. Tell Pompey to step lively, and if the people have gone to bed, he must knock 'em up." The two negroes returned in less than fifteen minutes; they had found the trace without trouble: Miss Franklin had taken the river road towards Warm Springs. "Saddle my horse," said Chase; "and you, Jeff, as soon as I have started, put the pair in the light carriage and drive down to Crumb's. Have the lamps in good order and burning brightly, and see that the curtains are buttoned down so as to keep the inside dry. Felicity, put in shawls and whatever's necessary; the ladies are no doubt under cover somewhere; but they may have got wet before reaching it. Perhaps one of you had better go along?" he added, looking at the two women reflectively, as if deciding which one would be best. "Yes, sir; I can be ready in a moment," said Diana, going out. "Ah! for _two_ there is not enough place," murmured Félicité, relieved. Chase ate a few mouthfuls of something while his horse was being saddled; then, less than half an hour after his arrival, he was off again. It was very dark, but he did not slacken his speed for that, nor for the rough, stony ascents and descents, nor for the places where the now swollen river had overflowed the track. The distance which Dolly's slow old pony had taken five hours to traverse, this hard rider covered in less than half the time. At one o'clock he reached Crumb's. It was the first house in that direction after the village and its outskirts had been left behind. Along the mile or two beyond it, farther towards the west, were three smaller houses, and at one of the four he hoped to find his wife. As he drew near Crumb's, he saw that the windows were lighted. "They're here!" he said to himself, with a long breath of relief. As he rode up to the porch, Portia, who had heard his horse's footsteps, looked out. "They're here?" he asked. "Yes," answered Portia, "they be." "And all right?" "I reckon so, by this time. Mis' Chase, she was pretty well beat when she first come; but she's asleep now, an' restin' well. And Miss Dolly, she's asleep too." Chase dismounted. "Can my horse be put up? Just call some one, will you?" "Well, Isrul Porter, who works here, has gone home," answered Mrs. Crumb. "Arter Mis' Chase and Miss Dolly got yere, I sent Isrul arter their pony, what they'd lef' in the woods more'n two miles off, an' he 'lowed, Isrul did, that he'd take him home with him for the night when he found him, bekase the Porters's house is nearer than our'n to the place where he was lef'. An' Dave, he ain't workin' ter-day; he's ailin' a little. But _I_ kin see to yer hoss." "Show a light and I'll do it myself," Chase answered, amused at the idea of his leaving such work to a woman. Portia returned to the kitchen, and came back with a burning brand of pitch-pine, which gave out a bright flare. Carrying this as a torch, she led the way to the stable, Chase following with the horse. "Your mare, she's in yere erready," said the farmer's wife, pointing to Kentucky Belle. Then, as they went back to the house by the light of the flaring brand, she asked whether she should go up and wake Ruth. "Yes, and I'll go along; which room is it? Hold on, though; are you sure my wife's asleep?" "When I went up the minute before you come, she was, an' Miss Dolly too." "Well, then, I guess I won't disturb 'em just yet," said Chase, and he went with Portia to her kitchen, where she brought forward her rocking-chair for his use. "What time did they get here?" he inquired. Portia, seating herself on a three-legged stool, told what she knew. As she was finishing her story there came a growl from the dark end of the long room, the end where the loom stood. "It's only Dave wakin' up," she explained, and she hastened towards her husband. But as she did so he roared "Coffee!" in impatient tones, and, hurrying back, she knelt down and blew up the fire. "I'm comin', Dave; it's all ready," she called. Then as she continued to work the bellows quickly she went on in a low voice to Chase: "He'll stay awake now fer an hour or two. An' he'll be talkin', an' takin' on, p'raps. Mebbe you'd ruther set in the best room for a whilst? There's a fire; an' the stairs mount right up from there to the room where yer wife's asleep, so you kin go up whenever you like. Relse you might lay down yourself, without disturbin' 'em at all till mawnin'. There's a good bed in the best room; none better." "Coffee!" demanded the farmer a second time, and Portia quickly took the cup, which stood waiting with sugar and cream already in it, and lifting her pot from the coals, poured out the odorous beverage, the strong coffee of Rio. Though she had an intense desire to be left alone with "Dave," now that his precious waking-time had come, her inborn sense of hospitality would never have permitted her to suggest that her guest should leave her, if she had not believed with all her heart that her best room was really a bower of beauty; she even had the feeling that she ought to urge it a little, lest he should be unwilling to "use it common." Chase, perceiving that she wished him to go, went softly out, and, entering the bower, closed the door behind him. The fire was low. He put on some pitch-pine splinters, and added wood; for, in spite of his water-proof coat (which was now hanging before the fireplace in the kitchen), his clothes were damp. He lifted the logs carefully, so as not to waken the sleepers above; then he sat down and stretched out his legs to the blaze. In spite of Portia's assertion that his wife was "all right," he was very uneasy; he could scarcely keep himself from stealing up to get a look at her. But sleeplessness had been for so long one of her troubles that he knew it was far wiser to let her rest as long as she could. One thought pleased him; it had pleased him since the moment he heard it: her stealing off for a ride at dawn simply to tease Dolly. That certainly looked as if she must be much stronger than she had been when he left her. It was an escapade worthy of the days when she had been the frolicking Ruth Franklin. On the other hand loomed up the results of this freak of hers, namely, her having been out so long in the storm. Portia's expression, "pretty well beat when she first come"--that was not encouraging. Thus he weighed the possibilities, sitting there with his chair tilted back, his eyes fixed on the reviving flame. He knew that he could not sleep until he had seen her. Portia's "best bed," therefore, did not tempt him. In addition, he wished to wait for the carriage, in order to contrive some sort of shelter for it, and to assist in putting up the horses, since there was no one else to do it. After a while, with his hands clasped behind his head, he moved his chair a little and looked vaguely round the room. Everything was the same as when he had paid his former visit there during the excursion which he had made over the Great Smoky Mountains with the Franklins and poor Jared. The red patch-work quilt was spread smoothly over the bed; the accordion was on the mantel-piece, flanked by the vase whose design was a pudgy hand holding a cornucopia; on the wall was the long row of smirking fashion-plates. This means of entertainment, however, was soon exhausted, and after a while he took some memoranda from his pocket, and, bending forward towards the fire, began to look them over. He had been thus engaged for nearly half an hour when a door opened behind him, and Dolly Franklin came in. She had no idea that he was there. The bedroom above, whose flight of steep stairs she had just descended, possessed windows only towards the river; and the second-story floors of the old house were so thick that no sound from below could penetrate them. She had not therefore heard Chase ride up on the other side; she had not distinguished any sounds in the kitchen. He jumped up when he saw her. "I'm _mighty_ glad you've come down, Dolly. I've been afraid to disturb her. Is she awake?" Dolly closed the door behind her. "No; she is sleeping soundly. I wouldn't go up just now if I were you. A good sleep is what she needs most of all." "All right; I'll wait. But how in the world came she to be out so long in the rain, and you too? That's the part I don't understand." Dolly's heart had stood still when she saw her brother-in-law. "I'll sit here for a while," she suggested, in order to gain time. "Will you please pull forward that chair--the one in the corner? I had no idea you were here. I only came down for the pillows from this bed; they are better than those upstairs." While she was getting out these words her quick mind had flown back to L'Hommedieu, and to the impression which she had left behind her there, carefully arranged and left as explanation of their absence. The explanation had been intended for any of their friends who might happen to come to the house during the day. But it would do equally well for Horace Chase, and Félicité could be safely trusted to have repeated it to him within five minutes after his unexpected arrival! For Félicité was not fond of Miss Dora Franklin. The idea that her young mistress had gone off for a ride at daylight would be an immense delight to the Frenchwoman, not for the expedition itself (such amusements in a country so "sauvage" being beyond her comprehension), but for the annoyance to mademoiselle--mademoiselle whose watchfulness over everything that concerned her sister (even her sister's maid) was so insupportably oppressive. Their start, therefore, Dolly reflected, both Ruth's at dawn and her own a little later, was probably in a measure accounted for in Horace Chase's mind. But as regarded the hours in the rain, what could she invent about that? For Portia had evidently described Ruth's exhaustion and their wet clothes. She had seated herself by the fire; arrayed in one of the shapeless dresses of her hostess, with her hair braided and hanging down her back, her plain face looked plainer than ever. Worn out though she was, she had not been asleep even for a moment; she had been sitting by the bedside watching her sister. Ruth had lain motionless, with her head thrown back lifelessly, her breathing scarcely perceptible. Whenever Portia had peeped in (and the farmer's wife had stolen softly up the stairs three times) Dolly had pretended to be asleep; and she knew that Portia would think that Ruth also was sleeping. But Ruth was not asleep. And Dolly's mind was filled with apprehension. What would follow this apathy? "As I understand it, Ruthie took a notion to go off for a ride at daybreak," Horace Chase began, "and then, after breakfast, you followed her. How did you know which way she went? I suppose you asked. But she left her mare here as early as half-past eight this morning, the woman of the house tells me, and you yourself got here at two; what happened afterwards? How came you to stay out in the rain? Unless you got lost, I don't see what you were about." "We _were_ lost for a while," answered Dolly, who had now arranged her legend. "But that was afterwards. Our staying out was my fault, or, rather, my misfortune." She put out her feet and warmed them calmly. "After I drove on from here, I didn't find Ruth for some time. When at last I came upon her, we took our lunch together, and then I tied the pony to a tree and we strolled off through the woods, picking up the colored leaves. Suddenly I had one of my attacks. And it must have been a pretty bad one, for it lasted a long time. How long I don't know; but when I came to myself it was dark. Ruth, of course, couldn't carry me, poor child. And she wouldn't leave me. So there we stayed in the rain. And when finally I was able to move, it took us ages to get here, for not only was I obliged to walk slowly, but it was so dark that we couldn't find the road. I am all right now. But meanwhile _she_ is dreadfully used up." Here, from the kitchen, came the sound of Portia's gentle voice: "When _shell_ these eyes thy heavenly walls An' peerly gates behold? Thy buildin's with salvation strong, An' streets of shinin' gold? An'-an' streets of shi-i-_nin_' gold!" "Crumb has arrived at his religious stage, and his wife is celebrating," commented Dolly. "He goes through them all in regular succession every time he is drunk. Obstinacy. Savagery. Lethargy. And then, finally, Repentance, for he isn't one of those unimportant just persons who need none." Chase glanced at her with inward disfavor; cynicism in a woman was extremely unpleasant to him. His mental comment, after she had explained their adventures, had been: "Well, if _Dolly_ had let the whole job alone, none of this would have happened; Ruth would have had her lark out and come home all right, and that would have been the end of it. But Dolly must needs have _her_ finger in the pie, and out she goes. Then of course she gets sick, and the end is that instead of her seeing to Ruth, Ruth has to see to her." But he kept these reflections to himself. He brought forward instead the idea that was important to him: "Isn't it a pretty good sign she's better, that she _wanted_ to go off for a ride in that way? It's like the things she used to do when I first knew her. Don't you remember how she stayed out so long that cold, windy night without her hat, talking with Malachi Hill over the back fence about his Big Moose masquerade? And how she even went on, bareheaded and in the dark, half across the village to find Achilles Larue and get him to come, so that she could tease Miss Billy?" He gave a short laugh over the remembrance. "I cannot help thinking, Dolly, that she isn't half as sick as you made out; in fact, I've never thought she was, though I've more or less fallen in with your idea of giving her a change. I _had_ made arrangements to start for New York to-morrow morning, so as to hit the Cunarder of Wednesday. But, as things have turned out, I don't know that we need pull up stakes so completely, after all. She's evidently better." For one instant Dolly thought. Then she spoke: "No, carry out your plan. Take her away to-morrow morning just as you intended. Even if she _is_ somewhat stronger (though I think you'll find that she isn't), she needs a change." She said this decidedly. But the decision was for her own sake; it was an effort to make herself believe, by the sound of the spoken words, that this course would still be possible. "It _shall_ be possible," she resolved in her own mind. "Well, I guess I won't decide till I see her," Chase answered. "Perhaps she's awake by this time?" Dolly got up quickly. "I will go and see; my step is lighter than yours. If I do not come back, that will mean that she is still asleep, and that I think it best not to disturb her. The moment she does wake, however, I will come and call you. Will that do?" "All right," said Chase, briefly, a second time. He did not especially enjoy the prospect of several years in Europe. But at least it would be agreeable to have his wife to himself, with no Dolly to meddle and dictate. After she had gone, he sat expectant for nearly fifteen minutes. But she did not return; Ruth evidently had not wakened. He rose, gave a stretch, and, going to the window, raised the curtain and looked out. The rain was pouring down; there was no sign of the carriage; it was so dark that he could not see even the nearest trees. Dropping the curtain again, he walked about the room for a while. Then he started to go to the kitchen, to see how his wet coat was coming on; but remembering Portia's vigil (which nothing could have induced him to break in upon, now that he understood its nature), he stopped. He looked at all the simpering ladies of the fashion-plates, ladies whose bodies were formed on the model which seems to be peculiar to such publications, and to exist only for them; he lifted the vase and inspected it a third time; he even tried the accordion softly. Finally he sat down by the fire, and, taking out his memoranda again, he went back to business calculations. Dolly had gone swiftly up the stairs and along the entry which led to the bedroom. Ruth was lying just as she had left her, with her eyes shut, her head thrown back. Dolly closed the door and locked it; then she came and leaned over her. "Ruth, do you hear me?" "Yes," answered Ruth, mechanically. Dolly sat down by the side of the bed and drew her sister towards her. "I have something to tell you," she whispered. "Your husband is down-stairs." Ruth did not start. After a moment she opened her eyes and turned them slowly towards her sister. "He came home unexpectedly," Dolly went on, in the same low tone. "He reached L'Hommedieu this evening, and when they told him that we had not returned he had inquiries made as to the road we had taken, and came down here himself on horseback. At L'Hommedieu, Ruth, they think that you slipped out at dawn for a ride, just to play me a trick, because I have watched you so closely about your health lately that you were out of all patience. I let them think this; or, rather, I made them think it. And they have repeated it to your husband, who accepts it just as they did. The only thing he could not understand was why we stayed out so long in the storm, for Portia had evidently told him how late it was when we came in, and how exhausted you looked. So I have just said that after I found you we had our lunch together, and then, after tying the pony to a tree, we strolled through the woods, picking up the colored leaves. Suddenly one of my attacks came on, and it was a bad attack; I was unconscious for a long time. You wouldn't leave me; and so there we had to stay in the rain. When at last I could walk I had to come slowly. And we couldn't find the road for a long while--it was so dark. All this seems to him perfectly natural, Ruth; he suspects nothing. The only point he is troubled about is your health--how that will come out after the exposure. He is sitting by the fire down-stairs waiting for you to wake, for I told him you were asleep. And here is something supremely fortunate: his plan is to take you off to New York to-morrow morning, to hit the Wednesday's Cunard steamer for Liverpool. He has had this idea for some weeks--the idea of going abroad. That was the reason he went away--to make ready. He didn't tell you about it, because he thought he would take you by surprise. And he still hopes to sail on Wednesday, provided you are well enough, it isn't to be a flying trip this time; he is willing to stay over there for years if you like. Now, Ruth, listen to me. You _must_ go. You need make no effort of any kind; just let yourself slip on from day to day, passively. There is nothing difficult about that. If there were, I should not ask you to do it, for I know you could never play a part. But here there is no part; you need do no more than you always have done. That has never been much, for from the first the devotion has been on his side, not on yours, and he will expect no more. Now try to sleep a little, and then at sunrise I will let him come up. When he comes you needn't talk; you can say you are too tired to talk. He is so uneasy about your health that he will fall in with anything. Don't think about it any more. The whole thing's settled." Suiting her actions to her words, Dolly rearranged the coverlet over her sister, and then, rising, she began to make a screen before the fire with two chairs and a blanket, so that its light should not fall across the bed. While she was thus engaged she heard a sound, and, turning her head, she saw that Ruth was getting up. "What is it?" she said, going to her. "Do you want anything?" "Where are my clothes?" Ruth asked. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her bare feet resting on the rag mat by its side. "Portia is drying them. She left some of her things on that chair for you. But don't get up now; the night isn't anywhere near over." Ruth went to the chair where lay the garments, coarse but clean; she unbuttoned her night-gown (also one of Portia's). Then her strength failed, and she sank down on the chair. "Come back to bed," said Dolly, urgently. Ruth let her head rest on the chair-back for a moment or two. Then she said: "I won't try to dress; I don't feel strong enough. But please get me some stockings and shoes, and a shawl. That will be enough." "Are you tired of the bed? I can make you comfortable in that chair by the fire, then," Dolly answered. "Here are stockings. And shoes, too--Portia's. But I'm afraid they will drop off!" Kneeling down, she drew on the stockings, and then Ruth, rising, stepped into the shoes. Dolly went to spread a blanket over the chair, and while she was thus engaged Ruth, seeing a homespun dress of Portia's hanging from a peg, took it and put it on over her night-gown. "You need not have done that," commented Dolly; "here is a second blanket to wrap you up in." But Ruth was going towards the door. Dolly hurried after her and caught her arm. "You are not going down? What for?" "I don't know," answered Ruth, vaguely. Then, with quickened breath, she added, "Yes, I _do_ know; I am going to tell--tell what I did." She was panting a little; Dolly could hear the sound. The elder sister held her tightly. But Ruth did not struggle, she stood passive. "What are you going to tell?" Dolly asked, sternly. "What _is_ there to tell? You took a ride; you walked in the forest; you stood in a thicket; you came back. That is all. No one saw you; no one on earth knows anything more. And there _was_ nothing more, save in thought. Your thoughts are your own affair, you are not required to tell them; it would be a strange world indeed if we had to tell all our thoughts! In your _acts_ as it has turned out, there has been nothing wrong. Leave it so, then. Let it rest." Ruth did not reply. But in her clouded eyes Dolly thought she read refusal. "Ruth, let me judge for you," she pleaded. "Could I possibly advise you to do anything that was not your best course? Your very best? If you force an account of your inward feelings upon your husband--who does not ask for them or want them--you destroy his happiness, you make him wretched. Don't you care for that? If I have never liked him--and I may as well confess that I never have--at least I know his devotion to you. If you tell, therefore, tell so unnecessarily, it will be a great cruelty. Think of all he did for mother! Of all he did and tried to do for Jared!" Two tears welled up in Ruth's eyes. But she did not speak. "And then there is another thing," Dolly went on. "If he knows the truth, all the good in him will be changed to bitterness. And, besides, he will be very harsh to you, Ruth; he will be brutal; and he will even think that it is right that he should be so. For those are the ideas of--of some people about wives who go wrong." To the woman who had married Horace Chase Dolly could say no more. But if she had spoken out all that was in her heart, her phrase would have been, "For those are the ideas of common people about wives who go wrong." (For to Dolly, Horace Chase's commonness--or what seemed to her commonness--had always been the insupportable thing.) But what she was saying now about her dread of his possible brutality was not in the least a fiction invented to influence Ruth; she had in reality the greatest possible dread of it. Ruth, however, seemed either to have no fears at all, or else she was all fear--fear that had reached the stage of torpor. "Think of _this_, too," urged Dolly, finally. "If you tell, have you the slightest idea that your husband will be able to keep himself from breaking off instantly all relations with the Willoughbys--with the uncles as well as the nephew? And do you want Walter Willoughby to suspect--as he certainly would suspect--the cause? Do you wish this young fellow who has merely played with you, who from the beginning has amused himself at your expense, and, no doubt, laughed at you over and over again--do you wish him to have a fresh joke at the sight of your imbittered husband's jealousy? Is he to tell the whole story to Marion Barclay? And have _her_ laughing also at your hopeless passion for him?--at the way you have thrown yourself at his head? If you are silent, not only will your husband be saved from all his wretchedness, but Walter Willoughby will have no story to tell!" For answer, Ruth gave a moan of physical weakness; she did not try to free herself from her sister's hold; she stood motionless, her figure drooping, her eyes closed. "Dolly," she murmured, "if you keep on opposing me--and my strength won't hold out very long--you will end by preventing it, preventing my telling. But there is something you won't be able to prevent: I am so tired that I want to die! And I shouldn't be afraid of _that_; I mean, finding a way." Dolly's hands dropped. And then Ruth, after a moment more of delay, pushed back the bolt, passed along the entry, and began to go down the dark stairs. She went slowly, a step at a time. A step; then a hesitation; then another step. Finally she reached the bottom, and opened the door. Her descent had been noiseless; it was not until her hand touched the latch that Chase turned his head. When he saw her, he sprang up. "_You_, Ruthie!" he exclaimed, delightedly, as she entered, followed, after a moment, by the frightened, wretched Dolly. "Are you well enough to be up?" He put his arm round her and kissed her. "Come to the fire." But Ruth drew herself away; she moved off to a little distance. "Wait; I have something to tell you," she answered. "At any rate, sit down," Chase responded, bringing the best arm-chair and placing it before her. He had had a long experience regarding her changing caprices; he never disputed them. But she did not seat herself; she only leaned on the back of the chair, her hands grasping its top. "I did not take that ride this morning for the reason you think," she began. "I was going to Walter Willoughby; I knew he was at The Lodge." "Well, then, I wish you hadn't," replied Chase. He looked annoyed, but not angry. "Fellows like Walter are conceited enough without that sort of thing. If you wanted to see him, you could have sent a note, asking him to come to L'Hommedieu. Or Dolly could have written it for you; that would have been the best way. But don't stand there; sit down." Ruth took a fresh grasp of the chair. "You do not comprehend," she said, her voice showing how little strength she had. But though she was weak physically, there was no nervousness; she was perfectly calm. "You do not comprehend. I was going to him because I loved him, Horace. I have loved him for a long time. I loved him so that I _had_ to go!" As she said this her husband's face changed--changed in a way that was pitiful to see. He looked stunned, stricken. "I did not mean to," Ruth went on. "I did not know what it was at first. And then--it was too late. I thought he loved me; I was sure of it. And so--I went to him." Dolly, hurrying forward, laid her hand restrainingly on Chase's wrist. "He didn't see her, no one saw her. And she did no harm, no harm whatever." But Chase shook Dolly off with a motion of his shoulder. Ruth, too, paid no heed to her sister; she looked straight at her husband, not defiantly, but drearily; she went on with her tale almost mechanically, and with the same desperate calmness as before. "So I went to him; I left my horse here, and went up through the woods. But he had Marion Barclay there; I saw her. And I saw his face, the expression of his face, as he talked to her; it is Marion he loves!" "I could have told you that. At least I could have told you that he has been trying to get that girl for a long time," said Chase, bitterly. "But there was nothing in that to hold him back as regards _you_. And it hasn't held him back; it hasn't prevented him from--But he shall answer for this! Answer to _me_." The rage in his face was deep; his eyes gleamed; his hands were clinched. Dolly turned cold. "He will _kill_ Walter," she thought. "Oh, what will he do to Ruth?" Ruth had left her chair; she came and stood before her husband. "He isn't to blame, Horace. I would tell you if he were; I should like to see Marion Barclay suffer! But if you go to him, he will only laugh at you, and with reason; for he has never cared for me, and he has never even pretended to care; I see that now. It is _I_ who have been in love with _him_. It began that first winter we spent in Florida," she went on. She had returned to her place behind the chair, and her eyes were again fixed upon her husband's face. "And when he told me, suddenly, that he was going to California, going for years, I could not breathe. Then, when Jared died, and mother died, and you were so good to me, I tried to forget him. But as soon as I saw him again I knew that it was of no use--no sort of use!" "You'll never make me believe that _he_ did nothing all this time," said Chase, savagely. "That he didn't profit--that he didn't take advantage--" But Ruth shook her head. "No. Perhaps he amused himself a little. Once or twice he said a few words. But that was all. And even this was called out by me--by _my_ love. Left to himself, he always drew back, he always stopped. But _I_--I never did! You must believe me about this--I mean about its having been _my_ doing. How can I make you believe it? If I say that by my mother's memory, by Jared's, what I have told you is true, will you believe it then? Very well; I _do_ say so." Exhausted, she put her face down upon her hands on the top of the chair-back. The firelight, which was now brilliant, had revealed her clearly. Her figure in the homespun dress looked wasted; in her face there was now no beauty, the irregularity of its outlines was conspicuous, the bright color was gone, the eyes were dull and dead. Something in her bowed head touched Chase keenly. A memory of her as she was when he married her came before him, the radiant young creature who had given herself to him so willingly and so joyously. "Ruthie, we'll forget it," he said, in a changed voice. "I was too old for you, I am afraid. I ought not to have asked you to marry me. But it's done now, past mending, and we must make the best of it. But we'll begin all over again, my poor little girl." For his wife had always seemed to him a child, an impulsive, lovely child; a little spoiled, no doubt, but enchantingly sweet and dear. Her affection for him, as far as it went, had been sincere; he had comprehended that from the beginning. And alluring though she was to him in her young beauty, he would not have married her without it; her consent, even her willing consent, would not have been enough. And now it seemed to him that he could go back to that girlish liking, that he could foster it and draw it out. He had not protected her from her own fancies, he had not guarded her or guided her. Now he would make her more a part of his life; he would no longer think of her as a child. He had come to her as he spoke. This time she did not draw herself away; but, looking at him with the same fixed gaze, she went on. She had been speaking slowly, but now her words came pouring forth in a flood as though she felt that it was the only way in which she could get them spoken at all; each brief phrase was hurried out with a quick pant. "Oh, you don't understand. You think it was a fancy. But it wasn't, it wasn't; I _loved_ him! I was going to stay with him forever. I would have gone to the ends of the earth with him. I would never have asked a question. I hadn't the least hesitation; you mustn't think that I had. I sang to myself as I rode out here, I was so happy and glad. I didn't care what became of you; I didn't even think of you. If he had been alone at The Lodge, I should have gone straight into his arms. And you might have come in, and I shouldn't have minded; I shouldn't even have known you were there! From the moment I started, you were nothing to me--nothing; you didn't exist! I am as guilty as a woman can be. I had every intention, every inclination. What was lacking was _his_ will; but never mine! It was only twelve hours ago. I haven't changed in that time. The only change is that now I know he doesn't care for _me_. I would have accepted anything--yes, anything. It was only twelve hours ago, and if he _had_ been alone at The Lodge, whether he really loved me or not, he would not have--turned me out." "No; damn him!" answered Chase. "And _I_ should have been glad to stay," Ruth concluded, inflexibly. Her husband turned away. It was a strong man's anguish. He sat down by the fire, his face covered by his hands. Into the pause there now came again the strains of Portia's hymn in the kitchen--that verse about "the peerly gates" which she was hopefully singing a second time to Dave. Then, in the silence that followed, the room seemed filled with the rushing sound of the rain. Ruth had remained motionless. "I shall never be any better," she went on with the same desperation; "I wish you to understand me just as I really am. I might even do it a second time; I don't know. You may make whatever arrangements you like about me; I agree to all in advance. And now--I'll go." Turning, she went towards the door of the stairway, the pale Dolly joining her in silence. Then Horace Chase got up. His face showed how profoundly he had suffered; it was changed, changed for life. "After all this that you've told me, Ruth, I don't press myself upon you--I never shall again; I _couldn't;_ that's ended. You haven't got any father or mother, and you're very young yet; so I shall have to see to you for the present. But it can be done from a distance, and that's the way I'll fix it. You mustn't think I don't feel this thing because I don't say much. It just about kills me! But as to condemning, coming down on you out and out, I don't do it, I haven't got the cheek! Who am I that I should dare to? Have I been so faultless myself that I have any right to judge _you?_" And as he said this, his rugged face had, for the moment, an expression that was striking in its beauty; its mixture of sorrow, honesty, and grandeur. Ruth gazed at him. Then she gave an inarticulate entreating cry, and ran to him. But she was so weak that she fell, and Dolly rushed forward. Horace Chase put Dolly aside--put her aside forever. He lifted his wife in his arms, and silently bent his head over hers as it lay on his breast. THE END * * * * * BY CONSTANCE F. WOOLSON. JUPITER LIGHTS. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25. EAST ANGELS. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25. ANNE. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25. FOR THE MAJOR. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00. CASTLE NOWHERE. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00. RODMAN THE KEEPER. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00. There is a certain bright cheerfulness in Miss Woolson's writing which invests all her characters with lovable qualities.--_Jewish Advocate_, N. Y. Miss Woolson is among our few successful writers of interesting magazine stories, and her skill and power are perceptible in the delineation of her heroines no less than in the suggestive pictures of local life.--_Jewish Messenger_, N. Y. Constance Fenimore Woolson may easily become the novelist laureate.--_Boston Globe._ Miss Woolson has a graceful fancy, a ready wit, a polished style, and conspicuous dramatic power; while her skill in the development of a story is very remarkable.--_London Life._ Miss Woolson never once follows the beaten track of the orthodox novelist, but strikes a new and richly-loaded vein, which so far is all her own; and thus we feel, on reading one of her works, a fresh sensation, and we put down the book with a sigh to think our pleasant task of reading it is finished. The author's lines must have fallen to her in very pleasant places; or she has, perhaps, within herself the wealth of womanly love and tenderness she pours so freely into all she writes. Such books as hers do much to elevate the moral tone of the day--a quality sadly wanting in novels of the time.--_Whitehall Review_, London. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. ==>_The above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._ * * * * * BY MARIA LOUISE POOL. THE TWO SALOMES. A Novel. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. A work of notable power and artistic feeling.--_Literary World_, Boston. The character conceptions of the story are all good and well wrought out, the situations are all logical and expressive, and the interest in the problem keeps fresh till the close of the book.--_Providence Journal._ KATHARINE NORTH. A Novel. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. "Katharine North" is, from an artistic and literary standpoint, Miss Pool's best work, and will take high rank among the novels of the year. The story is an intensely interesting one, and is most skilfully constructed.--_Boston Traveller._ MRS. KEATS BRADFORD. A Novel. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. Miss Pool's novels have the characteristic qualities of American life. They have an indigenous flavor. The author is on her own ground, instinct with American feeling and purpose.--_N. Y. Tribune._ ROWENY IN BOSTON. A Novel. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. Is a surprisingly good story.... It is a very delicately drawn story in all particulars. It is sensitive in the matter of ideas and of phrase. Its characters make a delightful company. It is excellent art and rare entertainment.--_N. Y. Sun._ DALLY. A Novel. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25; Paper, 50 cents. There is not a lay figure in the book; all are flesh and blood creations.... The humor of "Dally" is grateful to the sense; it is provided in abundance, together with touches of pathos, an inseparable concomitant.--_Philadelphia Ledger._ PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. ==>_The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by_ HARPER & BROTHERS, _postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._ * * * * * BY JAMES M. LUDLOW. THE CAPTAIN OF THE JANIZARIES. A Tale of the Times of Scanderbeg and the Fall of Constantinople. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 50; Paper, 50 cents. Strong in its central historical character, abounding in incident, rapid and stirring in action, animated and often brilliant in style.--_Christian Union_, N. Y. Something new and striking interests us in almost every chapter. The peasantry of the Balkans, the training and government of the Janizaries, the interior of Christian and Moslem camps, the horrors of raids and battles, the violence of the Sultan, the tricks of spies, the exploits of heroes, engage Mr. Ludlow's fluent pen.--_N. Y. Tribune._ A KING OF TYRE. A Tale of the Times of Ezra and Nehemiah. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00. It is altogether a fresh and enjoyable tale, strong in its situations and stirring in its actions.--_Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette._ The picture of the life and manners of that far-away period is carefully and artistically drawn, the plot is full of interest, and the whole treatment of the subject is strikingly original, and there is a dramatic intensity in the story which will at once remind the reader of "Ben-Hur."--_Boston Traveller._ THAT ANGELIC WOMAN. A Novel. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00. The plot is skilfully drawn, the whole story shows dramatic power, and the conclusion will satisfy those readers who prefer a happy ending of an exciting tale.--_Observer_, N. Y. Dramatic, vivid in scene and action, it has many truthful touches, and is written with the easy clearness and quick movement familiar to Dr. Ludlow's readers.--_Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette._ PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. ==>_The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._ * * * * * THE PRINCE OF INDIA; Or, Why Constantinople Fell. By LEW. WALLACE, Author of "Ben-Hur," "The Boyhood of Christ," etc. Two Volumes. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $2 50; Half Leather, $4 00; Three-quarter Leather, $5 00; Three-quarter Calf, $6 00; Three-quarter Crushed Levant, $8 00. (_In a Box._) General Wallace has achieved the (literary) impossible. He has struck the bull's-eye twice in succession. After his phenomenal hit with "Ben-Hur" he has given us, in "The Prince of India," another book which no man will say shows the least falling off.... It is a great book.--_N.Y. Tribune._ A great story. It has power and fire. We believe that it will be read and re-read.--_N.Y. Sun._ For boldness of conception this romance is unique of its kind. The amount of research shown is immense. The mere _mise en scène_ necessary for the proper presentation of the Byzantine period alone involves a life-long study.... There are incidents innumerable in this romance, and all are worked up with dramatic effect.--_N.Y. Times._ Its human interest is so vivid that it is one of those historical novels laid down reluctantly, only with the last page, with the feeling that one turns away from men and women with whom for a while he lived and moved.... A masterly and great and absorbing work of fiction.... Dignity, a superb conjunction of historical and imaginative material, the movement of a strong river of fancy, an unfailing quality of human interest, fill it overflowingly.--_N.Y. Mail and Express._ In invention, in the power to make mind-impressions, in thrilling interest, "The Prince of India" is not inferior to "Ben-Hur." The visit to the grave of Hiram, King of Tyre, with which the story opens, at once arouses the reader's keenest interest, which culminates in the closing pages of the second volume with the downfall of Constantinople.--_Philadelphia Inquirer._ PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. ==>_For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._ * * * * * The following typographical error was corrected by the etext transcriber: Two woman joined them=>Two women joined them 
52400	----	FAMOUS MEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. BY S. G. GOODRICH. BOSTON: THOMPSON, BROWN & COMPANY. 23 HAWLEY STREET. PREFACE The reader of these pages will perhaps remark, that the length of the following sketches is hardly proportioned to the relative importance of the several subjects, regarded in a merely historical point of view. In explanation of this fact, the author begs leave to say, that, while he intended to present a series of the great beacon lights that shine along the shores of the past, and thus throw a continuous gleam over the dusky sea of ancient history,--he had still other views. His chief aim is moral culture; and the several articles have been abridged or extended, as this controlling purpose might be subserved. It may be proper to make one observation more. If the author has been somewhat more chary of his eulogies upon the great men that figure in the pages of Grecian and Roman story, than is the established custom, he has only to plead in his vindication, that he has viewed them in the same light--weighed them in the same balance--measured them by the same standard, as he should have done the more familiar characters of our own day, making due allowance for the times and circumstances in which they acted. He has stated the results of such a mode of appreciation; yet if the master spirits of antiquity are thus shorn of some portion of their glory, the writer still believes that the interest they excite is not lessened, and that the instruction they afford is not diminished. On the contrary, it seems to him that the study of ancient biography, if it be impartial and discriminating, is one of the most entertaining and useful to which the mind can be applied. [Illustration] CONTENTS. PAGE MOHAMMED, 7 BELISARIUS, 25 ATTILA, 60 NERO, 68 SENECA, 74 VIRGIL, 83 CICERO, 95 JULIUS CÆSAR, 130 HANNIBAL, 145 ALEXANDER, 157 ARISTOTLE, 183 DEMOSTHENES, 197 APELLES, 209 DIOGENES, 213 PLATO, 218 SOCRATES, 229 ALCIBIADES, 244 DEMOCRITUS, 252 PERICLES, 256 ARISTIDES, 261 ÆSOP, 264 SOLON, 271 LYCURGUS, 277 HOMER, 282 CONFUCIUS, 291 [Illustration] FAMOUS MEN OF ANCIENT TIMES [Illustration] MOHAMMED. This individual, who has exercised a greater influence upon the opinions of mankind than any other human being, save, perhaps, the Chinese philosopher Confucius, was born at Mecca, in Arabia, A. D. 570. He was the only son of Abdallah, of the noble line of Hashem and tribe of Koreish--descendants of Ishmael the reputed progenitor of the Arabian race. The Koreishites were not only a commercial people, and rich by virtue of their operations in trade, but they were the hereditary guardians of the Caaba, or Kaaba, a heathen temple at Mecca. The custody of this sacred place, together with all the priestly offices, belonged to the ancestors of Mohammed. The Mohammedan authors have embellished the birth of the prophet with a great variety of wonderful events, which are said to have attended his introduction into the world. One of these is, that the Persian sacred fire, kept in their temples, was at once extinguished over all Arabia, accompanied by the diffusion of an unwonted and beautiful light. But this and other marvels, we leave to the credulity of the prophet's followers. Mohammed's father died early, and his son came under the guardianship of his uncle, Abu Taleb. He was a rich merchant, who was accustomed to visit the fairs of Damascus, Bagdad, and Bassora--three great and splendid cities, and Mohammed often accompanied him to these places. In his twelfth year, Mohammed took part in an expedition against the wandering tribes that molested the trading caravans. Thus, by travelling from place to place, he acquired extensive knowledge, and, by being engaged in warlike enterprise, his imagination became inflamed with a love of adventure and military achievements. If we add to this, that he had naturally a love of solitude, with a constitutional tendency to religious abstraction; and if, moreover, we consider that in his childhood he had been accustomed to behold the wild exercises, the dark ceremonies, and hideous rites of the temple of Caaba--we shall at once see the elements of character, and the educational circumstances, which shaped out the extraordinary career of the founder of Islamism. It appears that Mohammed was remarkable for mental endowments, even in his youth, for, in a religious conversation with a Nestorian monk, at Basra, he showed such knowledge and talent, that the monk remarked to his uncle, that great things might be expected of him. He was, however, attentive to business, and so completely obtained the confidence of his uncle, as a merchant, that he was recommended as a prudent and faithful young man, to Khadijah, a rich widow, who stood in need of an agent to transact her business and manage her affairs. In this capacity he was received, and so well did he discharge his duties, that he not only won the confidence of the widow, but finally obtained her hand in marriage. This event took place when he was about twenty-five years old, Khadijah being almost forty. Mohammed was now rich, and, though he continued to carry on mercantile business, he often retired to a cave, called Heva, near Mecca, where he resided. He also performed several journeys to different parts of Arabia and Syria, taking particular pains to gather religious information, especially of learned Jews and Christians. For some time, Mohammed, who lived happily with his wife, confided to her his visits to the cave Heva, professing to enjoy interviews with Heaven there, by means of dreams and trances, in which he met and conversed with the angel Gabriel. There is little doubt that his habits of religious retirement and gloomy reflection had unsettled his judgment, and that he now gave himself up to the guidance of an overwrought fancy. It is probable, therefore, that he believed these visions to be of divine inspiration; else, why should he first communicate them, as realities, to his wife? Soon after this, he informed other members of his family of his visions, and, being now about forty years old, assumed with them, the character and profession of a prophet. Several of his friends, particularly his wife, and his cousin Ali, a young man of great energy of character, yielded to the evidence he gave of his divine mission. Having been silently occupied about three years in converting his nearest friends, he invited some of the most illustrious men of the family of Hashem to his house, and, after conjuring them to abandon their idolatry, for the worship of ONE GOD, he openly proclaimed his calling, and set forth, that, by the commands of Heaven, revealed through the angel Gabriel, he was prepared to impart to his countrymen the most precious gift--the only means of future salvation. Far from being convinced, the assembly was struck silent with mingled surprise and contempt. The young and enthusiastic Ali, alone, yielded to his pretences, and, falling at his feet, offered to attend him, in good or evil, for life or for death. Several of the more sober part of the assembly sought to dissuade Mohammed from his enterprise; but he replied with a lofty fervor, that if the sun were placed in his right hand, and the moon in his left, with power over the kingdoms they enlighten, he would not, should not, could not hesitate or waver in his course. Inflamed by the opposition he met with among this assembly, Mohammed now went forth, and, wherever he could find crowds of people, there he announced his mission. In the temples, in the public squares, streets, and market-places, he addressed the people, laying claim to the prophetic character, and setting forth the duty of rejecting idolatry, for the worship of one God. The people were struck with his eloquence, his majesty of person, the beautiful imagery he presented to their minds, and the sublime sentiments he promulgated. Even the poet Lebid is said to have been converted by the wonderful beauty and elevation of the thoughts poured forth by the professed prophet. The people listened, and, though they felt the fire of his eloquence, still they were so wedded to their idolatries, that few were yet disposed to join him. To aid in understanding the revolution wrought by Mohammed, it may be well to sketch the condition of the Arabians at that period. The original inhabitants of Arabia, though all of one stock, and occupying a peninsula 1200 miles in length by 700 in width, had been, from time immemorial, divided into a variety of distinct tribes. These constituted petty communities or states, which, often changing, still left the people essentially the same. In the more elevated table lands, intersected by mountain ridges, with dreary wastes consisting of sandy plains, the people continued to pursue a roving life, living partly upon their flocks of camels, horses, and horned cattle, and partly upon the robbery of trading caravans of other tribes. The people of the plains, being near the water, settled in towns, cultivated the soil, and pursued commerce. The various tribes were each governed by the oldest or most worthy sheik or nobleman. Their bards met once a year, at Okhad, holding a fair of thirty days, for the recitation of their productions. That which was declared to be the finest, was written in gold and suspended in the great temple of Mecca. This was almost the only common tie between the several states or tribes, for, although they nominally acknowledged an emir, or national chief, they had never been brought to act in one body. The adoration of the Arabians consisted chiefly in the worship of the heavenly luminaries; but they had a great variety of deities, these being personifications of certain powers in nature, or passions in mankind. They were represented by idols of every variety of shape, which were gathered around the ancient temple of Caaba, at Mecca, a large square edifice, considered as the central point of religion, and the favorite seat of divinity. Their worship was attended with the most horrid rites and shocking ceremonies: even children were sacrificed to the idols, and one of the tribes was accustomed to bury their daughters alive. Except that they fancied the souls of the departed to be transformed into owls, hovering in gloom around the grave, it does not appear that they had the least idea of a future state of existence. Such was the state of religion among the native Arabians. Among the foreign settlers in the towns there were a few followers of the Greek and Roman philosophy; the Christians were never numerous. These latter were divided into a variety of sects, and those belonging to the Greek church, advocated monasteries, and were addicted to the worship of images, martyrs and relics. Some of these, even elevated the Virgin Mary into a deity, and addressed her as the third person in the Trinity. Mohammed, while he no doubt looked with horror upon this state of things, having studied the Bible, and clearly comprehended its sublime revelation of one God, conceived the idea of uniting the people of his native land under a religion of which this fundamental principle should constitute the basis. His purpose was to crush idolatry, and restore the lost worship of the true God. How far he was sincere, and how far he was an impostor, we cannot venture to affirm. It is probable that he was a religious enthusiast, deceived by his own fancies, and, perhaps, really believing his own visions. At the outset of his career, it is likely that he acted in good faith, while he was himself deluded. When he had advanced so far as to see power and dominion offered to his grasp, it is probable that his integrity gave way, and that thenceforward we are to consider him as under the alternate guidance of craft and fanaticism. Several of the nobles citizens of Mecca were finally converted by Mohammed. Khadijah was now dead, and the prophet had married Ayesha, the daughter of Abubeker, a man of great influence, and who exercised it in favor of his son-in-law. Yet the new faith made little progress, and a persecution of its votaries arose, which drove them to Abyssinia, and caused Mohammed himself to fly for safety to Medina. This flight is called the Hegira, and, taking place in the year 622, is the epoch from which Mohammedan chronology is computed, as is ours from the birth of Christ. At Medina, whither his tenets had been carried by pilgrims, Mohammed was received with open arms. He was met by an imposing procession, and invested at once with the regal and sacerdotal office. The people also offered him assistance in propagating his faith, even by force, if it should be required. From this moment, a vast field seems to have been opened to the mind of Mohammed. Hitherto, he may have been but a self-deceived enthusiast; but now, ambition appears to have taken at least partial possession of his bosom. His revelations at once assumed a higher tone. Hitherto he had chiefly inculcated the doctrine of one God, eternal, omnipotent, most powerful and most merciful, together with the practical duties of piety, prayer, charity, and pilgrimages. He now revealed, as a part of his new faith, the duty of making war, even with the sword, to propagate Islamism, and promised a sensual paradise to those who should fall in doing battle in its behalf. At the same time he announced that a settled fate or destiny hung over every individual, which he could not by possibility alter, evade, or avert. He now raised men, and proceeded, sword in hand, to force the acknowledgment of his pretensions. With alternate victory and defeat, he continued to prosecute his schemes, and at last fell upon the towns and castles of the peaceful and unwarlike Jews. These were soon taken and plundered. But the prophet paid dearly for his triumph. A Jewish female, at the town of Chaibar, gave him poison in some drink, and, though he survived, he never fully recovered from the effects of the dose. Thus advancing with the tribes settled in his own country, the power of the ambitious apostle increased like the avalanche in its overwhelming descent. Mecca was conquered, and yielded as well to his faith as to his arms. He now made expeditions to Palestine and Syria, while his officers were making conquests in all directions. His power was soon so great, that he sent messages to the kings of Egypt, Persia, and Ethiopia, and the emperor of Constantinople, commanding them to acknowledge the divine law revealed through him. At last, in the tenth year of the Hegira, he proceeded on a farewell pilgrimage to Mecca. The scene was imposing beyond description. He was attended by more than a hundred thousand of his followers, who paid him the greatest reverence. Everything in dress, equipage and imposing ceremony that could enhance the splendor of the pageant, and give it sanctity in the eyes of the people, was adopted. This was the last great event of his life. Mohammed had now become too powerful to be resisted by force, but not too exalted to be troubled by competition. His own example in assuming the sacred character of an apostle and prophet, and the brilliant success which had attended him, gave a hint to others of the probable means of advancing themselves to a similar pitch of dignity and dominion. The spirit of emulation, therefore, raised up a fellow-prophet in the person of Moseilama, called to this day by the followers of Islam "the lying Moseilama," a descendant of the tribe of Honeifa, and a principal person in the province of Yemen. This man headed an embassy sent by his tribe to Mohammed, in the ninth year of the Hegira, and then professed himself a Moslem; but on his return home, pondering on the nature of the new religion and the character and fortunes of its founder, the sacrilegious suggestion occurred to him, that by skilful management he might share with his countryman in the glory of a divine mission; and, accordingly, in the ensuing year he began to put his project in execution. He gave out that he, also, was a prophet sent of Heaven, having a joint commission with Mohammed to recall mankind from idolatry to the worship of the true God. He, moreover, aped his model so closely as to publish written revelations resembling the Koran, pretended to have been derived from the same source. Having succeeded in gaining a considerable party, from the tribe of Honeifa, he at length began to put himself still more nearly upon a level with the prophet of Medina, and even went so far as to propose to Mohammed a partnership in his spiritual supremacy. His letter commenced thus: "From Moseilama, the apostle of God, to Mohammed, the apostle of God. Now let the earth be half mine and half thine." But the latter, feeling himself too firmly established to stand in need of an associate, deigned to return him only the following reply: "From Mohammed, the apostle of God, to Moseilama, the liar. The earth is God's: he giveth the same for inheritance unto such of his servants as he pleaseth; and the happy issue shall attend those who fear him." During the few months that Mohammed lived after this, Moseilama continued, on the whole, to gain ground, and became at length so formidable, as to occasion extreme anxiety to the prophet, now rapidly sinking under the effects of disease. An expedition, under the command of Caled, the "Sword of God," was ordered out to suppress the rival sect headed by the spurious apostle, and the bewildered imagination of Mohammed, in the moments of delirium, which now afflicted him, was frequently picturing to itself the results of the engagement between his faithful Moslems and these daring apostates. The army of Caled returned victorious. Moseilama himself, and ten thousand of his followers, were left dead on the field; while the rest, convinced by the shining evidence of truth that gleamed from the swords of the conquerors, renounced their errors, and fell quietly back into the bosom of the Mohammedan church. Several other insurgents of similar pretences, but of minor consequence, were crushed in like manner in the early stages of their defection. We have now reached the period at which the religion of Mohammed may be considered as having become permanently established. The conquest of Mecca and of the Koreishites had been, in fact, the signal for the submission of the rest of Arabia; and though several of the petty tribes offered, for a time, the show of resistance to the prophet's arms, they were all eventually subdued. Between the taking of Mecca and the period of Mohammed's death, somewhat more than three years elapsed. In that short period he had destroyed the idols of Arabia; had extended his conquests to the borders of the Greek and Persian empires; had rendered his name formidable to those once mighty kingdoms; had tried his arms against the disciplined troops of the former, and defeated them in a desperate encounter at Muta. His throne was now firmly established; and an impulse given to the Arabian nation, which induced them to invade, and enabled them to conquer, a large portion of the globe. India, Persia, the Greek empire, the whole of Asia Minor, Egypt, Barbary, and Spain, were eventually reduced by their victorious arms. Mohammed himself did not indeed live to see such mighty conquests achieved, but he commenced the train which resulted in this wide-spread dominion, and, before his death, had established over the whole of Arabia, and some parts of Asia, the religion which he had devised. And now, having arrived at the sixty-third year of his age, and the tenth of the Hegira, A. D. 632, the fatal effects of the poison, which had been so long rankling in his veins, began to discover themselves more and more sensibly, and to operate with alarming virulence. Day by day, he visibly declined, and it was evident that his life was hastening to a close. For some time previous to the event, he was conscious of its approach, and is said to have viewed and awaited it with characteristic firmness. The third day before his dissolution, he ordered himself to be carried to the mosque, that he might, for the last time, address his followers, and bestow upon them his parting prayers and benedictions. Being assisted to mount the pulpit, he edified his brethren by the pious tenor of his dying counsels, and in his own example taught a lesson of humility and penitence, such as we shall scarcely find inculcated in the precepts of the Koran. "If there be any man," said the prophet, "whom I have unjustly scourged, I submit my own back to the lash of retaliation. Have I aspersed the reputation of any Mussulman? let him proclaim my fault in the face of the congregation. Has any one been despoiled of his goods? the little that I possess shall compensate the principal and the interest of the debt." "Yes," replied a voice from the crowd, "thou owest me three drachms of silver!" Mohammed heard the complaint, satisfied the demand, and thanked his creditor that he had accused him in this world, rather than at the day of judgment. He then set his slaves at liberty, seventeen men and eleven women; directed the order of his funeral; strove to allay the lamentations of his weeping friends, and waited the approach of death. He did not expressly nominate a successor, a step which would have prevented the altercations that afterwards came so near to crushing in its infancy the religion and the empire of the Saracens; but his appointment of Abubeker to supply his place in the function of public prayer, and the other services of the mosque, seemed to intimate indirectly the choice of the prophet. This ancient and faithful friend, accordingly, after much contention, became the first Caliph of the Saracens, though his reign was closed by his death at the end of two years. The death of Mohammed was hastened by the force of a burning fever, which deprived him at times of the use of reason. In one of these paroxysms of delirium, he demanded pen and paper, that he might compose or dictate a divine book. Omar, who was watching at his side, refused his request, lest the expiring prophet might dictate something which should supersede the Koran. Others, however, expressed a great desire that the book might be written; and so warm a dispute arose in the chamber of the apostle that he was forced to reprove their unbecoming vehemence. The writing was not performed, and many of his followers have mourned the loss of the sublime revelations which his dying visions might have bequeathed to them. The favorite wife of the prophet, Ayesha, hung over her husband in his last moments, sustaining his drooping head upon her knee, as he lay stretched upon the carpet; watching with trembling anxiety his changing countenance, and listening to the last broken sounds of his voice. His disease, as it drew towards its termination, was attended at intervals with most excruciating pains, which he constantly ascribed to the fatal morsel taken at Chaibar; and as the mother of Bashar, his companion who had died upon the spot from the same cause, stood by his side, be exclaimed, "O mother of Bashar, the cords of my heart are now breaking of the food which I ate with your son at Chaibar." In his conversation with those around him, he mentioned it as a special prerogative granted to him, that the angel of death was not allowed to take his soul till he had respectfully asked permission of him, and this permission he condescendingly granted. Recovering from a swoon into which the violence of his pains had thrown him, he raised his eyes towards the roof of the house, and with faltering accents exclaimed, "O God! pardon my sins. Yes, I come among my fellow-laborers on high!" His face was then sprinkled with water, by his own feeble hand, and shortly after he expired. The city, and more especially the house of the prophet, became at once a scene of sorrowful but confused lamentation. Some of his followers could not believe that he was dead. "How can he be dead, our witness, our intercessor, our mediator with God? He is not dead. Like Moses and Jesus, he is wrapped in a holy trance, and speedily will he return to his faithful people." The evidence of sense was disregarded, and Omar, brandishing his scimitar, threatened to strike off the heads of the infidels who should affirm that the prophet was no more. The tumult was at length appeased, by the moderation of Abubeker. "Is it Mohammed," said he, "or the God of Mohammed, whom ye worship? The God of Mohammed liveth forever, but the apostle was a mortal like ourselves, and, according to his own prediction, he hath experienced the common fate of mortality." The prophet's remains were deposited at Medina, in the very room where he breathed his last, the floor being removed to make way for his sepulchre, and a simple and unadorned monument was, some time after, erected over them. The house itself has long since mouldered, or been demolished, but the place of the prophet's interment is still made conspicuous to the superstitious reverence of his disciples. The story of his relics being suspended in the air, by the power of loadstone in an iron coffin, and that too at Mecca, instead of Medina, is a mere idle fabrication. His tomb at the latter place has been visited by millions of pilgrims, and, from the authentic accounts of travellers who have visited both these holy cities in disguise, we learn that it is constructed of plain mason work, fixed without elevation upon the surface of the ground. The urn which encloses his body is protected by a trellis of iron, which no one is permitted to pass. The Koran or Alkoran, meaning _the Book_, is a collection of all the various fragments which the prophet uttered during the period in which he professed to exercise the apostolic office. They were originally written on scattered leaves, but they were collected by Abubeker, two years after Mohammed's death. They are in the purest and most refined dialect of Arabia, and are distinguished by extraordinary graces of style. The Koran furnishes not only the divinity, but the civil law of the Mohammedans. It professes to contain the revelation of God's will by Gabriel to Mohammed, and through him to mankind. One of the books gives an account of the translation of the prophet by night to the third heaven, upon a winged animal, named Alborak, and resembling an ass, where he saw unutterable things. The great doctrines of the Koran, as before stated, are the existence of one supreme God, to whom alone adoration and obedience are due. It declares that the divine law was faithfully delivered by Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Christ. It declares the immortality of the soul of man, and the final judgment, and sets forth that the good are to dwell in everlasting bliss, amid shady and delicious groves, and attended by heavenly virgins. The hope of salvation is not confined to the Moslem, but is extended to all who believe in God and do good works. Sinners, particularly unbelievers, are to be driven about in a dark burning hell, forever. The practical duties enjoined by the Koran, are the propagation of Islamism, and prayers directed to the temple of Mecca, at five different periods of the day, together with fasting, alms, religious ablutions, pilgrimages to Mecca, &c. It allows a man but four wives, though the prophet had seventeen, and it is curious to add that all were widows, save one. It strongly prohibits usury, gaming, wine and pork. We cannot deny to Mohammed the possession of extraordinary genius. He was a man of great eloquence, and the master of a beautiful style of composition; and he possessed that majesty of person, which, united to his mental qualities, gave him great ascendancy over those who came into his presence. He lived in a dark age, amid a benighted people; yet, without the aids of education, he mastered the religious systems of the day, and took a broad and sagacious view of the moral and political condition of the people of Asia. He conceived the sublime idea of uniting, by one mighty truth, the broken fragments of his own nation, and the destruction of idolatry by the substitution of the worship of one God. It is true, that he sought to accomplish these ends by unlawful means--by imposture, and the bloody use of the sword; we must admit, also, that he was licentious and although we cannot fail to condemn his character, we must acknowledge the splendor of his abilities and allow that while he imposed on his followers, he established a faith infinitely above Paganism, and sprinkled with many rays of light from the fountain of Divine Truth. [Illustration] [Illustration] BELISARIUS. This celebrated general, to whom the emperor Justinian is chiefly indebted for the glory of his reign, was a native of Germania, on the confines of Thrace, and was born about the year 505. It is probable that he was of noble descent, liberally educated, and a professor of the Christian faith. The first step in his military career was an appointment in the personal guard of Justinian, while that prince was yet heir apparent to the throne. The Roman or Byzantine empire, at this period, embraced almost exactly the present territory of the Turkish dominions in Europe and Asia Minor, with the addition of Greece--Constantinople being its capital. Italy was held by the Goths; Corsica, Sardinia and Barbary in Africa, by the Vandals. Justin I., an Illyrian peasant, having distinguished himself as a soldier, had become emperor. His education was of course neglected, and such was his ignorance, that his signature could only be obtained by means of a wooden case, which directed his pen through the four first letters of his name. From his accession, the chief administration of affairs devolved on Justinian, his nephew and intended heir, whom he was reluctantly compelled to raise from office to office, and at length to acknowledge as his partner on the throne. His death, after a languid reign of nine years and a life of nearly fourscore, left Justinian sole sovereign in name, as well as in fact. In order to appreciate the life and actions of Belisarius, it is necessary to understand the character of the new emperor, during whose long reign his great exploits were performed. The first act of Justinian on ascending the throne, was to marry a dissolute actress, named Theodora, who, though licentious, avaricious, cruel and vindictive, soon acquired an almost complete control over him. His mind was essentially feeble and inconstant, and, though his Christian faith was doubtless sincere, it was less fruitful of virtues than of rites and forms. At his accession his treasury was full; but it was soon exhausted by his profuseness, and heavy taxes were imposed, offices put to sale, charities suppressed, private fortunes seized, and, in short, every act of rapacity, injustice and oppression, practised by his ministers, to support the wasteful magnificence of the court. The troops of the empire at this period were by no means what they had been in the time of Scipio and Cæsar. They consisted, to a great extent, of foreign mercenaries, and were divided into squadrons according to their country; thus destroying all unity of feeling, and annihilating that national spirit which once made the Roman arms the terror of the world. These hired troops, which greatly outnumbered the native soldiers, marched under their own national banner, were commanded by their own officers, and usually followed their own military regulations. The inefficiency of such mingled and discordant forces, is obvious; yet it was under such a system that Belisarius entered upon his military career. With a feeble and corrupt government, an ill-appointed and trustless army, the Roman empire was still surrounded with powerful enemies. It is scarcely possible to conceive of a great nation in a condition of more complete debility and helplessness, than was the kingdom of the Cæsars, at the period in which Belisarius appears upon the active stage of life. Kobad, king of Persia, after a long cessation of hostilities, renewed the war toward the close of Justin's reign, by the invasion of Iberia, which claimed the protection of the emperor. At this period, Belisarius, being about twenty years of age, had the command of a squadron of horse, and was engaged in some of the conflicts with the Persian forces, on the borders of Armenia. In conjunction with an officer named Sittas, he ravaged a large extent of territory, and brought back a considerable number of prisoners. On a second incursion, however, they were less fortunate; for, being suddenly attacked by the Persian forces, they were entirely defeated. It appears that Belisarius incurred no blame, for he was soon after promoted to the post of governor of Dara, and the command of the forces stationed there. It was at this place that he chose Procopius, the historian, as his secretary, and who afterwards repaid his kindness by a vain attempt to brand his name with enduring infamy. Soon after Belisarius obtained the command of Dara, Justinian came to the throne, and enjoined it upon his generals to strengthen the defences of the empire in that quarter. This was attempted, but the Persians baffled the effort. Belisarius was now appointed general of the East, being commander-in-chief of the whole line of the Asiatic frontier. Foreseeing that a formidable struggle was soon to ensue, he applied himself to the raising and disciplining an army. He traversed the neighboring provinces in person, and at last succeeded in mustering five and twenty thousand men. These, however, were without discipline, and their spirit was depressed by the ill success that had long attended the Roman arms. In this state of things, the news suddenly came, that 40,000 men, the flower of the Persian army, commanded by Firouz, was marching upon Dara. Confident of victory, the Persian general announced his approach, by the haughty message that a bath should be ready for him at Dara the next evening. Belisarius made no other reply than preparations for battle. Fortifying himself in the best manner he was able, he awaited the onset; exhorting his men, however, by every stimulating motive he could suggest, to do honor to the name and fame of Rome. The battle began by a mutual discharge of arrows, so numerous as to darken the air. When the quivers were exhausted, they came to closer combat. The struggle was obstinate and bloody; and the Persians were already about to win the victory, when a body of horse, judiciously stationed behind a hill by Belisarius, rushed forward, and turned the tide of success. The Persians fled, and the triumph of Belisarius was complete. They left their royal standard upon the field of battle, with 8000 slain. This victory had a powerful effect, and decided the fate of the campaign. The aged Kobad, who had conceived a profound contempt for the Romans, was greatly irritated by the defeat of his troops. He determined upon a still more powerful effort, and the next season sent a formidable army to invade Syria. Belisarius, with a promptitude that astounded he enemy, proceeded to the defence of this province, and, with an inferior force, compelled the Persian army to retreat. Obliged at length, by his soldiers, against his own judgment, to give battle to the enemy, he suffered severely, and only avoided total defeat by the greatest coolness and address. Even the partial victory of the enemy was without advantage to them, for they were obliged to retreat, and abandon their enterprise. Soon after this event, Kobad died, in his eighty-third year, and his successor, Nushirvan, concluded a treaty of peace with Justinian. The war being thus terminated, Belisarius took up his residence at Constantinople, and here became the second husband of Antonina, who, though the child of an actress, had contracted an exalted marriage on account of her beauty, and having filled a high office, enjoyed the rank and honors of a patrician. While thus raised above the dangerous profession of her mother, she still adhered to the morals of the stage. Though openly licentious, she obtained through her bold, decided, and intriguing character, aided by remarkable powers of fascination, a complete ascendancy over Belisarius. It is seldom that a man is great in all respects, and the weakness of the general whose history we are delineating, was exhibited in a blind and submissive attachment to this profligate woman. A singular outbreak of popular violence occurred about this period, which stained the streets of Constantinople with blood, and threatened for a time to hurl Justinian from his throne. The fondness of the Romans for the amusements of the circus, had in no degree abated. Indeed, as the gladiatorial combats had been suppressed, these games were frequented with redoubled ardor. The charioteers were distinguished by the various colors of red, white, blue, and green, intending to represent the four seasons. Those of each color, especially the blue and green, possessed numerous and devoted partisans, which became at last connected with civil and religious prejudices. Justinian favored the Blues, who became for that reason the emblem of royalty; on the other hand, the Greens became the type of disaffection. Though these dangerous factions were denounced by the statutes, still, at the period of which we speak, each party were ready to lavish their fortunes, risk their lives, and brave the severest sentence of the laws, in support of their darling color. At the commencement of the year 532, by one of those sudden caprices which are often displayed by the populace, the two factions united, and turned their vengeance against Justinian. The prisons were forced, and the guards massacred. The city was then fired in various parts, the cathedral of St. Sophia, a part of the imperial palace, and a great number of public and private buildings, were wrapped in conflagration. The cry of "_Nika! Nika!_" Vanquish! Vanquish! ran through every part of the capital. The principal citizens hurried to the opposite shore of the Bosphorus, and the emperor entrenched himself within his palace. In the mean time, Hypatius, nephew of the emperor Anastatius, was declared emperor by the rioters, and so formidable had the insurrection now become, that Justinian was ready to abdicate his crown. For the first and last time, Theodora seemed worthy of the throne, for she withstood the pusillanimity of her husband, and, through her animated exhortations, it was determined to take the chance of victory or death. Justinian's chief hope now rested on Belisarius. Assisted by Mundus, the governor of Illyria, who chanced to be in the capital, he now called upon the guards to rally in defence of the emperor; but these refused to obey him. Meanwhile, by another caprice the party of the Blues, becoming ashamed of their conduct, shrunk one by one away, and left Hypatius to be sustained by the Greens alone. These were dismayed at seeing Belisarius, issuing with a few troops which he had collected, from the smoking ruins of the palace. Drawing his sword, and commanding his veterans to follow, he fell upon them like a thunderbolt. Mundus, with another division of soldiers, rushed upon them from the opposite direction. The insurgents were panic-struck, and dispersed in every quarter. Hypatius was dragged from the throne which he had ascended a few hours before, and was soon after executed in prison. The Blues now emerged from their concealment, and, falling upon their antagonists, glutted their merciless and ungovernable vengeance. No less than thirty thousand persons were slain in this fearful convulsion. We must now turn our attention to Africa, in which the next exploits of Belisarius were performed. The northern portion of this part of the world, known to us by the merited by-word of Barbary, hardly retains a trace of the most formidable rival and opulent province of Rome. After the fall of Jugurtha, at the commencement of the second century, it had enjoyed a long period of prosperity and peace--having escaped the sufferings which had fallen upon every other portion of the empire. The Africans in the fifth century were abounding in wealth, population, and resources. During the minority of Valentinian, Boniface was appointed governor of Africa. Deceived by Ætius into a belief of ingratitude on the part of the government at home, he determined upon resistance, and with this view, concluded a treaty with the Vandals in the southern portion of Spain. These, embarking from Andalusia, whose name still denotes their former residence, landed at the opposite cape of Ceuta, A. D. 429. Their leader was the far-famed Genseric, one of the most able, but most lawless and bloody monarchs recorded in history. Of a middle stature, and lamed by a fall from his horse, his demeanor was thoughtful and silent; he was contemptuous of luxury, sudden in anger, and boundless in ambition. Yet his impetuosity was always guided and restrained by cunning. He well knew how to tempt the allegiance of a foreign nation, to cast the seeds of future discord, or to rear them to maturity. The barbarians on their passage to Africa consisted of 50,000 fighting men, with a great crowd of women and children. Their progress through the African province was rapid and unopposed, till Boniface, discovering the artifices of Ætius, and the favorable disposition of the government of Rome, bitterly repented the effects of his hasty resentment. He now endeavored to withdraw his Vandal allies; but he found it less easy to allay, than it had been to raise, the storm. His proposals were haughtily rejected, and both parties had recourse to arms. Boniface was defeated, and in the event, Genseric obtained entire possession of the Roman provinces in Africa. Carthage, which had risen from its ruins at the command of Julius Cæsar and been embellished by Diocletian, had regained a large share of its former opulence and pride, and might be considered, at the time of which we speak, the second city in the western empire. Making this his capital, Genseric proceeded to adopt various measures to increase his power, and, among others, determined upon the creation of a naval force. With him, project and performance were never far asunder. His ships soon rode in the Mediterranean, and carried terror and destruction in their train. He annexed to his kingdom the Balearic islands, Corsica and Sardinia; the last of which was afterwards allotted by the Vandals as a place of exile or imprisonment for captive Moors; and during many years, the ports of Africa were what they became in more recent days, the abode of fierce and unpunished pirates. With every returning spring, the fleet of Genseric ravaged the coasts of Italy and Sicily, and even of Greece and Illyria, sometimes bearing off the inhabitants to slavery, and sometimes levelling their cities to the ground. Emboldened by long impunity, he attacked every government alike. On one occasion, when sailing from Carthage, he was asked by the pilot of his vessel to what coast he desired to steer--"Leave the guidance to God," exclaimed the stern barbarian; "God will doubtless lead us against the guilty objects of his anger!" The most memorable achievement of Genseric, the sack of Rome in 455, is an event too much out of the track of our narrative to be detailed here. We can only pause to state, that, after spending a fortnight in that great metropolis, and loading his fleets with its spoils, he returned to Africa, bearing the Empress Eudocia thither, as his captive. She was, at length, released, but one of her daughters was compelled by Genseric to accept his son in marriage. The repeated outrages of the Vandal king at length aroused the tardy resentment of the court of Constantinople, and Leo I., then emperor, despatched an army against him, consisting of nearly one hundred thousand men, attended by the most formidable fleet that had ever been launched by the Romans. The commander was a weak man, and being cheated into a truce of five days by Genseric, the latter took advantage of a moment of security, and, in the middle of the night, caused a number of small vessels, filled with combustibles, to be introduced among the Roman ships. A conflagration speedily ensued; and the Romans, starting from their slumbers, found themselves encompassed by fire and the Vandals. The wild shrieks of the perishing multitude mingled with the crackling of the flames and the roaring of the winds; and the enemy proved as unrelenting as the elements. The greater part of the fleet was destroyed, and only a few shattered ships, and a small number of survivors, found their way back to Constantinople. A peace soon followed this event, which continued uninterrupted till the time of Justinian. Genseric died in 477, leaving his kingdom to his son Hunneric. About the year 530, Gelimer being upon the Vandal throne, Justinian began to meditate an expedition against him. His generals, with the exception of Belisarius, were averse to the undertaking. The same feeling was shared by many of the leading men about the court, and in an assembly, in which the subject was under discussion, Justinian was about to yield to the opposition, when a bishop from the east earnestly begged admission to his presence. On entering the council chamber he exhorted the emperor to stand forth as the champion of the church, and, in order to confirm him in the enterprise, he declared that the Lord had appeared to him in a vision, saying, "I will march before him in his battles, and make him sovereign of Africa." Men seldom reject a tale, however fantastic, which coincides with their wishes or their prepossessions. All the doubts of Justinian were at once removed; he commanded a fleet and army to be forthwith equipped for this sacred enterprise, and endeavored still further to insure its success by his austerity in fasts and vigils. Belisarius was named supreme commander, still retaining his title as General of the East. In the month of June, A. D. 533, the Roman armament, consisting of five hundred transports, with twenty thousand sailors, and nearly the same number of soldiers, became ready for departure. The general embarked, attended on this occasion by Antonina and his secretary, the historian Procopius, who, at first, had shared in the popular fear and distaste of the enterprise, but had afterwards been induced to join it by a hopeful dream. The galley of Belisarius was moored near the shore, in front of the imperial palace, where it received a last visit from Justinian, and a solemn blessing from the patriarch of the city. A soldier recently baptized was placed on board, to secure its prosperous voyage; its sails were then unfurled, and, with the other ships in its train, it glided down the straits of the Bosphorus, and gradually disappeared from the lingering gaze of the assembled multitude. With a force scarcely one fourth as strong as that which was annihilated by Genseric, about seventy years before, Belisarius proceeded upon his expedition. Having touched at Sicily and Malta, he proceeded to the coast of Africa, where he landed in September, about one hundred and fifty miles from Carthage, and began his march upon that city. He took several towns, but enforcing the most rigid discipline upon his troops, and treating the inhabitants with moderation and courtesy, he entirely gained their confidence and good will. They brought ample provisions to his camp, and gave him such a reception as might be expected rather by a native than a hostile army. When the intelligence of the landing and progress of the Romans reached Gelimer, who was then at Hermione, he was roused to revenge, and took his measures with promptitude and skill. He had an army of eighty thousand men, the greater part of whom were soon assembled, and posted in a defile about ten miles from Carthage, directly in the route by which Belisarius was approaching. Several severe skirmishes soon followed, in which the Vandals were defeated. The main army now advanced, and a general engagement immediately ensued. In the outset, the Vandals prevailed, and the Romans were on the eve of flying, defeated, from the field. A pause on the part of Gelimer was, however, seized upon by Belisarius to collect and rally his forces, and with a united effort he now charged the Vandal army. The conflict was fierce, but brief: Gelimer was totally defeated, and, with a few faithful adherents, he sought safety in flight. Knowing that the ruinous walls of Carthage could not sustain a siege, he took his way to the deserts of Numidia. All idea of resistance was abandoned; the gates of Carthage were thrown open, and the chains across the entrance of the port were removed. The Roman fleet soon after arrived, and was safely anchored in the harbor. On the 16th September, Belisarius made a solemn entry into the capital. Having taken every precaution against violence and rapacity, not a single instance of tumult or outrage occurred, save that a captain of one of the vessels plundered some of the inhabitants, but was obliged to restore the spoil he had taken. The soldiers marched peaceably to their quarters; the inhabitants continued to pursue their avocations; the shops remained open, and, in spite of the change of sovereigns, public business was not for a moment interrupted! Belisarius took up his quarters in the palace of Gelimer, and in the evening held a sumptuous banquet there, being attended by the same servants who had so lately been employed by the Vandal king. With his usual activity, Belisarius immediately applied himself to the restoration of the ruinous ramparts of the city. The ditch was deepened, the breaches filled, the walls strengthened, and the whole was completed in so short a space as to strike the Vandals with amazement. Meanwhile, Gelimer was collecting a powerful army at Bulla, on the borders of Numidia at the distance of four days' journey from Carthage. Having placed the capital in a proper state for defence, at the end of three months from its capture, Belisarius led forth his army, leaving only five hundred troops to guard the city. Gelimer was now within twenty miles of the capital, having raised an army of one hundred thousand men. No sooner had the Romans taken up their march toward his camp, than they prepared for battle. The armies soon met, and Belisarius, having determined to direct all his endeavors against the centre of the Vandal force, caused a charge to be made by some squadrons of the horse guards. These were repulsed, and a second onset, also, proved unsuccessful. But a third prevailed, after an obstinate resistance. The ranks of the enemy were broken; Zazo, the king's brother, was slain, and consternation now completed the rout of the Vandals. Gelimer, under the influence of panic, betook himself to flight; his absence was perceived, and his conduct imitated. The soldiers dispersed in all directions, leaving their camp, their goods, their families, all in the hands of the Romans. Belisarius seized upon the royal treasure in behalf of his sovereign, and in spite of his commands, the licentious soldiers spent the night in debauchery, violence and plunder. Gelimer fled to the mountains of Papua, inhabited by a savage but friendly tribe of Moors. He sought refuge in the small town of Medenus, which presented a craggy precipice on all sides Belisarius returned to Carthage, and sent out various detachments, which rapidly subdued the most remote portions of the Vandal kingdom. Immediately after the capture of Carthage, he had despatched one of his principal officers to Justinian, announcing these prosperous events. The intelligence arrived about the time that the emperor had completed his _pandects_.[1] The exultation of the monarch is evinced by the swelling titles he assumes in the preamble of these laws. All mention of the general by whom his conquests had been achieved, is carefully avoided; while the emperor is spoken of as the "pious," "happy," "victorious," and "triumphant!" He even boasts, in his Institutes, of the warlike fatigues he had borne, though he had never quitted the luxurious palace of Constantinople, except for recreation in some of his neighboring villas. While the Roman general was actively employed at Carthage, Pharus was proceeding in the siege of Medenus, which had been begun immediately after the flight of Gelimer. Pent up in this narrow retreat, the sufferings of the Vandal monarch were great, from the want of supplies and the savage habits of the Moors. His lot was likewise embittered by the recollection of the soft and luxurious life to which he had lately been accustomed. During their dominion in Africa, the Vandals had declined from their former hardihood, and yielded to the enervating influence of climate, security and success. Their arms were laid aside; gold embroidery shone upon their silken robes, and every dainty from the sea and land were combined in their rich repasts. Reclining in the shade of delicious gardens, their careless hours were amused by dancers and musicians, and no exertion beyond the chase, interrupted their voluptuous repose. The Moors of Papua, on the contrary, dwelt in narrow huts, sultry in summer, and pervious to the snows of winter. They most frequently slept upon the bare ground, and a sheepskin for a couch was a rare refinement. The same dress, a cloak and a tunic, clothed them at every season, and they were strangers to the use of both bread and wine. Their grain was devoured in its crude state, or at best was coarsely pounded and baked, with little skill, into an unleavened paste. Compelled to share this savage mode of life, Gelimer and his attendants began to consider captivity, or even death, as better than the daily hardships they endured. To avail himself of this favorable disposition, Pharus, in a friendly letter, proposed a capitulation, and assured Gelimer of generous treatment from Belisarius and Justinian. The spirit of the Vandal prince, however, was still not wholly broken, and he refused the offers, while acknowledging the kindness of his enemy. In his answer he entreated the gifts of a lyre, a loaf of bread, and a sponge, and his messenger explained the grounds of this singular petition. At Medenus, he had never tasted the food of civilized nations, he wished to sing to music an ode on his misfortunes written by himself, and a swelling on his eyes needed a sponge for its cure. The brave Roman, touched with pity that such wants should be felt by the grandson and successor of Genseric, forthwith sent these presents up the mountain, but by no means abated the watchfulness of his blockade. The siege had already continued for upwards of three months, and several Vandals had sunk beneath its hardships, but Gelimer still displayed the stubborn inflexibility usual to despotic rulers, when the sight of a domestic affliction suddenly induced him to yield. In the hovel where he sat gloomily brooding over his hopeless fortunes, a Moorish woman was preparing, at the fire, some coarse dough. Two children, her son and the nephew of Gelimer, were watching her progress with the eager anxiety of famine. The young Vandal was the first to seize the precious morsel, still glowing with heat, and blackened with ashes, when the Moor, by blows and violence, forced it from his mouth. So fierce a struggle for food, at such an age, overcame the sternness of Gelimer. He agreed to surrender on the same terms lately held out to him, and the promises of Pharus were confirmed by the Roman general, who sent Cyprian as his envoy to Papua. The late sovereign of Africa reentered his capital as a suppliant and a prisoner, and at the suburb of Aclas, beheld his conqueror for the first time. With the capitulation of Gelimer, the Vandal was at an end. There now remained to Belisarius but the important task of making the conquered countries permanently useful to the Romans. But, while occupied in this design, his glory having provoked envy, he was accused to Justinian of the intention of making himself king over the territories he had conquered. With the weakness of a little mind, the emperor so far yielded to the base accusation as to send a message to Belisarius, indicating his suspicions. The latter immediately departed from Carthage, and, taking with him his spoils and captives, proceeded to Constantinople. This ready obedience dissipated the suspicions of the emperor, and he made ample and prompt reparation for his unfounded jealousy. Medals were struck by his orders, bearing on one side the effigy of the emperor, and on the other that of the victorious general, encircled by the inscription, _Belisarius, the glory of the Romans_. Beside this, the honors of a triumph were decreed him, the first ever witnessed in the Eastern capital. The ceremony was in the highest degree imposing. The triumphal procession marched from the house of Belisarius to the hippodrome,[2] filled with exulting thousands, where Justinian and Theodora sat enthroned. Among the Vandal captives, Gelimer was distinguished by the purple of a sovereign. He shed no tears, but frequently repeated the words of Solomon, "Vanity of vanities: all is vanity." When he reached the imperial throne, and was commanded to cast aside the ensigns of royalty, Belisarius hastened to do the same, to show him that he was to undergo no insult as a prisoner, but only to yield the customary homage of a subject. We may pause for a moment to reflect upon the caprices of fortune, which had raised a comedian, in the person of Theodora, to see the successor of Genseric and Scipio prostrate as slaves before her footstool. Both the conqueror and captive experienced the effects of imperial generosity. The former received a large share of the spoil as his reward, and was named consul for the ensuing year. To the Vandal monarch, an extensive estate in Galatia was assigned, to which he retired, and, in peaceful obscurity, spent the remainder of his days. We must now turn our attention to Italy. Theodoric the Great, the natural son of Theodomir, king of the Ostrogoths, became the master of Italy toward the close of the fifth century. The Gothic dominion was thus established in the ancient seat of the Roman empire, and the king of the Goths was seated upon the throne of the Cæsars. Theodoric has furnished one of the few instances in which a successful soldier has abandoned warlike pursuits for the duties of civil administration, and, instead of seeking power by his arms, has devoted himself to the improvement of his kingdom by a peaceful policy. Upright and active in his conduct, he enforced discipline among his soldiers, and so tempered his general kindness by acts of salutary rigor, that he was loved as if indulgent, yet obeyed as if severe. He applied himself to the revival of trade, the support of manufactures, and the encouragement of agriculture. At the death of this great monarch, in 526, his grandson, Athalaric, then only ten years of age, became king. After a nominal reign of eight years he died in consequence of his dissipations, and was succeeded by Theodatus, the nephew of Theodoric. This prince having attained the throne by the murder of Amalasontha, the widow of Theodoric, Justinian regarded him as an usurper stained with an atrocious crime, and therefore determined to drive him from his throne. Accordingly, a force of twelve thousand men was despatched to Italy under Belisarius. Landing at Catania, in Sicily, they surprised the Goths, and had little difficulty in reducing the island. Fixing his head quarters at Syracuse, he was making preparations to enter the heart of Italy, when a messenger came to inform him that a serious insurrection had broken out at Carthage. He immediately set out for that place. On his arrival the insurgents fled, but Belisarius pursued them, overtook them, and, though their force was four times as great as his own, they were completely defeated in a pitched battle. Returning to Carthage, the Roman general was informed by a messenger from Sicily that a formidable mutiny had broken out in his army there. He immediately embarked, and soon restored his troops to order and discipline. The rapid conquest of Sicily by Belisarius struck terror into the heart of king Theodatus, who was weak by nature, and depressed by age. He was therefore induced to subscribe an ignominious treaty with Justinian, some of the conditions of which forcibly display the pusillanimity of one emperor, and the vanity of the other. Theodatus promised that no statue should be raised to his honor, without another of Justinian at his right hand, and that the imperial name should always precede his own in the acclamations of the people, at public games and festivals: as if the shouts of the rabble were matter for a treaty! But even this humiliating compact was not sufficient for the grasping avarice of Justinian. He required of Theodatus the surrender of his throne, which the latter promised; but before the compact could be carried into effect, he was driven from his throne, and Vittiges, a soldier of humble birth, but great energy and experience, was declared his successor. Establishing his head quarters at Ravenna, the Gothic king was making preparations to sustain his cause, when Belisarius, who had taken Naples, was invited to Rome by Pope Sylverius. Taking advantage of this opportunity, he immediately advanced, and triumphantly entered the "eternal city." Rome had now been under the dominion of its Gothic conquerors for sixty years, during which it had enjoyed the advantages of peace and prosperity. It had been the object of peculiar care, attention, and munificence, and had received the respect due to the ancient mistress of the world. Still, the people at large looked upon their rulers as foreigners and barbarians, and desired the return of the imperial sway, seeming to forget that they were preferring a foreign to a native government. Belisarius lost no time in repairing the fortifications of Rome, while he actively extended his conquests in the southern parts of Italy. His military fame was now a host, and most of the towns submitted, either from a preference of the Byzantine government, or respect for the military prowess of the Roman general. The great achievements of Belisarius strike us with wonder, when we consider the feeble means with which they were accomplished. His force at the outset of his invasion of Italy did not exceed 12,000 men. These were now much reduced by the bloody siege of Naples, and by his subsequent successes, which made it necessary to supply garrisons for the captured towns. Vittiges, in his Adriatic capital, had spent the winter in preparations, and when the spring arrived, he set forth with a powerful army. Knowing the small force of Belisarius, he hurried forward towards Rome, fearing only that his enemy should escape by flight. The genius of Belisarius never shone with greater lustre than at this moment. By numerous devices he contrived to harass the Gothic army in their march, but owing to the flight of a detachment of his troops whom he had stationed at one of the towers, to delay their progress, they at last came upon him by surprise. He was at the moment without the city, attended by only a thousand of his guards, when suddenly he found himself surrounded by the van of the Gothic cavalry. He now displayed not only the skill of a general, but the personal courage and prowess of a soldier. Distinguished by the charger whom he had often rode in battle--a bay with a white face--he was seen in the foremost ranks, animating his men to the conflict. "That is Belisarius," exclaimed some Italian deserters, who knew him. "Aim at the bay!" was forthwith the cry through the Gothic squadrons and a cloud of arrows was soon aimed at the conspicuous mark. It seemed as if the fate of Italy was felt to be suspended upon a single life--so fierce was the struggle to kill or capture the Roman leader. Amid the deadly strife, however, Belisarius remained unhurt; and it is said that more of the army fell that day by his single arm, than by that of any other Roman. His guards displayed the utmost courage and devotion to his person, rallying around him, and raising their bucklers on every side, to ward off the showers of missiles that flew with deadly aim at his breast. Not less than a thousand of the enemy fell in the conflict--a number equal to the whole Roman troop engaged in the battle. The Goths at length gave way, and Belisarius, with his guards, reentered the city. On the morrow, March 12th, A. D. 537, the memorable siege of Rome began. Finding it impossible, even with their vast army, to encircle the entire walls of the city, which were twelve miles in length, the Goths selected five of the fourteen gates, and invested them. They now cut through the aqueducts, in order to stop the supply of water, and several of them, having never been repaired, remain to this day, extending into the country, and seeming like the "outstretched and broken limbs of an expiring giant." Though the baths of the city were stopped, the Tiber supplied the people with water for all needful purposes. The resources and activity of Belisarius knew no bounds: yet he had abundant occasion for all the advantages these could supply. The relative smallness of his force, the feebleness of the defences the fickleness and final disaffection of the people, the intrigues of Vittiges, and his vastly superior army constituted a web of difficulties which would have overwhelmed any other than a man whose genius could extort good from evil, and convert weakness into strength. For a whole year, the encircling walls of Rome were the scenes of almost incessant attack and defence. The fertile genius of Vittiges suggested a thousand expedients, and the number as well as courage of his troops enabled him to plan and execute a variety of daring schemes. Yet he was always baffled by his vigilant rival, and his most elaborate devices were rendered fruitless by the superior genius of the Roman general. At last, on the 21st of March, A. D. 538, foreseeing that Belisarius was about to receive reinforcements, and despairing of success in the siege, Vittiges withdrew his army, suffering in his retreat a fearful massacre, from a sally of the Roman troops. Vittiges retired to Ravenna, and Belisarius soon invested it. While he was pressing the siege, Justinian, probably alarmed by the threats of the Persian king, entered into a treaty with the ambassadors of Vittiges, by which he agreed to a partition of Italy, taking one half himself, and allowing the Gothic king to retain the other portion. Belisarius refused to ratify this treaty, and soon after, was pressed by the Goths to become their king. Vittiges even joined in this request, and Belisarius had now the easy opportunity of making himself the emperor of the West, without the remotest fear of failure. But he was too deeply impressed with his oath of allegiance, to allow him to entertain a treacherous design toward his sovereign, and he rejected the tempting offer. The merit of his fidelity under these circumstances, is heightened by the consideration that he had refused the ratification of the treaty, and was well aware that reproach, or even hostility, might await him at Constantinople. Soon after these events, Ravenna capitulated, and Belisarius became its master. His fame was now at its height; but this only served to inflame the envy of his rivals at Constantinople. These, insidiously working upon the suspicious temper of Justinian, induced him to command the return of Belisarius to Constantinople. With prompt obedience, he embarked at Ravenna, carrying with him his Gothic captives and treasure. After five years of warfare, from the foot of Etna to the banks of the Po, during which he had subdued nearly the same extent of country which had been acquired by the Romans in the first five centuries from the building of that city, he arrived at Constantinople. The voice of envy was silenced for a time, and Belisarius was appointed to the command of the army now about to proceed against the Persians. The captive monarch of the Goths was received with generous courtesy by the emperor, and an ample estate was allotted to him in Asia. Justinian gazed with admiration on the strength and beauty of the Gothic captives--their fair complexions, auburn locks, and lofty stature. A great number of these, attracted by the fame and character of Belisarius, enlisted in his guards. In the spring of the year 540, Chosroes or Nushirvan, the Persian king, invaded the Roman provinces in the east. The next year Belisarius proceeded against him, and took his station at Dara. Here, instead of a well-appointed army, he found only a confused and discordant mass of undisciplined men. After various operations, being baffled by the treachery or incapacity of his subalterns, he was obliged to retreat, and closed a fruitless campaign, by placing his men in winter quarters. Being recalled to Constantinople, he went thither, but took the field early in the spring, with the most powerful army he had ever commanded. Nushirvan advanced into Syria, but, thwarted by the masterly manoeuvres of Belisarius, he was at last obliged to retreat. Soon after, the Roman general being again recalled by Justinian, the most fatal disasters befel the Roman army. During these Persian campaigns, the political security, as well as the domestic happiness of Belisarius, were shaken by the misconduct of his wife. She had long been engaged in an intrigue with Theodosius, the young soldier newly baptized as an auspicious omen in the galley of the general, upon his departure for Africa. Though told of this, Belisarius had been pacified by the protestations and artifices of Antonina; but while he was absent in Asia Minor, she, being left in Constantinople, pursued her licentious career with little scruple. Her son Photius, a gallant young soldier, being a check upon her conduct, became the object of her hatred. While at the distance of a thousand miles, during the Persian campaign, he still experienced the malignant influence of her intrigues, and urged by a sense of duty to his step-father, made him acquainted with his mother's depravity. When she afterwards joined her husband on the frontier, he caused her to be imprisoned, and sent Photius towards Ephesus to inflict summary punishment upon Theodosius. The latter was taken captive by Photius, and borne to Cilicia. Antonina, by her convenient intrigues in behalf of Theodora, had laid her under great obligations, and obtained the greatest influence over her. The empress, therefore, now interfered to save her friend. Positive injunctions were sent to Cilicia, and both Photius and Theodosius were brought to Constantinople. The former was cast into a dungeon and tortured at the rack; the latter was received with distinction; but he soon expired from illness. Photius, after a third escape from prison, proceeded to Jerusalem, where he took the habit of a monk, and finally attained the rank of abbot. Belisarius and Antonina were summoned to Constantinople, and the empress commanded the injured husband to abstain from the punishment of his wife. He obeyed this order of his sovereign. She next required a reconciliation at his hands; but he refused to comply with a demand which no sovereign had a right to make. He, therefore, remained at Constantinople, under the secret displeasure of Theodora and Justinian, who only wanted some plausible pretext to accomplish his ruin. The invasion of Nushirvan, in the ensuing spring impelled the terrified emperor to lay aside his animosity, and restore the hero to the direction of the eastern armies; but in this campaign, his former offence was aggravated, and the glory of saving the East was outweighed by the guilt of frankness. Justinian was recovering from a dangerous illness; a rumor of his death had reached the Roman camp, and Belisarius gave an opinion in favor of the emperor's nearest kinsman as his successor, instead of acknowledging the pretensions of Theodora to the throne. This declaration inflamed with equal anger the aspiring wife and the uxorious husband. Buzes, the second in command, who had concurred in these views, was confined in a subterranean dungeon, so dark that the difference of day and night was never apparent to its inmate. Belisarius himself was recalled, with flattering professions of confidence and friendship, lest resentment should urge him to rebellion; but on his arrival at Constantinople, the mask was thrown aside; he was degraded from the rank of general of the East; a commission was despatched into Asia to seize his treasures; and his personal guards, who had followed his standard through so many battles, were removed from his command. It was with mingled feelings of compassion and surprise, that the people beheld the forlorn appearance of the general as he entered Constantinople, and rode along the streets, with a small and squalid train. Proceeding to the gates of the palace, he was exposed during the whole day to the scoffs and insults of the rabble. He was received by the emperor and Theodora with angry disdain, and when he withdrew, in the evening, to his lonely palace, he frequently turned round, expecting to see the appointed assassins advancing upon him. In the evening, after sunset, a letter was brought him from Theodora, declaring that his life was granted and a portion of his fortune spared at the intercession of his wife, and she trusted that his future conduct would manifest his gratitude to his deliverer. The favorable moments of surprise and gratitude were improved by Antonina with her usual skill. Thus, by the artifices of two designing women, the conqueror of armies was subdued, and Belisarius once more became the duped and submissive husband. A fine of three hundred pounds weight of gold was levied upon the property of Belisarius, and he was suffered for many months to languish in obscurity. In 544, however, he was appointed to the command of the war in Italy, whither he soon proceeded. Here, in his operations against far superior forces, he displayed the same genius as before, and in February, 547, he again entered Rome. He pursued the war with various fortune; but at last, finding his means entirely inadequate to the necessities of the contest, he begged of the emperor either reinforcements or recall. Engrossed by religious quarrels, Justinian took the easier course, and adopted the latter. Thus, after having desolated Italy with all the horrors of war for several years, he now abandoned it, from mere weakness and caprice. Belisarius returned to Constantinople, and for several years his life affords no remarkable occurrence. He continued in the tranquil enjoyment of opulence and dignities; but, in the year 559, various warlike tribes beyond the Danube, known under the general name of Bulgarians, marched southward, and desolated several provinces by sword, fire, and plunder. Zabergan, their enterprising leader, having passed the frozen Danube in the winter, detached one portion of his army for the pillage of Greece, and the other against the capital. So sudden and bold an aggression filled Constantinople with helpless and despairing terror. The people and the senators were agitated with fear, and the emperor sat trembling in his palace. In this general confusion and affright, all eyes were turned with hope to the conqueror of Africa and Italy. Though his constitution was broken by his military labors, his heart was alive to the call of his country, and Belisarius prepared to crown his glorious life by a last and decisive battle. He resumed his rusty armor, collected a handful of his scattered veterans, and in the return of martial spirit he seemed to shake off the weakness of decrepitude. Sallying from the city with three hundred mounted men, he met Zabergan at the head of two thousand cavalry. Selecting a favorable position, he withstood the onset, and, seeming to recover the powers of his youth, he astonished all around him by his intrepidity and skill. After a severe and bloody struggle, the Bulgarians were driven back in the utmost disorder; four hundred fell on the field, and Zabergan himself escaped with difficulty. The whole army of barbarians, amounting to many thousands, were seized with contagious fear, raised their camp, and retreated to the north. Belisarius was preparing for a close pursuit, when again his enemies awaked the suspicions of Justinian by suggesting that he was aiming at popular favor with disloyal views. The enthusiastic praises of his heroic conduct, by the people, turned even the emperor's heart to jealousy, and he chose rather to purchase the departure of the barbarians by tribute, than to permit Belisarius to obtain new laurels by chastising their audacity. From this period, Belisarius continued under the displeasure of Justinian, whose suspicious temper seemed to grow more virulent as his faculties sunk in the dotage of years. In 563, several conspiracies against the life of Justinian were detected, and under torture, some of the domestics of Belisarius accused their master of participation. This testimony, disproved by the long life and the habitually submissive loyalty of Belisarius, was sufficient for his conviction. He was stripped of his fortune, deprived of his guards, and detained as a close prisoner in his palace. The other conspirators were condemned and executed; but, in consideration of the past services of Belisarius, the decree of death was changed for that of blindness, and his eyes were accordingly put out.[3] He was now restored to liberty, but, deprived of all means of subsistence, he was compelled to beg his bread before the gates of the convent of Laurus. There he stood with a wooden platter which he held out for charity, exclaiming to the passers-by, "Give a penny to Belisarius the general!" The affecting scene was long impressed upon the recollection of the people; and it would seem that this spectacle of persecuted merit aroused some dangerous feelings of indignation and pity, and he was, therefore, removed from public view. Belisarius was brought back to his former palace, and a portion of his treasures was allotted for his use. His death, which was doubtless hastened by the grief and hardships of his lot, occurred in 565; and Antonina, who survived him, devoted the remains of her life and fortune to the cloister. In person, Belisarius was tall and commanding; his features regular and noble. When he appeared in the streets of Constantinople, he never failed to attract the admiration of the people. As a military leader, he was enterprising, firm, and fearless. His conception was clear, and his judgment rapid and decisive. His conquests were achieved with smaller means than any other of like extent recorded in history. He experienced reverses in the field; but never did he fail without strong and sufficient reason. His superior tactics covered his defeats, retrieved his losses, and prevented his enemies from reaping the fruits of victory. Never, even in the most desperate emergencies, was he known to lose his courage or presence of mind. Though living in a barbarous and dissolute age, Belisarius possessed many shining virtues. In the march of his armies, he would avoid the trampling of the corn-fields, nor would he allow his soldiers even to gather apples from the trees without making payment to the villagers. After a victory, it was his first care to extend mercy and protection to the vanquished. The gift of a golden bracelet or collar rewarded any valorous achievement among his troops; the loss of a horse or weapon was immediately supplied from his private funds; the wounded ever found in him a father and a friend. To all, he was open and easy of access, and by his courteous demeanor often comforted, where he could not relieve. From his generosity, one would have deemed him rich; from his manners, poor. His private virtues promoted and confirmed the discipline of his soldiers. None ever saw him flushed with wine, nor could the charms of his fairest captives overcome his conjugal fidelity. But the most remarkable feature in the character of Belisarius is his steadfast loyalty, and the noble magnanimity with which he overlooked the suspicious meanness and ingratitude of his sovereign. It is impossible to find in history another instance of an individual so strongly induced to rebellion by treacherous treatment or the part of his country, and the opportunity of placing a crown upon his head without the risk of effectual opposition, who refused, from patriotic motives, the double temptation. That Belisarius had faults, is not to be denied. His blind submission to his wife displayed great weakness, and led him into most of the errors which are charged upon his public career. In his last campaign in Italy, his wealth having been exhausted by an enormous fine, he endeavored to repair his losses by imitating the rapacity universally practised by other commanders of that period. He thus inflicted upon his memory a serious stain, and showed that, however he was exalted above the age, he was still a man. His whole career affords a striking moral, coinciding with the emphatic language of Scripture, "Put not thy trust in princes." [Illustration] [Footnote 1: These were a digest of the civil law of Rome, made by the order of Justinian, and have been preserved to our time. They contained five hundred and thirty-four decisions or judgments of lawyers, to which the emperor gave the force of law. The compilation consists of fifty books, and has contributed to save Justinian's name from the contempt and reproach which had otherwise been heaped upon it.] [Footnote 2: A space where the chariot races were exhibited.] [Footnote 3: This portion of the story of Belisarius has been the subject of controversy. It has been doubted by Gibbon and other historians, whether the infliction of blindness upon Belisarius and his beggary, were not mere traditionary fables. But Lord Mahon, in his excellent life of the great Roman general from which we have drawn the preceding account, appears to have established their authenticity. The beautiful tale of Belisarius by Marmontel, is fictitious in many of its details.] [Illustration] ATTILA, KING OF THE HUNS This renowned barbarian was the son of Mandras, and of a royal line. He served in the army of his uncle, Roas, who was king of the Huns. At his death, in 433, he succeeded him, sharing the throne with his brother Bleda. The Huns at this period were very numerous and warlike. They extended over the southern part of Russia, and a considerable portion of the present empire of Austria. Attila's kingdom lay between the Carpathian mountains and the Danube, and was called Pannonia. At this period, the Roman empire had been for more than a century divided into the Eastern and Western empire. Theodosius II. was now emperor of the former, and Constantinople its capital, while Valentinian III. was emperor of the latter, and Rome, or Ravenna, the seat of his government. Both branches of the Roman empire were now sunk in the lap of luxury. They were spread over with splendid cities, and enriched with all the refinements of art, and all the spoils gathered from every quarter of the world. These offered a tempting inducement to the fierce and hungry barbarians of the north. Alaric[4] had shown the way to Rome a few years before, and taught the weakness of the queen of the world. Constantinople was not likely to be an inferior or more inaccessible prize. Attila's dominions bordered upon those of the two empires, and the distance to either capital was not more than five or six hundred miles. Among the first achievements of the two brothers, they threatened the Eastern empire with their armies, and twice compelled the weak Theodosius to purchase peace on humiliating terms. They then extended their dominions both east and west, until they reigned over the whole country from the Baltic to the Caspian Sea. Attila was regarded by the Huns as their bravest warrior, and most skilful general. He performed such feats of valor, and success so uniformly attended his career, that the ignorant and superstitious people were inclined to think him more than mortal. He took advantage of this feeling, and pretended that he had found the sword of their tutelar god, and that with this he intended to conquer the whole earth. Being unwilling to hold a divided sceptre, he caused his brother Bleda to be murdered, and when he gave out that it was done by the command of God, the event was celebrated with the greatest demonstrations of joy. Being now sole master of a warlike people, his ambition made him the terror of all the surrounding nations. It was a saying of his own, that no grass grew where his horse had set his foot, and the title of the "Scourge of God" was assigned to him, as characterizing his career. He extended his dominions over the whole of Germany and Scythia. The Vandals, the Ostrogoths, and a part of the Franks, acknowledged his sway, and both the Eastern and Western empires paid him tribute. Historians tell us that his army amounted to 700,000 men. Having heard of the riches of Persia, he directed his march against it. Being defeated on the plains of Armenia, he turned back, to satisfy his desire of plunder in the dominions of the emperor of the East. Regardless of existing treaties, he laid waste the whole country from the Black Sea to the Adriatic. In three bloody engagements, he defeated the troops sent against him by Theodosius. Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece, were overrun by the savage robber, and seventy flourishing cities were utterly destroyed. Theodosius was now at the mercy of the victor and was obliged to sue for peace. One of the servants of Attila, named Edekon, was tempted by an agent of the emperor to undertake the assassination of his master, on his return to Pannonia; but, at the moment he was about to accomplish his object, his courage failed him, he fell on his knees before Attila, confessed his criminal design, and disclosed the plot. Constantinople trembled at the idea of Attila's revenge; but he was contented with upbraiding Theodosius, and the execution of Crisapheus, who had drawn his servant into the scheme. Priscus, a Roman historian, who was an ambassador to Attila in the year 448, gives an interesting account of the king and his people. He found the palace in the midst of a large village. The royal edifice was entirely of wood: the houses of the Huns were also of wood, sometimes mixed with mortar made of earth. The only stone building was a set of baths. The wooden pillars of the palace were carved and polished, and the ambassador could discover some evidence of taste in the workmanship, as well as barbarous magnificence in the display of rich spoils taken from more civilized nations. They were soon invited to a sumptuous entertainment, in which the guests were all served upon utensils of silver and gold; but a dish of plain meat was set before the king on a wooden trencher, of which he partook very sparingly. His beverage was equally simple and frugal. The rest of the company were excited into loud and frequent laughter by the fantastic extravagances of two buffoons; but Attila preserved his usually inflexible gravity. A secret agent in the embassy was charged with the disgraceful task of procuring the assassination of this formidable enemy. Attila was acquainted with this, which was the real object of the mission, but he dismissed the culprit, as well as his innocent companions, uninjured. The emperor Theodosius was compelled, however, to atone for his base attempt, by a second embassy, loaded with magnificent presents, which the king of the Huns was prevailed upon to accept. Theodosius died not long after, and was succeeded by the more virtuous and able Marcian. Attila was at this time collecting an enormous army, and threatened both divisions of the Roman world at once. To each emperor he sent the haughty message, "Attila, my lord and thy lord, commands thee immediately to prepare a palace for his reception!" To this insult, he added a demand upon the emperor for the remainder of the tribute due from Theodosius. Marcian's reply was in the same laconic style: "I have gold for my friends, and steel for my enemies!" Attila determined to make war first on Valentinian. Honoria, the emperor's sister, who had been guilty of some youthful error, and was consequently confined in a convent, had sent Attila a ring, offering to become his wife. It was to claim her and half the empire as her dower, that Attila professed to be making these formidable preparations. At last, he appeared to accept the excuse of Theodosius for not allowing his sister to become his wife, and speedily marched with a prodigious force to the westward. He set out in midwinter, and did not pause till he reached the Rhine. Having defeated the Franks, he cut down whole forests to make rafts for his army to cross the river, and now, throwing off the mask, entered Gaul, a dependency of Rome. The horrors of his march it is scarcely possible to describe. Everything was destroyed that came in his way. Before him were terror and despair; behind, a broad track marked with desolation, ruin and death. He proceeded in his victorious career, till he reached the ancient town of Orleans. Here an obstinate defence was offered. The combined armies of Rome, under the celebrated Ætius, and the Goths under Theodoric, attacked him here, and compelled him to raise the siege. He retreated to Champaign, and waited for them in the plain of Chalons. The two armies soon approached each other. Anxious to know the event of the coming battle, Attila consulted the sorcerers, who foretold his defeat. Though greatly alarmed, he concealed his feelings, and rode among his warriors, animating them for the impending struggle. Inflamed by his ardor, the Huns were eager for the contest. Both armies fought bravely. At length the ranks of the Romans and Gauls were broken, and Attila felt assured of victory, when, suddenly, Thorismond, son of Theodoric, swept down like an avalanche from the neighboring heights upon the Huns. He threw them into disorder, spread death through their ranks, and Attila, pressed on all sides, escaped to his camp with the utmost difficulty. This was the bloodiest battle ever fought in Europe, for 106,000 men lay dead on the field. Theodoric was slain, and Attila, who had gathered his treasures into a heap, in order to burn himself with them in case he was reduced to extremities, was left unexpectedly to make his retreat. Having returned to Hungary and reinforced his army, he proceeded to repeat his demand for the hand of Honoria. He mastered the unguarded passes of the Alps, and, in 452, carried devastation into the north of Italy. At last he approached the city of Rome, when a supplicatory embassy met him, Pope Leo I. being at its head. The eloquence of the pontiff, united to prudential considerations, prevailed, and the city was saved; Attila returning to his home beyond the Danube. The Romans looked upon this preservation as a miracle, and they have preserved a legend that St. Peter and St. Paul appeared to the barbarian, and threatened him with instant death, if he did not accept the proffered terms. Attila now soothed himself by adding the beautiful Ildico to his numerous wives, whom he wedded with all due ceremony. On this occasion he gave himself up to licentiousness, but in the morning after his marriage, he was found dead in his tent, and covered with blood, Ildico sitting veiled by his side. The story went abroad that he had burst a blood-vessel, and died in consequence, but a common suspicion is entertained that he was stabbed by his bride. The news of Attila's death spread terror and sorrow among his army. His body was enclosed in three coffins,--the first of gold, the second of silver, and the third of iron. The captives who dug his grave were strangled, so that the place of his burial might not be known. In person, Attila was marked with the Tartar characteristics, from which he, as well as the people of his kingdom, were descended. He was low in stature, broad-chested, and of a powerful frame. He was dark complexioned, with a few straggling hairs for beard, a flat nose, large head, and small eyes. No one could look upon him, and not feel that he had come into the world to disturb it. The number of persons slain in his battles amounted to hundreds of thousands, yet to so little purpose, that his empire was immediately dismembered upon his death. [Illustration] [Footnote 4: Alaric was one of the most eminent of those northern chiefs who successively overran Italy, during the decline of the Western empire, and the first who gained possession of imperial Rome. He learned the art of war under the celebrated emperor of the East, Theodosius, who curbed the depredations of the Goths. At his death, Alaric became their leader, and overran Greece, A. D. 396. In the year 403, he entered Italy with a powerful army, but was defeated, and retired to his own country. In 410, he again entered Italy, besieged and took Rome, which he entered at midnight, and gave it up to plunder and pillage for six days. He now led his troops into the southern provinces of Italy, but died suddenly while he was besieging Cozenza. He was buried in the channel of the river Bucente, in Naples, that his remains might not be found by the Romans. To perform the burial, the water of the river was turned out of its course.] [Illustration] NERO. Claudius Cæsar Nero was son of Caius Domitius Ænobarbus and Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus and wife of the Emperor Claudius, after the death of her first husband. He was adopted by the Emperor Claudius, A.D. 50, and when he was murdered by his wife, four years after, Nero succeeded him on the throne. He possessed excellent talents, and was carefully educated by Seneca and Burrhus. The beginning of his reign was marked by acts of the greatest kindness and condescension, by affability, complaisance and popularity. The object of his administration seemed to be the good of his people; and when he was desired to sign his name for the execution of a malefactor, he exclaimed, "I wish to heaven I could not write!" He appeared to be an enemy to flattery, and when the senate had liberally commended the wisdom of his government, Nero desired them to keep their praises till he deserved them. But these promising virtues were soon discovered to be artificial, and Nero displayed the real propensities of his nature. He delivered himself from the sway of his mother, and at last ordered her to be assassinated. This unnatural act of barbarity shocked some of the Romans; but Nero had his devoted adherents; and when he declared that he had taken away his mother's life to save himself from ruin, the senate applauded his measures, and the people signified their approbation. Even Burrhus and Seneca, Nero's advisers, either counselled or justified his conduct. Many of his courtiers shared the unhappy fate of Agrippina, and Nero sacrificed to his fury or caprice all such as obstructed his pleasures, or stood in the way of his inclinations. In the night he generally sallied out from his palace, to visit the meanest taverns and the scenes of debauchery in which Rome abounded. In his nocturnal riots he was fond of insulting the people in the streets, and on one occasion, an attempt to offer violence to the wife of a Roman senator nearly cost him his life. He also turned actor, and publicly appeared on the Roman stage, in the meanest characters. He had an absurd passion to excel in music, and to conquer the disadvantages of a hoarse, rough voice, he moderated his meals, and often passed the day without eating. The celebrity of the Olympic games having attracted his notice, he passed into Greece, and presented himself as a candidate for the public honors. He was defeated in wrestling, but the flattery of the spectators adjudged him the victory, and Nero returned to Rome with all the pomp and splendor of an eastern conqueror, drawn in the chariot of Augustus, and attended by a band of musicians, actors, and stage dancers from every part of the empire. These private and public amusements of the emperor were comparatively innocent; his character was injured, but not the lives of the people. His conduct, however, soon became more censurable; he was guilty of various acts which cannot be even named with decency. The cruelty of his nature was displayed in the sacrifice of his wives Octavia and Poppæa; and the celebrated writers, Seneca, Lucan, Petronius, &c., became the victims of his wantonness. The Christians did not escape his barbarity. He had heard of the burning of Troy, and as he wished to renew that dismal scene, he caused Rome to be set on fire in different places. The conflagration became soon universal, and during nine successive days the fire was unextinguished. All was desolation; nothing was heard but the lamentations of mothers whose children had perished in the flames, the groans of the dying, and the continual fall of palaces and buildings. Nero was the only one who enjoyed the general consternation. He placed himself on a high tower and he sang on his lyre the destruction of Troy; a dreadful scene which his barbarity had realized before his eyes. He attempted to avert the public odium from his head, by a feigned commiseration of the sufferings of his subjects, and by charging the fire upon the Christians. He caused great numbers of them to be seized and put to death. Some were covered with the skins of wild beasts, and killed by dogs set upon them; others were crucified; others were smeared with pitch and burned, at night, in the imperial gardens, for the amusement of the people! Nero began to repair the streets and the public buildings at his own expense. He built himself a celebrated palace, which he called his golden house. It was profusely adorned with gold and precious stones, and with whatever was rare and exquisite. It contained spacious fields, artificial lakes, woods, gardens, orchards, and every device that could exhibit beauty and grandeur. The entrance to this edifice would admit a colossal image of the emperor, one hundred and twenty feet high; the galleries were each a mile long, and the whole was covered with gold. The roofs of the dining halls represented the firmament, in motion as well as in figure, and continually turned round, night and day, showering all sorts of perfumes and sweet waters. When this grand edifice, which, according to Pliny, extended all round the city, was finished, Nero said that he could now lodge like a man! His profusion was not less remarkable in all his other actions. When he went fishing, his nets were made with gold and silk. He never appeared twice in the same garment, and when he undertook a voyage, there were thousands of servants to take care of his wardrobe. His continued debauchery, cruelty, and extravagance at last roused the resentment of the people. Many conspiracies were formed against him, but they were generally discovered, and such as were accessory, suffered the greatest punishments. One of the most dangerous plots against Nero's life was that of Piso, from which he was delivered by the confession of a slave. The conspiracy of Galba proved more successful; for the conspirator, when he was informed that his design was known to Nero, declared himself emperor. The unpopularity of Nero favored his cause; he was acknowledged by the whole Roman empire, and the senate condemned the tyrant, that sat on the throne, to be dragged, naked, through the streets of Rome, whipped to death, and afterwards to be thrown from the Tarpeian rock, like the meanest malefactor. This, however, was not done, for Nero, by a voluntary death, prevented the execution of the sentence. He killed himself, A. D. 68, in the thirty-second year of his age, after a reign of thirteen years and eight months. Rome was filled with acclamations at the intelligence of this event, and the citizens, more strongly to indicate their joy, wore caps such as were generally used by slaves who had received their freedom. Their vengeance was not only exercised against the statues of the deceased tyrant, but his friends were the objects of the public resentment, and many were crushed to pieces in such a violent manner, that one of the senators, amid the universal joy, said that he was afraid they should soon have cause to wish for Nero. The tyrant, as he expired, begged that his head might not be cut off from his body and exposed to the insolence of an enraged populace, but that the whole might be burned on a funeral pile. His request was granted, and his obsequies were performed with the usual ceremonies. Though his death seemed to be the source of universal gladness, yet many of his favorites lamented his fall, and were grieved to see that their pleasures and amusements were terminated by the death of the patron of debauchery and extravagance. Even the king of Parthia sent ambassadors to Rome to condole with the Romans, and to beg that they would honor and revere the memory of Nero. His statues were also crowned with garlands of flowers, and many believed that he was not dead, but that he would soon make his appearance and take a due vengeance upon his enemies. It will be sufficient to observe, in finishing the character of this tyrannical emperor and detestable man, that the name of _Nero_ is, even now, the common designation of a barbarous and unfeeling oppressor. [Illustration] LUCIUS ANNÆUS SENECA. This individual, whose "Morals" are so familiar to us, was born at Corduba, in Spain, six years before Christ. His father was a rhetorician of some celebrity, and a portion of his works has come down to our time. While Lucius was yet a child, he removed from Corduba to Rome, which henceforward became his residence. The son, possessing very promising talents, received the greatest care and attention in respect to his education. He was taught eloquence by his father, and took lessons in philosophy from the most celebrated masters. According to the custom of those who sought to excel in wisdom and knowledge, he travelled in Greece and Egypt, after completing his studies, and his work entitled _Quæstiones Naturales_ showed that he made good use of his opportunities during this excursion; it also proves that he was master of the science of his time. Young Seneca was fascinated with the philosophical speculations of the Stoics,[5] to which sect he became devoted. He even adopted the austere modes of life they inculcated, and refused to eat the flesh of animals; but when the emperor, Tiberius,[6] threatened to punish some Jews and Egyptians for abstaining from certain meats, at the suggestion of his father, he departed from this singularity. In compliance with his father's advice, who urged upon him the necessity of devoting himself to some kind of business, he adopted the profession of an advocate. As a pleader, Seneca appeared to great advantage, and consequently excited the envy of Caligula, who aspired to the reputation of an orator. Apprehensive of the consequences, he changed his views, and became a candidate for the honors and offices of the state. He was made prætor, under Claudius, but, being charged with a shameful intrigue with a lady of rank, he was banished to Corsica. Though his guilt was not satisfactorily proved, he continued for five years in exile; during which period he wrote a treatise on Consolation. In this, he seems to draw contentment and peace from philosophical views, and one would fancy that he was elevated by these, above the evils of his condition. Yet, unhappily for his reputation in respect to consistency and sincerity, history tells us that, at this period, he was suing to the emperor in the most abject terms for restitution. Claudius[7] at length married Agrippina, and Seneca, being recalled, was made preceptor of Nero, the son of Agrippina, who was destined to become emperor. From the favorable traits of character displayed by the pupil of the philosopher in the early part of his career, it might seem that Seneca's instructions had exerted a good influence over him. But an impartial scrutiny of the events of that period has led to the probable conclusion that he was a pander to the worst of Nero's vices. It is certain that he acquired immense wealth in a short period of time, and it appears that this was obtained through the munificence of his royal patron. The latter was avaricious and mercenary, and was likely to part with his money only for such things as ministered to his voluptuous passions. The possessions of Seneca were enormous. He had several gardens and villas in the country, and a magnificent palace in Rome. This was sumptuously furnished, and contained five hundred tables of cedar, with feet of ivory, and all of exquisite workmanship. His ready cash amounted to about twelve millions of dollars. It appears certain that such riches could not have been acquired by means of Seneca's precepts; and the inference of many of his contemporaries, as well as of posterity, has been, that the virtue which appears so lovely in his pages was but the decorous veil of avarice, vice, and crime. For a period after his accession to the throne, Nero's conduct was deserving of praise; but he soon threw off all regard even to decency, and launched forth upon that career which has made his name a by-word and reproach for all after time. Seneca, being accused of having amassed immense wealth by improper means, became greatly alarmed; for he knew the tyrant so well as to foresee that, under color of this charge, he was very likely to sacrifice him, in order to obtain his property. Pretending, therefore, to be indifferent to riches, he begged the emperor to accept of his entire fortune, and permit him to spend the remainder of his days in the quiet pursuits of philosophy. The emperor, with deep dissimulation, refused this offer--no doubt intending in some other way to compass the ruin of Seneca. Aware of his danger, the philosopher now kept himself at home for a long period, as if laboring under disease. Some time after, a conspiracy for the murder of Nero, headed by Piso, was detected. Several of the most noble of the Roman senators were concerned, and Seneca's name was mentioned as an accessory. Nero, doubtless glad of an opportunity to sacrifice him, now sent a command that he should destroy himself. It has been a question whether Seneca was really concerned in the conspiracy of Piso. The proof brought against him was not indeed conclusive, but it is obvious that his position might lead him to desire the death of the tyrant, as the only means of safety to himself; and Seneca's character, unfortunately, is not such as to shield his memory against strong suspicion of participation in the alleged crime. Seneca was at table, with his wife, Paulina, and two of his friends, when the messenger of Nero arrived. He heard the words which commanded him to take his own life, with philosophic firmness, and even with apparent joy. He observed that such a mandate might long have been expected from a man who had murdered his own mother and assassinated his best friends. He wished to dispose of his possessions as he pleased, but his request was refused. When he heard this, he turned to those around who were weeping at his fate, and told them, that, since he could not leave them what he believed his own, he would leave them at least his own life for an example--an innocent conduct, which they might imitate, and by which they might acquire immortal fame. Against their tears and wailings, he exclaimed with firmness, and asked them whether they had not learned better to withstand the attacks of fortune and the violence of tyranny. As for his wife, he attempted to calm her emotions, and when she seemed resolved to die with him, he said he was glad to have his example followed with so much constancy. Their veins were opened at the same moment; but Nero, who was partial to Paulina, ordered the blood to be stopped, and her life was thus preserved. Seneca's veins bled but slowly, and the conversation of his dying moments was collected by his friends, and preserved among his works. To hasten his death, he drank a dose of poison, but it had no effect, and therefore he ordered himself to be carried to a hot bath, to accelerate the operation of the draught, and to make the blood flow more freely. This was attended with no better success, and, as the soldiers were clamorous, he was carried into a stove, and suffocated by the steam. Thus he died, in the 66th year of the Christian era. The death of Seneca has been loudly applauded, and has sometimes been pronounced sublime; but this is owing to an ignorance of the time, and inattention to Seneca's own doctrines. With the Stoics, death was nothing; "It is not an evil, but the absence of all evil." This was their creed. With such principles, there could be no fear of death, and consequently, we find that courage to die--if it be courage to encounter that which is not an evil--was common in Seneca's time. "At that period of languor and luxury," says M. Nisard, "of monstrous effeminacies, of appetites for which the world could hardly suffice--of perfumed baths, of easy and disorderly intrigues, there were daily men of all ranks, of all fortunes, of all ages, who released themselves from their evils by death. How was it possible for them to avoid suicide, with no other consolation than the philosophy of Seneca, and his theories on the delights of poverty? "Marcellinus[8] is attacked with a painful but curable malady. He is young, rich, has slaves, friends, everything to make life pleasant: no matter, he conceives the fancy of the pleasure of dying. He assembles his friends; he consults them as if he were going to marry. He discusses with them his project of suicide, and puts it to the vote. Some advise him to do as he pleases; but a Stoic, a friend of Seneca's, then present, exhorts him bravely to die. His principal reason is that he is _ennuyé_. No one contradicts the Stoic. Marcellinus thanks his friends, and distributes money to his slaves. He abstains for three days from all food, and is then carried into a warm bath, where he quickly expires, having muttered some words on the pleasure he felt in dying. "This pleasure was so little of an affectation, so much had it become the fashion, that some of the austere Stoics thought themselves bound to place certain restrictions upon it. They committed suicide from _ennui_, from idleness, from want of patience to cure themselves of their ills,--for distraction--much in the same way that they killed each other in duels, under Cardinal Richelieu." Viewed in this light, Seneca's death had nothing in it of the sublime: he yielded but to a fashion; he only practised what was common. If he sincerely believed his professed creed--that death is the absence of all evil--he neither evinced courage nor dignity; if he did not believe, then his conduct displayed but the skilful acting of a part, and under circumstances which mark him with the deepest hypocrisy. It is impossible to deny that Seneca's works are full of wisdom, though they fall far short of the Christian's philosophy. In his treatise upon benefits, for example, we have the following passage:-- "The good will of the benefactor is the fountain of all benefits; nay, it is the benefit itself, or, at least, the stamp that makes it valuable and current. Some there are, I know, that take the matter for the benefit, and tax the obligation by weight and measure. When anything is given them, they presently cast it up--'What may such a house be worth? such an office? such an estate?' as if that were the benefit which is only the sign and mark of it, for the obligation rests in the mind, not in the matter; and all those advantages which we see, handle, or hold in actual possession, by the courtesy of another, are but several modes or ways of explaining and putting the good will in execution. There needs no subtlety to prove that both benefits and injuries receive their value from the intention, when even brutes themselves are able to decide this question. Tread upon a dog by chance, or put him in pain upon the dressing of a wound, the one he passes by as an accident, and the other, in his fashion, he acknowledges as a kindness. But offer to strike at him--though you do him no hurt at all--he flies in the face of you, even for the mischief that you barely meant him." This is all just and true: it makes the heart the seat of moral action, and thus far coincides with the Christian's philosophy. But if there be nothing after death, what sanction has virtue? It may be more beautiful than vice, and consequently preferable, just as a sweet perfume is more desirable than an offensive odor. It is good taste, therefore, to be virtuous. Still, each individual may choose for himself, and without future responsibility, for all alike must share the oblivion of the tomb. The insufficiency of this philosophy to ensure virtue, is attested by the life of Seneca, as well as that of most of his sect. It resulted in the grossest hypocrisy; an ostentation of virtue, covering up the practice of vice. [Illustration] [Footnote 5: The Stoics were the followers of Zeno, a Greek philosopher of Citium. They professed to prefer virtue to everything else, and to regard vice as the greatest of evils. They required an absolute command over the passions, and maintained the ability of man to attain perfection and felicity in this life. They encouraged suicide, and held that the doctrine of rewards and punishments was unnecessary to enforce virtue upon mankind.] [Footnote 6: Tiberius succeeded Augustus Cæsar, as emperor; at his succession he gave promise of a happy reign, but he soon disgraced himself by debauchery, cruelty, and the most flagitious excesses. It was wittily said of him by Seneca that he was never intoxicated but once, for when he became drunk, his whole life was a continued state of inebriety. He died A. D. 37, after a reign of twenty-two years, and was succeeded by Caligula. For a brief period, Rome now enjoyed prosperity and peace; but the young emperor soon became proud, cruel and corrupt. He caused a temple to be erected to himself, and had his own image set in the place of Jupiter and the other deities. He often amused himself by putting innocent people to death; he attempted to famish Rome, and even wished that the Romans had one head, that he might strike it off at a blow! At last, weary of his cruelties, several persons formed a conspiracy and murdered him, A. D. 41. History does not furnish another instance of so great a monster as Caligula.] [Footnote 7: Claudius succeeded Caligula in 41, and, after a reign of thirteen years, he was poisoned by his wife, Agrippina.] [Footnote 8: Seneca, Ess. lxxvii.] VIRGIL. Mantua, the capital of New Etruria itself built three centuries before Rome, had the honor of giving birth to Publius Virgilius Maro. This event happened on or near the fifteenth of October, seventy years B. C, or during the first consulship of Pompey the Great and Licinius Crassus. Who his father was, and even to what country he belonged, has been the subject of much dispute. Some assert that he was a potter of Andes; but the most probable account is, that he was either a wandering astrologer, who practised physic, or a servant to one of this learned fraternity. It is observed by Juvenal, that _medicus, magus_ usually went together, and that this course of life was principally followed by the Greeks and Syrians; to one of these nations, therefore, it is presumed, Virgil owes his birth. His mother, Maia, was of good extraction, being nearly related to Quintilius Varus, of whom honorable mention is made in the history of the second Carthaginian war. It appears that all due attention was paid to young Virgil's education. He passed through his initiatory exercises at Mantua; thence he removed to Cremona, and afterwards to Milan. In all these places he prosecuted his studies with the most diligent application, associating with the eminent professors of every department of science, and devoting whole nights to the best Latin and Greek authors. In the latter he was greatly assisted by his proximity to Marseilles, the only Greek colony that maintained its refinement and purity of language, amidst the overwhelming influence of all the barbarous nations that surrounded it. At first, he devoted himself to the Epicurean philosophy, but receiving no satisfactory reason for its tenets from his master, the celebrated Syro, he passed over to the academic school, where physics and mathematics became his favorite sciences; and these he continued to cultivate, at leisure moments, during his whole life. At Milan, he composed a great number of verses on various subjects, and, in the warmth of early youth, framed a noble design of writing an heroic poem, on the Wars of Rome; but, after some attempts, he was discouraged from proceeding, by the abruptness and asperity of the old Roman names. It is said that he here formed the plan and collected the materials for his principal poems. Some of these he had even begun; but a too intense application to his studies, together with abstinence and night-watching, had so impaired his health, that an immediate removal to a more southern part of Italy was deemed absolutely necessary for the preservation of his existence. He fixed upon Naples, and visiting Rome in his way, had the honor, through the interest of his kinsman and fellow-student, Varus, of being introduced to the emperor, Octavius, who received him with the greatest marks of esteem, and earnestly recommended his affairs to the protection of Pollio, then lieutenant of Cisalpine Gaul, where Virgil's patrimony lay, and who generously undertook to settle his domestic concerns. Having this assurance, he pursued his journey to Naples. The charming situation of this place, the salubrity of the air, and the constant society of the greatest and most learned men of the time, who resorted to it, not only re-established his health, but contributed to the formation of that style and happy turn of verse in which he surpassed all his cotemporaries. To rank among the poets of their country, was, at this time, the ambition of the greatest heroes, statesmen, and orators of Rome. Cicero, Octavius, Pollio, Julius Cæsar, and even the stoical Brutus, had been carried away by the impetuosity of the stream; but that genius which had never deserted them in the forum, or on the day of battle, shrunk dismayed at a comparison with the lofty muse of Virgil; and, although they endeavored, by placing their poems in the celebrated libraries, to hand them down to posterity, scarcely a single verse of these illustrious authors survived the age in which they lived. This preponderence of fashion, however, was favorable to Virgil; he had for some time devoted himself to the study of the law, and even pleaded one cause with indifferent success; but yielding now to the impulse of the age and his own genius, he abandoned the profession and resumed with increased ardor the cultivation of that talent for which he afterwards became so distinguished. Captivated at an early age by the pastorals of Theocritus, Virgil was ambitious of being the primitive introducer of that species of poetry among the Romans. His first performance in this way, entitled Alexis, is supposed to have appeared when the poet was in his twenty-fifth year. Palæmon, which is a close imitation of the fourth and fifth Idyls of Theocritus, was probably his second; but as this period of the life of Virgil is enveloped in a considerable degree of obscurity,--few writers on the subject having condescended to notice such particulars as chronological arrangement,--little more than surmise can be offered to satisfy the researches of the curious. The fifth eclogue was composed in allusion to the death and deification of Cæsar, and is supposed to have been written subsequently to Silenus, his sixth eclogue. This is said to have been publicly recited on the stage, by the comedian Cytheris, and to have procured its author that celebrity and applause to which the peculiar beauty and sweetness of the poem so justly entitled him. The fatal battle of Philippi, in which Augustus and Antony were victorious, at once annihilated every shadow of liberty in the commonwealth. Those veteran legions, who had conquered the world, fought no more for the dearest rights of their country. Having been once its protectors, they now became its ravagers. As the _amor patria_ no longer inspired them, the treasury of the Roman empire proved inadequate to allay their boundless thirst for wealth. Augustus, therefore, to silence their clamors, distributed among them the flourishing colony of Cremona, and, to make up the deficiency, added part of the state of Mantua. In vain did the miserable mothers, with famishing infants at their breasts, fill the forum with their numbers, and the air with their lamentations; in vain did the inhabitants complain of being driven, like vanquished enemies, from their native homes. Such scenes are familiar to the conquerors in a civil war; and those legions, which had sacrificed their own and their country's liberty, must be recompensed at the expense of justice and the happiness of thousands. Virgil, involved in the common calamity, had recourse to his old patrons, Pollio and Mecænas;[9] and, supported by them, petitioned Augustus not only for the possession of his own property, but for the reinstatement of his countrymen in theirs also; which, after some hesitation, was denied, accompanied by a grant for the restitution of his individual estate. Full of gratitude for such favor, Virgil composed his Tityrus, in which he has introduced one shepherd complaining of the destruction of his farm, the anarchy and confusion of the times; and another rejoicing that he can again tune his reed to love amidst his flocks; promising to honor, as a superior being, the restorer of his happiness. Unfortunately for Virgil, his joy was not of long continuance, for, on arriving at Mantua, and producing his warrant to Arrius, a captain of foot, whom he found in possession of his house, the old soldier was so enraged at what he termed the presumption of a poet, that he wounded him dangerously with his sword, and would have killed him had he not escaped by swimming hastily over the Mincius. Virgil was, therefore, compelled to return half the length of Italy, with a body reduced by sickness, and a mind depressed by disappointment, again to petition Augustus for the restoration of his estate. During this journey, which, from the nature of his wound, was extremely slow, he is supposed to have written his Moeris, or ninth eclogue; and this conjecture is rendered more probable by the want of connexion, perceivable through the whole composition--displaying, evidently, the disorder at that time predominant in the poet's mind. However, on his arrival at Rome, he had the satisfaction to find that effectual orders had been given in his behalf, and the farm was resigned into the hands of his procurator or bailiff, to whom the above pastoral is addressed. The Sibylline Oracles, having received information from the Jews that a child was to be born, who should be the Saviour of the world, and to whom nations and empires should bow with submission, pretended to foretell that this event would occur in the year of Rome, 714, after the peace concluded between Augustus and Antony. Virgil, viewing this prophecy with the vivid imagination of a poet, and willing to flatter the ambition of his patron, composed his celebrated eclogue, entitled Pollio, in which he supposes the child, who was thus to unite mankind and restore the golden age, to be the offspring of Octavia, wife of Antony, and half sister to Augustus. In this production, the consul Pollio, Octavia, and even the unborn infant, are flattered with his usual delicacy; and the rival triumviri, though a short time before in open hostility, have the honor of equally sharing the poet's applause. While Pollio, who seems to have been the most accomplished man of his age, and is celebrated as a poet, soldier, orator and historian, was engaged in an expedition against the Parthini, whom he subdued, Virgil addressed to him his Pharmaceutria, one of the most beautiful of all his eclogues, and in imitation of a poem of the same name, by his favorite author, Theocritus. This production is the more valuable, as it has handed down to posterity some of the superstitious rites of the Romans and the heathen notions of enchantment. Virgil himself seems to have been conscious of the beauty of his subject, and the dignity of the person whom he was addressing; and, accordingly, has given us, by the fertility of his genius and the brilliancy of his imagination, some of the most sublime images that are to be found in any of the writings of antiquity. By the advice, and indeed at the earnest entreaty of Augustus, Virgil, in his thirty-fourth year, retired to Naples, and formed the plan of his Georgics: a design as new in Latin verse, as pastorals, before his, were in Italy. These he undertook for the interest, and to promote the welfare, of his country. As the continual civil wars had entirely depopulated and laid waste the land usually appropriated for cultivation, the peasants had turned soldiers, and their farms became scenes of desolation. Famine and insurrection were the inevitable consequences that followed such overwhelming calamities. Augustus, therefore, resolved to revive the decayed spirit of husbandry, and began by employing Virgil to recommend it with all the insinuating charms of poetry. This work took up seven of the most vigorous years of his life, and fully answered the expectations of his patron. Augustus, having conquered his rival, Antony, gave the last wound to expiring liberty, by usurping the exclusive government of the Roman empire. To reconcile a nation, naturally jealous of its freedom, to this, seems to have been the grand object of Virgil, in his Æneid. This poem was begun in the forty-fifth year of the author's life, and not only displays admirable poetical genius, but great political address. Not an incident that could in any way tend to flatter the Roman people into a submission to the existing government, has escaped his penetrating judgment. He traces their origin to the Trojans, and makes Augustus a lineal descendant of Æneas. At the command of the gods they obey him, and in return are promised the empire of the world. So anxious was Augustus as to the result of this poem, that he insisted upon having part of it read before the whole was completed. Gratitude, after threats and entreaties had been used in vain, at length induced its author to comply; and, knowing that Octavia, who had just lost her son, Marcellus, would be present, Virgil fixed upon the sixth book, perhaps the finest part of the whole Æneid. His illustrious auditors listened with all the attention which such interesting narrative and eloquent recital demanded, till he came to that beautiful lamentation for the death of young Marcellus, and where, after exhausting panegyric, he has artfully suppressed the name of its object, till the concluding verse: "Tu Marcellus eris." At these words, Octavia, overcome with surprise and sorrow, fainted away; but, on recovering, was so highly gratified at having her son thus immortalized, that she presented the poet with ten _sesterces_ for each line; amounting, in the whole, to about ten thousand dollars. Having at length brought his Æneid to a conclusion, Virgil proposed travelling into Greece, and devoting three years to the correction and improvement of his favorite work. Having arrived at Athens, he met with Augustus, who was returning from a victorious expedition to the East, and who requested the company of the poet back to Italy. The latter deemed it his duty to comply; but, being desirous to see as many of the Grecian antiquities as the time would allow, went for that purpose to Megara. Here he was seized with a dangerous illness, which, from neglect, and the agitation of the vessel in returning to Italy, proved mortal, at Brundusium. Thus the great poet died on the twenty-second of September, nineteen years B. C, and at a period when he had nearly completed his fifty-second year. He expired with the greatest tranquillity; and his remains, being carried to Naples, were interred in a monument, erected at a small distance from the city; where it is still shown, with the following inscription, said to have been dictated by him on his death-bed: Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope; cecini pascua, rura, duces. In his will he had ordered that the Æneid should be burnt, not having finished it to his mind; but Augustus wisely forbade the destruction of a performance which will perpetuate his name, as one of the greatest of poets. It was, therefore, delivered to Varius and Tucca, Virgil's intimate friends, with the strictest charge to make no additions, but merely to publish it correctly, in the state it then was. In person, Virgil was tall, and wide-shouldered, of a dark swarthy complexion, which probably proceeded from the southern extraction of his father; his constitution was delicate, and the most trifling fatigue, either from exercise or study, produced violent headache and spitting of blood. In temper he was melancholy and thoughtful, loving retirement and contemplation. Though one of the greatest geniuses of his age, and the admiration of the Romans, he always preserved a singular modesty, and lived chastely when the manners of the people were extremely corrupt. His character was so benevolent and inoffensive, that most of his cotemporary poets, though they envied each other, agreed in loving and esteeming him. He was bashful to a degree of timidity; his aspect and behavior was rustic and ungraceful; yet he was so honored by his countrymen, that once, coming into the theatre, the whole audience rose out of respect to him. His fortune was large, supposed to be about seventy thousand pounds sterling, besides which he possessed a noble mansion, and well-furnished library on the Esquiline Mount, at Rome, and an elegant villa in Sicily. Both these last, he left to Mecænas, at his death, together with a considerable proportion of his personal property; the remainder he divided between his relations and Augustus,--the latter having introduced a politic fashion of being in everybody's will, which alone produced a sufficient revenue for a prince. The works of Virgil are not only valuable for their poetic beauties, but for their historical allusions and illustrations. We here find a more perfect and satisfactory account of the religious customs and ceremonies of the Romans, than in any other of the Latin poets, Ovid excepted. Everything he mentions is founded upon historical truth. He was uncommonly severe in revising his poetry--and often compared himself to a bear that licks her cubs into shape. In his intercourse with society, Virgil was remarkable; his friends enjoyed his unbounded confidence, and his library and possessions in Rome were so liberally offered for the use of those who needed them, as to seem to belong to the public. Amiable and exemplary, however, as he was, he had bitter enemies; but their revilings only served to add lustre to his name and fame. [Illustration] [Footnote 9: Mecænas, a celebrated Roman, who distinguished himself by his liberal patronage of learned men and letters. His fondness for pleasure removed him from the reach of ambition, and he preferred to live and die a knight, to all the honors and dignities that the Emperor Augustus could heap upon him. The emperor received the private admonitions of Mecænas in the same friendly way in which they were given. Virgil and Horace both enjoyed his friendship. He was fond of literature, and from the patronage which the heroic and lyric poets of the age received from him, patrons of literature have ever since been called by his name. Virgil dedicated to him his Georgics and Horace his Odes. He died eight years B. C.] [Illustration] CICERO. Marcus Tullius Cicero was born on the 3d of January, 107, B. C. His mother, whose name was Helvia, was of an honorable and wealthy family; his father, named Marcus, was a wise and learned man of fortune, who lived at Apulia. This city was anciently of the Samnites, now part of the kingdom of Naples. Here Cicero was born, at his father's country seat, which it seems was a most charming residence. The care which the ancient Romans bestowed upon the education of their children was worthy of all praise. Their attention to this, began from the moment of their birth. They were, in the first place, committed to the care of some prudent matron, of good character and condition, whose business it was to form their first habits of acting and speaking; to watch their growing passions, and direct them to their proper objects; to superintend their sports, and suffer nothing immodest or indecent to enter into them, that the mind, preserved in all its innocence, and undepraved by the taste of false pleasures, might be at liberty to pursue whatever was laudable, and apply its whole strength to that profession in which it should desire to excel. Though it was a common opinion among the Romans that children should not be instructed in letters till they were seven years old, yet careful attention was paid to their training, even from the age of three years. It was reckoned a matter of great importance what kind of language they were first accustomed to hear at home, and in what manner their nurses, and even their fathers and mothers spoke, since their first habits were then formed, either of a pure or corrupt elocution. The two Gracchi were thought to owe that elegance of speaking for which they were distinguished, to their mother, Cornelia, who was a very accomplished woman and remarkable for the purity of her diction, as well in speaking as writing. Young Cicero experienced the full advantage of these enlightened views, in his childhood. When he was of sufficient age to enter upon a regular course of study, his father removed to Rome, and placed him in a public school, under an eminent Greek master. Here he gave indications of those shining abilities, which rendered him afterwards so illustrious. His school-fellows carried home such stories of his extraordinary powers, that their parents were often induced to visit the school, for the sake of seeing a youth of such endowments. Encouraged by the promising genius of his son Cicero's father spared no cost or pains to improve it by the help of the ablest professors. Among other eminent instructors, he enjoyed the teaching of the poet Archias. Under this master, he applied himself chiefly to poetry, to which he was naturally addicted and made such proficiency in it, that, while he was still a boy, he composed and published a poem, called Glaucus Pontius. After finishing the course of juvenile studies, it was the custom to change the dress of the boy for that of the man, and take what they called the _manly gown_, or the ordinary robe of the citizen. This was an occasion of rejoicing, for the youth thus passed from the power of his tutor into a state of greater liberty. He was at the same time introduced into the forum, or great square of the city, where the assemblies of the people were held. Here also, they were addressed by the magistrates, and here all the public pleadings and judicial transactions took place. When Cicero was sixteen years old, he was introduced to this place, with all customary solemnity. He was attended by the friends and dependants of the family, and after divine rites were performed in the capital, he was committed to the special protection of Q. Mucius Scævola, the principal lawyer as well as statesman of that age. Young Cicero made good use of the advantages he enjoyed. He spent almost his whole time in the society of his patron, carefully treasuring up in his memory the wisdom that fell from his lips. After his death, he came under the instruction of another of the same family--Scævola, the high priest, a person remarkable for his probity and skill in the law. The legal profession, as well as that of arms and eloquence, was a sure recommendation to the first honors of the republic; for it appears to have been the practice of many of the most eminent lawyers to give their advice gratis to all that asked it. It was the custom of the old senators, eminent for their wisdom and experience, to walk up and down the forum in the morning, freely offering their assistance to all who had occasion to consult them, not only in cases of law, but in relation to their private affairs. At a later period, they used to sit at home, with their doors open, upon a kind of throne, or raised seat, giving access and audience to all who might come. It is not surprising that a profession thus practised should be honored among the Roman people, nor is it wonderful that Cicero's ambitious mind should have been attracted by so obvious a road to honor and preferment. But his views were not satisfied with being a mere lawyer. He desired especially to be an orator; and, conceiving that all kinds of knowledge would be useful in such a profession, he sought every opportunity to increase his stores of information. He also attended constantly at the forum, to hear the speeches and pleadings; he perused the best authors with care, so as to form an elegant style; and cultivated poetry, for the purpose of adding elegance and grace to his mind. While he was thus engaged, he also studied philosophy, and, for a time, was greatly pleased with Phædrus, the Epicurean, who then gave lessons at Rome. Though he retained his affection for the amiable philosopher, Cicero soon rejected his system as fallacious. It was always a part of the education of the young gentlemen of Rome, to learn the art of war by personal service, under some general of name and experience. Cicero accordingly took the opportunity to make a campaign with Strabo, the father of Pompey the Great. During this expedition, he manifested the same diligence in the army that he had done in the forum, to observe everything that passed. He sought to be always near the person of the general, that nothing of importance might escape his notice. Returning to Rome, Cicero pursued his studies as before, and about this time, Molo, the Rhodian, one of the most celebrated teachers of eloquence of that age, coming to the city to deliver lectures upon oratory, he immediately took the benefit of his instructions, and pursued his studies with ceaseless ardor. His ambition received an impulse at this time, from witnessing the fame of Hortensius, who made the first figure at the bar, and whose praises fired him with such emulation, that, for a time, he scarcely allowed himself rest from his studies, either day or night. He had in his own house a Greek preceptor, who instructed him in various kinds of learning, but more particularly in logic, to which he paid strict attention. He, however, never suffered a day to pass, without some exercise in oratory, particularly that of declaiming, which he generally performed with some of his fellow-students. He sometimes spoke in Latin, but more frequently in Greek, because the latter furnished a greater variety of elegant expressions, and because the Greek masters were far the best, and could not correct and improve their pupils, unless they declaimed in that language. Cicero had now passed through that course of discipline, which, in his treatise upon the subject, he lays down as necessary for the formation of an accomplished orator. He declares that no man should pretend to this, without being acquainted with everything worth being known, in art and nature; that this is implied in the very name of an orator, whose profession is to speak upon every subject proposed to him, and whose eloquence, without knowledge, would be little better than the prattle and impertinence of children. He had learnt grammar and the languages from the ablest teachers, passed through the studies of humanity and the polite letters with the poet Archias been instructed in philosophy by the principal philosophers of each sect--Phædrus the epicurean, Philo the academic, Diodorus the Stoic--and acquired a thorough knowledge of the law from the greatest jurists and statesmen of Rome--the two Scævolas. These accomplishments he regarded but as subservient to the object on which his ambition was placed,--the reputation of an orator. To qualify himself, therefore, particularly for this, he had attended the pleadings of the greatest speakers of his time, heard the daily lectures of the most eminent orators of Greece, constantly written compositions at home, and declaimed them under the correction of these masters. That he might lose nothing which would in any degree improve and polish his style, he spent the intervals of his leisure in the company of ladies, especially those who were remarkable for elegant conversation, and whose fathers had been distinguished for their eloquence. While he studied the law, therefore, under Scævola, the augur, he frequently conversed with his wife, Lælia, whose discourse he says was tinctured with all the eloquence of her father, Lælius, the most polished orator of his time. He also frequented the society of her daughter, Mucia, as well as that of two of her granddaughters, who all excelled in elegance of diction, and the most exact and delicate use of language. It is impossible not to admire the noble views which Cicero had formed of the profession to which he was to devote his life. Nor can we withhold praise for the diligence, energy and judgment with which he trained himself for entering upon the theatre of his ambition. If in all respects he is not to be regarded as a model for imitation, still, his example is thus far worthy of emulation to all those who seek to enjoy a virtuous and lasting fame. Thus adorned and accomplished, Cicero, at the age of twenty-six years, presented himself at the bar, and was soon employed in several private causes. His first case of importance was the defence of S. Roscius, of Ameria, which he undertook in his twenty-seventh year; the same age at which Demosthenes distinguished himself at Athens. The case of Roscius was this. His father was killed in the recent proscription of Sylla, and his estate, worth about £60,000 sterling, was sold, among the confiscated estates of the proscribed, for a trifling sum, to L. Cornelius Chrysogonus, a young favorite slave, whom Sylla had made free, and who, to secure possession of it, accused the son of the murder of his father, and had prepared evidence to convict him; so that the young man was likely to be deprived, not only of his fortunes, but, by a more villanous cruelty, of his honor also, and his life. The tyrant Sylla was at this time at the height of his power. Fearing his resentment, therefore, as well as the influence of the prosecutor, the older advocates of Rome refused to undertake the defence of Roscius, particularly as it would lead them into an exposure of the corruptions of the age, and the misdemeanors of those high in rank and office. But Cicero readily undertook it, as a glorious opportunity of enlisting in the service of his country, and giving a public testimony of his principles, and his zeal for that liberty to the support of which he was willing to devote the labors of his life. In the management of the cause, he displayed great skill and admirable eloquence. Roscius was acquitted, and Cicero was applauded by the whole city for his courage and address. From this period he was ranked as one of the ablest advocates of Rome. Having occasion in the course of his pleading to mention that remarkable punishment which their ancestors had contrived for the murder of a parent--that of sewing the criminal alive into a sack, and throwing him into a river--he says, "that the meaning of it was, to strike him at once, as it were, out of the system of nature, by taking him from the air, the sun, the water, and the earth; that he who had destroyed the author of his being, should lose the benefit of those elements whence all things derive their being. They would not throw him to the beasts, lest the contagion of such wickedness should make the beasts themselves more furious; they would not commit him naked to the stream, lest he should pollute the very sea, which was the purifier of all other pollutions; they left him no share of anything natural, how vile or common soever; for what is so common as breath to the living, earth to the dead, the sea to those who float, the shore to those who are cast up? Yet these wretches live so, as long as they can, as not to draw breath from the air; die so, as not to touch the ground; are so tossed by the waves, as not to be washed by them; so cast out upon the shore, as to find no rest, even on the rocks." This passage was received with acclamations of applause; yet, speaking of it afterwards himself, Cicero calls it "the redundancy of a juvenile fancy, which wanted the correction of his sounder judgment; and, like all the compositions of young men, was not applauded so much for its own sake, as for the hopes which it gave of his more improved and ripened talents." The popularity of his cause, and the favor of the audience, induced Cicero, in the course of his plea, to expose the insolence and villany of the favorite, Chrysogonus, with great freedom. He even ventured some bold strokes at Sylla himself. He took care, however, to palliate these, by observing, that through the multiplicity of Sylla's affairs, who reigned as absolute on earth as Jupiter in heaven, it was not possible for him to know everything that was done by his agents, and that he was perhaps forced to connive at some of the corrupt practices of his favorites. Soon after this trial, Cicero set out for the purpose of visiting Greece and Asia, the fashionable tour of that day with those who travelled for pleasure or improvement. At Athens he spent six months, renewing the studies of his youth, under celebrated masters. He was here initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, the end and aim of which appear to have been to inculcate the unity of God and the immortality of the soul. From Athens, he passed into Asia, where he was visited by the principal orators of the country. These kept him company through the remainder of his tour, frequently exercising themselves together in oratorical exhibitions. They came at last to Rhodes, where Cicero applied to Molo, and again became his pupil On a public occasion he made an address at the end of which, the company were lavish of their praises. Molo alone was silent, till, observing that Cicero was somewhat disturbed, he said, "As for you, Cicero, I praise and admire you, but pity the fortune of Greece, to see arts and eloquence, the only ornaments which were left to her, transplanted by you to Rome." Soon after Cicero's return from his travels, he pleaded the cause of the famous comedian, Roscius, whom a singular merit in his art had recommended to the familiarity and friendship of the greatest men of Rome. The case was this. One Fannius had made over to Roscius, a young slave, to be trained for the stage, on condition of a partnership in the profits which the slave should acquire by acting. The slave was afterwards killed, and Roscius prosecuted the murderer for damages, and obtained, by composition, a little farm, worth about 800 pounds, for his particular share. Fannius also sued separately, and was supposed to have gained as much, but, pretending to have recovered nothing, sued Roscius for the moiety of what he had received. One cannot but observe, from Cicero's pleading, the wonderful esteem and reputation which Roscius enjoyed--of whom he draws a very amiable picture. "Has Roscius, then," said he, "defrauded his partner? Can such a stain adhere to such a man, who--I speak it with confidence--has more integrity than skill, more veracity than experience; whom the people of Rome know to be a better man than he is an actor, and, while he makes the first figure on the stage in his art, is worthy of the senate for his virtues?" His daily pay for acting is said to have been about thirty pounds sterling. Pliny computes his yearly profit at 4000 pounds; but Cicero seems to rate it at 5000 pounds. He was generous, benevolent, and a contemner of money; after he had raised an ample fortune from the stage, he devoted his talents to the public, for many years, without pay; whence Cicero urges it as incredible that he, who in ten years past might honestly have gained fifty thousand pounds, which he refused, should be tempted to commit a fraud for the paltry sum of four hundred. We need but add that the defence was effectual. Soon after Cicero's return to Rome, he, being about thirty years of age, was married to Terentia, a lady of good station in life, and of large fortune. Shortly after, he was a candidate for the office of quæstor, in which he succeeded by the unanimous suffrage of the tribes. The provinces of the quæstors being distributed by lot, the island of Sicily fell to Cicero's share. This was called the granary of the republic, and this year, there being great scarcity at Rome, the people were clamorous for a supply. As it was a part of the duty of the quæstors to supply the city with corn, a difficult duty devolved upon Cicero; for, while he was to see that Rome was adequately furnished, it was necessary to avoid impoverishing the island. He, however, acquitted himself with the greatest prudence and address, displaying courtesy to the dealers, justice to the merchants, generosity to the inhabitants, and, in short, doing all manner of good offices to everybody. He thus obtained the love and admiration of the Sicilians, and, at his departure, they paid him greater honors than had ever been bestowed, even upon their own governors. In his hours of leisure, Cicero pursued his rhetorical studies, making it a rule never to let a day pass without some exercise of this kind. At the expiration of his year, he left the island, and, on his return to Rome, he stopped at Baiae, the chief seat of pleasure at that time in Italy, and where there was a perpetual resort of the rich and great, as well on account of its delightful situation, as for the use of its luxurious baths and tepid waters. Pleased with the success of his administration, and flattering himself that all Rome was celebrating his praises, he reached this place, and mingled amongst the crowd. What was his disappointment and mortification, to be asked by the first friend he met, "How long since you left Rome, and what is the news there?" "I came from the provinces," was the reply. "From Africa, I suppose," said one of the bystanders. "No, I came from Sicily," said Cicero, a little vexed. "How, did you not know that Cicero was quæstor of Syracuse?" said another person present; thus showing his ignorance, while he pretended to be wiser than the rest. This incident humbled Cicero for the time, and made him feel that he had not yet made himself so conspicuous as to live perpetually in the eye of so mighty a city as Rome. Having now devoted himself to a life of business and ambition, he omitted none of the usual arts of recommending himself to popular favor, and facilitating his advancement to the highest honors. "He thought it absurd," says Plutarch, "that, when every little artificer knew the name and use of all his tools, a statesman should neglect the knowledge of men, who were the proper instruments with which he was to work; he made it his business, therefore, to learn the name, the place, and the condition of every eminent citizen; what estate, what friends, what neighbors he had; and could readily point out their several houses, as he travelled through Italy." This knowledge was deemed so necessary at Rome, where the people expected to be courted by their public men, that every individual who aspired to official dignities, kept a slave or two in his family, whose sole business it was to know the name and person of every citizen at sight, so that he might whisper them to his master as he passed through the streets, and enable him to salute them familiarly, as particular acquaintances. Such artifices, which appear degrading in our day, were by no means beneath the practice of one so elevated in his sense of propriety as Cicero. Having reached his thirty-seventh year, and being therefore eligible to the office of edile, he offered himself as a candidate, and was elected by the people. Before he entered upon its duties, however, he undertook the prosecution of C. Verres, the late prætor of Sicily, charged with many flagrant acts of injustice, rapine and cruelty, during his triennial government of that island. This was one of the most memorable transactions of Cicero's life, and has given him greater fame than any other. In order to obtain the evidence, he proceeded to Sicily, where he was received with the greatest kindness and favor, though every art was resorted to, by the agents of Verres, to obstruct his inquiries. On his return, he found the most formidable preparations to resist him. Hortensius was engaged for Verres and several of the leading families had taken his part. Cicero, however, produced his witnesses, whose depositions overwhelmed the criminal with such proofs of guilt, that Hortensius had nothing to say for his client, who submitted without defence to a voluntary exile. From this account, it appears, that, of the seven orations on the subject of this trial, which now remain among the works of Cicero, two only were spoken, and these contain little more than a statement of the whole case. The five others were published afterwards, as they were prepared, and intended to be spoken, if Verres had made a regular defence. From the evidence produced, it appears that every species of rapine was practised without scruple by Verres, during his prætorship. Cicero estimated the amount of his plunder at 800,000 pounds sterling, or nearly four millions of dollars. It is shocking to read the black catalogue of this man's crimes; yet, such was the corruption of society, especially among the higher classes, that Cicero, instead of gaining favor by his exposure of these abuses, brought upon himself the hatred and ill-will of the largest portion of the nobility. They doubtless looked upon the public offices as their inheritance, and did not like to see the accustomed privileges of the provincial governors abridged. We may add here that Verres continued long in a miserable exile, deserted and forgotten by his former friends, and was actually relieved in his necessities by the generosity of Cicero. He was afterwards proscribed and murdered by Mark Antony, in order to obtain some fine statues, which he had obtained by robbery, during his government in Sicily, and which he had refused to part with, even in the extremity of his poverty. From the impeachment of Verres, Cicero entered upon the office of edile, and in one of his speeches gives a short account of its duties. "I am now chosen edile," says he, "and am sensible of what is committed to me by the Roman people. I am to exhibit with the greatest solemnity the most sacred sports to Ceres, Liber, and Libera; am to appease and conciliate the mother Flora to the people and city of Rome, by the celebration of the public games; am to furnish out those ancient shows, the first which were called Roman, with all possible dignity and religion, in honor of Jupiter, Juno, Minerva; am to take care also of all the sacred edifices, and, indeed, of the whole city." The people of Rome were passionately fond of the public games and diversions, and the allowance for them being small, the ediles were obliged to supply the rest. Many of them, in their ambition to flatter the people and obtain their favor, incurred such expense in these entertainments, as to involve themselves in ruin. Every part of the empire was ransacked for whatever was rare and curious to increase the splendor of these shows; the forum, in which they were exhibited, was usually beautified with porticoes for the purpose, and these were decorated with the choicest pictures and statues, which Rome, and indeed, all Italy could furnish. Several of the great men of Cicero's time had distinguished their magistracy by their magnificence, some of them having entertained the city with stage plays, in which the scenes were entirely covered with silver. Cæsar, in the sports exhibited upon the occasion of his father's funeral, caused the entire furniture of the theatre to be made of solid silver, so that the wild beasts trod upon that metal. Unseduced by these examples, Cicero took the middle course, which was suited to his circumstances. In compliance with the custom, he gave three entertainments, which were conducted with taste, and to the satisfaction of the people. The Sicilians gave him effectual proofs of their gratitude by supplying him largely with provisions for the use of his table and the public feasts he was obliged to provide. Cicero, however, took no private advantage of these gifts, for he distributed the whole to the poor. Soon after leaving the office of edile, Cicero was chosen prætor; a magistrate next in dignity to a consul. The business of the prætors was to preside and judge in all causes, especially of a public or criminal kind. There were eight of them, and their several jurisdictions were assigned by lot. It fell to Cicero to hear charges of extortion and rapine, brought against magistrates and governors of provinces. In this office, he acquired great reputation for integrity and impartiality--qualities, in the corrupted state of Rome, scarcely to be found, either in public or private life, among men of high stations. While he seemed full of employment as prætor, and attentive to his duties in the senate, Cicero still had a large practice as advocate. It is evident that nothing but ceaseless industry and wonderful facility in the despatch of business, could have enabled him to discharge his multifarious duties, and with such surpassing ability. His office of prætor having expired, Cicero now fixed his hopes upon the consulship. While he was aiming at this, and resorting to all the ordinary means of attaining his object, by flattering the people, allaying the hostility of the nobles, and strengthening his interest on every hand, he was expending large sums of money in decorating his several villas, especially that of Tusculum, in which he took the greatest pleasure. This was situated in the neighborhood of Rome, and furnished him an easy retreat from the hurry and fatigue of the city. Here he built several rooms and galleries, in imitation of the schools and porticoes of Athens, in which he was accustomed to hold philosophical conversations with his learned friends. He had given Atticus, a lover of the arts, who resided at Athens, a general commission to purchase for him pictures, statues and other curiosities; and Atticus, having a rare taste in these matters, thus assisted him to embellish and enrich his residence with a choice collection of works of art and literary treasures, of various kinds. Cicero, being now in his forty-third year, became eligible as consul, and offered himself as a candidate for that high office. As the election approached, his interest appeared to take the lead; for the nobles, envious and jealous of him as they were, were alarmed by the threatening aspect of the times, and saw the necessity of entrusting the consular power to strong and faithful hands. The intrigues of Cæsar, the plots of Cataline, the ambition of Pompey, seemed to heave and convulse the elements of society to its foundation, and portend a storm which threatened the very existence of the state. Thus, by the voices of the people as well as the favor of the patricians, Cicero was proclaimed First Consul, and Antonius was chosen his colleague. This year, Cicero's father died in a good old age, and he gave his daughter Tullia, in marriage, at the age of thirteen, to C. Piso Frugi, a young nobleman of great hopes and of one of the best families in Rome. He was also much gratified by the birth of a son and heir to his family. Cicero had now passed through the usual gradations to the highest honors which the people could bestow, or a citizen desire. He entered upon his trust with a patriotic determination to discharge its duties, not so much according to the fleeting humor, as the lasting interests of the people. The most remarkable event of his consulship was the conspiracy of Cataline, which he detected by his sagacity, and defeated by his courage and address. Cataline was adapted by art and nature, to be the leader of desperate enterprises. He was of an illustrious family, of ruined fortunes, profligate heart, undaunted courage and unwearied industry. He had a capacity equal to the hardiest attempt, a tongue that could seduce, an eloquence to persuade, a hand to execute. His character, compounded of contradictory qualities--of great virtues, mastered by still greater vices--is forcibly drawn by Cicero himself. "Who," said he, "was more agreeable at one time to the best citizens? Who more intimate at another with the worst? Who a man of better principles? Who a fouler enemy to this city? Who more intemperate in pleasure? Who more patient in labor? Who more rapacious in plundering, who more profuse in squandering? He had a wonderful faculty of engaging men to his friendship and obliging them by his observance; sharing with them in common whatever he was master of; serving them with his money, his interest, his pains, and, when there was occasion, by the most daring acts of villany, moulding his nature to his purposes, and bending it every way to his will. With the morose, he could live severely; with the free, gayly; with the old, gravely; with the young, cheerfully; with the enterprising, audaciously; with the vicious, luxuriously. By a temper so various and pliable, he gathered about him the profligate and the rash from all countries; yet held attached to him, at the same time, many brave and worthy men, by the specious show of a pretended virtue." Associated in the plot with Cataline, were about thirty-five individuals as leaders, some of them senators, and all of them men of rank and consideration. Several were from the colonies and the larger towns of Italy. Among the most important of these persons were Lentulus and Cethegus, both patricians, possessing powerful family influence; the two Syllas nephews of the dictator; Cassius, who was a competitor with Cicero for the consulship, and Autronius, who had obtained an election to that office, but was not permitted to hold it, on account of his gross briberies. Julius Cæsar was suspected of being also engaged in the scheme, but it is probable that while he was willing to see it attempted, hoping to be benefited by the convulsion that might follow, he was too wary to commit himself by any overt act of treason. A meeting of the conspirators was finally held, in which it was resolved that a general insurrection should be raised throughout Italy, the different parts of which were assigned to different leaders. Cataline was to put himself at the head of the troops in Etruria; Rome was to be set on fire in different places at once, under the direction of Cassius, and a general massacre of the senate, with all the enemies of the conspirators, was to be affected under the management of Cithegus. The vigilance of Cicero being the chief occasion of their apprehensions, two knights of the company undertook to gain access to his house early the next morning, upon pretence of business, and, rushing into his chamber, to kill him in his bed. But no sooner was the meeting over, than Curius, one of the assembly, and in the interest of Cicero, sent him a particular account of all that had transpired. He immediately imparted the intelligence to some of the chiefs of the city, who assembled at his house that night, and made preparations for the emergency. The two knights came before break of day to Cicero's house, but had the mortification to find it carefully guarded. Cataline had set out in the hope of surprising the town of Preneste, one of the strongest fortresses of Italy, and within twenty five miles of Rome; but Cicero's messenger anticipated him, and when the attack was made the next night, he found the place so well guarded, as to forbid an assault. Cicero now assembled the senate at the temple of Jupiter, in the capital, where they were accustomed to meet only in times of public alarm, and laid before them the facts which we have narrated. Cataline had returned to Rome, and being a member of the senate, met the charge with profound dissimulation and the most subtle cunning. Cicero, however, poured forth upon him such a torrent of invective, and placed his guilt in so strong a light, that the conspirator became desperate, made a threatening speech to the senate, and left the hall. That night, he departed and repaired with expedition to head the forces at Etruria. The result of the whole enterprise was, that several of the accomplices were executed, and Cataline himself fell bravely fighting at the head of those troops he had induced to join his cause. Cicero received the thanks of the senate, and the most unbounded applause at the hands of the people. Cicero's administration being now at an end, nothing remained but to resign the consulship, according to custom, in an assembly of the people, and declare upon oath that he had administered the office with fidelity. It was usual for the consul, under such circumstances, to address the people, and on the present occasion an immense concourse of people met to hear the farewell speech of Cicero. But Metellus, one of the new tribunes, ambitious to signalize himself by some display of that remarkable veto power committed to the tribunes, determined to disappoint the orator and the audience. Accordingly, when Cicero had mounted the rostrum, and was about to address the people, Metellus interfered, remarking that he who had put citizens to death unheard, ought not to be permitted to speak for himself. This was a reflection upon Cicero, because the associates of Cataline had been executed by a vote of the senate, without the ordinary trial. Cicero, however, was never at a loss, and, instead of pronouncing the usual form of the oath, exalted his voice so that all the people might hear him, saying, "I have saved the republic and the city from ruin!" The vast multitude caught the sounds, and, with one acclamation, declared, "You have sworn the truth!" Thus, the intended affront of Metellus was turned to the advantage of Cicero, and he was conducted from the forum to his house with every demonstration of respect by the whole city. It was about this period that Cicero is supposed to have pronounced his oration, still extant, in defence of his old preceptor, Archias. He, doubtless, expected from his muse an immortality of fame; for Archias had sung in Greek verse the triumphs of Marius over the Cimbri, and of Lucullus over Mithridates. He appears, however, to have died without celebrating the consulship of Cicero; and Archias, instead of adding to the fame of the orator, would have been buried in complete oblivion, had not his memory been perpetuated in the immortal pages of his pupil. Pompey the Great now returned to Rome, in the height of his fame and fortunes, from the Mithridatic war. It had been apprehended that he was coming back to Rome, at the head of his army, to seize upon the government. It is certain that he had this in his power, and Cæsar, with the tribune Metellus, was inviting him to it. But he seemed content, for the time, with the glory he had achieved. By his victories he had extended the boundaries of the empire into Asia, having reduced three powerful kingdoms there, Pontus, Syria and Bithynia, to the condition of Roman provinces, taken the city of Jerusalem, and left the other nations of the east, as far as the Tigris, tributary to the republic. For these great services, a triumph was decreed him, which lasted two days, and was the most splendid that had ever been seen in Rome. Of the spoils, he erected a temple to Minerva, with an inscription giving a summary of his victories:--"that he had finished a war of thirty years; had vanquished, slain, and taken two millions one hundred and eighty-three thousand men; sunk or taken eight hundred and forty-six ships; reduced to the power of the empire a thousand five hundred and thirty-eight towns and fortresses, and subdued all the countries between the lake Moeris and the Red Sea." The spectacle which Rome, at this period, presents is full of warning to mankind. In the very height of her pride and her power, holding the whole civilized world in her grasp, she was still torn with dissensions, and corrupted through every vein and artery of society. With political institutions favorable to liberty, and calculated to promote public and private virtue; yet vice and crime stained the character of public men, while profligacy, in every form, characterized the people at large. Nor could anything better be expected; for the general policy of the nation was alike wicked and unwise. Instead of seeking prosperity by the peaceful arts of life, they sought to enrich themselves by robbing other nations. War was the great trade of the state; the soldier was a hero; a successful general, the idol of the nation. The greatest plunderer received the greatest honors, and glory was proportioned to the blood spilled and the spoils obtained. A system so immoral could not fail to debauch the nation, nor was it difficult to see that, from robbing other countries, the victorious general, having attached the soldiery to himself by leading them on to booty, would soon learn to turn his arms against the country. Such had now become the experience of Rome; and the natural course of ambition seemed to be to obtain the command of an army in some of the provinces, gorge the soldiers with plunder, and, having become the idol of the troops, to march upon Rome and seize, by intimidation or force, the sceptre of power. Such a course had been expected of Pompey, and was soon after adopted by Cæsar. The triumvirate, consisting of Cæsar, Pompey and Crassus, was now formed, and Cicero yielded, for a time, to their power. His patriotism and integrity were obstacles, however, to the success of their schemes, and he became the object of their hatred and persecution. Perceiving the storm that was ready to burst over him, he threw himself at the feet of Pompey and begged his protection. This, however, was refused; and seeing no alternative but to defend himself by force, or retreat till the storm had blown over, he adopted the latter course by the advice of Cato and Hortensius. He left the city, and attended by a numerous train of friends, pursued his way to Sicily. After his departure, the dissolute Clodius, who had become tribune, caused a law to be passed, denouncing Cicero in violent terms, and forbidding all persons, on pain of death, to harbor or receive him. Immediately after, his houses, both in the city and country, were given up to plunder; the marble columns of his dwelling on the Palatine hill were carried away by one of the consuls, and the rich furniture of his Tusculum villa, by another. Even the ornamental trees of his plantations were taken up and transplanted to one of his neighbor's grounds. To make the loss of his house in Rome irretrievable, Clodius caused the space to be consecrated to the service of religion, and a temple to be built upon it, dedicated to the goddess of liberty! Nor did the vengeance of Cicero's enemies stop here. Clodius pursued his wife and children with the same fury, and made several attempts to gain access to his son, then six years old, with the intention of putting him to death. But the child was carefully guarded, and finally removed from the reach of his malice. Terentia took sanctuary in the temple of Vesta, but she was dragged forcibly out, and insolently examined as to the concealment of her husband's property. Being a woman of singular spirit, however, she bore these indignities with masculine courage. The desolation of Cicero's fortunes at home, and the misery which he suffered abroad, in being deprived of everything that was dear to him, soon made him repent his flight. His suffering was increased on reaching Sicily, for there he found his former friends afraid to receive him, in consequence of the decree of banishment which had been passed at Rome, and which forbade him to remain within four hundred miles of the city. He therefore found it necessary to leave Sicily, and after various changes of opinion, he resolved to proceed to Thessalonica, in Macedonia. Here he took up his residence with his friend Plaucius, who treated him with the utmost kindness. Cicero was so dejected by his misfortunes, that he shut himself up in his apartments, and refused to see all company. When his brother, Quintus, was on his way from Asia to Rome, Cicero felt incapable of supporting an interview, and did not see him, so deeply were his feelings affected. At the same time, his letters to his friends were full of regret, complaint and despondency. It is obvious that, in this period of trial, he displayed great weakness of character, though it is probable that his affectionate disposition--his fondness for his children, and love of his friends--rendered separation from them an evil almost worse than death. It would seem, also, that he had so long enjoyed the homage paid to his talents, had so long lived in the blaze of popular favor, that his present exile seemed like being deprived of the very light of heaven. But the period of his return to Rome was now approaching. Clodius, by a series of the most flagrant outrages, made himself hated at Rome, and finally put himself in opposition to Pompey himself. The people at large were favorable to Cicero, and it was not long before the senate, with great unanimity, passed a resolution favorable to his recall. Pompey urged the measure with ardor, and declared that Cicero ought to be received with such honors, as might atone for the sorrows of his exile. Preparations were made to obtain the passage of a law coinciding with the resolve of the senate; but Clodius, with his slaves and a multitude of hired gladiators, resisted the tribunes who sought to gain possession of the market-place, for that purpose. Several bloody encounters followed, and for a time the streets of Rome were deluged with blood. The dead bodies were thrown into the Tiber, which were so numerous as almost to obstruct its channel. Nothing can better show the greatness of Cicero's reputation, than the facts now transpiring in Rome. For several months the attention of the people of that city, and of Italy, was wholly occupied with the question of his recall. The ambassadors of kings, the messengers of princes,--affairs which involved the fate of nations--were all laid aside, till this absorbing subject could be disposed of. The senate, after long deliberation, and in a full assembly, at last passed a decree for his restoration; Clodius, among four hundred and fifty, giving the only vote against it. When the news reached a neighboring theatre, the air was rent with acclamation. Æsopus, the actor, was performing, at the time, the part of Timolean, banished from the country, in one of the plays of Accius. By a happy change of a few words, and giving the utmost effect to his voice, he directed the thoughts of the audience to Cicero, while he uttered these sentences, "What, he who always stood up for the republic! who, in doubtful times, spared neither life nor fortunes--the greatest friend in the greatest dangers--of such parts and talents! O Father--I saw his house and rich furniture all in flames! O, ungrateful Greeks, inconstant people; forgetful of services,--to see such a man banished, driven from his country, and suffer him to continue in this condition!" It is not possible to describe the thrilling effect of these words, or the enthusiasm of the people. When Lentulus, the consul, who had taken an active part in Cicero's favor, entered the place, they all rose up, stretched out their hands, and, with tears of joy and loud acclamations, testified their thanks. Several of the senators coming into the theatre, were received with the most deafening applause. Clodius also making his appearance was assailed by reproaches, threats and curses. Though a decree was now regularly obtained for Cicero's return, Clodius had still the courage and address to hinder its sanction by the popular assemblies. There were several meetings of the senate, and the whole city was shaken to its foundation with the question now at issue. All Italy and indeed many of the remote provinces were thrown into a state of ferment by the struggle, and the mighty interests of the empire were postponed till this important question could be settled. Ptolemy, the king of Egypt, driven from his kingdom, and seeking protection at the hands of Rome, even though a lodger in Pompey's house, could not obtain an audience, till Cicero's cause was decided. The greatest preparations were now made for submitting the question to the popular assemblies. Never had there been known so numerous and solemn a gathering of the Roman people as on this occasion. The whole country seemed to be drawn together. It was reckoned a sin to be absent. Neither age nor infirmity was thought a sufficient excuse for failing to lend a helping hand to the restoration of Cicero. The meeting was held in the field of Mars, for the more convenient reception of so vast a multitude. It was an august scene. The senators presided at the polls, to see the ballots fairly taken. The result was that Cicero was recalled from exile by the unanimous suffrage of all the hundreds, and to the infinite joy of the whole city! Cicero, having been advised of the course of events, had returned as far as Brundusium, where he was met by his daughter Tullia. In a few days he received the welcome intelligence of his recall. Setting out immediately for Rome, he everywhere received the most lively demonstrations of joy from the people. Multitudes were drawn together to congratulate him on his return. The whole road, from Brundusium to Rome, being crowded with men, women, and children, seemed like one continued street. Every prefecture, town and colony throughout Italy decreed him statues, or public honors, and sent deputations to him, with tenders of congratulation. Cicero himself remarks, that Italy brought him back on its shoulders, and that the day of his return was worth an immortality. Cicero was now restored to his dignity, but not to his fortunes. Restitution had been decreed, and the sum of £22,000 was finally paid him. This he accepted, though it was scarcely more than half what he had actually lost. He now attached himself to the cause of Pompey, but spent several years with little public employment, being chiefly occupied with his rhetorical studies and the business of an advocate. The turbulent Clodius was at last slain by Milo, and Cicero was thus delivered from his most troublesome enemy. The senate now conferred upon him the office of pro-consul, or governor, of Cilicia, in Asia Minor, whither he immediately proceeded. He discharged the duties of this office with ability, and, on his return, was decreed a triumph. But he was prevented from enjoying it by the factious opposition of his enemies. On his return, he found Rome agitated with serious disturbances. The rupture between Cæsar and Pompey had taken place, and the horrors of a civil war seemed to be impending over the republic. In vain did he attempt to reconcile the fierce and haughty rivals. Cæsar advanced upon Rome, and Pompey was forced to fly with the consuls and the senate. Cæsar had met Cicero at Formiae, and sought to gain him over to his cause, but though convinced that he would prevail in the coming struggle, he felt himself prompted, by a sense of honor to return to Pompey, who had served him so effectually during his exile. After the fatal battle of Pharsalia and the flight of Pompey, he returned to Rome, where he was graciously received by Cæsar. He now devoted himself to literary and philosophical pursuits, and, soon after, divorced his wife Terentia, an act which has justly subjected him to much reproach. It is true that she was a woman of an imperious and turbulent spirit, expensive and negligent in her private affairs, busy and intriguing in public matters. But these qualities were in some degree compensated by her devotion to Cicero, and especially by the energy with which she had sought to effect his return during his exile. His letters to her at this period recognise her efforts in his behalf, and are full of the most tender expressions of affection and esteem. It must be remarked that the nuptial bond was lightly regarded at this period in Rome, and divorces were so common as to be little thought of. Terentia was soon after married to Sallust, the historian, by which it would seem that her separation from Cicero inflicted upon her no disgrace. Cicero would perhaps have been little blamed, were it not that he was soon after married to a young lady named Publilia, of whom he was guardian, and who had been committed to his care by her father's will. She had a large estate, and this was doubtless Cicero's inducement to the match, if not to the divorce of Terentia. It is the suspicion of such motives, in these transactions, that has sullied the fame of Cicero. We may add here, in respect to Terentia, that she was once or twice married after the death of Sallust, and lived to the age of one hundred and three years. Cæsar, having established himself as dictator, Cicero was induced to assent to his government. Accordingly, he pronounced a famous oration, in which he mingled as much counsel as panegyric for the despot. He was rapidly regaining his former consideration, when the conspiracy of Brutus and his associates terminated the career of the ambitious usurper. Antony now took Cæsar's place, and while he was prosecuting his designs, Cicero returned to his literary occupations. He went to Greece for a time, but soon returned, and pronounced those famous orations against Antony, which are called Philippics. Octavius, known as Augustus Cæsar, and the nephew of Julius Cæsar, united his interests with those of Antony, and having obtained the consulate, soon gained an ascendency over the senate. Cicero, in his retirement at Tusculum, saw that the power having passed into the hands of desperate men, the liberty of Rome was no more. He soon heard that his own name was included among those of the proscribed. He fled immediately to Astura, on the sea coast, where he found a vessel waiting for him. He here embarked, but contrary winds drove him back to the shore. At the earnest entreaty of his slaves, he embarked a second time, but returned to await his fate at his country seat near Formiae, declaring, "I will die in my country, which I have more than once saved." His slaves, seeing the neighborhood already disturbed by the soldiers of Antony, endeavored to convey him away in a litter, but soon discovered the assassins, who had been sent to take his life, at their heels. They prepared for resistance, but Cicero, who felt that death was unavoidable, bowed his head before Pompilius, the commander of the murderers, who had once been saved by his eloquence, and suffered death more courageously than he had borne misfortune. Thus died Cicero, and with him the liberties of Rome. The dynasty of the emperors was built upon the ruins of the republic, and, continuing for five centuries, was finally extinguished in the gloom of the dark ages. Cicero was killed on the 7th December, 43 B. C., at the age of sixty-three. His head and hands were severed from the body, by his murderers, and carried to Antony, who caused the former to be placed upon the rostra in the forum, between the two hands. The odium of these barbarities fell chiefly upon Antony, yet they left a stain of perfidy and ingratitude upon Augustus, which can never be wiped away. In his person, Cicero was tall and slender, yet his features were regular and manly. He mingled great dignity with an air of cheerfulness and serenity, that inspired both affection and respect. His constitution was naturally weak, but his prudent habits enabled him to support all the fatigues of an active and studious life, with health and vigor. In dress, he avoided singularity, and was only remarkable for personal neatness and appropriateness of attire. In domestic and social life, his demeanor was exceedingly amiable. He was an affectionate parent, a zealous friend, a generous master. Yet he was not more generous to his friends than placable to his enemies. It was one of his sayings, delivered in a public assembly, that "his enmities were mortal, his friendships immortal." The moral character of Cicero was not blemished by the stain of any habitual vice. He was, indeed, the shining pattern of virtue in an age, of all others, the most licentious and profligate. His great soul was superior to the sordid passions which engross little minds--avarice, envy and malice. His familiar letters, in which he pours out his whole heart, are free from anything base, immodest or vengeful. A uniform principle of benevolence, justice, love of his friends and his country, is seen to flow through the whole, inspiring all his thoughts and words and actions. The failings of Cicero consisted chiefly in his vanity and that despondency under adverse circumstances, which seemed unworthy of his character. With these abatements, we must pronounce him a truly great and good man--the glory of Rome, an honor to human nature. His works, a large portion of which are extant, are among the richest treasures bequeathed to us by antiquity, and there are few minds so exalted, even with the advantages of our own time, as not to find instruction in his pages. [Illustration] CAIUS JULIUS CÆSAR. This celebrated Roman, famous for his intrigues, his generalship, his eloquence and his talents, was born in the year 100 B. C. He was of a good family, and his aunt Julia was wife of Caius Marius, who had been consul. We know little of him in his youth, though it would seem that he early attracted attention by his abilities and ambition. At the age of fifteen, he left his father, and was made a priest in the temple of Jupiter, the year after. At the age of seventeen, he married Cornelia, a daughter of Cinna. By this marriage, and through his aunt Julia, he was allied both to Marius and Cinna, the two principal opposers of Sylla, who had acquired an ascendency in Rome, and exercised his power with fearful and bloody tyranny. Soon after his marriage, Cæsar became an object of suspicion to the despot; he was stripped of his office as priest of Jupiter, his wife's dower was confiscated, and he, being threatened with death, deemed it prudent to seek safety in flight. He wandered up and down the country, concealing himself for a time among the Sabines; but at last he escaped by sea, and went to Bithynia in Asia Minor, and sought protection of king Nicomedes. His stay at this place was, however, short. He re-embarked, and was taken, near the isle of Pharmacusa, by pirates, who were masters of that sea, and blocked up all the passages with a number of galleys and other vessels. They asked him only twenty talents for his ransom. He laughed at their demand, as the consequence of not knowing him, and promised them fifty talents. To raise the money he despatched his attendants to different cities, and in the meantime remained, with only one friend and two servants, among these people, who considered murder a trifle. Cæsar, however, held them in great contempt, and used, whenever he went to sleep, to send them an order to keep silence. Thus he lived among them thirty-eight days, as if they had been his guards rather than his keepers. Perfectly fearless and self-possessed, he joined in their diversions, and took his exercises among them. He wrote poems and orations, and rehearsed them to these pirates; and when they expressed no admiration, he called them dunces and barbarians--nay, he often threatened to crucify them. They were delighted with these freedoms, which they imputed to his frank and facetious vein. But as soon as the money was brought for his ransom, and he had recovered his liberty, he manned some vessels in the port of Miletus, in order to attack these corsairs. He found them still lying at anchor by the island, took most of them, together with the money he had paid them, and caused them to be imprisoned at Pergamus. After this adventure, Cæsar took lessons of Appolonius Molo, of Rhodes, a celebrated teacher of rhetoric, who had been the instructor of Cicero. He here displayed great talents, especially in an aptitude for eloquence, in which he afterwards excelled. After this, he served under different generals in Asia, and upon the death of Sylla, returned to Rome, where he soon became conspicuous among the aspiring politicians of the day. Rome was at this time a republic, in which there was a constant struggle for ascendency between the aristocracy and the democracy--between the privileged few and the people. Sylla had placed the former on a firm footing; for a time, therefore, Cæsar, who courted the people, took no open part, but looked calmly on, waiting and watching for his opportunity. He, however, seized every occasion to please and flatter the people; he gave expensive entertainments to which they were invited; he attached to his person the talented and enterprising young men; he distributed presents, paid compliments, and said a thousand pleasant things, calculated to flatter those whose favor he desired. He also made public speeches on various occasions, in all of which he avowed sentiments which gratified the plebeians. Thus beginning afar off and steadily approaching his object he was ere long in a situation to realize it. Cato, who had watched him carefully, discovered his dangerous ambition, but he could not prevent the success of his schemes. At the age of thirty-one, he was chosen by the people, as one of the military tribunes, an office which gave him the command of a legion, or division in the army. The year following, he was quæstor, or receiver of public moneys in Spain; and in the year 68, having returned to Rome, he was chosen edile--an office which gave him charge of the public buildings. In this situation, he had an opportunity to indulge his taste for magnificence and display; at the same time, he gratified the people. He beautified the city with public edifices and gave splendid exhibitions of wild beasts and gladiators. He was now thirty-five years old, and being desirous of military glory, he sought a command in Egypt. He offered himself as a candidate--but failed. The next year he took his measures more carefully. The corruption of the voters of Rome, at that time, was such as to excite our disgust. On the day of election, there were stalls, openly kept, where the votes of the freemen were bought, with as little shame, as if they had been common merchandise. We hardly know which most to despise, the crafty leaders, who thus corrupted the people, or the venal voters, who abused and degraded the dearest of privileges. Though Cæsar was from the beginning a professed champion of the democracy, yet the manner in which he treated those whose support he sought, showed that his designs were selfish; that he wished to make the people instruments of his ambition. A man who will flatter the mass; use false, yet captivating arguments with them; appeal to their prejudices; fall in with their currents of feeling and opinion, even though they may be wrong, may profess democracy but he is at heart an aristocrat: he has no true love for the people; no confidence in them; he really despises them, and looks upon them but as the despicable tools of his ambition. Such was Cæsar, and such is always the popular demagogue. While nothing is more noble than a true democrat--a true well-wisher of the people--and one who honestly seeks to vindicate their rights, enlighten their minds, and elevate them in the scale of society; so nothing is more base than a selfish desire to govern them, hidden beneath the cloak of pretended democracy. The measures of Cæsar were now so open, and his real character so obvious, that we should wonder at his success with the people, did we not know the power which flattery exerts over all mankind, and that when a man of rank and talents becomes a demagogue, he is usually more successful than other men. It was so, at least, with Cæsar. He courted the populace on all occasions; he distributed money with a lavish hand, particularly among the poorer voters. After many intrigues, he obtained the office of prætor, at the end of a sharply contested election. This office was one of high dignity and trust. The prætor administered justice, protected the rights of widows and orphans--presided at public festivals was president of the senate, in the absence of the consul, and assembled or prorogued the senate at his pleasure. He also exhibited shows to the people, and in the festivals of Bona Dea, where none but women were admitted, his wife presided. In obtaining this office, Cæsar achieved a great triumph. He also increased his power, and reached a situation which enabled him still more to flatter the people. An event, however, occurred about this time, which gave him great annoyance. During the ceremonies in honor of the Bona Dea, at his house, a profligate person, named Clodius, disguised as a woman, gained access to the festivities. This caused a great deal of scandal, and Cæsar divorced his wife, Pompeia, whom he had married after the death of Cornelia. In the year 63 B. C., a conspiracy, which had for its object the subversion of the Roman government, was detected by Cicero, the orator, then consul. It was headed by Cataline, a Roman nobleman of dissolute habits, whose life had been stained with many crimes. His accomplices were men of similar character, who took an oath of fidelity to the cause, which they sealed by drinking human blood. After the disclosure of the plot, Cataline braved the senate for a time, but five of his associates being seized, he fled to Gaul, where, having raised some troops, he was attacked, and fell, bravely fighting to the last. When the trial of the five accomplices came on in the Roman senate, there was but a single person who dared to oppose their execution, and this was Cæsar. His courage, moral or physical, never failed him. In policy and war, he often undertook what might seem the most desperate schemes, yet the event usually bore out his judgment, or his skill and energy generally ensured success. In the present case, he failed; though his speech in the senate had a wonderful effect. Even Cicero wavered. As that speech is handed down by Sallust, it is a masterly performance. It gave Cæsar a high place as an orator, he being now regarded as second to Cicero alone. Though he did not obtain his direct object respecting the conspirators, and was driven from his office by the aristocratic faction, he gained more than he lost, by increased popularity with the plebeians. In the year 60 B. C., when the time was approaching for the choice of consuls, Cæsar being a candidate, the aristocratic faction saw that they could not defeat his election; they therefore thought to check him, by associating with him Bibulus, one of their own party. When the election took place, Cæsar and Bibulus were chosen. The latter was rather a weak man, and offered no effectual obstacle to Cæsar's schemes. On one occasion, he determined to check his colleague, and for this purpose, resorted to the use of an extreme power, vested, however, in his hands. It was the custom, before any public business, to consult the augurs. These were officers of state, who were supposed to foretell future events. The augur sat upon a high tower, where he studied the heavens, and particularly noticed comets, thunder and lightning, rain and tempest. The chirping or flying of birds--the sudden crossing of the path by quadrupeds--accidents, such as spilling salt hearing strange noises, sneezing, stumbling, &c.--were all esteemed ominous, and were the means by which the soothsayers pretended to unravel the fate of men and of nations. When these gave an unfavorable report, a consul could stop public business, and even break up the sittings of the senate. Bibulus resorted to the use of this power, and not only declared that the augurs were unfavorable, but that they would be so all the year! This extravagant stretch of authority was turned to ridicule by Cæsar and his friends, and the baffled consul, in disgust and shame, shut himself up in his own house. Cæsar was now, in fact, the sole consul of Rome. Pompey the Great was at this period in the full flush of his fame. His military achievements had been of the most splendid character. He was, therefore, a man of the highest consideration, and even superior to Cæsar in standing. The latter, by a series of intrigues, gained his favor, and these two, rivals at heart, both yearning for supreme authority in Rome, entered into a political alliance, which they cemented by the marriage of Julia, Cæsar's daughter, to Pompey. It mattered not, among these unscrupulous politicians, that Julia had long been betrothed to Marcus Brutus. Cæsar, at this time, also took a wife, named Calpurnia, daughter of Piso--a political match, which greatly enlarged his power. Three great men were now at the head of affairs in Rome--Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus--and this union is called in history the First Triumvirate. Cæsar was, however, the master as well of the senate as of the people. By his influence, an agrarian law was passed, for the division of some public lands in Campania, among the poorer citizens, which he carried by intimidation. Everything gave way before him; even Cicero, who was in his way, was banished. Cæsar's desire was now to have an army at his command: this he obtained, being appointed to the charge of the provinces of Gaul, on both sides of the Alps, for five years. From this time, the history of Rome presents a striking parallel to that of the republic of France during Bonaparte's first campaigns in Italy. In both cases we see a weak republic, torn by contending factions, and rather feeding discontent than seeking tranquillity. In both cases we see vast provinces of the distracted republic occupied by a general of unlimited powers--a man of superior genius, desperate resolves, and fearful cruelty--a man, who, under the show of democratic principles and a love of the people, gains a complete ascendency over the soldiers, that he may lead them on to victory, bloodshed, plunder, and despotism! We shall not follow Cæsar in the details of his victorious career. It is sufficient to say, that, in nine campaigns, he waged war against the numerous tribes which occupied the present territory of France, Britain, Switzerland, and Germany. Some of these were warlike and populous nations, and frequently brought into the field immense armies of fierce and formidable soldiery. Though often pushed to extremity, by a series of splendid achievements, Cæsar reduced them all to subjection at last. During this period, it is said that he fought nearly a thousand battles, captured eight hundred towns, slew a million of men, and reduced to captivity as many more! If the warrior's glory is estimated by the blood he sheds, the life he extinguishes, the liberty he destroys--Cæsar's crown must be one of surpassing splendor. Though Cæsar did not visit Rome during this long period, he was by no means ignorant of what was transpiring there. It was his custom to spend his winters in Cisalpine Gaul, that is, on the southern side of the Alps, about two hundred and fifty miles from Rome. Here he was able to keep up a correspondence with his friends, and to mingle in all the intrigues that agitated the mighty city--the heart of the empire. Pompey had at length broken through the alliance with Cæsar, and set up for supreme authority. It was now understood that Cæsar had similar views, and Rome began to look with fear and trembling upon the issue that was approaching between these powerful rivals. Pompey succeeded in getting certain acts passed by the senate, requiring Cæsar to quit his army, and come to Rome. The latter saw danger in this, and while he determined to visit Rome, he resolved that his army should accompany him. The southern boundary of his provinces was a small stream, called the Rubicon. When Cæsar came to this, he hesitated. To cross it with his troops, was a declaration of war. Staggered with the greatness of the attempt, he stopped to weigh with himself its evils and advantages; and, as he stood revolving in his own mind the arguments on both sides, he seemed to waver in his opinion. In a state of doubt, he conferred with such of his friends as were by, enumerating the calamities which the passage of that river would bring upon the world, and the reflections that might be made upon it by posterity. At last, upon some sudden impulse, bidding adieu to his reasonings, and plunging into the abyss of futurity--in the words of those who embark in doubtful and arduous enterprises--he cried out, "The die is cast;" and immediately passed the river. He now travelled with the utmost rapidity, having but about three hundred horse and five thousand foot. The consternation of the whole country was evinced by the movements visible on all hands--not individuals, only, were seen wandering about, but whole cities were broken up, the inhabitants seeking safety in flight. Pompey himself, with his friends, fled from Rome, and Cæsar entered the city, and took possession of the government without opposition. A senate was hastily assembled, and the forms of law observed, though in obedience to Cæsar's will. He was declared dictator, and then marched to Brundusium, whither Pompey had fled. After many skirmishes, the two armies met on the plains of Pharsalia, a town of Thessaly, in Greece, and a decisive and bloody engagement took place. Pompey was defeated, and, wandering like a distracted man, came at last to Egypt, where he was treacherously murdered. Cæsar followed, as the remorseless eagle pursues its prey, but finding his rival slain, he repaired in triumph to Rome. These events occurred in the year 48 B. C. After various proceedings, Cæsar was elected consul for ten years, and declared dictator for life. The mask was now thrown off--the despot stood disclosed. Forty senators, incensed at his subversion of the constitution of Rome, entered into a conspiracy to take his life, and, on the 18th of March, B. C. 44, they stabbed him, as he was entering the senate chamber. Proud even in death, Cæsar muffled his face in his cloak as he fell, that his expiring agonies might not be witnessed. Thus lived and thus died, Julius Cæsar. His talents were only equalled by his ambition. If he sought glory, it was often by worthy means--by valuable improvements, and real benefits. Yet he hesitated not to trample upon life, principles, bonds, rights--upon liberty--his country--everything that stood in the way of his towering wishes. He left behind him an account of his battles, written from day to day, as events occurred. These are called Commentaries, and furnish a fund of authentic narrative for history, beside being admired for their elegance of style. It was after a victory over Pharnaces, king of Pontus, in Asia Minor, that he used the remarkable words, _veni, vidi, vinci_--"I came, I saw, I conquered." They well express the celerity and decision of his movements. In private affairs he was extravagant of money; his debts at one time amounted to eight hundred talents--almost a million of dollars. These were paid by his friends. In public concerns he did not appear greedy of wealth. As an evidence of the activity and energy of his faculties, it was said that at the same time he could employ his ear to listen, his eye to read, his hand to write, and his mind to dictate. His disposition led him irresistibly to seek dominion; in battle, he must be a conqueror; in a republic, he must be the master. This leading feature in his character is well illustrated, in his saying to the inhabitants of a village, "I would rather be first here, than second in Rome." His character is delineated by an eminent writer, in the following terms:-- "Such was the affection of his soldiers, and their attachment to his person, that they, who, under other commanders, were nothing above the common rate of men, became invincible when Cæsar's glory was concerned, and met the most dreadful dangers with a courage which nothing could resist. "This courage, and this great ambition, were cultivated and cherished, in the first place, by the generous manner in which Cæsar rewarded his troops, and the honors which he paid them. His whole conduct showed that he did not accumulate riches to minister to luxury, or to serve any pleasures of his own, but that he laid them up in a common stock, as prizes to be obtained by distinguished valor; and that he considered himself no farther rich, than as he was in a condition to do justice to the merit of his soldiers. Another thing that contributed to make them invincible, was their seeing Cæsar always take his share in the danger, and never desire any exemption from labor and fatigue. "As for his exposing his person to danger, they were not surprised at it, because they knew his passion for glory; but they were astonished at his patience under toil, so far, in all appearance, above his bodily powers; for he was of a slender make, fair, of a delicate constitution, and subject to violent headaches, and epileptic fits. He had the first attack of the falling sickness at Corduba. He did not, however, make these disorders a pretence for indulging himself. On the contrary, he sought in war a remedy for his infirmities, endeavoring to strengthen his constitution by long marches, by simple diet, by seldom coming under cover. Thus he contended against his distemper, and fortified himself against its attacks. "When he slept, it was commonly upon a march, either in a chariot or a litter, that rest might be no hindrance to business. In the daytime he visited the castles, cities, and fortified camps, with a servant at his side, and with a soldier behind, who carried his sword. "As a warrior and a general, we behold him not in the least inferior to the greatest and most admired commander the world ever produced; for, whether we compare him with the Fabii, the Scipios, the Metelli--with the generals of his own time, or those who flourished a little before him--with Sylla, Marius, the two Luculli, or with Pompey himself, whose fame in every military excellence, reached the skies, Cæsar's achievements bear away the palm. One he surpassed in the difficulty of the scene of action; another in the extent of the countries he subdued; this, in the number and strength of the enemies he overcame; that, in the savage manners and treacherous dispositions of the people he humanized; one, in mildness and clemency to his prisoners; another, in bounty and munificence to his troops; and all, in the number of battles that he won, and enemies that he killed. In less than ten years' war in Gaul, he took eight hundred cities by assault, conquered three hundred nations, and fought pitched battles, at different times, with three millions of men, one million of which he cut in pieces, and made another million prisoners." Such was Cæsar, one of the greatest, yet worst of men. It appears that after his death he was enrolled among the gods. It is evident that a people who looked upon such a being as divine, must have worshipped power, and not virtue; and that what we call vice and crime, were, in their view, compatible with divinity. [Illustration] [Illustration] HANNIBAL. This great man, a native of Carthage, and son of Hamilcar Barcas, was born 247 B. C. At this period, Rome and Carthage were rival powers and both seated upon the borders of the Mediterranean Sea. Rome had been in existence about five hundred years, and had already extended her conquests over Italy and a portion of Spain. She had not yet crossed the Alps, to conquer the more northern Gauls or Goths, but she was rapidly advancing in power; and, about a century after, Greece and Asia Minor fell before her. Already her proud eagle began to spread his wing, and whet his beak for conquest and slaughter. Rome was a nation of soldiers; and, paying little respect to commerce, manufactures and productive industry, she sought to enrich herself by robbing other countries--thus building herself up by the very means which the Goths and Vandals employed, seven hundred years after, for her destruction. Carthage was, in most respects, the opposite of Rome; her citizens were chiefly devoted to commerce and manufactures. The Mediterranean was dotted over with her vessels, and she had numerous colonies in Spain and along the coasts of Africa. The city of Rome was the centre of the republic and the seat of government. Here all the laws were enacted; here all the military movements and other affairs of state were decided upon. The city was at this time nearly twenty miles in circuit, and defended by a triple range of walls. The number of its inhabitants was several millions. Carthage was also a vast city, situated in Africa, about four hundred miles south-west of Rome, the Mediterranean Sea lying between them. It originated with a small colony of people from Tyre, a maritime city in Syria, about a hundred years before Rome was founded by Romulus. It increased rapidly, and became a flourishing place. The city exercised dominion over the whole country around. Its government was a mixture of aristocracy and democracy; the chief men ruling on all ordinary occasions, but sometimes consulting the people. The Carthaginians were an industrious nation and appear to have had no taste or leisure for the gladiator fights, the shows of wild beasts, the theatrical exhibitions and other amusements, that excited such deep interest among the idle and dissipated Romans. They were, in many respects, exemplary in their morals--even abstinence from wine being required of the magistrates while in office. Their religion, however, was a gloomy superstition, and their punishments were cruel. They even sacrificed children to their gods, in the earlier periods of their history. Though chiefly addicted to commerce, the Carthaginians paid great attention to agriculture. The rich men laid out their surplus money in cultivating the lands; and in the time of Hannibal, the whole extent of country around Carthage, which was the territory now called Tunis, was covered with vast herds of the finest cattle, fields waving with corn, vineyards and olive grounds. There were a multitude of small villages scattered over the country; near to the great city, the whole landscape was studded with the splendid villas of the rich citizens. To such a pitch was the art of agriculture carried, that one Mago wrote twenty-eight books upon the subject. These were carried to Rome, after the conquest of Carthage, and greatly increased the knowledge and skill of the Romans, in the science of husbandry. It was at a period when these two great powers had already extended themselves so far as to come in frequent collision, that Hannibal was born. His father was a general, who had served in Spain and fought against the Romans in the first Punic war. His mind was filled with hatred of that nation; and while Hannibal was yet a boy of nine years old, and about to accompany his father in his Spanish campaigns, he caused him to kneel before the altar, and swear eternal hatred to the Romans. Asdrubal, the brother of Hamilcar, succeeded, at the death of the latter, to the command of the Carthaginian army in Spain; at his death, Hannibal, now twenty-one years old, was made general of the whole army, as well by the acclamations of the soldiers, as the decree of the Carthaginian senate. He immediately marched against various barbarous tribes in Spain, yet unsubdued, and quickly reduced them to submission. During the first Punic war, Carthage had lost her finest colonies--the island of Sicily, as well as the Lipari isles--all of which had fallen into the hands of Rome. She had now recovered from the losses of that war, and Hannibal determined to revenge the injuries Rome had inflicted upon his country. Accordingly, he laid siege to Saguntum, in Spain, a large city subject to Rome, and situated on the Mediterranean, near the present town of Valencia. Faithful to their alliance, and expecting succors from Rome, the people made the most determined resistance for eight months. They were at last reduced to such fearful extremity for food, that they killed their infant children and fed upon their blood and flesh. Filled with a horrid despair, they finally erected an immense pile of wood, and setting it on fire, the men first hurled their women, slaves and treasures into the blaze, and then plunged into it themselves. Hannibal now entered the city, but, instead of finding rich spoils, he only witnessed a heap of ashes. The solitude of that scene might have touched even a warrior's heart. The present town of Murviedo, the site of the ancient Saguntum and the witness of these horrid scenes, still abounds in remains of Roman architecture. The second Punic war was begun by these proceedings against Saguntum. Hannibal, who had determined upon the invasion of Italy, spent the winter in making his preparations. Leaving a large force in Africa, and also in Spain, to defend these points, he set out, in the spring of the year 218, with eighty thousand foot and twelve thousand horse, to fulfil his project. His course lay along the Mediterranean; the whole distance to Rome being about one thousand miles by the land route which he contemplated. When he had traversed Spain, he came to the Pyrenees, a range of mountains separating that country from Gaul, now France. Here he was attacked by wild tribes of brave barbarians, but he easily drove them back. He crossed the Pyrenees, traversed Gaul, and came at last to the Alps, which threw up their frowning battlements, interposing a formidable obstacle between him and the object of his expedition. No warrior had then crossed these snowy peaks with such an army; and none but a man of that degree of resolution and self-relience which will not be baffled, would have hazarded the fearful enterprise. Napoleon accomplished the task, two thousand years afterwards, but with infinitely greater facilities. Hannibal, after a march of five months, descended the southern slopes of the Alps, and poured down upon the soft and smiling plains of Italy. The northern portion, called Cisalpine Gaul, was peopled with Gothic tribes, long settled in the country. They were desirous, however, of throwing off the Roman yoke, and therefore favored the Carthaginian cause. Hannibal, whose army had been greatly reduced in his march, especially in crossing the Alps, remained among some of these people for a time, to recruit, and then proceeded southward toward Rome. On the banks of the river Tessino he was met by a Roman army despatched against him; but, after a bloody conflict, he was victorious. In a few weeks he again encountered the Romans, and again he triumphed. Thus, the whole of Cisalpine Gaul fell into his hands, and these people, relieved from the presence of the Roman army, aided him freely with every kind of supplies. Rome now presented a scene of the greatest activity. She was not yet softened by luxuries, or corrupted by indulgence; she did not, therefore, yield to fear, as in after days, when the wild leaders of the north poured down from the Alps, like an avalanche. She was alarmed, but yet she met the emergency with courage and resolution. Every artisan in the city was busy in preparation; the senate were revolving deep schemes; generals held councils of war; soldiers were recruited and trained; the people ran to and fro in the streets, telling the last news, and recounting some marvellous legend of the Carthaginians and their dreaded leader. All was bustle and preparation. When the spring of the year 217 B. C. arrived, two Roman armies took the field; one under the consul Flaminius, and the other under the consul Servilius. Hannibal first marched against Flaminius, but in passing the swamps of the river Arno, his army suffered greatly, and he himself lost one of his eyes. Soon after this, Flaminius, who was a rash and headstrong man, came up with him on the banks of the lake Trasimenus, and gave the Carthaginians battle. Here, again, the genius of Hannibal triumphed. The conflict was dreadful, and the water of the lake where the armies met, was red with blood. But the Romans were totally defeated. After this event, a famous general, Quintus Fabius Maximus, was appointed dictator of Rome, and, under his direction, a new policy was adopted. Instead of sending armies to act offensively against Hannibal at a distance, the defensive system of warfare was rigidly observed. This prudent course, adopted by Fabius, has given a signification to his name; the _Fabian_ policy being a term which is used as synonymous with _prudent_ policy. It is thought that Washington, in our revolutionary war, imitated this great Roman general. But the successes of Hannibal and the disasters of Rome, had not yet ended. In the year 216, another battle was determined upon, and Hannibal met the enemy at Cannæ, near the present city of Naples. Here, again, the Romans were defeated with dreadful slaughter. Not less than forty thousand of their soldiers were slain. To this day, the relics of the fight are ploughed up from the ground, and the spot where the battle took place, is called the "field of blood." If the red stain has long since vanished from the soil, time cannot wash out the bloody record from the memory of man. Beside this fearful carnage, ten thousand Roman soldiers were taken prisoners. The Carthaginian loss was small. We can only account for such events as these, by the supposition that Hannibal, whose army was scarcely half as large as that of the Romans, was a man greatly superior in capacity even to the able and practised generals of Rome, who were sent against him. Nothing in modern times has been witnessed, to compare with his achievements, except those of Napoleon, operating in the same countries, and also contending against disciplined troops and generals long practised in the military art. The whole of lower Italy was now in the possession of Hannibal. He had entered the country by the north, and, having passed Rome, was in the southern portion of the peninsula. It would seem that he was now near the consummation of his wishes, and that the imperial city must fall before him; but such was not the event. A defensive system was still observed, and the city being too formidable for attack, Hannibal was obliged to look around for aid. He applied to Philip of Macedon and the Syracusans, but the Romans contrived to keep both occupied at home. Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, had charge of the Carthaginian forces in Spain, where he conducted the war with ability. In a great battle, he defeated the Romans; and two generals, by the name of Scipio, fell. Another Scipio was sent thither, and he soon recovered in Spain what the Romans had lost there. Hasdrubal now left that country to join his brother, and, crossing the Alps without opposition, reached Italy. Before he could effect the junction he desired, he was met by the Roman forces, his army cut to pieces and he himself slain. Hannibal was now obliged to act on the defensive. Yet he continued to sustain himself here for a series of years without calling upon Carthage for supplies. Scipio, having finished the war in Spain, now transported his army across the Mediterranean: thus _carrying the war into Africa_, and giving rise to an expression still in vogue, and significant of effective retaliation. By the aid of Massinissa, a powerful prince of Numidia, now Morocco, he gained two victories over the Carthaginians, who were obliged hastily to recall their great commander from Italy. He landed at Leptis, and advanced near Zama, five days' journey to the west of Carthage. Here he met the Roman forces, and here, for the first time, he suffered a total defeat. The loss of the Carthaginians was immense, and they were obliged to sue for peace. This was granted on humiliating terms by Scipio, called Africanus, after this victory. Hannibal would still have resisted, but he was compelled by his countrymen to submit. Thus ended the second Punic war, 200 B. C, having continued about eighteen years. Hannibal now applied himself to the reform of abuses in the government of Carthage. In this he was supported by the people, but he incurred the dislike of certain leading men among his countrymen. These, insensible to his great services, and only guided by their jealousy, sent to the Roman authorities certain representations, calculated to excite their suspicion and arouse their anger against him. Ambassadors were accordingly sent to Carthage, to demand his punishment; but Hannibal, foreseeing the storm, fled to Tyre. From this place he went to Ephesus, and induced Antiochus to declare war against Rome, B. C. 196. He had himself but a subordinate command, and when the war, which proved unfortunate, was over, he was compelled to depart, and seek a refuge with Prusias, prince of Bithynia, in Asia Minor. The Romans, being uneasy so long as their formidable enemy was alive, sent to Prusias to demand that he should be given up. Hannibal, now driven to extremity, and sick of life, destroyed himself by poison, B. C. 183, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. We have no accounts of this wonderful man except from his enemies, the Romans, and nothing from them but his public career. Prejudiced as are these sources of evidence, they still exhibit him as one of the most extraordinary men that has ever lived. Many of the events of his life remind us of the career of Napoleon. Like him, he crossed the Alps with a great army; like him, he was repeatedly victorious over disciplined and powerful forces in Italy; like him, he was finally overwhelmed in a great battle; like him, he was a statesman as well as a general; like him, he was the idol of the army; like him, he was finally driven from his country and died in exile. No one achievement of Bonaparte's life was equal to that of Hannibal in crossing the Alps, if we consider the difficulties he had to encounter; nor has anything in generalship surpassed the ability he displayed in sustaining himself and his army, for sixteen years, in Italy, in the face of Rome, and without asking for assistance from his own country. During this whole period he never once dismissed his forces, and though they were composed of Africans, Spaniards, Gauls, Carthaginians and Greeks--persons of different laws, languages and habits--never was anything like mutiny displayed among them. How wonderful was the genius that held such a vast number of persons--the fiery spirits of so many different nations--subject to one will, and obedient to one authority! Where can we look for evidence of talent superior to this? We cannot doubt that Hannibal, in addition to his great mind, possessed those personal qualifications, which enabled him to exercise powers of fascination over all those persons who came into his presence; and that, in this respect too, he bore a resemblance to Napoleon. We may not approve, yet we can hardly fail to admire, the unflinching hostility of Hannibal to Rome. He had been taught this in his childhood; it came with the first lessons of life, and from the lips of a father; he had sworn it at the altar. Rome was the great enemy of his country; and as he loved the last, he must hate the first. His duty, his destiny, might serve to impel him to wage uncompromising war against Rome; for this he lived--for this, at last, he died. Nor can we believe that this sentiment, which formed the chief spring of his actions, was unmixed with patriotism. Indeed, this was doubtless at its very root. It was for the eclipse that she cast over Carthage, that he would annihilate Rome. It was from a conviction that one of these great powers must give way to the other--that the existence of Rome boded destruction to Carthage--that he waged uncompromising and deadly war upon the former. That Hannibal was patriotic, is evinced also by the reforms which he sought to effect in the government of his country. These had for their object the benefit of the people at large. For this, he obtained the confidence of the mass, while he incurred the hostility of the few. It is no evidence against him that he fell a victim to the jealousy thus excited, for such has too often been the fate of the lover of his country. [Illustration] [Illustration] ALEXANDER, KING OF MACEDON. It is now somewhat more than two thousand years since this warrior flourished; yet his image continues to stand out from the page of history in bold relief, seeming not only to claim our attention, but to challenge our admiration. A brief outline of his history may enable us to judge upon what basis this undying fame is founded. Alexander was born 354 B. C., on the same day that Erostratus destroyed the famous temple of Diana at Ephesus, by fire. A wit of the time remarked that "it was no wonder that the temple of Diana should be burnt at Ephesus, while the goddess was at Macedon, attending the birth of Alexander." Plutarch observes that this witticism was frigid enough to have extinguished the flames. Philip, Alexander's father, being absent at the time of his birth, received three messages in one day: the first informed him that his general, Parmenio, had won a great battle; the second, that his horse had gained the prize at the Olympic games; the third, that his wife had borne him a son. At the time of Alexander's birth, Macedonia, which lay north of Greece, and now constitutes that part of Turkey called Romelia, had become a warlike and powerful kingdom. Philip was not only an able warrior, but an ambitious and sagacious statesman. He greatly civilized his own people, trained them to arms, and added to his kingdom several adjacent states. By a series of victories and crafty negotiations he had also become the nominal protector, but real master of Greece. It was against the insidious policy of Philip that Demosthenes pronounced his caustic speeches, which gave rise to the term "Philippics." Although Philip was ruthless in war and unscrupulous in policy, still he was a very enlightened prince. He understood many of the arts, customs and feelings which belong to civilization; nor was he destitute of noble traits of character. We are told that a Grecian, named Arcadius, was constantly railing against him. Venturing once into the dominions of Philip, the courtiers suggested to their prince that he had now an opportunity to punish Arcadius for his past insults, and to put it out of his power to repeat them. The king took their advice, but in a different way. Instead of seizing the hostile stranger and putting him to death, he sent for him, and then caused him to be dismissed, loaded with courtesies and kindness. Some time after Arcadius' departure from Macedon, word was brought that the king's old enemy had become one of his warmest friends, and did nothing but diffuse his praises wherever he went. On hearing this, Philip turned to his courtiers, and said with a smile, "Am not I a better physician than you are?" We are also told of numerous instances in which Philip treated his prisoners of war with a kindness quite unusual in the barbarous age in which he lived. Though dissolute in private life, as a prince he was far in advance of his nation in all that belongs to civilization. No better evidence of his enlightened views can be required than is afforded by the pains he bestowed upon the education of Alexander, his eldest son, and heir to his throne. He obtained for him the best masters, and finally placed him under the care of Aristotle, then the most learned and famous philosopher of Greece, and one of the most extraordinary men that ever lived. It cannot but be interesting and instructive to trace the history of the greatest warrior, who was, at the same time, the pupil of the greatest philosopher, of antiquity. Alexander was an apt and attentive student, and easily mastered the studies to which he applied. He was somewhat headstrong if treated with harshness, and he resisted, if an attempt was made to drive him. He, however, was docile and obedient when treated gently. It would seem, that, in this at least, he was very much like the clever boys of our own day. He mastered not only matters of science, but polite literature also. He was greatly delighted with Homer's Iliad, and, it is thought, modelled himself upon the warlike heroes of that poem. In after days, even in his campaigns, he took a copy of this work with him, and in the camp, read it at moments of leisure, and slept with it at night beneath his pillow. Alexander was greatly attached to Aristotle during his pupilage, though he changed both in feeling and conduct towards him afterwards. Philip seems to have formed a high estimate of the services rendered by Aristotle. The latter being born at Stagira--and hence called the Stagirite--which had been dismantled, Philip ordered it, in compliment to the philosopher, to be rebuilt, and re-established there the inhabitants which had either fled or been reduced to slavery. He also ordered a beautiful promenade, called Mirza, to be prepared on the borders of the river, for the studies and literary conversation of the people. Here were shown, even in the time of Plutarch, Aristotle's stone seats and shady walks. It is interesting to remark here, that both Philip and Alexander, powerful sovereigns and men of great minds, were yet inferior, in what constitutes greatness, to Aristotle. They treated him, indeed, as their inferior--an object of their patronage; and it is also true, that both Philip and Alexander are remembered at the present day; but the consequences of their actions ceased ages ago. Not so with Aristotle: his books being preserved, have come down to our times, and for two thousand years have been constantly exercising a powerful influence over mankind. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the schoolmaster is infinitely above the prince; the one lives for a generation, the other for all time; the one deals with external things which perish; the other with knowledge, science--principles--which never die. The one is a being of action, the other of mind; the one may be great for a brief space in the eye of vulgar observation, but he is soon quenched in utter oblivion; the other, though his body be dead, still lives by the power of the spirit. It is desirable to impress this truth on our hearts, for it shows that true glory lies in cultivating and exercising the mind; while, in comparison, it is a poor and mean ambition, which incites us to seek only worldly power or wealth or station. At an early period, Alexander displayed noble qualities, amid some vices. He was exceedingly ambitious, and when news came that his father had taken some strong town, or won some great battle, "My father will conquer," he exclaimed impatiently "the whole world, and will leave nothing for me to conquer." Though in the light of our Christian philosophy, nothing more wicked than the feelings here displayed could exist, still it accorded with the education he had received, and was an earnest of that love of war and conquest which signalized his after career. It may be stated, also, that Alexander did not value riches or pleasure, in his youth, but seemed to be always excited by a love of glory; he did not desire a kingdom that should afford him opulence and the means of luxury, but one that would bring wars and conflicts, and the full exercise of ambition. A sad portrait this, viewed in the light of our day--yet the very description of a hero, and almost of a god, in the age and country in which he lived. When Alexander was about twelve years old, a horse was brought for sale from Thessaly called Bucephalus. The price required was about £2,500 sterling, or $12,000. Yet when any one attempted to mount him, he became restive and unmanageable. Philip was incensed that such a price should be asked for so vicious a beast, but Alexander had observed him carefully, and saw that he was indeed a noble creature. He therefore wished to try him. His father rebuked him sharply, but the prince persevered, and desired to mount the horse. "If you are not able to ride him upon trial," said Philip, "what forfeit will you pay?" "The price of the horse," said Alexander. This produced a laugh rather at Alexander's expense--but the forfeit was agreed upon, and he ran to the horse. He had observed that he was startled at his shadow, the sun shining very brightly; so he turned his head to the sun, leaped lightly upon his back, obtained a firm seat, and gave the animal the rein. The noble beast felt, with that quick intelligence of which his race is capable, that one worthy to be his master was on his back, and set forward. Finding him inclined to run, Alexander, nothing daunted, but with a spirit as wild and fearless as his own, and no doubt with a bounding and joyous sympathy, gave him the spur, and made him fly over the plain. Philip and all his courtiers around him were greatly frightened at first, but soon Alexander wheeled Bucephalus about, and rode him back to the place from which he started. The animal was completely subdued; yet there was something in his proud look, as he now stood still before the admiring throng, which seemed to say, "I yielded, but only to one worthy of being a conqueror." Alexander was received by a shout of acclamation--but Philip was overcome by the noble chivalry of his boy, and wept in very joy. "Seek another kingdom, my son!" said he, in the fulness of his heart, "for Macedon is too small for thee!" Such was the value in those days set upon personal gallantry and courage; and we know that these qualities are of the utmost importance, when hard blows usually decide the fate of empires. Everything seemed to show that Alexander had very early acted under the idea of being a king, and of pursuing, in that character, a career of conquest. No doubt all around him, the courtiers, his father and mother, and his teachers had thus trained him, and no doubt all this coincided with his natural turn of mind. He not only showed personal courage, but a precocious desire of practical knowledge. When less than twelve years of age, ambassadors came to visit the court of Macedon from Persia. Philip was absent, and Alexander therefore received them with great politeness, and a sobriety quite astonishing. He asked no trifling or childish questions; but made a great many inquiries about the roads to Persia; the distance from place to place; the situation of certain provinces; the character of their king; how he treated his enemies; in what the power of Persia lay, &c. All this astonished the ambassadors, who, in their excitement, exclaimed, "The boasted sagacity of Philip is nothing to the lofty and enterprising genius of his son!" Such, indeed, were the striking qualities of young Alexander, that the people of Macedon, in their admiration, called the youth king, and his father only general! Philip was pleased with all this, but as Alexander grew older, troubles sprung up between them. Olympias, the mother of Alexander, was a woman of fierce and restive temper, and she was justly incensed by a foolish marriage which Philip made with a young lady, named Cleopatra. At the celebration of this union there was great festivity, and the king got drunk. Alexander's mind, having been poisoned by his mother, was in such a state of irritation, that he spoke rudely at the feast. Philip drew his sword, but his passion and the wine he had drunk, caused him to stumble, and he fell upon the floor. "See," said Alexander, insolently--"men of Macedon, see there the man who was preparing to pass from Europe into Asia! He is not able to pass from one table to another!" After this insult, he left the table, and taking his mother, they repaired to Epirus. Here they spent some time, but Philip at last induced them to come back. Other troubles, however, arose, and finally king Philip was slain by Pausanius, whom he had injured. Olympias was thought to have incited the young man to this desperate act, and suspicion of participation fell upon Alexander. The latter, now twenty years of age, succeeded to his father's throne. His dominion extended over Macedon and the adjacent tribes to the north, including nearly the whole of that territory which now forms a part of Turkey, and lies between Greece, and the Argentaro mountains. Macedonia itself, was far less civilized than the southern parts of Greece: the people were, indeed, men of a different race, being esteemed barbarous, though the kings claimed to have been of Hellenic origin, and even to trace their lineage to Achilles and Hercules. The nation was much softened in its manners by the wise administration of Philip, while, at the same time, they were carefully trained in the art of war. The surrounding tribes, still more savage than his own people, and often giving exercise to his arms, still served to fill his ranks with the most daring and powerful soldiery. Greece, too, constituted a part of the kingdom now left to the youthful Alexander. But his father had only conquered, not consolidated into one empire, his vast dominions. Upon his death, the barbarians on the north, and the states of Greece at the south, feeling themselves liberated from a tyrant, and little fearing a youth of twenty, either revolted or showed a disposition to revolt. Alexander's advisers recommended him to give up Greece, and seek only to subdue the barbarous tribes around him, and to do this by mild measures. Such a course did not suit the young king. He took the opposite course; marched north as far as the Danube, defeating his principal enemy, and thus securing submission to his authority in that quarter. He then pushed southward, and fell upon the restive Thebans, destroying their city, and reducing the place to a mere heap of ghastly ruins! No less than six thousand of the inhabitants were slain in battle, and three thousand were sold as slaves! In the midst of the horrors which took place immediately after Thebes was taken--fire and the sword, slaughter, rapine, violence, raging on all sides--a party of savage Thracians, belonging to Alexander's army, demolished the house of Timoclea, a woman of high standing and quality. Having carried off the booty found in her house, and shamefully abused the lady, the captain asked her if she had not some gold and silver concealed. She replied that she had--and taking him alone into the garden, showed him a well, in which she said she had thrown everything of value when the city was taken. The officer stooped to look into the well, when the lady pushed him down, and rolling stones down upon him, soon despatched him. The Thracians, coming up, found what she had done, and, binding her hands, took her to Alexander. When he asked her who she was--"A sister of Theagenes," said she, proudly and fearlessly,--"a Theban general, who fought for the liberty of Greece, against the usurpation of Philip--and fell gloriously at the battle of Cheronæa!" Alexander was so much struck by her noble mien and patriotic sentiments, that he caused her and her children to be set at liberty. Such are the few rays of light, that flash across the dark path of the conqueror! Greece was soon brought to a state of submission and, as Alexander now contemplated an expedition against Darius, king of Persia, the several states, having held an assembly at Corinth, concluded to furnish their quota of supplies. Many statesmen and philosophers came to Corinth, where Alexander was to congratulate him upon this result; but the king was disappointed to find that Diogenes, the cynic philosopher, was not among the number. As he desired greatly to see him, he went to his residence in the suburbs of the city, to pay him a visit. He found the philosopher, basking in the sun; at the approach of so many people, he carelessly roused himself a little, and happened to fix his eyes on Alexander--"Is there anything," said the king, condescendingly--"in which I can serve you?"--"Only stand a little out of my sunshine," said Diogenes. This answer produced a laugh among the crowd, who thought it mere vulgarity; but Alexander saw deeper, and, reflecting upon that superiority, which could regard even his presence without surprise, and look with disdain upon his gifts, remarked, "that if he were not Alexander, he would wish to be Diogenes." Alexander set out, in the spring of the year 334 B. C., upon his expedition against Persia--from which, however, he never returned. He had thirty thousand foot, and five thousand horse, and a supply of money. His troops were well armed, the infantry bearing shields, spears, and battle-axes of iron; the horse were equipped with similar weapons, but defended with helmets and breastplates. The officers all bore swords. The arms of the Persians were similar, though many of their troops used the bow: the forces of Alexander were, however, better provided, better trained, and far more athletic than their Asiatic enemies. We must pause a moment to look at that mighty power which had now swallowed up Assyria, Babylon, and the countries from the Grecian Archipelago on the west, to India on the east; an extent of territory nearly three thousand miles in length, and comprehending at once the most fertile and populous region on the face of the globe. Such were the power and resources of the Persian empire, that, about one hundred and fifty years prior to the date of which we are speaking, it had sent an army, with its attendants, of five millions of persons, to conquer that very Greece, which was now preparing to roll back the tide of war, and put a final period to its proud existence. The reigning king of Persia was Darius III., a weak but conceited monarch, who held his court at the splendid city of Persepolis, which had long been the capital of the empire. His situation was very similar to that of the sultan of Turkey at the present day. The Persians, though their king ruled over almost countless nations, were comparatively few in number. His revenue was derived from the tribute of dependent princes, and the extortions made by his own satraps or governors. His empire, consisting of so many nations, required constant watchfulness, to keep all parts in subjection; and as the Asiatic troops were inferior, he kept in his pay, at all times, a considerable number of renegade Greeks, as soldiers. Being made aware of the design of Alexander, Darius sent a vast army westward, and marching into Syria himself, determined there to await his enemy. Alexander crossed the Propontis, now Sea of Marmora, which immediately brought him into Asia Minor, and the dominions of Persia. As soon as he landed, he went to Ilium, the scene of the Trojan war, and the ten years' siege of Troy, celebrated in the Iliad. He anointed the pillar upon Achilles' tomb with oil--and he and his friends ran naked around it, according to the custom which then prevailed. He also adorned it with a wreath, in the form of a crown. These ceremonies are supposed to have been intended to enforce the belief that he was descended from Achilles--a claim which he always maintained. Meantime, the Persian generals had pushed forward and posted themselves upon the banks of the Granicus, a small river now called Ousvola, which empties into the sea of Marmora. Alexander led the attack upon them by plunging into the river with his horse. He advanced, with thirteen of his troop, in the face of a cloud of arrows; and though swept down by the rapidity of the current, and opposed by steep banks lined with cavalry, he forced his way, by irresistible strength and impetuosity, across the stream. Standing upon the muddy slope, his troops were now obliged to sustain a furious attack, hand to hand, and eye to eye. The Persian troops, cheered by their vantage ground, pushed on with terrific shouts, and hurled their javelins, like snow-flakes, upon the Macedonians. Alexander, being himself distinguished by his buckler and crest, decorated with white plumes, was the special object of attack. His cuirass was pierced by a javelin, at the joint; but thus far he was unhurt. Now he was assailed by two chiefs of great distinction. Evading one, he engaged the other; after a desperate struggle, in which his crest was shorn away, and his helmet cleft to his hair, he slew one of the chiefs, and was saved, at the moment of deadly peril, by the hand of his friend Clytus, who despatched the other. While Alexander's cavalry were fighting with the utmost fury, the Macedonian phalanx and the infantry crossed the river, and now engaged the enemy. The effect of a leader's example was never more displayed. Alexander's exhibition of courage and prowess, made every soldier a hero. They fought, indeed, like persons who knew nothing, and cared for nothing, but to destroy the enemy. Some of the Persians gave way and fled. Their hireling Greeks, however, maintained the fight, and Alexander's horse was killed under him--but not Bucephalus. "When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war." The fight was, indeed, severe, but at last Alexander triumphed. The victory was complete. The loss of the Persians was twenty-five thousand slain; that of the Macedonians less than fifty. Alexander had now passed the gates of Asia, and had obtained entrance into the dominions of the enemy. He paused for a time to pay the last honors to the dead. To each, he erected a statue of brass, executed by Lysippus. Upon the arms which were taken and distributed among the troops, he caused this inscription to be made:--"Won by Alexander, of the barbarians in Asia!" We may pause here to note that Bonaparte seems to have imitated the Macedonian conqueror in this kind of boasting. As he was on his march to Russia, he caused to be graven on a stone fountain at Coblentz upon the Rhine, as follows: "Year MDCCCXII. _Memorable for the campaign against Russia._ 1812." The Russian commander, when Napoleon had been dethroned, passing through Coblentz with his troops, caused to be carved, immediately beneath as follows: "_Seen and approved by the Russian commander of the town of Coblentz, January 1, 1814._" It is true that no such speedy retort awaited the Macedonian conqueror, yet he was bound upon an errand which was ere long to put a period to his proud career. Alexander soon pushed on to the East, and, meeting Darius near the Gulf of Issus, now Aias, and forming the north-eastern point of the Mediterranean, a tremendous engagement took place. Darius was defeated, and more than one hundred thousand of his soldiers lay dead on the field. Darius escaped with difficulty, leaving his tent, and even his wife and daughter, in the hands of the enemy. When the fighting was over, Alexander went to see the tent of Darius. It was, indeed, a curiosity to one like the Macedonian king, little acquainted with eastern refinements. He gazed for a time at the luxurious baths of Darius; his vases, boxes, vials and basins, all of wrought gold; he inhaled the luscious perfumes, and surveyed the rich silk drapery and gorgeous furniture of the tent--and then exclaimed, contemptuously--"This, then, it seems, is to be a king,"--intimating that if these were the only distinctions of a king, the title deserved contempt. While Alexander was thus occupied, he was told that the wife and daughter of Darius were his captives. The queen was one of the loveliest women that was ever known, and his daughter was also exceedingly beautiful. Though Alexander was told all this, he sent word to the afflicted ladies that they need have no fear; and he caused them to be treated with the utmost delicacy and attention. He refrained from using his power in any way to their annoyance; and thus displayed one of the noblest graces of a gentleman and a man--a nice regard for the feelings of the gentler sex. This anecdote of the conqueror has shed more honor upon his name for two thousand years, than the victory of the Issus; nor will it cease to be cited in his praise, as long as history records his name. The historians represent Alexander as simple in his tastes and habits at this period. He was temperate in eating, drank wine with great moderation, and if he sat long at table, it was for the purpose of conversation, in which he excelled, though given to boasting of his military exploits. When business called, nothing could detain him; but in times of leisure, his first business in the morning was to sacrifice to the gods. He then took his dinner, sitting. The rest of the day he spent in hunting, or deciding differences among his troops, or in reading and writing. Sometimes he would exercise himself in shooting or darting the javelin, or in mounting and alighting from a chariot in full career. Sometimes, also, he diverted himself with fowling and fox-hunting. His chief meal was supper, which he took at evening, and in a recumbent posture, with his friends around him. He was not fond of delicacies and though they were always found at his table, he usually sent them to others. Such was Alexander during the early periods of his campaigns in Asia. After various operations, Alexander marched against Phoenicia and Sidon, which submitted at once. Tyre resisted, but, after a siege of seven months, was taken by storm. Eight thousand Tyrians fell in the onslaught, and thirty thousand captives were sold into slavery. Gaza was now taken, after a siege of two months. Alexander then marched to Jerusalem, to punish the inhabitants for refusing to supply him with men and money. The high priest, Jaddus, went forth to meet the conqueror, attended by the priests and the people, with all the imposing emblems and signs of the Jewish religion. Alexander was so struck with the spectacle, that he pardoned the people, adored the name of the Most High, and performed sacrifices in the temple, according to the instructions of Jaddus. The book of the prophet Daniel was shown to him, and the passage pointed out in which it was foretold that the king of Grecia would overcome the king of Persia, with which he was well pleased. The conqueror now turned his arms against Egypt, which yielded without striking a blow. Having established the government on a liberal footing, he set out, A. D. 331, to attack the Persian king, who had gathered an army of a million of men, and was now in Persia. About this time, he received a letter from Darius, in which that prince proposed, on condition of a pacification and future friendship, to pay him ten thousand talents in ransom of his prisoners, to cede him all the countries on this side the Euphrates, and to give him his daughter in marriage. Upon his communicating these proposals to his friends, Parmenio said, "If I were Alexander, I would accept them." "So would I," said Alexander, "if I were Parmenio." The answer he gave Darius, was, "that if he would come to him, he should find the best of treatment; if not, he must go and seek him." In consequence of this declaration, he began his march; but he repented that he had set out so soon, when he received information that the wife of Darius was dead. That princess died in childbed; and the concern of Alexander was great, because he lost an opportunity of exercising his clemency. All he could do was to return, and bury her with the utmost magnificence. Alexander, having subdued various places that held out against him, now proceeded in his march against Darius. He found him with his immense army encamped on the banks of the Bumadus, a small river in what is now called Kourdistan. Alexander immediately approached, and prepared for battle. Being near the enemy at night, the murmur of the immense multitude, seeming like the roaring of the sea, startled one of Alexander's friends, who advised him to attack them in the night. The reply was, "I will not steal a victory!" During that night, though it was foreseen that a dreadful and doubtful battle was to be fought the next day, Alexander, having made his preparations, slept soundly. In the morning, on the field, he wore a short coat, girt close about him; over that, a breast plate of linen strongly quilted, which he had taken in the battle of the Issus. His helmet was of polished iron, and shone like silver. To this was fixed a gorget, set with precious stones. His sword was light, and of the finest temper. The belt he wore was superb and was given him by the Rhodians, as a mark of respect. In reviewing and exercising, he spared Bucephalus, but he rode him in battle, and when he mounted his back it was always a signal for the onset. Aristander, the soothsayer, rode by the side of Alexander, in a white robe, and with a golden crown upon his head. He looked up, and lo, an eagle was sailing over the army! His course was towards the enemy. The army caught sight of the noble bird, and, taking it for a good omen, they now charged the enemy like a torrent. They were bravely resisted, but Alexander and his troops burst down upon them like an overwhelming avalanche, cutting their way towards the tent of Darius. The path was impeded by the slaughtered heaps that gathered before them, and their horses were embarrassed by the mangled and dying soldiers, who clung to the legs of the animals, seeking in their last agonies to resist them. Darius, now in the utmost peril, turned to fly, but his chariot became entangled in the slain. Seeing this, he mounted a swift horse, and fled to Bactriana, where he was treacherously murdered by Bessus. Alexander was now declared king of all Asia, and, though this might seem the summit of his glory, it was the point at which his character begins to decline. He now affected the pomp of an eastern prince, and addicted himself to dissipation. He, however, continued his conquests. He marched to Babylon, which opened its gates for his reception. He proceeded to Persepolis, which he took by surprise. Here, in a drunken frolic, and instigated by an abandoned woman, named Thais, he set fire to the palace, which was burnt to the ground. He now marched into Parthia, and, meeting with a beautiful princess, named Roxana, daughter of a Bactrian king, he fell in love with her, and married her. Some time after this, upon some suspicion of the fidelity of Philotas, the son of Parmenio, he caused him to be put to the torture till he died. He then sent orders to have his father, an old and faithful soldier, who had fought under Philip, and who was now in Media, to be put to death, which were but too faithfully executed. This horrid transaction was soon followed by another, still more dreadful. Under the excitement of wine, a dispute arose between Alexander and Clytus, the brave officer who had saved his life at the battle of the Granicus. Both became greatly excited: taunts and gibes were uttered on either side. Alexander, unable longer to keep down his rage, threw an apple in the face of Clytus, and then looked about for his sword; but one of his friends had prudently taken it away. Clytus was now forced out of the room, but he soon came back, and repeated the words of Euripides, meaning to apply them to Alexander: "Are these your customs?--Is it thus that Greece Rewards her combatants? Shall one man claim The trophies won by thousands?" The conqueror was now wholly beside himself. He seized a spear from one of the guards, and, at a plunge, ran it through the body of Clytus, who fell dead, uttering a dismal groan as he expired. Alexander's rage subsided in a moment. Seeing his friends standing around in silent astonishment, he hastily drew out the spear, and was applying it to his own throat, when his guards seized him, and carried him by force to his chamber. Here the pangs of remorse stung him to the quick. Tears fell fast for a time, and then succeeded a moody, melancholy silence, only broken by groans. His friends attempted in vain to console him. It was not till after long and painful suffering, that he was restored to his wonted composure. Alexander now set out for the conquest of India, then a populous country, and the seat of immense wealth. After a series of splendid achievements, he reached the banks of the Hydaspes, a considerable stream that flows into the Indus. Here he was met by Porus, an Indian king, with an army, in which were a large number of elephants. A bloody battle followed, in which Alexander was victorious and Porus made captive. "How do you wish to be treated?" said Alexander to the unfortunate monarch. "Like a king," was the brief, but significant reply. Alexander granted his request, restored his dominions and much enlarged them, making him, however, one of his tributaries. The conqueror, not yet satisfied, wished to push on to the Ganges; but his army refusing to go farther, he was forced to return. On his way back, he paid a visit to the ocean, and, in a battle with some savage tribes, being severely wounded, he came near losing his life. On the borders of the sea, he and his companions first saw the ebbing and flowing of the tide,--a fact of which they were before entirely ignorant. In this expedition the army suffered greatly: when it set out for India, it consisted of 150.000 men: on its return, it was reduced to one fourth of that number. [Illustration] Coming to a fertile district, Alexander paused to recruit, and refresh his men. He then proceeded, keeping up a kind of bacchanalian fête, in which the whole army participated. His own chariot was drawn by eight horses: it consisted of a huge platform where he and his friends revelled, day and night. This carriage was followed by others, some covered with rich purple silk and others with fresh boughs. In these were the generals, crowned with flowers, and inebriated with wine. In the immense procession there was not a spear, helmet, or buckler, but in their places cups, flagons, and goblets. The whole country resounded with flutes, clarionets, and joyous songs. The scene was attended with the riotous dances and frolics of a multitude of women. This licentious march continued for seven days. When he arrived at Susa, in Persia, he married a great number of his friends to Persian ladies. He set the example by taking Statira, daughter of Darius, to himself, and gave her sister to Hephæstion, his dearest friend. He now made a nuptial feast for the newly-married people, and nine thousand persons sat down to the entertainment. Each one was honored with a golden cup. On his return to Babylon, Alexander determined to make that place his residence and capital, and set about various plans for carrying this into effect. But his mind seemed haunted with superstitious fears. Everything that happened was construed into an augury of evil. The court swarmed with sacrifices and soothsayers, but still, for a long time, peace could not be obtained by the monarch. At last he seemed to be relieved, and being asked by Medias to a carousal, he drank all day and all night, until he found a fever coming upon him. He then desisted, but it was too late. The disease increased, setting at defiance every attempt at remedy, and in the space of about thirty days he died. Such was the miserable end of Alexander the Great. His wife, Roxana, with the aid of Perdiccas, murdered Statira and her sister, and the empire of the mighty conqueror was divided between four of his officers. The great achievement of Alexander--the grand result of his life--was the subjugation of the Persian monarchy, which lay like an incubus upon the numerous nations that existed between the Indus and the Euxine sea, and at the same time intercepted the communication between Europe and Asia. It was an achievement far greater than it would be now to overthrow the Ottoman throne, and give independence to the various tribes and states that are at present under its dominion. That he accomplished this work for any good motive, we cannot maintain, for his whole course shows, that, like all other conquerors, his actions began and terminated in himself. The character of Alexander has been delineated in the course of this brief sketch. We have not been able to give the details of all his battles, marches, and countermarches. His achievements were indeed stupendous. He crossed the Propontis in 334, and died in 323. It was in the brief space of eleven years, and at the age of thirty-three, that he had accomplished the deeds of which we have given a naked outline. Nor was he a mere warrior. He displayed great talents as a statesman, and many of the traits of a gentleman. His whole life, indeed, was founded upon an atrocious wrong--that one man may sacrifice millions of lives for his own pleasure--but this was the error of the age. As before intimated, considered in the light of Christianity, he was a monster; yet, according to the heathen model, he was a hero, and almost a god. In seeking for the motives which impelled Alexander forward in his meteor-like career we shall see that it was the love of glory--an inspiration like that of the chase, in which the field is an empire, and the game a monarch. In this wild ambition, he was stimulated by the Iliad of Homer, and it was his darling dream to match the bloody deeds of its heroes--Ajax and Achilles. It is impossible to see in his conduct, anything which shows a regard to the permanent happiness of mankind. He makes war, as if might were the only test of right; and he sacrifices nations to his thirst of conquest, with as little question of the rectitude of his conduct, as is entertained by the lion when he slays the antelope, or the sportsman when he brings down his game. Although we see many noble traits in Alexander, the real selfishness of his character is evinced in his famous letter to Aristotle. The latter, having published some of his works, is sharply rebuked by the conqueror, who says to him--"Now that you have done this, what advantage have I, your pupil, over the rest of mankind, since you have put it in the power of others to possess the knowledge which before was only imparted to me!" What can be more narrow and selfish than this? Even the current standard of morals in Alexander's time, would condemn this as excessive meanness. We must not omit to record the last days of one that figures in Alexander's annals, and is hardly less famous than the conqueror himself--we mean his noble horse, Bucephalus. This animal, more renowned than any other of his race, died on the banks of the Hydaspes. Craterus was ordered to superintend the building of two cities, one on each side of this river. The object was to secure the passage in future. That on the left bank was named Nicæa, the other Bucephala, in honor of the favorite horse, which had expired in battle without a wound, being worn out by age, heat, and over-exertion. He was then thirty years old. He was a large, powerful, and spirited horse, and would allow no one but Alexander to mount him. From a mark of a bull's head imprinted on him, he derived his name, Bucephalus; though some say that he was so called in consequence of having in his forehead a white mark resembling a bull's head. Once this famous charger, whose duties were restricted to the field of battle, was intercepted, and fell into the hands of the Uxians. Alexander caused a proclamation to be made, that, if Bucephalus were not restored, he would wage a war of extirpation against the whole nation. The restoration of the animal instantly followed the receipt of this notification; so great was Alexander's regard for his horse and so great the terror of his name among the barbarians. "Thus far," writes Arrian, "let Bucephalus be honored by me, for the sake of his master." [Illustration] ARISTOTLE. This great philosopher was born at Stagira, or Stageira, in Macedonia, 384 B. C. His father, physician to Amyntas II., king of Macedonia, commenced the education of his son, intending to prepare him for his own profession; and the studies pursued by the latter with this object, doubtless laid the foundation for that lore of natural history, which he displayed through life, and which he cultivated with such success. Aristotle lost both his parents while he was still young. After their death, he was brought up under Proxenes, a citizen of Mysia, in Asia Minor, who had settled in Stagira. Aristotle testified his gratitude to Proxenes and his wife, by directing, in his will, that statues of them should be executed at his expense and set up as his parents. He also educated their son Nicanor, to whom he gave his daughter Pythias in marriage. In his eighteenth year, Aristotle left Stagira and went to Athens, the centre of letters and learning in Greece--doubtless attracted thither by the fame of the philosopher, Plato. It appears, however, that during the three first years of his residence there, Plato was absent on a visit to Sicily. There can be no doubt that Aristotle paid particular attention to anatomy and medicine, as appears both from his circumstances in youth, and what we know of his best writings. It is also probable, as is indicated by some statements of ancient writers, that for a space he practised, like Locke, the healing art; he must, however, from an early age, have devoted his whole time to the study of philosophy and the investigation of nature, and have abandoned all thoughts of an exclusively professional career. His eagerness for the acquisition of knowledge, and his extraordinary acuteness and sagacity, doubtless attracted Plato's attention at an early period; thus we are told that his master called him "the Intellect of the school," and his house, the "House of the reader;" that he said Aristotle required the curb, while Zenocrates, a fellow-disciple, required the spur; some of which traditions are probably true. We are likewise informed that when reading he used to hold a brazen ball in his hand over a basin, in order that, if he fell asleep, he might be awaked by the noise which it would make in falling. Although Aristotle did not during Plato's life, set up any school in opposition to him, as some writers have stated, he taught publicly in the art of rhetoric, and by this means became the rival of the celebrated Isocrates, whom he appears, notwithstanding his very advanced age, to have attacked with considerable violence, and to have treated with much contempt. Aristotle remained at Athens till Plato's death, 347 B. C., having at that time reached his thirty-seventh year. Many stories are preserved by the ancient compilers of anecdotes, respecting the enmity between Plato and Aristotle, caused by the ingratitude of the disciple, as well as by certain peculiarities of his character which were displeasing to the master. But these rumors appear to have no other foundation than the known variance between the opinions and the mental habits of the two philosophers; and particularly the opposition which Aristotle made to Plato's characteristic doctrine of ideas; whence it was inferred that there must have been an interruption of their friendly relations. The probability, however, is, that Aristotle, at whatever time he may have formed his philosophical opinions, had not published them in an authoritative shape, or entered into any public controversy, before his master's death. In his Nicomachean Ethics, moreover, which was probably one of his latest works, he says "that it is painful to him to refute the doctrine of ideas, as it had been introduced by persons who were his friends: nevertheless, that it is his duty to disregard such private feelings; for both philosophers and truth being dear to him, it is right to give the preference to truth." He is, likewise, stated to have erected an altar to his master inscribing on it that he was a man "whom the wicked ought not even to praise." After the death of Plato, Aristotle left Athens and went to live at the court of Hermeias, prince of Atarneus. He had resided here but three years, when Hermeias, falling into the hands of the Persians, was put to death. Aristotle took refuge in Mytilene, the chief city of Lesbos. Here he married Pythias, sister of Hermeias, and who, being exposed to persecution from the Persians, now coming into power there, he saved by a rapid flight. For the patriotic and philosophical prince Hermeias, Aristotle entertained a fervent and deep affection, and he dedicated to his memory a beautiful poem, which is still extant. On account of the admiration he expresses of his friend, he was afterwards absurdly charged with impiety in deifying a mortal. In the year 356 B. C., Philip of Macedon wrote a famous letter to Aristotle, as follows: "King Philip of Macedon, to Aristotle, greeting. Know that a son has been born to me. I thank the gods, not so much that they have given him to me, as that they have permitted him to be born in the time of Aristotle. I hope that thou wilt form him to be a king worthy to succeed me, and to rule the Macedonians." In the year 342 B. C., Aristotle was invited by Philip to take charge of the education of his son, Alexander, then fourteen years old. This charge was accepted, and Alexander was under his care three or four years. The particulars of his method of instruction are not known to us; but when we see the greatness of mind that Alexander displayed in the first years of his reign,--his command of his passions till flattery had corrupted him, and his regard for the arts and sciences,--we cannot but think that his education was judiciously conducted. It may be objected that Aristotle neglected to guard his pupil against ambition and the love of conquest; but it must be recollected that he was a Greek, and of course a natural enemy to the Persian kings; his hatred had been deepened by the fate of his friend Hermeias; and, finally, the conquest of Persia had, for a long time, been the wish of all Greece. It was, therefore, natural that Aristotle should exert all his talents to form his pupil with the disposition and qualifications necessary for the accomplishment of this object. Both father and son sought to show their gratitude for the services of such a teacher. Philip rebuilt Stagira, and established a school there for Aristotle. The Stagirites, in gratitude for this service, appointed a yearly festival, called _Aristotelia_. The philosopher continued at Alexander's court a year after his accession to the throne, and is said to have then repaired to Athens. Ammonius, the Eclectic, says that he followed his pupil in a part of his campaigns; and this seems very probable; for it is hardly possible that so many animals as the philosopher describes could have been sent to Athens, or that he could have given so accurate a description of them without having personally dissected and examined them. We may conjecture that he accompanied Alexander as far as Egypt, and returned to Athens about 331 B. C., provided with the materials for his excellent History of Animals. Aristotle, after parting with Alexander, returned to Athens, where he resolved to open a school, and chose a house, which, from its vicinity to the temple of Apollo Lyceus, was called the _Lyceum_. Attached to this building was a garden, with walks, in Greek _peripatoi_, where Aristotle used to deliver his instructions to his disciples; whence his school obtained the name of _peripatetic_. It appears that his habit was to give one lecture in the early part of the day on the abstruser parts of his philosophy, to his more advanced scholars, which was called the _morning walk_, and lasted till the hour when people dressed and anointed themselves; and another lecture, called the _evening walk_, on more popular subjects, to a less select class. It was probably during the thirteen years of his second residence at Athens, that Aristotle composed or completed the greater part of his works which have descended to our days. The foundation of most of them was, doubtless, laid at an early period of his life; but they appear to have been gradually formed, and to have received continual additions and corrections. Among the works which especially belong to this period of his life, are his treatises on Natural History; which, as has been correctly observed by a late writer on this subject, are not to be considered as the result of his own observations only, but as a collection of all that had been observed by others, as well as by himself. It is stated by Pliny, that "Alexander the Great, being smitten with the desire of knowing the natures of animals, ordered several thousand persons, over the whole of Asia and Greece, who lived by hunting, bird-catching and fishing, or who had the care of parks, herds, hives, seines, and aviaries, to furnish Aristotle with materials for a work on animals." We are likewise informed that Aristotle received from Alexander the enormous sum of eight hundred talents,--nearly a million of dollars, to prosecute his researches in natural history,--a circumstance which did not escape the malice of his traducers, who censured him for receiving gifts from princes. Seneca, who states that Philip furnished Aristotle with large sums of money for his history of animals, had, doubtless, confounded the father and son. Callisthenes, a relation of Aristotle, by his recommendation, attended Alexander in his expedition to Asia, and sent from Babylon to the philosopher, in compliance with his previous injunctions, the astronomical observations which were preserved in that ancient city, and which, according to the statement of Porphyrius, reached back as far as 1903 years before the time of Alexander the Great; that is, 2234 years before the Christian era. Aristotle had, at this time, reached the most prosperous period of his life. The founder and leader of the principal school of Greece, and the undisputed head of Grecian philosophy, surrounded by his numerous disciples and admirers, protected by the conqueror of Asia, and by him furnished with the means of following his favorite pursuits, and of gratifying his universal spirit of inquiry, he had, probably, little to desire in order to fill up the measure of a philosopher's ambition. But he did not continue to enjoy the favor of Alexander till the end. Callisthenes, by his free-spoken censures and uncourtly habits, had offended his master, and had been executed, on a charge of having conspired with some Macedonians to take away his life; and the king's wrath appears to have extended to his kinsman, Aristotle, as being the person who had originally recommended him. It is not, however, probable that this circumstance caused any active enmity between the royal pupil and his master; even if we did not know that Alexander died a natural death, there would be no reason for listening to the absurd calumny that Aristotle was concerned in poisoning him. Aristotle indeed appears to have been considered, to the last, as a partisan of Alexander, and an opponent of the democratic interest. When the anti-Macedonian party obtained the superiority at Athens in consequence of Alexander's death, an accusation against Aristotle was immediately prepared, and the pretext selected, was, as in the case of Socrates, _impiety_, or _blasphemy_. He was charged by Eurymedon, the priest, and a man named Demophilus, probably a leader of the popular party, with paying divine honors to Hermeias, and perhaps with teaching certain irreligious doctrines. In order to escape this danger, and to prevent the Athenians, as he said, in allusion to the death of Socrates, from "sinning twice against philosophy," he quitted Athens in the beginning of the year 322 B. C., and took refuge at Chalcis, in Euboea, an island then under the Macedonian influence--leaving Theophrastus his successor in the Lyceum. There he died, of a disease of the stomach, in the autumn of the same year, being in the sixty-third year of his age. His frame is said to have been slender and weakly, and his health had given way in the latter part of his life, having probably been impaired by his unwearied studies and the intense application of his mind. The story of his having drowned himself in the Euripus of Euboea, is fabulous. The characteristic of Aristotle's philosophy, as compared with that of Plato, is, that while the latter gave free scope to his imagination, and, by his doctrine that we have ideas independent of the objects which they represent, opened a wide door to the dreams of mysticism--the latter was a close and strict observer of both mental and physical phenomena, avoiding all the seductions of the fancy, and following a severe, methodical, and strictly scientific course of inquiry, founded on data ascertained by experience. The truly philosophical character of his mind, and his calm and singularly dispassionate manner of writing, are not more remarkable than the vast extent both of his reading and of his original researches. His writings appear to have embraced nearly the whole circle of the theoretical and practical knowledge of his time, comprising treatises on logical, metaphysical, rhetorical, poetical, ethical, political, economical, physical, mechanical, and medical science. He likewise wrote on some parts of the mathematics; and, besides a collection of the constitutions of all the states known in his age, both Grecian and barbarian he made chronological compilations relating to the political and dramatic history of Greece. His works, however, though embracing so large an extent of subjects, were not a mere encyclopædia, or digest of existing knowledge; some of the sciences which he treated of were created by himself, and the others were enriched by fresh inquiries, and methodized by his systematic diligence. To the former belong his works on analytics and dialectics, or, as it is now called, logic; to the invention of which science he distinctly lays claim, stating that "before his time nothing whatever had been done in it." Nearly the same remark applies to his metaphysical treatise. "But of all the sciences," says Cuvier, "there is none which owes more to Aristotle, than the natural history of animals. Not only was he acquainted with a great number of species, but he has studied and described them on a luminous and comprehensive plan, to which, perhaps, none of his successors has approached; classing the facts not according to the species, but according to the organs and functions, the only method of establishing comparative results. Thus it may be said that he is not only the most ancient author of comparative anatomy, whose works have come down to us, but that he is one of those who have treated this branch of natural history with the most genius, and that he best deserves to be taken for a model. The principal divisions which naturalists still follow in the animal kingdom, are due to Aristotle; and he had already pointed out several which have recently been again adopted, after having once been improperly abandoned. If the foundations of these great labors are examined, it will be seen that they all rest on the same method. Everywhere Aristotle observes the facts with attention; he compares them with sagacity, and endeavors to rise to the qualities which they have in common." Among the sciences which he found partly cultivated, but which he greatly advanced, the most prominent are those of rhetoric, ethics, and politics. Of rhetoric he defined the province, and analyzed all the parts with admirable skill and sagacity. His treatise on the passions, in this short but comprehensive work, has never been surpassed, if it has ever been equalled, by writers on what may be termed descriptive moral philosophy. His ethical writings contain an excellent practical code of morality, chiefly founded on the maxim that virtues are in the middle, between two opposite vices; as courage between cowardice and fool-hardiness, liberality between niggardliness and prodigality, &c. His remarks on friendship are also deserving of special notice; a subject much discussed by the ancients, but which has less occupied the attention of philosophers, since love has played a more prominent part, in consequence of the influence of the Germans, and the introduction of the manners of chivalry in western Europe. His treatise on politics is not, like Plato's Republic, and the works of many later speculators on government, a mere inquiry after a perfect state, but contains an account of the nature of government, of the various forms of which it is susceptible, and the institutions best adapted to the societies in which these forms are established; with an essay, though unhappily an imperfect one, on education. This treatise is valuable, not only for its theoretical results, but also for the large amount of information which it contains, on the governments of Greece and other neighboring countries. Throughout these last-mentioned works, the knowledge of the world and of human nature displayed by Aristotle, is very observable; and, although his mind appears to have preferred the investigations of physical and metaphysical science, yet he holds a very high place in the highest rank of moral and political philosophers. Aristotle, it will be remembered, did not lead the life of a recluse; but, as the friend of Hermeias, the teacher of Alexander, and the head of a philosophical school, he was brought into contact with a great variety of persons, and learned by practice to know life under many different forms, and in many different relations. Of all the philosophers of antiquity, Aristotle has produced the most lasting and extensive effect on mankind. His philosophical works, many centuries after his death, obtained a prodigious influence, not only in Europe, but even in Asia; they were translated into Arabic, and from thence an abstract of his logical system passed into the language of Persia. In Europe they acquired an immense ascendency in the middle ages, and were considered as an authority without appeal, and only second to that of Scripture; we are even informed that in a part of Germany his ethics were read in the churches on Sunday, in the place of the Gospels. Parts of his philosophy, which are the most worthless, as his Physics, were much cultivated; and his logical writings were, in many cases, abused so as to lead to vain subtleties, and captious contests about words. The connection between some of his tenets and the Roman Catholic theology, tended much to uphold his authority, which the Reformation lowered in a corresponding degree. His doctrines were in general strongly opposed by the early reformers. In 1518 Luther sustained a thesis at Heidelberg, affirming that "he who wishes to philosophize in Aristotle, must be first stultified in Christ." Luther, however, gave way afterwards, and did not oppose Aristotle, as to human learning. Melanchthon, who was one of the mildest of the reformers, was a great supporter of Aristotle. Many of his doctrines were in the same century zealously attacked by the French philosopher, Pierre Ramus. Bacon, afterwards, with others of his followers, added the weight of their arguments and authority against him. Aristotle's philosophy accordingly fell into undeserved neglect during the latter part of the seventeenth, and the whole of the eighteenth century. Of late, however, the true worth of his writings has been more fully appreciated, and the study of his best treatises has much revived. The most valuable of Aristotle's lost works, and indeed the most valuable of all the lost works of Greek prose, is his collection of One Hundred and Fifty-eight Constitutions, both of Grecian and Barbarian States, the Democratic, Oligarchical, Aristocratical, and Tyrannical, being treated separately, containing an account of the manners, customs, and institutions of each country. The loss of his works on Colonies, on Nobility, and on Royal Government; of his Chronological Collections, and of his Epistles to Philip, Alexander, Antipater, and others, is also much to be regretted. He likewise revised a copy of the Iliad, which Alexander carried with him during his campaigns, in a precious casket; hence this recension, called the _casket copy_, passed into the Alexandrine library, and was used by the Alexandrine critics. His entire works, according to Diogenes Laertius, occupied in the Greek manuscripts 445,270 lines. [Illustration] [Illustration] DEMOSTHENES. This celebrated Grecian orator was born about 384 or 385 years B. C., at a period when Athens had reached the zenith of her literary, and had passed that of her political, glory. Juvenal has represented him slightingly, as the son of a blacksmith--the fact being that the elder Demosthenes was engaged in various branches of trade, and, among others, was owner of a sword manufactory. His maternal grandmother was a Thracian woman--a circumstance noticeable because it enabled his enemies, in the spirit of ill-will, to taunt him as a barbarian and hereditary enemy of his country; for the Greeks, in general, regarded the admixture of other than Greek blood, with the same sort of contempt and dislike that the whites of America do the taint of African descent. Being left an orphan when seven years old, Demosthenes fell into the hands of dishonest guardians, who embezzled a large portion of the property which his father had bequeathed to him. His constitution appears to have been delicate, and it may have been on this account that he did not attend the gymnastic exercises, which formed a large portion of the education of the youths in Greece; exercises really important where neither birth nor wealth set aside the obligation to military service common to all citizens; and where, therefore, skill in the use of arms, strength, and the power to endure fatigue and hardship, were essential to the rich as well as to the poor. It may have been on this account that a nickname expressive of effeminacy was bestowed on him, which was afterwards interpreted into a proof of unmanly luxury and vicious habits; indeed, the reproach of wanting physical strength clung to him through life; and apparently this was not undeserved. Another nickname that he obtained was that of "Viper." In short, the anecdotes which have come down to us, tend pretty uniformly to show that his private character was harsh and unamiable. His ambition to excel as an orator is said to have been kindled by hearing a masterly and much admired speech of Callistratus. For instruction, he resorted to Isæus, and, as some say, to Isocrates, both eminent teachers of the art of rhetoric. He had a stimulus to exertion in the resolution to prosecute his guardians for abuse of their trust; and having gained the cause, B. C. 364, in the conduct of which he himself took an active part, recovered, it would seem, a large part of his property. The orations against Aphobus and Onetor, which appear among his works, profess to have been delivered in the course of the suit; but it has been doubted, on internal evidence, whether they were really composed by him so early in life. Be this as it may, his success emboldened him to come forward as a speaker in the assemblies of the people; on what occasion, and at what time, does not appear. His reception was discouraging. He probably had underrated, till taught by experience, the degree of training and mechanical preparation requisite at all times to excellence, and most essential in addressing an audience so acute, sensitive and fastidious as the Athenians. He labored also under physical defects, which almost amounted to disqualifications. His voice was weak, his breath short, his articulation defective; in addition to all this, his style was throughout strained, harsh and involved. Though somewhat disheartened by his ill success, he felt as Sheridan is reported to have expressed himself on a similar occasion, that _it was in him, and it should come out_; beside, he was encouraged by a few discerning spirits. One aged man, who had heard Pericles, cheered him with the assurance that he reminded him of that unequalled orator; and the actor Satyrus pointed out the faults of his delivery, and instructed him to amend them. He now set himself in earnest to realize his notions of excellence; and the singular and irksome methods which he adopted, denoting certainly no common energy and strength of will, are too celebrated and too remarkable to be omitted, though the authority on which they rest is not free from doubt. He built a room under ground, where he might practise gesture and delivery without molestation, and there he spent two or three months together, shaving his head, that the oddity of his appearance might render it impossible for him to go abroad, even if his resolution should fail. The defect in his articulation he cured by reciting with small pebbles in his mouth. His lungs he strengthened by practising running up hill, while reciting verses. Nor was he less diligent in cultivating mental than bodily requisites, applying himself earnestly to study the theory of the art as explained in books, and the examples of the greatest masters of eloquence. Thucydides is said to have been his favorite model, insomuch that he copied out his history eight times, and had it almost by heart. Meanwhile, his pen was continually employed in rhetorical exercises; every question suggested to him by passing events served him for a topic of discussion, which called forth the application of his attainments to the real business of life. It was perhaps as much for the sake of such practice, as with a view to reputation, or the increase of his fortune, that he accepted employment as an advocate, which, until he began to take an active part in public affairs, was offered to him in abundance. Such was the process by which he became confessedly the greatest orator among the people by whom eloquence was cultivated, as it has never been since by any nation upon earth. He brought it to its highest state of perfection, as did Sophocles the tragic drama, by the harmonious union of excellences which had before only existed apart. The quality in his writings, which excited the highest admiration of the most intelligent judges among his countrymen in the later critical age, was the Protean versatility with which he adapted his style to every theme, so as to furnish the most perfect examples of every order and kind of eloquence. Demosthenes, like Pericles, never willingly appeared before his audience with any but the ripest fruits of his private studies, though he was quite capable of speaking on the impulse of the moment in a manner worthy of his reputation. That he continued to the end of his career to cultivate the art with unabated diligence, and that, even in the midst of public business, his habits were those of a severe student, is well known. The first manifestation of that just jealousy of Philip, the ambitious king of Macedon, which became the leading principle of his life, was made 252 B. C., when the orator delivered the first of those celebrated speeches called Philippics. This word has been naturalized in Latin and most European languages, as a concise term to signify indignant invective. From this time forward, it was the main object of Demosthenes to inspire and keep alive in the minds of the Athenians a constant jealousy of Philip's power and intentions, and to unite the other states of Greece in confederacy against him. The policy and the disinterestedness of his conduct have both been questioned; the former, by those who have judged, from the event, that resistance to the power of Macedonia was rashly to accelerate a certain and inevitable evil; the latter, by those, both of his contemporaries and among posterity, who believe that he received bribes from Persia, as the price of finding employment in Greece for an enemy, whose ambition threatened the monarch of the East. With respect to the former, however, it was at least the most generous policy, and like that of the elder Athenians in their most illustrious days--not to await the ruin of their independence submissively, until every means had been tried for averting it; for the latter, such charges are hard either to be proved or refuted. The character of Demosthenes certainly does not stand above the suspicion of pecuniary corruption, but it has not been shown, nor is it necessary or probable to suppose, that his jealousy of Philip of Macedon was not, in the first instance, far-sighted and patriotic. During fourteen years, from 352 to 338, he exhausted every resource of eloquence and diplomatic skill to check the progress of that aspiring monarch; and whatever may be thought of his moral worth, none can undervalue the genius and energy which have made his name illustrious, and raised a memorial of him far more enduring than sepulchral brass. In 339 B. C., Philip's appointment to be general of the Amphictyonic League gave him a more direct influence than he had yet possessed; and in the same year, the decisive victory of Cheronea, won over the combined forces of Thebes, Athens, &c., had made him master of Greece. Demosthenes served in this engagement, but joined, early in the flight, with circumstances, according to report, of marked cowardice and disgrace. He retired for a time from Athens, but the cloud upon his character was but transient for, shortly after, he was entrusted with the charge of putting the city in a state of defence, and was appointed to pronounce the funeral oration over those who had been slain. After the battle of Cheronea, Philip, contrary to expectation, did not prosecute hostilities against Athens; on the contrary, he used his best endeavors to conciliate the affections of the people, but without success. The party hostile to Macedon soon regained the superiority, and Demosthenes was proceeding with his usual vigor in the prosecution of his political schemes, when news arrived of the murder of Philip, in July, 336. The daughter of Demosthenes had then lately died; nevertheless, in violation of national usage, he put off his mourning, and appeared in public, crowned with flowers and with other tokens of festive rejoicing. This act, a strong expression of triumph over the fall of a most dangerous enemy, has been censured with needless asperity; the accusation of having been privy to the plot for Philip's murder, beforehand, founded on his own declaration of the event some time before intelligence of it came from any other quarter, and the manifest falsehood as to the source of the information, which he professed to derive from a divine revelation, involves--if it be judged to be well founded--a far blacker imputation. Whether or not it was of his own procuring, the death of Philip was hailed by Demosthenes as an event most fortunate for Athens, and favorable to the liberty of Greece. Thinking lightly of the young successor to the Macedonian crown, he busied himself the more in stirring up opposition to Alexander, and succeeded in urging Thebes into that revolt, which ended in the entire destruction of the city, B. C., 335. This example struck terror into Athens. Alexander demanded that Demosthenes, with nine others, should be given up into his hands, as the authors of the battle of Cheronea and of the succeeding troubles of Greece; but finally contented himself with requiring the banishment of Charidemus alone. Opposition to Macedon was now effectually put down, and, until the death of Alexander, we hear little more of Demosthenes as a public man. During this period, however, one of the most memorable incidents of his life occurred, in that contest of oratory with Æschines, which has been more celebrated than any strife of words since the world began. The origin of it was as follows. About the time of the battle of Cheronea, one Ctesiphon brought before the people a decree for presenting Demosthenes with a crown for his distinguished services; a complimentary motion, in its nature and effects very much like a vote in the English parliament, declaratory of confidence in the administration. Æschines, the leading orator of the opposite party, arraigned this motion, as being both untrue in substance and irregular in form; he indicted Ctesiphon on these grounds, and laid the penalty at fifty talents, equivalent to about $50,000. Why the prosecution was so long delayed, does not clearly appear; but it was not brought to an issue until the year 330, when Æschines pronounced his great oration "against Ctesiphon." Demosthenes defended him in the still more celebrated speech "on the crown." These, besides being admirable specimens of rhetorical art, have the additional value, that the rival orators, being much more anxious to uphold the merits of their own past policy and conduct, than to convict and defend the nominal object of prosecution, have gone largely into matters of self-defence and mutual recrimination, from which much of our knowledge of this obscure portion of history is derived. Æschines lost the cause, and not having the votes of so much as a fifth part of the judges, became liable, according to the laws of Athens, to fine and banishment. He withdrew to Rhodes, where he established a school of oratory. On one occasion, for the gratification of his hearers, he recited first his own, then his adversary's speech. Great admiration having been expressed of the latter, "What then," he said, "if you had heard the brute himself?" bearing testimony in these words to the remarkable energy and fire of delivery which was one of Demosthenes' chief excellences as an orator. A fate similar to that of his rival, overtook Demosthenes himself, a few years later, B. C. 324. Harpalus, an officer high in rank and favor under Alexander, having been guilty of malversation to such an extent that he dared not await discovery, fled to Greece, bringing with him considerable treasures and a body of mercenary soldiers. He sought the support of the Athenians; and, as it was said, bribed Demosthenes not to oppose his wishes. Rumors to that effect got abroad, and though his proposals were rejected by the assembly, Demosthenes was called to account, and fined fifty talents, nearly $50,000, as having been bribed to give false counsel to the people. Being unable to pay the amount of the fine, it acted as a sentence of banishment, and he retired into Ægina. Like Cicero, when placed in a similar situation, he displayed effeminacy of temper, and an unmanly violence of regret, under a reverse of fortune. In the following year, however, the death of Alexander restored him to political importance; for when that event opened once more to the Athenians the prospect of shaking off the supremacy of Macedonia, Demosthenes was recalled, with the most flattering marks of public esteem. He guided the state during the short war waged with Antipater, the Macedonian viceroy, until the inequality of the contest became evident, and the Macedonian party regained its ascendency. Demosthenes then retired to the sanctuary of Calauria, an island sacred to Neptune, on the coast of Argolis. Sentence of death was passed on him in his absence. He was pursued to his place of refuge by the emissaries of Antipater, and being satisfied that the sanctity of the place would not protect him, he took poison, which, as a last resort, he carried about his person, concealed in a quill. Most of the speeches of Demosthenes are short, at least compared with modern oratory. He rarely spoke extempore, and bestowed an unusual degree of pains on his composition. That style which is described by Hume as "rapid harmony, exactly adapted to the sense; vehement reason, without any appearance of art; disdain, anger, boldness, freedom, involved in a continued stream of argument"--instead of being, as it would seem, the effervescence of a powerful, overflowing mind, was the labored produce of much thought, and careful, long-continued polish. If we compare the two greatest orators of antiquity--Cicero and Demosthenes--it may seem difficult to decide between them. By devoting his powers almost exclusively to oratory, the latter excelled in energy, strength, and accuracy; and as a mere artist, was probably the superior. Cicero, by cultivating a more extended field, was doubtless far the abler lawyer, statesman and philosopher. Of the value of their works to mankind, there is no comparison; for those of Cicero are not only more numerous and diversified, but of more depth, wisdom, and general application. We must also remark, that while the soul of Demosthenes appears to have been selfish and mean, that of Cicero ranks him among the noblest specimens of humanity, whether of ancient or modern times. If we compare the speeches of these great men with the efforts of modern orators, we shall see that the latter greatly surpass them in range of thought, power of diction and splendor of illustration. The question then arises, why did the orations of Cicero and Demosthenes produce such electrical effects upon their auditors? The reason doubtless was, that they paid the greatest attention to action, manner and tones of voice--thus operating upon their hearers by nearly the same powers as the modern opera. There was stage effect in their manner, and music in their tones, combined with most perfect elocution--and the application of these arts, carried to the utmost perfection, was made to the quick Italians or mercurial Athenians. These suggestions may enable us to understand the fact, that speeches, which, uttered in the less artful manner of our day, and before our colder audiences, would fall flat and dead upon the ear, excited the utmost enthusiasm, in more southern climes, two thousand years ago. [Illustration] APELLES Apelles was a celebrated painter of Cos, a little island in the Egean Sea. The date of his birth is not known, but he painted many portraits of Philip, and was still nourishing in the time of Alexander, who honored him so much that he forbade any other artist to draw his picture. His chief master was Pamphilius, a famous painter of Macedon. He was so attentive to his profession, that he never spent a day without employing his pencil,--whence the proverb of _Nulla die sine linea_. His most perfect picture was the Venus Anadyomene, which, however, was not wholly finished when the painter died. He executed a painting of Alexander, holding thunder in his hand, so much like life, that Pliny, who saw it, says that the hand of the king with the thunder seemed to come out of the picture. This was placed in Diana's temple at Ephesus. He made another picture of Alexander; but the king, on coming to see it after it was painted, appeared not to be satisfied with it. It happened, however, at that moment a horse, passing by, neighed at the horse in the picture, supposing it to be alive; upon which the painter said, "One would imagine that the horse is a better judge of painting, than your majesty." When Alexander ordered him to draw the picture of Campaspe, one of his favorites, Apelles became enamored of her, and the king permitted him to marry her. He wrote three volumes on painting, which were still extant in the age of Pliny,--but they are now lost. It is said that he was accused, while in Egypt, of conspiring against the life of Ptolemy, and that he would have been put to death, had not the real conspirator discovered himself, and thus saved the artist. Apelles put his name to but three pictures; a sleeping Venus, Venus Anadyomene, and an Alexander. Apelles appears to have been not only an excellent artist, but a man of admirable traits of character. Being once at Rhodes, he met with the productions of Protogenes,[10] which so greatly delighted him that he offered to purchase the whole. Before this, Protogenes was entirely unappreciated by his countrymen, but the approbation of one so distinguished as Apelles, brought him into notice, and his fame soon became established. Another story of Apelles is told as having given rise to the well-known maxim, _Ne sutor ultra crepidam_: Let the shoemaker stick to his last. Apelles placed a picture, which he had finished, in a public place, and concealed himself behind it, in order to hear the criticisms of the passers-by. A shoemaker observed a defect in the shoe, and the painter forthwith corrected it. The cobbler came the next day, and being somewhat encouraged by the success of his first remark, began to extend his censure to the leg of the figure, when the angry painter thrust out his head from behind the figure, and told him to keep to his trade. Apelles excelled in grace and beauty. The painter, who labored incessantly, as we have seen, to improve his skill in drawing, probably trusted as much to that branch of his art, as to his coloring. We are told that he only used four colors. He used a varnish which brought out the colors, and at the same time preserved them. His favorite subject was the representation of Venus, the goddess of love,--the female blooming in eternal beauty; and the religious system of the age favored the taste of the artist. Apelles painted many portraits of Alexander the Great, who, we are told, often visited his painting room. It is not easy to reconcile his rambling life with this account, unless we suppose that Apelles followed him into Asia; a conjecture not altogether improbable, if we read the account of the revelries at Susa, after Alexander's return from India, and of the number of all kinds of professional artists then assembled to add to the splendor of the festival. [Illustration] [Footnote 10: Protogenes, a painter of Rhodes, who flourished about 328 years B. C. He was originally so poor that he painted ships to maintain himself. His countrymen were ignorant of his merits, before Apelles came to Rhodes and offered to buy all his pieces, as we have related. This opened the eyes of the Rhodians; they became sensible of the talents of their countryman, and liberally rewarded him. Protogenes was employed seven years in finishing a picture of Jalysus a celebrated huntsman, supposed to have been the son of Apollo and the founder of Rhodes. During all this time the painter lived only upon lupines and water, thinking that such aliment would leave him greater flights of fancy; but all this did not seem to make him more successful in the perfection of his picture. He was to represent in this piece a dog panting, and with froth at his mouth; but this he could never do with satisfaction to himself; and when all his labors seemed to be without success, he threw his sponge upon the piece in a fit of anger. Chance alone brought to perfection what the utmost labors of art could not do; the fall of the sponge upon the picture represented the froth of the mouth of the dog in the most perfect and natural manner, and the piece was universally admired. Protogenes was very exact in his representations, and copied nature with the greatest nicety; but this was blamed as a fault by his friend Apelles. When Demetrius besieged Rhodes, he refused to set fire to a part of the city, which might have made him master of the whole, because he knew that Protogenes was then working in that quarter. When the town was taken, the painter was found closely employed, in a garden, finishing a picture; and when the conqueror asked him why he showed not more concern at the general calamity, he replied, that Demetrius made war against the Rhodians; and not against the fine arts.] DIOGENES. This eccentric individual was a native of Sinope, a city of Pontus, and born 419 B. C. Having been banished from his native place, with his father, upon the accusation of coining false money, he went to Athens, and requested Antisthenes, the Cynic,[11] to admit him among his disciples. That philosopher in vain attempted to drive away the unfortunate supplicant. He even threatened to strike him; but Diogenes told him he could not find a stoic hard enough to repel him, so long as he uttered things worthy of being remembered. Antisthenes was propitiated by this, and received him among his pupils. Diogenes devoted himself, with the greatest diligence, to the lessons of his master, whose doctrines he afterwards extended and enforced. He not only, like Antisthenes, despised all philosophical speculations, and opposed the corrupt morals of his time, but also carried the application of his principles, in his own person, to the extreme. The stern austerity of Antisthenes was repulsive; but Diogenes exposed the follies of his cotemporaries with wit and humor, and was, therefore, better adapted to be the censor and instructor of the people, though he really accomplished little in the way of reforming them. At the same time, he applied, in its fullest extent, his principle of divesting himself of all superfluities. He taught that a wise man, in order to be happy, must endeavor to preserve himself independent of fortune, of men, and of himself; and, in order to do this, he must despise riches, power, honor, arts and sciences, and all the enjoyments of life. He endeavored to exhibit, in his own person, a model of Cynic virtue. For this purpose, he subjected himself to the severest trials, and disregarded all the forms of polite society. He often struggled to overcome his appetite, or satisfied it with the coarsest food; practised the most rigid temperance, even at feasts, in the midst of the greatest abundance, and did not consider it beneath his dignity to ask alms. By day, he walked through the streets of Athens barefoot, with a long beard, a stick in his hand, and a bag over his shoulders. He was clad in a coarse double robe, which served as a coat by day and a coverlet by night; and he carried a wallet to receive alms. His abode was a cask in the temple of Cybele. It is said that he sometimes carried a tub about on his head which occasionally served as his dwelling. In summer he rolled himself in the burning sand, and in winter clung to the marble images covered with snow, that he might inure himself to the extremes of the climate. He bore the scoffs and insults of the people with the greatest equanimity. Seeing a boy draw water with his hand, he threw away his wooden goblet, as an unnecessary utensil. He never spared the follies of men, but openly and loudly inveighed against vice and corruption, attacking them with keen satire, and biting irony. The people, and even the higher classes, heard him with pleasure, and tried their wit upon him. When he made them feel his superiority, they often had recourse to abuse, by which, however, he was little moved. He rebuked them for expressions and actions which violated decency and modesty, and therefore it is not credible that he was guilty of the excesses with which his enemies reproached him. His rudeness offended the laws of good breeding, rather than the principles of morality. On a voyage to the island of Ægina, he fell into the hands of pirates, who sold him as a slave to Xeniades, a Corinthian. He, however, emancipated him, and entrusted to him the education of his children. He attended to the duties of his new employment with the greatest care, commonly living in summer at Corinth, and in the winter at Athens. It was at the former place that Alexander found him at the road-side, basking in the sun; and, astonished at the indifference with which the ragged beggar regarded him, entered into conversation with him, and finally gave him permission to ask him a boon. "I ask nothing," answered the philosopher, "but that thou wouldst get out of my sunshine." Surprised at this proof of content, the king is said to have exclaimed, "Were I not Alexander, I would be Diogenes." The following dialogue, though not given as historical, is designed to represent this interview. _Diogenes._ Who calleth? _Alexander._ Alexander. How happeneth it that you would not come out of your tub to my palace? _D._ Because it was as far from my tub to your palace, as from your palace to my tub. _A._ What! dost thou owe no reverence to kings? _D._ No. _A._ Why so? _D._ Because they are not gods. _A._ They are gods of the earth. _D._ Yes, gods of the earth! _A._ Plato is not of thy mind. _D._ I am glad of it. _A._ Why? _D._ Because I would have none of Diogenes' mind but Diogenes. _A._ If Alexander have anything that can pleasure Diogenes, let me know, and take it. _D._ Then take not from me that you cannot give me--the light of the sun! _A._ What dost thou want? _D._ Nothing that you have. _A._ I have the world at command. _D._ And I in contempt. _A._ Thou shalt live no longer than I will. _D._ But I shall die, whether you will or no. _A._ How should one learn to be content? _D._ Unlearn to covet. _A._ (_to Hephæstion._) Hephæstion, were I not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes. _H._ He is dogged, but shrewd; he has a sharpness, mixed with a kind of sweetness; he is full of wit, yet too wayward. _A._ Diogenes, when I come this way again, I will both see thee and confer with thee. _D._ Do. We are told that the philosopher was seen one day carrying a lantern through the streets of Athens: on being asked what he was looking after, he answered, "I am seeking an honest man." Thinking he had found among the Spartans the greatest capacity for becoming such men as he wished, he said, "Men, I have found nowhere, but children, at least, I have seen in Lacedæmon." Being asked, "What is the most dangerous animal?" his answer was, "Among wild animals, the slanderer; among tame, the flatterer." He expired 323 B. C., at a great age, and, it is said, on the same day that Alexander died. When he felt death approaching, he seated himself on the road leading to Olympia, where he died with philosophical calmness, in the presence of a great number of people who were collected around him. None of the works of Diogenes are extant; in these he maintained the doctrines of the Cynics. He believed that exercise was of the greatest importance, and capable of effecting everything. He held that there were two kinds of exercise,--one of the body, and one of the mind,--and that one was of little use without the other. By cultivation of the mind, he did not mean the accumulation of knowledge or science, but a training which might give it vigor, as exercise endows the body with health and strength. [Footnote 11: The Cynics were a sect of philosophers, founded by Antisthenes, at Athens; they took their name from their disposition to criticise the lives and actions of others. They were famous for their contempt of riches, their neglect of dress, and the length of their beards. They usually slept on the ground.] [Illustration] PLATO. It has been remarked by Coleridge, that all men are born disciples either of Plato or Aristotle: by which he means that these two great men are the leaders in the two kinds of philosophy which govern the thinking world,--the one looking into the soul, as the great well of truth; the other, studying the outward world, and building up its system upon facts collected by observation. The truth is doubtless to be found by compounding the two systems. Plato was born at Athens, in May, 429 B. C. He was the son of Ariston and Perectonia. His original name was Aristocles, and it has been conjectured that he received that of Plato, from the largeness of his shoulders: this, however, is improbable, as Plato was then a common name at Athens. Being one of the descendants of Codrus, and the offspring of a noble, illustrious, and opulent family, he was educated with the utmost care; his body was formed and invigorated with gymnastic exercises, and his mind was cultivated and trained by the study of poetry and of geometry; from which two sources he doubtless derived that acuteness of judgment and warmth of imagination, which stamped him as at once the most subtle and flowery writer of antiquity. He first began his literary career by writing poems and tragedies; but he was disgusted with his own productions, when, at the age of twenty, he was introduced into the society of Socrates, and was qualified to examine, with critical accuracy, the merit of his compositions, and compare them with those of his poetical predecessors. He, therefore, committed them to the flames. During eight years he continued to be one of the pupils of Socrates; and though he was prevented by indisposition from attending the philosopher's last moments, he collected, from the conversation of those that were present, and from his own accurate observations, very minute and circumstantial accounts, which exhibit the concern and sensibility of the pupil, and the firmness, virtue, and elevated moral sentiments of the dying philosopher. After the death of Socrates Plato retired from Athens, and, with a view to emerge his stores of knowledge, he began to travel over different countries. He visited Megara, Thebes, and Elis, where he met with the kindest reception from his fellow-disciples, whom the violent death of their master had likewise removed from Attica. He afterwards visited Magna Græcia, attracted by the fame of the Pythagorean philosophy, and by the learning, abilities, and reputation of its professors, Philolaus, Archytas, and Eurytus. He then passed into Sicily, and examined the eruptions of Etna. He visited Egypt, where the mathematician Theodorus, then flourished, and where he knew that the tenets of the Pythagorean philosophy had been fostered. When he had finished his travels, Plato retired to the groves of Academus, in the neighborhood of Athens, and established a school there; his lectures were soon attended by a crowd of learned, noble, and illustrious pupils; and the philosopher, by refusing to have a share in the administration of political affairs, rendered his name more famous and his school more frequented. During forty years he presided at the head of the academy, and there he devoted his time to the instruction of his pupils, and composed those dialogues which have been the admiration of every succeeding age. His studies, however, were interrupted for a while, as he felt it proper to comply with the pressing invitations of Dionysius, of Syracuse, to visit him. The philosopher earnestly but vainly endeavored to persuade the tyrant to become the father of his people, and the friend of liberty. In his dress, Plato was not ostentatious; his manners were elegant, but modest, simple, and without affectation. The great honors which were bestowed upon him, were not paid to his appearance, but to his wisdom and virtue. In attending the Olympian games, he once took lodgings with a family who were totally strangers to him. He ate and drank with them, and partook of their innocent pleasures and amusements; but though he told them his name was Plato, he did not speak of the employment he pursued at Athens, and never introduced the name of that great philosopher, whose doctrines he followed, and whose death and virtues were favorite topics of conversation in every part of Greece. When he returned to Athens, he was attended by the family which had so kindly entertained him; and, being familiar with the city, he was desired to show them the celebrated philosopher whose name he bore. Their surprise may be imagined, when he told them that he was the Plato whom they wished to behold. In his diet he was moderate; and, indeed, to sobriety and temperance in the use of food, and abstinence from those indulgences which enfeeble the body and enervate the mind, some have attributed his preservation during a terrible pestilence which raged in Athens at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. Plato was never subject to any long or lingering indisposition; and, though change of climate had enfeebled a constitution naturally strong and healthy, the philosopher lived to an advanced age, and was often heard to say, when his physicians advised him to leave his residence at Athens, where the air was impregnated by the pestilence, that he would not advance one single step to gain the top of Mount Athos, were he assured of attaining the longevity which the inhabitants of that mountain were said to enjoy. Plato died on his birth-day, in the eighty-first year of his age, about the year 348 B. C. His last moments were easy, and without pain; and, according to some authors, he expired in the midst of an entertainment; but Cicero tells us that he died while in the act of writing. The works of Plato are numerous; with the exception of twelve letters, they are all written in the form of dialogue, in which Socrates is the principal interlocutor. Thus he always speaks by the mouth of others, and the philosopher has nowhere made mention of himself, except once in his dialogue entitled Phædon, and another time in his Apology for Socrates. His writings were so celebrated, and his opinions so respected, that he was called divine; and for the elegance, melody, and sweetness of his expressions, he was distinguished by the appellation of the Athenian bee. His style, however, though commended and admired by the most refined critics among the ancients, has not escaped the censure of some of the moderns. It is obvious that the philosopher cannot escape ridicule, who supposes that fire is a pyramid tied to the earth by numbers; that the world is a figure consisting of twelve pentagons; and who, to prove the metempsychosis and the immortality of the soul, asserts that the dead are born from the living, and the living from the dead. The speculative mind of Plato was employed in examining things divine and human; and he attempted to ascertain and fix not only the practical doctrines of morals and politics but the more subtle and abstruse theory of mystical theogony--the origin of the gods, or divine power. His philosophy was universally received and adopted in ancient times, and it has not only governed the opinions of the speculative part of mankind, but it continues still to influence the reasoning, and to divide the sentiments of the moderns. In his system of philosophy, he followed the physics of Heraclitus, the metaphysical opinions of Pythagoras, and the morals of Socrates. He maintained the existence of two beings--one self-existent, and the other formed by the hand of a pre-existent, creative god and man. The world, he maintained, was created by that self-existent cause, from the rude, undigested mass of matter which had existed from all eternity, and which had ever been animated by an irregular principle of motion. The origin of evil could not be traced under the government of a deity, without admitting a stubborn intractability and wildness congenial to matter; and from these, consequently, could be demonstrated the deviations from the laws of nature, and from thence, the extravagant passions and appetites of men. From materials like these were formed the four elements, and the beautiful structure of the heavens and the earth; and into the active but irrational principle of matter, the divinity infused a rational soul. The souls of men were formed from the remainder of the rational soul of the world, which had previously given existence to the invisible gods and demons. The philosopher, therefore, supported the doctrine of ideal forms, and the pre-existence of the human mind, which he considered as emanations of the Deity, and which can never remain satisfied with objects or things unworthy of their divine original. Men could perceive, with their corporeal senses, the types of immutable things, and the fluctuating objects of the material world; but the sudden changes to which these are continually liable, create innumerable disorders, and hence arise deception, and, in short, all the errors of human life. Yet, in whatever situation man may be, he is still an object of divine concern, and, to recommend himself to the favor of the pre-existent cause, he must comply with the purposes of his creation, and, by proper care and diligence, he can recover those immaculate powers with which he was naturally endowed. All science the philosopher made to consist in reminiscence--in recalling the nature, forms, and proportions, of those perfect and immutable essences, with which the human mind had been conversant. From observations like these, the summit of felicity might be attained by removing from the material, and approaching nearer to the intellectual world; by curbing and governing the passions, which were ever agitated and inflamed by real or imaginary objects. The passions were divided into two classes: the first consisted of the irascible passions, which originated in pride or resentment, and were seated in the breast; the other, founded on the love of pleasure, was the concupiscible part of the soul, seated in the inferior parts of the body. These different orders induced the philosopher to compare the soul to a small republic, of which the reasoning and judging powers were stationed in the head, as in a firm citadel, and of which the senses were the guards and servants. By the irascible part of the soul, men asserted their dignity, repelled injuries, and scorned danger and the concupiscible part provided the support and the necessities of the body, and, when governed with propriety, gave rise to temperance. Justice was produced by the regular dominion of reason, and by the submission of the passions; and prudence arose from the strength, acuteness, and perfection of the soul, without which other virtues could not exist. But amidst all this, wisdom was not easily attained; at their creation all minds were not endowed with the same excellence; the bodies which they animated on earth, were not always in harmony with the divine emanation; some might be too weak, others too strong. On the first years of a man's life depended his future character; an effeminate and licentious education seemed calculated to destroy the purposes of the divinity, while the contrary produced different effects, and tended to cultivate and improve the reasoning and judging faculty, and to produce wisdom and virtue. Plato was the first who supported the immortality of the soul upon arguments solid and permanent, deduced from truth and experience. He did not imagine that the diseases and death of the body could injure the principle of life, and destroy the soul, which, of itself, was of divine origin, and of an incorrupted and immutable essence, which, though inherent for a while in matter, could not lose that power which was the emanation of God. From doctrines like these, the great founder of Platonism concluded that there might exist in the world a community of men, whose passions could be governed with moderation, and who, from knowing the evils and miseries which arise from ill conduct, might aspire to excellence, and attain that perfection which can be derived from a proper exercise of the rational and moral powers. To illustrate this more fully, the philosopher wrote a book, well known by the name of the "Republic of Plato," in which he explains, with acuteness, judgment, and elegance, the rise and revolution of civil society; and so respected was his opinion as a legislator, that his scholars were employed in regulating the republics of Arcadia. It was a characteristic of Plato's mind, that he united a subtle intellect to a glowing fancy. As an illustration of his style, we may mention the passage in which he shows the operation of the three principles in the human being--mind, soul, and body--or the three powers of intellect, spirit, and matter. It occurs in the dialogue of Phædrus, where he endeavors to illustrate the doctrine that the mind or reason should be the governing faculty. The soul is here compared to a chariot, drawn by a pair of winged steeds, one of which is well-bred and well-trained, and the other quite the contrary. The quiet horse, the Will, is obedient to the rein, and strives to draw its wilder yoke-fellow, the Appetite, along with it, and to induce it to listen to the voice of the charioteer, Reason. But they have a great deal of trouble with the restive horse, and the whole object of the journey seems to be lost, if this is permitted to have its way. In this allegory, it is shown that the object of Reason, in exacting obedience, is not merely that discipline and subordination which constitute the virtues of man, but to keep the mind in a state to rise to the contemplation and enjoyment of great and eternal truths. In other words, a man must be in a moral state, before he can place himself in a religious state, so as to enjoy the _summum bonum_, or greatest good. What, then, is this greatest good? or, in the language of Plato, its _idea_?--for, with him, _idea_ and _essence_ are synonymous. This is God--not his image, but his nature, which is the sovereign good. Thus the greatest happiness of man was placed by Plato in a mysterious union of the soul with this source of goodness. How near an approach to Christian communion with God, is this? However fantastic many of the details of Plato's system may seem, and however illusory its whole machinery must appear, when viewed in the light of modern criticism, one thing is to be observed,--that the great results of his philosophy are true. He struggled through the thick mists of his age, and discovered the eternal existence of Deity; he perceived and established, on grounds not to be controverted, the immortality of the soul. He placed true happiness where philosophy and religion place it--in the ascendency of the spirit over the body--the subjugation of the passions to the dominion of reason and virtue. It appears that the germs of these great truths had already manifested themselves in the minds of Pythagoras, Socrates, and others; and Plato borrowed from them many of his noble ideas. But he systematized what they had left in a crude state; he gave a more clear and distinct utterance to what his great master, Socrates, had dimly conceived, and ineffectually struggled to announce. He reached the highest point, in the search after divine knowledge which has ever been attained, without the direct aid of inspiration. In the gradual development of God's will to man, he was one of the great instruments. Yet, in reviewing his works, we see how imperfect was still his knowledge of things divine, and what fearful shadows would rest upon the world, if Plato were our only guide. How dark, uncertain, mysterious, would be the ways of God--the destinies of man--if left where the philosopher left them! [Illustration] [Illustration] SOCRATES. Socrates was born at Athens 468 B. C. His father, Sophroniscus, was a sculptor of humble reputation and in moderate circumstances. He educated his son to his own profession, in which it appears that the latter made considerable proficiency. He did not, however, devote himself wholly to this pursuit, but spent a large share of his time in reading the works of philosophers. Crito, an intimate friend, supplied him with money to pay the masters who taught him various accomplishments, and he became an auditor of most of the great philosophers who visited Athens, during his youth. By these means, he received the best education which an Athenian youth could command in those days. In the early part of his life, he wrought at his trade, so far as to earn a decent subsistence. Receiving a small property at his father's death, when he was about thirty years of age, he devoted himself entirely to philosophical pursuits. His habits were simple and economical; his dress was coarse, and he seldom wore shoes. By his frugality, he was thus able to live without labor, and yet without being dependent upon others. With regard to his public life, it appears that he served his country faithfully as a soldier, according to the duty of every Athenian citizen. He took part in three campaigns, displaying the greatest hardihood and valor. He endured, without repining, hunger and thirst, heat and cold. In a skirmish with the enemy, his pupil, Alcibiades, fell wounded in the midst of the enemy. Socrates rescued him and carried him off, for which the civic crown was awarded as the prize of valor. This reward, however, he transferred to Alcibiades. In another campaign he saved the life of his pupil, Xenophon, whom he carried from the field on his shoulders, fighting his way as he went. At the age of sixty-five, he became a member of the council of Five Hundred, at Athens. He rose also to the dignity of president of that body; by virtue of which office, he for one day managed the popular assemblies and kept the key of the citadel and treasury. Ten naval officers had been accused of misconduct, because, after the battle of Arginusæ, they had omitted the sacred duty of burying the slain, in consequence of a violent storm. Their enemies, finding the people disposed to acquit them procured by intrigue, the prorogation of several assemblies. A new assembly was held on the day when Socrates was president; and the citizens, instigated by bad men, violently demanded that sentence of death should be pronounced on all the accused at once, contrary to law. But the menaces of violence were unable to bend the inflexible justice of Socrates, and he was able afterwards to declare, on his own trial, that ten innocent men had been saved by his influence. When Socrates formed the resolution of devoting himself to the pursuit of divine and human knowledge, the sophists, a set of arrogant philosophers, were perverting the heads and corrupting the hearts of the Grecian youth. He therefore put himself in opposition to these false guides, and went about endeavoring to instruct everybody in a wiser and better philosophy than that which prevailed. He was, in fact, an instructor of the people; and, believing himself an ambassador of God, he was occupied from the dawn of day in seeking persons whom he might teach either what is important to mankind in general, or the private circumstances of individuals. He went to the public assemblies and the most crowded streets, or entered the workshops of mechanics and artists, and conversed with the people on religious duties, on their social and political relations; on all subjects, indeed, relating to morals, and even on agriculture, war, and the arts. He endeavored to remove prevailing prejudices and errors, and to substitute right principles; to awaken their better genius in the minds of his hearers; to encourage and console them; to enlighten and improve mankind, and make them really happy. It is manifest that such a course must have been attended with great difficulties. But the serenity of Socrates was undisturbed; he was always perfectly cheerful in appearance and conversation. In the market-place and at home, among people and in the society of those whom love of truth and virtue connected more closely with him, he was always the same. It cannot be doubted that a happy physical and mental temperament contributed to produce this equanimity. But it was, likewise, a fruit of self-discipline and the philosophy he taught. He treated his body as a servant, and inured it to every privation, so that moderation was to him an easy virtue; and he retained in old age his youthful vigor, physical and mental. He was kind as a husband and a father. Though his wife, Xantippe, was a noted shrew, he viewed her as an excellent instrument of discipline, and treated her with patience and forbearance. Although the Greeks at this time were zealously devoted to their heathen mythology, Socrates was a sincere worshipper of the Supreme Being; yet, from his care not to offend his weaker brethren, he observed, with punctilious exactness, the religious uses which antiquity and custom had consecrated. He was constantly attended by a circle of disciples, who caught from him the spirit of free inquiry, and were inspired with his zeal for the highest good, for religion, truth and virtue. The succeeding schools of philosophy in Greece are therefore justly traced back to him; and he is to be regarded as the master who gave philosophical investigation among the Greeks its highest direction. Among his most distinguished disciples were Alcibiades, Crito, Xenophon, Antisthenes, Aristippus, Phædon, Æschines, Cebes, Euclid, and Plato. From the detached accounts given us by Xenophon and Plato, it appears that he instructed them in politics, rhetoric, logic, ethics, arithmetic, and geometry, though not in a systematic manner. He read with them the principal poets, and pointed out their beauties; he labored to enlighten and correct their opinions on all practical subjects, and to excite them to the study of whatever is most important to men. To make his instructions attractive, they were delivered, not in long lectures, but in free conversations, rendered interesting by question and answer. He did not reason _before_, but _with_ his disciples, and thus exercised an irresistible power over their minds. He obliged them to think for themselves, and if there was any capacity in a man, it could not fail to be excited by his conversation. This method of question and answer is called the _Socratic method_. The fragments of his conversations, preserved by Xenophon, often leave us unsatisfied; Plato alone has transmitted to us the genuine spirit of this method; and he was therefore viewed by the ancients as the only fountain of the Socratic philosophy,--a fact which has been too much disregarded by modern writers. Socrates fell a victim to the spirit of bigotry, which has sacrificed so many persons, who were in advance of the age. The document containing the accusation against him was lodged in the Temple of Cybele, as late as the second century of the Christian era. The following is a translation:--"Melitus, son of Melitus, accuses Socrates, son of Sophroniscus, of being guilty of denying the existence of the gods of the republic, making innovations in the religion of the Greeks, and of corrupting the Athenian youth. Penalty,--death." Melitus, who was a tragic writer of a low order, was engaged as an accuser in this affair, by the wealthy and more powerful enemies of Socrates. Amongst them were Anytus and Lycon, the former a rich artisan and zealous democrat, who had rendered very important services to the republic, by aiding Thrasybulus in the expulsion of the thirty tyrants, and in establishing the liberty of his country. The latter was an orator, and therefore a political magistrate, to which office the Athenian orators were entitled, by virtue of the laws of Solon. Socrates was seventy years of age when summoned to appear at the Areopagus. The news of this event did not excite much surprise, as the people had long expected it. Aristophanes, the celebrated comic poet of Athens, had previously undertaken, at the instigation of Melitus, to ridicule the venerable character of the philosopher; and when once he was calumniated and defamed, the fickle populace ceased to revere the man whom they had before looked upon as a being of a superior order. The enemies of Socrates were of two classes,--the one consisted of citizens who could not help admiring his genius and virtue, but who regarded him as a dangerous innovator and subverter of public order. They were ready, with him, to acknowledge that some reformation might be made in the tenets of Paganism; that the gods and goddesses were not patterns of virtue; and that the conduct of the sovereign of the skies, himself, was far from exemplary; but, said they, the thunders of Jupiter exercise a salutary influence over the minds of some, and the pains of Tartarus still operate as a bridle upon the passions of others. To bring in question the ancient faith, was at once to attack the institutions of the republic at their base, and excite revolution. The philosophy of Socrates, even though true, must be suppressed; for the life of one man is not to be put in the balance with the repose of a whole people,--with the safety of the country. It is better that Socrates should die, than Athens perish. Such was the reasoning of one portion. The other class was composed of the superstitious and bigoted,--of the vicious and imbecile,--who were daily exposed to the censures and sarcasms of the philosopher; in fine, of that set of narrow, jealous-minded men, who looked upon the welfare and fame of their neighbors with envy and with malice. The race that had exiled Aristides, because he was great, was ready to condemn Socrates, because he was wise. The friends and disciples of the great philosopher saw the danger that menaced him, and with anxiety and fear they crowded around their master, supplicating him to fly, or to adopt some means of defence; but he would do neither. Lysias, one of the most celebrated orators of the day, composed a pathetic oration, which he wished his friend to pronounce, as his defence, in the presence of his judges. Socrates read it, praised its animated and eloquent style, but rejected it, as being neither manly nor expressive of fortitude. The anxiety and trouble of avoiding condemnation appeared to him of little moment, when compared to the performance of his duty in upholding to the last moment, the truth of his principles and the dignity of his character. Socrates, though both eloquent and persuasive in conversation, was not capable of addressing a large assembly; therefore, on the day of his trial, he asked permission of his judges to use the means of defence to which he had been accustomed; namely, to speak familiarly with, and ask questions of, his adversaries. "Athenians," he said, in commencing, "I hope I shall succeed in my defence, if, by succeeding, good may result from it; but I look upon my success as very doubtful, and, therefore, do not deceive myself in that respect. But let the will of the gods be obeyed." The two chief accusations against Socrates, were firstly, that he did not believe in the religion of the state; secondly, that he was guilty of corrupting the minds of young men, and of disseminating the disbelief of the established religion. Socrates did not reply, in a direct manner, to either of these charges. Instead of declaring that he believed in the religion of his country, he proved that he was not an atheist; instead of refuting the charge of instructing youth to doubt the sacred tenets of the law, he declared and demonstrated that it was morality which he taught; and instead of appealing to the compassion of his judges, he did not disguise the contempt in which he held the means practised by parties accused, who, in order to excite sympathy and compassion, brought their children and relations to supplicate, with tears in their eyes, the mercy of the judges. "I, also, have friends and relations!" he said, "and, as to children, I have three,--one a stripling, the other two in childhood; yet I will not allow them to come here to excite your sympathy. Why will I not do so? It is not caused by stubbornness, nor by any disdain I have for you. For my honor, for your honor, for that of the republic, it is not meet that, with the reputation, whether true or false that I have acquired, I should make use of such means to procure your acquittal. Indeed, I should be ashamed if those that distinguish themselves for wisdom, courage, or any other virtue, should, like many people that I have seen, although they have passed for great men, commit actions the most grovelling--as if death were the greatest misfortune that could befall them, and that,--if their lives were spared,--they would become immortal!" When Socrates had ceased speaking, the judges of the Areopagus found him guilty, by a majority of three. On being demanded, according to the spirit of the Athenian laws, to pass sentence on himself, and to mention the death he preferred, Socrates, conscious of his own innocence, replied,--"Far from deeming myself guilty, I believe that I have rendered my country important services, and, therefore, think that I ought to be maintained in the Prytaneum at the public expense, during the remainder of my life,--an honor, O Athenians, that I merit more than the victors of the Olympic games. They make you happy in appearance; I have made you so in reality." This reply in the highest degree exasperated his judges, who condemned him to die by poison. When the sentence was passed, Socrates remained, for a few minutes, calm and undisturbed, and then asked permission to speak a few words. "Athenians," he said, "your want of patience will be used as a pretext by those who desire to defame the republic. They will tell you that you have put to death the wise Socrates; yes, they will call me wise, to add, to your shame--though I am not so. If you had but waited a short time, death would have come of itself, and thus saved you from disgracing yourselves. You see I am already advanced in years and must shortly die. All know that in times of war, nothing is more easy than saving our lives by throwing down our weapons, and demanding quarter of the enemy. It is the same in all dangers; a thousand pretexts can be found by those who are not scrupulous about what they say and do. It is difficult, O Athenians, to avoid death; but it is much more so to avoid crime, which is swifter than death. It is for this reason that, old and feeble as I am, I await the latter, whilst my accusers, who are more vigorous and volatile, embrace the former. I am now about to suffer the punishment to which you have sentenced me; my accusers, the odium and infamy to which virtue condemns them." "What is going to happen to me," he added, "will be rather an advantage than an evil; for it is apparent, that to die at present, and to be delivered of the cares of this life, is what will best suit me. I have no resentment towards my accusers, neither have I any ill-will against those who condemn me, although their intention was to injure me, to do all in their power to do me harm. I will make but one request; when my children are grown up, if they are seen to covet riches, or prefer wealth to virtue, punish and torment them as I have tormented you; and if they look upon themselves as beings of importance, make them blush for their presumption. This is what I have done to you. If you do that, you will secure the gratitude of a father, and my children will ever praise you. But it is time that we should separate; I go to die, and you to live. Which of us has the best portion? No one knows except God." When he had finished, he was taken to prison and loaded with chains. His execution was to have taken place in twenty-four hours, but it was postponed for thirty days, on account of the celebration of the Delian festivals. Socrates, with his usual cheerfulness and serenity, passed this time in conversing with his friends upon some of the most important subjects that could engage the mind of man. Plato relates, in the dialogue entitled The Phedon, the conversation which took place on the day preceding his death. That dialogue, without exception, is the most beautiful that the Greeks have left us. We can give only those passages which are more immediately connected with his death. "After the condemnation of Socrates," says Phedon, "we did not allow a day to escape without seeing him, and on the day previous to his death, we assembled earlier than usual. When we arrived at the prison door, the jailor told us to wait a little, as the Eleven were then giving orders for the death of Socrates." Speaking of the fear of death, Socrates said, "Assuredly, my dear friends, if I did not think I was going to find, in the other world, gods good and wise, and even infinitely better than we are, it would be wrong in me not to be troubled at death; but you must know that I hope soon to be introduced to virtuous men,--soon to arrive at the assembly of the just. Therefore it is that I fear not death, hoping, as I do, according to the ancient faith of the human race, that something better is in store for the just, than what there is for the wicked." The slave who was to give Socrates the poison, warned him to speak as little as possible, because sometimes it was necessary to administer the drug three or four times to those who allowed themselves to be overheated by conversation. "Let the poison be prepared," said Socrates, "as if it were necessary to give it two or three times;" then continued to discourse upon the immortality of the soul, mixing in his arguments the inspiration of sentiment and of poetry. "Let that man," said he, "have confidence in his destiny, who, during lifetime, has renounced the pleasures of the body as productive of evil. He who has sought the pleasures of science, who has beautified his soul, not with useless ornaments, but with what is suitable to his nature, such as temperance, justice, fortitude, liberty, and truth, ought to wait peaceably the hour of his departure, and to be always ready for the voyage, whenever fate calls him." "Alas! my dear friend," said Crito; "have you any orders for me, or for those present, with regard to your children or your affairs?" "What I have always recommended to you, Crito,"--replied Socrates, "to take care of yourselves,--nothing more. By doing so, you will render me a service, my family, and all who know you." After Socrates had bathed, his children and his female relations were brought into his presence. He spoke to them for some time, gave them his orders, then caused them to retire. After he returned, he sat down upon his bed, and had scarcely spoken, when the officer of the Eleven came in and said, "Socrates, I hope I shall not have the same occasion to reproach you as I have had in respect to others. As soon as I come to acquaint them that they must drink the poison, they are incensed against me; but you have, ever since you came here, been patient, calm, and even-tempered, and I am confident that you are not angry with me. Now, you know what I have told you. Farewell! Try to bear with resignation what cannot be avoided." Saying these words, he turned away, while the tears were streaming from his eyes. "I will follow your counsel," said Socrates. Then turning to his disciples, he continued, "Observe the honesty of that poor man. During my imprisonment, he has visited me daily, and now, see with what sincerity he weeps for me!" When the slave brought the poison to Socrates, the latter looked at him, and said, "Very well, my friend, what must I do? for you know best, and it is your business to direct me." "Nothing else but drink the poison; then walk, and when you find your limbs grow stiff, lie down upon your bed." At the same time, he handed the cup to Socrates, who took it without emotion or change of countenance; then looking at the man with a steady eye, he said,--"Tell me, is it allowable to make a drink-offering of this mixture?" "Socrates," the man replied, "we never prepare more than what is sufficient for one dose." "I understand you," said Socrates; "but nevertheless, it is lawful for me to pray to God that he may bless my voyage, and render it a happy one." Having said so, he raised the cup to his lips, and drank the poison with astonishing tranquillity and meekness. When Socrates looked around and saw his friends vainly endeavoring to stifle their tears, he said, "What are you doing, my companions? Was it not to avoid this, that I sent away the women? and you have fallen into their weakness. Be quiet, I pray you, and show more fortitude." In the mean time, he continued to walk, and when he felt his legs grow stiff, he lay down upon his back, as had been recommended. The person who gave Socrates the poison, then came forward, and, after examining his legs and feet, he bound them, and asked if he felt the cord. The dying philosopher answered, "No;" and feeling himself with his hand, he told his disciples, that "when the cold reached his heart, he should leave them." A few minutes afterwards, he exclaimed, "Crito, we owe a cock to Esculapius; do not forget to pay the debt." These were the last words of Socrates. Such was the end of the great philosopher; and it may be truly said that he was one of the wisest, best, and most upright of all the Athenians. In personal appearance Socrates was disagreeable: he had a sunken nose, and his eyes protruded so as to give him a strange appearance. It is supposed that he knew the shrewish temper of Xantippe, before he married her, and sought the alliance that she might give exercise to his patience. She tried every means to irritate him, and finding it impossible to rouse his anger, she poured some dirty water upon him from a window. "After thunder, we generally have rain," was the only remark the philosopher deigned to make. Many other anecdotes are handed down, which show the wonderful command Socrates had acquired over himself. [Illustration] [Illustration] ALCIBIADES. This eminent Athenian general and statesman, was born about 450 B. C. Descended on both sides from the most illustrious families of his country,--born to the inheritance of great wealth,--endued with great personal beauty and the most brilliant mental qualities,--it seemed evident, from his early youth, that he would exert no slight influence over the counsels and fortunes of Athens. His father, Cleinias, was killed at the battle of Cheronæa, and being thus an orphan, he was placed under the wardship of his uncle, Pericles. The latter was too much engaged in affairs of state to bestow that care upon Alcibiades, which the impetuosity of his disposition required. In his childhood he showed the germ of his future character. One day, when he was playing at dice with some companions in the street, a wagon came up; he requested the driver to stop, and, the latter refusing, Alcibiades threw himself before the wheel, exclaiming, "Drive on, if thou darest!" He excelled alike in mental and bodily exercises. His beauty and birth, and the high station of Pericles, procured him a multitude of friends and admirers, and his reputation was soon injured by the dissipation in which he became involved. He was fortunate in acquiring the friendship of Socrates, who endeavored to lead him to virtue, and undoubtedly obtained a great ascendency over him, so that Alcibiades often quitted his gay associates for the company of the philosopher. He bore arms, for the first time, in the expedition against Potidæa and was wounded. Socrates, who fought at his side, defended him, and led him out of danger. In the battle of Delium, he was among the cavalry who were victorious, but, the infantry being beaten, he was obliged to flee, as well as the rest. He overtook Socrates, who was retreating on foot. Alcibiades accompanied him, and protected him. [Illustration: _Socrates saving Alcibiades._] For a considerable time he took no part in public affairs, but on the death of Cleon, 422 B. C., Nicias succeeded in making a peace for fifty years, between the Athenians and Lacedæmonians. Alcibiades, jealous of the influence of Nicias, and offended because the Lacedæmonians, with whom he was connected by the ties of hospitality, had not applied to him, sought to bring about some disagreement between the two nations. The Lacedæmonians sent ambassadors to Athens. Alcibiades received them with apparent good-will, and advised them to conceal their credentials, lest the Athenians should prescribe conditions to them. They suffered themselves to be duped, and, when called into the assembly, declared that they were without credentials. Alcibiades rose immediately, stated that they had credentials, accused them of ill-faith, and induced the Athenians to form an alliance with the Argives. A breach with the Lacedæmonians was the immediate consequence. Alcibiades commanded the Athenian fleet several times during the war, and devastated the Peloponnesus. He did not, however, refrain from luxury and dissipation, to which he abandoned himself after his return from the wars. On one occasion, after having a nocturnal revel, in the company of some friends, he laid a wager that he would give Hipponicus a box on the ear; which he did. This act made a great noise in the city, but Alcibiades went to the injured party, threw off his garments, and called upon him to revenge himself by whipping him with rods. This open repentance reconciled Hipponicus, who not only pardoned him, but gave him afterwards his daughter, Hipparete, in marriage, with a portion of ten talents--about ten thousand dollars. Alcibiades, however, still continued his levity and prodigality. His extravagance was conspicuous at the Olympic games, where he entered the stadium, not like other rich men, with one chariot, but with seven at a time--and gained the three first prizes. He seems also to have been victor in the Pythian and Nemæan games. By these courses he drew upon himself the hatred of his fellow citizens, and he would have fallen a sacrifice to the ostracism, if he had not, in connection with Nicias and Phæax, who feared a similar fate, artfully contrived to procure the banishment of his most formidable enemy. Soon afterwards, the Athenians, at the instance of Alcibiades, resolved on an expedition against Sicily, and elected him commander-in-chief, together with Nicias and Lamachus. But, during the preparations, it happened one night that all the statues of Mercury were broken. The enemies of Alcibiades charged him with the act, but postponed a public accusation till he had set sail, when they stirred up the people against him to such a degree, that he was recalled in order to be tried. Alcibiades had been very successful in Sicily, when he received the order to return. He prepared to obey, and embarked, but on reaching Thurium, he landed, and, instead of proceeding to Athens, concealed himself. Some one asking him, "How is this, Alcibiades? Have you no confidence in your country?"--he replied, "I would not trust my mother when my life is concerned, for she might, by mistake, take a black stone instead of a white one." He was condemned to death in Athens. When the news reached him, he remarked--"I shall show the Athenians that I am yet alive." He now went to Argos; thence to Sparta, where he made himself a favorite by conforming closely to the prevailing strictness of manners. Here he succeeded in inducing the Lacedæmonians to form an alliance with the Persian king, and, after the unfortunate issue of the Athenian expedition against Sicily, he prevailed on the Spartans to assist the inhabitants of Chios in throwing off the yoke of Athens. He went himself thither, and on his arrival in Asia Minor, roused the whole of Ionia to insurrection against the Athenians, and did them considerable injury. But Agis and the principal leaders of the Spartans became jealous of him, on account of his success, and ordered their commanders in Asia to cause him to be assassinated. Alcibiades suspected their plan, and went to Tissaphernes, a Persian satrap, who was ordered to act in concert with the Lacedæmonians. Here he changed his manners once more, adopted the luxurious habits of Asia, and soon contrived to make himself indispensable to the satrap. As he could no longer trust the Lacedæmonians, he undertook to serve his country, and showed Tissaphernes that it was against the interest of the Persian king to weaken the Athenians; on the contrary, Sparta and Athens ought to be preserved for their mutual injury. Tissaphernes followed this advice, and afforded the Athenians some relief. The latter had, at that time, considerable forces at Samos. Alcibiades sent word to their commanders, that, if the licentiousness of the people was suppressed and the government put into the hands of the nobles, he would procure for them the friendship of Tissaphernes, and prevent the junction of the Phoenician and Lacedæmonian fleets. This demand was acceded to, and Pisander was sent to Athens; by whose means the government of the city was put into the hands of a council, consisting of four hundred persons. As, however, the council showed no intention of recalling Alcibiades, the army of Samos chose him their commander, and exhorted him to go directly to Athens and overthrow the power of the tyrants. He wished, however, not to return to his country before he had rendered it some services; and therefore attacked and totally defeated the Lacedæmonians. When he returned to Tissaphernes, the latter, in order not to appear a participator in the act, caused him to be arrested in Sardis. But Alcibiades found means to escape; placed himself at the head of the Athenian army; conquered the Lacedæmonians and Persians, at Cyzicus, by sea and land; took Cyzicus, Chalcedon, and Byzantium; restored the sovereignty of the sea to the Athenians, and returned to his country, whither he had been recalled, on the motion of Critias. He was received with general enthusiasm; for the Athenians considered his exile as the cause of all their misfortunes. But this triumph was of short duration. He was sent with one hundred ships to Asia; and, not being supplied with money to pay his soldiers, he saw himself under the necessity of seeking help in Caria, and committed the command to Antiochus, who was drawn into a snare by Lysander, and lost his life and a part of his ships. The enemies of Alcibiades improved this opportunity to accuse him, and procure his removal from office. Alcibiades now went to Pactyæ in Thrace, collected troops, and waged war against the Thracians. He obtained considerable booty, and secured the quiet of the neighboring Greek cities. The Athenian fleet was, at that time, lying at Ægos Potamos. He pointed out to the generals the danger which threatened them, advised them to go to Sestos, and offered his assistance to force the Lacedæmonian general, Lysander, either to fight, or to make peace. But they did not listen to him, and soon after were totally defeated. Alcibiades, fearing the power of the Lacedæmonians, betook himself to Bithynia, and was about to go to Artaxerxes, to procure his assistance for his country. In the meantime, the thirty tyrants, whom Lysander after the capture of Athens, had set up there, requested the latter to cause Alcibiades to be assassinated. But Lysander declined, until he received an order to the same effect from his own government. He then charged Pharnabazes with the execution of it. Alcibiades was at the time with Timandra, his mistress, in a castle in Phrygia. The assistants of Pharnabazes, afraid to encounter Alcibiades, set fire to his house, and when he had already escaped the conflagration, they despatched him with their arrows. Timandra buried the body with due honor. Thus Alcibiades ended his life, 404 B. C., being about forty-five years old. He was endowed by nature with distinguished qualities, a rare talent to captivate and rule mankind, and uncommon eloquence, although he could not pronounce the letter _r_, and had an impediment in his speech. He had, however, no fixed principles, and was governed only by external circumstances. He was without that elevation of soul which steadily pursues the path of virtue. On the other hand, he possessed that boldness which arises from consciousness of superiority, and which shrinks from no difficulty, because confident of success. He was a singular instance of intellectual eminence and moral depravity. His faculty for adapting himself to circumstances enabled him to equal the Spartans in austerity of manners, and to surpass the pomp of the Persians. Plutarch says, that "no man was of so sullen a nature but he would make him merry; nor so churlish but he could make him gentle." DEMOCRITUS. Democritus, one of the most remarkable of the philosophers of antiquity, was born at Abdera, a maritime city of Thrace, 460 B. C. He travelled over the greatest part of Europe, Asia and Africa, in quest of knowledge. Though his father was so rich as to entertain Xerxes and his whole army, while marching against Greece, and left his son a large fortune, yet the latter returned from his travels in a state of poverty. It was a law of the country, that a man should be deprived of the honor of a funeral, who had reduced himself to indigence. Democritus was of course exposed to this ignominy; but having read before his countrymen his chief work, it was received with the greatest applause, and he was presented with five hundred talents,--a sum nearly equal to half a million of dollars. Statues were also erected to his honor; and a decree was passed that the expenses of his funeral should be paid from the public treasury. These circumstances display alike the great eminence of the philosopher, and an appreciation of genius and learning on the part of the people, beyond what could now be found in the most civilized communities of the world. Where is the popular assembly of the present day, that would bestow such a reward, on such an occasion? After his return from his travels, Democritus retired to a garden near the city, where he dedicated his time to study and solitude; and, according to some authors, put out his eyes, to apply himself more closely to philosophical inquiries. This, however, is unworthy of credit. He was accused of insanity, and Hippocrates, a celebrated physician, was ordered to inquire into the nature of his disorder. After a conference with the philosopher, he declared that not the latter, but his enemies were insane. Democritus was so accustomed to laugh at the follies and vanities of mankind, who distract themselves with care, and are at once the prey to hope and anxiety, that he acquired the title of the "laughing philosopher," in contrast to Heraclitus,[12] who has been called the "weeping philosopher." He told Darius, the king, who was inconsolable for the loss of his wife, that he would raise her from the dead if he could find three persons who had gone through life without adversity, and whose names he might engrave on the queen's monument. The king's inquiries after such, proved unavailing, and the philosopher discovered the means of soothing the sorrows of the sovereign. He was a disbeliever in the existence of ghosts; and some youths, to try his fortitude, dressed themselves in hideous and deformed habits, and approached his cave in the dead of night, expecting to excite his terror and astonishment. The philosopher received them unmoved, and, without hardly deigning to bestow upon them a look, desired them to cease making themselves such objects of ridicule and folly. He died in the one hundred and fourth year of his age, B. C. 357. All the works of Democritus, which were numerous, are lost. He was the first to teach that the milky way was occasioned by a confused light from a multitude of stars. He may be considered as the parent of experimental philosophy; in the prosecution of which he was so ardent, that he declared he would prefer the discovery of one of the causes of the works of nature, to the diadem of Persia. He is said to have made artificial emeralds by chemical means, and to have tinged them with various colors; he likewise found the art of dissolving stones and softening ivory. He was the author of the atomic theory; he viewed all matter, in which he included mind, as reducible to atoms; he considered the universe to consist only of matter and empty space. The mind he regarded as round atoms of fire. He argued that nothing could arise out of nothing; and also that nothing could utterly perish and become nothing. Hence he inferred the eternity of the universe, and dispensed with the existence of a Creator. He explained the difference in substances by a difference in their component atoms; and all material phenomena, by different motions, backward or forward, taking place of necessity. He did not seem to perceive that under this word, _necessity_, he concealed a deity. He explained sensation by supposing sensible images to issue from bodies. In moral philosophy, he only taught that a cheerful state of mind was the greatest attainable good. The theories of Democritus appear absurd enough in our time; but philosophy was then in its infancy. His struggles after light and truth display the darkness of the age, and the ingenuity of the philosopher. They may also teach us by what a process of mental toil, for centuries piled upon centuries, the knowledge we possess has been attained. The school he established, was supplanted, about a century after, by that of Epicurus. [Illustration] [Footnote 12: Heraclitus flourished about 500 years B. C. He was a native of Ephesus; and being of a melancholy disposition, he spent his time in mourning and weeping over the frailties of human nature, and the miseries of human life. He employed himself for a time, in writing different treatises, in which he maintained that all things are governed by a fatal necessity. His opinions, in some things, were adopted by the Stoics. He became at last a man-hater, and retired to the mountains, so as to be entirely separated from his fellow-men. Here he fed on grass, which brought on a dropsical complaint: to get cured of this, he returned to the town. He established his residence on a dunghill, hoping that the warmth might dissipate his disease; but this proved ineffectual, and he died in his sixtieth year.] [Illustration] PERICLES. This celebrated man, born about 498 B. C., was an Athenian of noble birth, son of Xantippus and Agariste. He was endowed by nature with great powers, which he improved by attending the lectures of Damon, Zeno, and Anaxagoras. Under these celebrated masters, he became a commander, a statesman, and an orator, and gained the affections of the people by his great address, and well-directed liberality. When he took a share in the administration of public affairs, he rendered himself popular by opposing Cimon, who was the favorite of the nobility; and, to remove every obstacle which stood in the way of his ambition, he lessened the dignity and the power of the court of Areopagus, whom the people had been taught for ages to respect and venerate. He continued his attacks upon Cimon, and finally caused him to be banished by the ostracism. Thucydides also, who had succeeded Cimon on his banishment, shared the same fate, and Pericles remained, for fifteen years, the sole minister, and, as it may be said, the absolute sovereign of a republic which always showed itself so jealous of her liberties, and which distrusted so much the honesty of her magistrates. In his ministerial capacity, Pericles did not enrich himself, but the prosperity of Athens was the object of his administration. He made war against the Lacedæmonians, and restored the temple of Delphi to the care of the Phocians, who had been illegally deprived of that honorable trust. He obtained a victory over the Sicyonians near Nemæa, and waged a successful war against the inhabitants of Samos. The Peloponnesian war was fomented by his ambitious views, and when he had warmly represented the flourishing state, the opulence and actual power of his country, the Athenians did not hesitate to undertake a war against the most powerful republics of Greece--a war which continued for twenty-seven years, and was concluded by the destruction of their empire and the demolition of their walls. The arms of the Athenians were, for some time, crowned with success; but an unfortunate expedition raised clamors against Pericles, and the enraged populace attributed all their losses to him. To make atonement for their ill-success, they condemned him to pay fifty talents. The loss of popular favor did not so much affect Pericles, as the death of all his children. When the tide of disaffection had passed away, he condescended to come into the public assembly, and viewed with secret pride the contrition of his fellow-citizens, who universally begged his forgiveness for the violence which they had offered to his ministerial character. He was again restored to all his honors, and, if possible, invested with more power and more authority than before; but the dreadful pestilence which had diminished the number of his family, and swept away many of his best friends, proved fatal to himself, and about 429 years B. C., in his seventieth year, he fell a sacrifice to that terrible malady which robbed Athens of so many of her citizens. Pericles was forty years at the head of the administration; twenty-five years with others, and fifteen alone. The flourishing state of the country under his government, gave occasion to the Athenians publicly to lament his loss and venerate his memory. As he was expiring and apparently senseless, his friends, that stood around his bed, expatiated with warmth on the most glorious actions of his life, and the victories which he had won--when he suddenly interrupted their tears and conversation, by saying, that in mentioning the exploits he had achieved, and which were common to him with all generals, they had forgotten to mention a circumstance, which reflected far greater glory on him as a minister, a general, and above all, as a man: "It is," said he, "that not a citizen in Athens has been obliged to put on mourning on my account." The Athenians were so affected by his eloquence that they compared it to thunder and lightning, and, as if he were another father of the gods, they gave him the title of Olympian. The poets said that the goddess of persuasion, with all her charms and attractions, dwelt upon his tongue. When he marched at the head of the Athenian armies, he observed that he had the command of a free nation, who were Greeks and citizens of Athens. He also declared that not only the hand of a magistrate, but also his eyes and his tongue, should be pure and undefiled. There can be no doubt that Pericles was one of the most eloquent orators and sagacious statesmen of Greece. Yet, great and venerable as his character may appear, we must not forget his follies. His vicious partiality for the celebrated courtesan, Aspasia, justly subjected him to the ridicule and censure of his fellow-citizens. The greatness of his talents and his services, enabled him to triumph over satire and reproach for the time, but the Athenians had occasion to execrate the memory of a man, who, by his example, corrupted the purity and innocence of their morals, and who, associating licentiousness with talents and public virtue, rendered it almost respectable. Pericles lost all his legitimate children by the pestilence already mentioned; and to call a natural son by his own name, he was obliged to repeal a law which he had made against spurious children, and which he had enforced with great severity. This son, named Pericles, became one of the ten generals who succeeded Alcibiades in the administration of affairs, and, like his colleagues, he was condemned to death by the Athenians, after the unfortunate battle of Arginusæ. [Illustration] [Illustration] ARISTIDES. This great Athenian general and statesman, who took so conspicuous a part in the deliverance of Greece from the Persians, and who has come down to us with the enviable surname of THE JUST, was the son of Lysimachus and born about the year 550 B. C. We know little of the steps by which he rose to eminence. He was one of the ten generals of the Athenian forces, when they fought with the Persians at Marathon. According to the custom, each general held command of the army for one day, in rotation. Aristides, perceiving the disadvantages of this system, prevailed on his colleagues to give up their command to Miltiades. To this, in a great measure, must be attributed the memorable victory of the Greeks upon that occasion. The year after this, Aristides was archon; and the ambitious Themistocles, desiring to get rid of him privately circulated a charge that Aristides was aiming at sovereign power. He succeeded finally in causing him to be exiled by the ostracism--a vote of banishment, in which the Athenians used shells for ballots. While the voting, upon this occasion, was going on, Aristides was among the people; a rustic citizen, who did not know him, came up and asked him to write the name of Aristides upon the shell with which he intended to vote. "Has he ever injured you?" said Aristides. "No," said the voter, "but I am tired of hearing him called the '_Just!_'" Aristides left Athens, with prayers for its welfare. He was recalled at the end of three years, and, forgetting his injury, devoted himself with ardor and success to the good of his country. In the famous battle of Platea, he commanded the Athenians, and is entitled to a great share of the merit of the splendid victory gained by the Greeks. He died at an advanced age, about 467 B. C. He was so poor that the expenses of his funeral were defrayed at the public charge, and his two daughters, on account of their father's virtues, received a dowry from the public treasury, when they came to marriageable years. The effect of so rare an example as that of Aristides, was visible even during his lifetime. The Athenians became more virtuous, in imitating their great leader. Such was their sense of his good qualities, that, at the representation of one of the tragedies of Æschylus, when the actor pronounced a sentence concerning moral goodness, the eyes of the audience were all at once turned from the players to Aristides. When he sat as judge, it is said that the plaintiff in his accusation--in order to prejudice him against the defendant--mentioned the injuries he had done to Aristides. "Mention the wrong _you_ have received," said the equitable Athenian. "I sit here as judge; the lawsuit is yours, not mine." On one occasion, Themistocles announced to the people of Athens that he had a scheme of the greatest advantage to the state; but it could not be mentioned in a public assembly. Aristides was appointed to confer with him. The design was to set fire to the combined fleet of the Greeks, then lying in a neighboring port, by which means the Athenians would acquire the sovereignty of the seas. Aristides returned to the people, and told them that nothing could be more advantageous--yet nothing more unjust. The project was of course abandoned. The character of Aristides is one of the finest that is handed down by antiquity. To him belongs the rarest of all praises, that of observing justice, not only between man and man, but between nation and nation. He was truly a patriot, for he preferred the good of his country to his own ambition. A candid enemy, an impartial friend, a just administrator of other men's money--an observer of national faith--he is well entitled to the imperishable monument which is erected in that simple title, THE JUST! [Illustration] ÆSOP. This celebrated inventor of fables was a native of Phrygia, in Asia Minor, and flourished in the time of Solon, about 560 B. C. A life of him was written by a Greek monk, named Planudes, about the middle of the fourteenth century, which passed into circulation as a genuine work, but which is proved to have been a mere fiction. In that work, Æsop is represented as being hunch-backed, and an object of disgust from his deformity. There appears to be no foundation whatever for this story. This invention of the monk, no doubt, had for its object, to give eclat to the beauties of Æsop's mind, by the contrast of bodily deformity. Throwing aside the work of Planudes, we are left to grope in obscurity for the real history of the great fabulist. After the most diligent researches, we can do little more than trace the leading incidents of his life. The place of his birth, like that of Homer, is matter of question; Samos, Sardis, Cotiæum in Phrygia, and Mesembria in Thrace, laying claim alike to that honor. The early part of his life was spent in slavery, and the names of three of his masters have been preserved: Dinarchus, an Athenian, in whose service he is said to have acquired a correct and pure knowledge of Greek; Xanthus, a Samian, who figures in Planudes as a philosopher, in order that the capacity of the slave may be set off by the incapacity of the master; and Iadmon or Idmon, another Samian, by whom he was enfranchised. He acquired a high reputation in Greece for that species of composition, which, after him, was called Æsopian, and, in consequence, was solicited by Croesus to take up his abode at the Lydian court. Here he is said to have met Solon, and to have rebuked the sage for his uncourtly way of inculcating moral lessons. He is said to have visited Athens during the usurpation of Pisistratus, and to have then composed the fable of Jupiter and the Frogs[13] for the instruction of the citizens. Being charged by Croesus with an embassy to Delphi, in the course of which he was to distribute a sum of money to every Delphian, a quarrel arose between him and the citizens, in consequence of which he returned the money to his patron, alleging that those for whom it was meant were unworthy of it. The disappointed party, in return, got up the charge of sacrilege, upon which they put him to death. A pestilence which ensued was attributed to this crime, and in consequence they made proclamation, at all the public assemblies of the Grecian nation, of their willingness to make compensation for Æsop's death to any one who should appear to claim it. A grandson of his master, Iadmon, at length claimed and received it, no person more closely connected with the sufferer having appeared. It is a question of some doubt, whether Æsop was the inventor of that species of fable which endows the inferior animals, and even inanimate objects, with speech and reason, and thus, under the cover of humorous conceit, conveys lessons of wisdom; and which, from their pleasant guise, are often well received where the plain truth would be rejected. The probability is, that, if not the originator of such fables, Æsop was the first who composed them of such point as to bring them into use as a powerful vehicle for the inculcation of truth. At all events, there is abundant proof that fables, passing under his name, were current and popular in Athens, during the most brilliant period of its literary history, and not much more than a century after the death of the supposed author. The drolleries of Æsop are mentioned by Aristophanes in terms which lead us to suppose that they were commonly repeated at convivial parties. Socrates, in prison, turned into verse 'those that he knew;' and Plato, who banishes the fictions of Homer from his ideal republic, speaks with high praise of the tendency of those of Æsop. Many of the fables in circulation among us, under the name of Æsop, are not his;--indeed, it is probable that but a small portion of them can trace their origin back to the Phrygian. A good fable, as well as a good story, however it may originate, is apt to be attributed to one whose character it may suit--and thus it happens that the same smart sayings are credited, in different countries, to different individuals; and thus, also, we see that many of the fables which we assign to Æsop, are credited, by the Mohammedans, to their fabulist, Lokman. The value of fables, as instruments of instruction, is attested by Addison, in the following words. "They were," says he, "the first pieces of wit that made their appearance in the world; and have been still highly valued, not only in times of the greatest simplicity, but among the most polite ages of mankind. Jotham's fable of the Trees is the oldest that is extant, and as beautiful as any which have been made since that time. Nathan's fable of the Poor Man and his Lamb is likewise more ancient than any that is extant, excepting the above mentioned, and had so good an effect as to convey instruction to the ear of a king, without offending it, and to bring the 'man after God's own heart' to a right sense of his guilt and his duty. We find Æsop in the most distant ages of Greece. And, if we look into the very beginning of the commonwealth of Rome, we see a mutiny among the common people appeased by the fable of the Belly and the Members; which was indeed very proper to gain the attention of an incensed rabble, at a time when perhaps they would have torn to pieces any man who had preached the same doctrine to them in an open and direct manner. As fables took their birth in the very infancy of learning, they never flourished more than when learning was at its greatest height. To justify this assertion, I shall put my reader in mind of Horace, the greatest wit and critic in the Augustan age; and of Boileau, the most correct poet among the moderns; not to mention La Fontaine, who, by this way of writing, is come more into vogue than any other author of our times." "Reading is to the mind," continues the writer, "what exercise is to the body: as, by the one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated, by the other, virtue, (which is the health of the mind,) is kept alive, cherished and confirmed. But, as exercise becomes tedious and painful when we make use of it only as the means of health, so reading is too apt to grow uneasy and burdensome, when we apply ourselves to it only for our improvement in virtue. For this reason, the virtue which we gather from a fable or an allegory, is like the health we get by hunting, as we are engaged in an agreeable pursuit that draws us on with pleasure, and makes us insensible of the fatigues that accompany it." In modern times, La Fontaine has given us an admirable collection of fables, and the artist Grandville has added a new charm to them, by a very happy conceit. With infinite wit, he has dressed up the wolves, foxes, and other animals which figure in the fables, in human attire, yet so skilfully as to seem natural--thus aiding the imagination, in conceiving of the actors and speakers in the fables, as performing their several parts. By the aid of his magical pencil, even trees, kettles and kegs assume an appearance of life, and seem to justify the wit and wisdom which they are imagined to utter. The humor of these designs is inimitable; and thus not only is greater effect given to the particular fables illustrated, but greater scope, to the fable generally. We are indebted, in this country, for a most excellent translation of La Fontaine, with many of Grandville's designs, to Professor Wright. [Illustration] [Footnote 13: "The frogs, living an easy, free life everywhere among the lakes and ponds, assembled together one day, in a very tumultuous manner, and petitioned Jupiter to let them have a king, who might inspect their morals, and make them live a little honester. Jupiter, being at that time in pretty good humor, was pleased to laugh heartily at their ridiculous request; and, throwing a little log down into the pool, cried, 'There is a king for you,' The sudden splash which this made, by its fall into the water, at first terrified them so exceedingly, that they were afraid to come near it. But, in a little time, seeing it remain without moving, they ventured, by degrees, to approach it; and, at last, finding there was no danger, they leaped upon it, and, in short, treated it as familiarly as they pleased. "But not contented with so insipid a king as this was, they sent their deputies to petition again for another sort of one; for this they neither did nor could like. Upon that Jupiter sent them a stork, who, without any ceremony, fell to devouring and eating them up, one after another, as fast as he could. Then they applied themselves privately to Mercury, and got him to speak to Jupiter in their behalf, that he would be so good as to bless them again with another king, or to restore them to their former state. 'No,' says Jove, 'since it was their own choice, let the obstinate wretches suffer the punishment due to their folly.'"] [Illustration] SOLON. Solon, one of the seven wise men of Greece, was born at Salamis, 637 B. C. and educated at Athens. His father was one of the descendants of king Codrus, and, by his mother's side, he reckoned among his relations the celebrated Pisistratus. After he had devoted part of his time to philosophical and political studies, Solon travelled over the greatest part of Greece; but at his return home he was distressed at beholding the dissensions among his countrymen. All now fixed their eyes upon him as a deliverer, and he was unanimously elected archon. He might have become absolute, but he refused the dangerous office of king of Athens, and, in the capacity of lawgiver, he began to make a reform in every department of the government. The complaints of the poorer citizens found redress; all debts were remitted, and no one was permitted to seize the person of his debtor, if he was unable to make payment. After he had established the most salutary regulations in the state, and bound the Athenians by a solemn oath that they would faithfully observe his laws for the space of one hundred years, Solon resigned the office of legislator, and removed himself from Athens. He visited Egypt, and the court of Croesus,[14] king of Lydia--celebrated for his wealth, and the vanity of desiring to be esteemed the happiest of mankind. He here declared to the monarch that an Athenian, who had always seen his country flourish--who had virtuous children, and who fell in defence of his native land, had a happier career than the proudest emperor on the globe. After ten years' absence, Solon returned to Athens; but he had the mortification to find the greatest part of his regulations disregarded, through the factious spirit of his countrymen and the usurpation of Pisistratus. Not to be longer a spectator of the divisions that reigned in his country, he retired to Cyprus, where he died at the court of king Philocyprus, in the eightieth year of his age. The laws of Solon became established in Athens, and their salutary consequences can be discovered in the length of time they were in force in the republic. For above four hundred years they flourished in full vigor, and Cicero, who was himself a witness of their benign influence, passes the highest encomiums upon the legislator, whose superior wisdom framed such a code of regulations. It was the intention of Solon to protect the poorer citizens; and by dividing the whole body of the Athenians into four classes, three of which were permitted to discharge the most important offices and magistracies of the state, and the last to give their opinion in the assemblies, but not have a share in the distinctions and honors of their superiors; the legislator gave the populace a privilege, which, though at first small and inconsiderable, soon rendered them masters of the republic, and of all the affairs of government. He made a reformation in the Areopagus, increased the authority of the members, and permitted them yearly to inquire how every citizen maintained himself, and to punish such as lived in idleness, and were not employed in some honorable and lucrative profession. He also regulated the Prytaneum, and fixed the number of its judges to four hundred. The sanguinary laws of Draco were all cancelled except that against murder; and the punishment denounced against every offender was proportioned to his crime; but Solon made no law against parricide or sacrilege. The former of these crimes, he said, was too horrible to human nature for a man to be guilty of it, and the latter could never be committed, because the history of Athens had never furnished a single instance. Such as had died in the service of their country, were buried with great pomp, and their families were maintained at the public expense; but such as had squandered away their estates, such as refused to bear arms in defence of their country, or paid no attention to the infirmity and distress of their parents, were branded with infamy. The laws of marriage were newly regulated; it became an union of affection and tenderness, and no longer a mercenary contract. To speak with ill language against the dead, as well as against the living, was made a crime; for the legislator wished that the character of his fellow-citizens should be freed from the aspersions of malevolence and envy. A person that had no children was permitted to dispose of his estates as he pleased; females were not allowed to be extravagant in their dress or expenses; licentiousness was punished; and those accustomed to abandoned society, were deprived of the privilege of addressing the public assemblies. These celebrated laws were engraved on several tables; and that they might be better known and more familiar to the Athenians, they were written in verse. If we consider the time in which Solon lived, we shall see occasion to regard him as a man of extraordinary wisdom and virtue. Nearly all the systems of government around him were despotic. That government should be instituted and conducted for the benefit of the governed; and that the people are the proper depositories of power--principles recognised in his institutions--were truths so deeply hidden from mankind, as to demand an intellect of the highest order for their discovery. Nor are his virtues and humanity less conspicuous than his sagacity. While repealing the bloody code of Draco, he substituted mild and equitable laws; he shunned the harsh and savage system of Lycurgus, which sacrificed all the best feelings of the heart, and the most refined pleasures of life, in order to sustain the martial character of the state; and while he sought to soften the manners, he strove to exalt the standard of public and private virtue, not only by his laws, but by his conversation and example. He was thus, not only the benefactor of Athens and of Greece, but--as one of the great instruments of civilization throughout the world, and especially as one of the leaders in the establishment of free government--mankind at large owe him a lasting debt of gratitude. [Illustration] [Footnote 14: Croesus was the fifth and last of the Mermadæ, who reigned in Lydia, and during his time he passed for the richest of mankind. He was the first who made the Greeks of Asia tributary to the Lydians. His court was the asylum of learning; and Æsop, the famous fable-writer, among others, lived under his patronage. In a conversation with Solon, Croesus wished to be thought the happiest of mankind; but the philosopher apprized him of his mistake, and gave the preference to poverty and domestic virtue. Croesus undertook a war against Cyrus, the king of Persia, and marched to meet him with an army of 420,000 men, and 60,000 horse. After a reign of fourteen years he was defeated, B. C. 548; his capital was besieged, and he fell into the conqueror's hands, who ordered him to be burnt alive. The pile was already on fire, when Cyrus heard the conquered monarch exclaim, "Solon! Solon! Solon!" with lamentable energy. He asked him the reason of his exclamation, and Croesus repeated the conversation he once had with Solon, on human happiness. Cyrus was moved at the recital; and, at the recollection of the inconstancy of human affairs, he ordered Croesus to be taken from the burning pile, and he was afterwards one of his most intimate friends. The kingdom of Lydia became extinct in his person, and the power was transferred to Persia. Croesus survived Cyrus. The manner of his death is unknown. He is celebrated for the immensely rich presents which he made to the temple of Delphi, from which he received an obscure and ambiguous oracle, which he interpreted in his favor, but which was fulfilled in the destruction of his empire.] [Illustration] LYCURGUS. This Spartan lawgiver is supposed to have been born about 900 B. C. He was the youngest son of king Eunomus, and was entitled to the throne upon the death of his brother, Polydectes; but he relinquished it in behalf of his unborn son, and administered the government in his name. By the wisdom of his measures, he won general esteem; and his noble disinterestedness raised his glory to a height which awoke envy against him in the minds of some of the most distinguished Spartans, who now conspired against him. Partly to escape the danger which threatened him, and partly to gratify the desire of seeing foreign nations, and learning their manners, he left Sparta, and travelled in various countries. After visiting Crete, and admiring the wise laws of Minos, he went to Iona. The effeminate and luxurious life of the inhabitants, and the feebleness of their laws, which formed a striking contrast with the simplicity and vigor of those of Crete, made a deep impression upon him. Here, however, he is said to have become acquainted with the poems of Homer, which he collected and carried to Greece. From hence he is said to have travelled into Egypt, India, and Spain; but this seems improbable. In the meanwhile, the two kings who succeeded him at Sparta, Archelaus and Charilaus, were esteemed neither by the people nor by the nobility; and, as there were no laws sufficient to maintain the public tranquillity, the confusion passed all bounds. In this dangerous situation, Lycurgus was the only man from whom help and deliverance could be expected. The people hoped from him protection against the nobles, and the kings believed that he would put an end to the disobedience of the people. More than once, ambassadors were sent to entreat him to come to the assistance of the state. He long resisted, but at last yielded to the urgent wishes of his fellow-citizens. At his arrival in Sparta, he found that not only particular abuses were to be suppressed, but that it would be necessary to form an entirely new constitution. The confidence which his personal character, his judgment, and the dangerous situation of the state, gave him among his fellow-citizens, encouraged him to encounter all obstacles. The first step which he took, was to add to the kings a senate of twenty-eight persons, venerable for their age, without whose consent the former were to undertake nothing. He thus established a useful balance between the power of the kings and the licentiousness of the people. The latter at the same time obtained the privilege of giving their voice in public affairs. They had not, however, properly speaking, deliberative privileges, but only the limited right of accepting or rejecting what was proposed by the kings or the senate. The Spartans conformed in general to the institutions of Lycurgus; but the equal division of property which he effected, excited among the rich such violent commotions, that the lawgiver fled to the temple, to save his life. On the way, he received a blow, which struck out one of his eyes. He merely turned round, and showed to his pursuers his face streaming with blood. This sight filled all with shame and repentance; they implored his pardon, and led him respectfully home. The person who had done the deed, a young man of rank, and of a fiery character, was given up to him. Lycurgus pardoned him, and dismissed him, covered with shame. After having thus formed a constitution for Sparta, Lycurgus endeavored to provide for its continuance. He made all the citizens take a solemn oath that they would change nothing in the laws which he had introduced, before his return. He then went to Delphi, and asked the gods whether the new laws were sufficient for the happiness of Sparta. The answer was, "Sparta will remain the most prosperous of all states as long as it observes these laws." He sent this answer to Lacedæmon, and left his country forever. He died of voluntary starvation, and ordered his body to be burned, and the ashes scattered in the sea, lest they should be carried to Sparta, and his countrymen be released from their oath. Though the patriotism of Lycurgus appears to have been of the most exalted nature, his institutions were exceedingly barbarous, in many respects. He cherished no such thing as family ties, but required everything to yield to the good of the state. The children did not belong to the parents; feeble children were destroyed; meals were all taken in common; unmarried men were punished. Thus the private liberty of the people was taken away, and they were made slaves, in their daily habits, thoughts and feelings, to that power which was called the state. The design of the lawgiver seemed to be to rear up a nation of soldiers--not for conquest, but for defence. He would not permit Sparta to be encircled with walls, preferring that its defence should depend on the arms of the citizens. The men were wholly trained for martial life. Sensibility to suffering, and the fear of death, were treated with contempt. Victory or death, in battle, was their highest glory; cowardice was attended with the most deadly shame. The difference between the institutions of Lycurgus and those of Solon, may be seen in their results. The Spartans became a stern and haughty nation of soldiers; but they have left nothing behind but their story, to instruct mankind; while the Athenians, exalted by the genial breath of liberty, continue to this very hour to be the admiration of the world, for their literature, their arts, and their institutions. [Illustration] [Illustration] HOMER. The Iliad is often spoken of as the greatest production of the human mind; yet it has been seriously questioned whether such a person as Homer ever lived! This paradox is to be explained by admitting, that, although the Iliad is a wonderful performance for the time and circumstances of its composition, still, it is by no means entitled to the supremacy which scholastic fondness assigns to it; and that the doubts thrown upon its authorship are but the mists engendered in the arena of hypercriticism. By Homer, we mean the author of the Iliad, whatever may have been his true name. The period at which he flourished is matter of doubt, but it is fixed by the Arundelian Marbles,[15] at 907 B. C., which is probably not far from the true date. A great many tales are handed down to us, in relation to him, which are mere fictions. The only well established facts, in his life, are that he was a native of Asiatic Greece, and a wandering poet, or rhapsodist, who went about the country reciting his compositions, according to the custom of those times. The story of his being blind is without authority. Such are the meagre facts which can be gathered amid the obscurity of that remote age in which Homer lived. There is something painful in this barrenness,--and we almost feel that the critics, in exploding the fond fictions which antiquity has woven around the name of the great poet, have performed an ungracious office. They have indeed dissipated fables, but they have left us little but darkness or vacuity in their place. Such is the yearning of the mind, in respect to those who have excited its emotions, and created an interest in the bosom, that it will cherish even the admitted portraitures of fiction and fancy, rather than content itself with the blank canvass of nothingness. The heart, as well as nature, abhors a vacuum. The fictitious history of Homer--which, however, is of some antiquity, and has passed current for centuries--is briefly as follows. His mother was named Critheis: she was married to Mæon, king of Smyrna, and gave birth to a child, on or near the banks of the river Meles, from which circumstance he was called Meles genes. The mother soon died, and he was brought up and educated under the care of Mæon. The name of Homer was afterwards given to him, on account of his becoming blind. The legends proceed in general to state that Homer himself became a schoolmaster and poet of great celebrity, at Smyrna, and remained there till Mentes, a foreign merchant, induced him to travel. That the author of the Iliad and Odyssey must have travelled pretty extensively for those times, is unquestionable; for besides the accurate knowledge of Greece which these works display, it is clear that the poet had a familiar acquaintance with the islands both in the Ægean and the Ionian seas, the coasts of Asia Minor, Crete, Cyprus, and Egypt--which still bear the names he gave them--and possessed also distinct information with respect to Lybia, Æthiopia, Phoenicia, Caria and Phrygia. In his travels, as the legends say, Homer visited Ithaca, and there became subject to a disease in his eyes, which afterwards terminated in total blindness. From this island he is said to have gone to Italy, and even to Spain; but there is no sign, in either of the two poems, of his possessing any definite knowledge westward of the Ionian sea. Wherever he went, Homer recited his verses, which were universally admired, except at Smyrna, where he was a prophet in his own country. At Phocæa, a schoolmaster, of the name of Thestorides, obtained from Homer a copy of his poetry, and then sailed to Chios, and there recited these verses as his own. Homer went soon after to the same place, and was rescued by Glaucus, a goatherd, from the attack of his dogs, and brought by him to Bolissus, a town in Chios, where he resided a long time, in the possession of wealth and a splendid reputation. According to Herodotus, Homer died at Io, on his way to Athens, and was buried near the sea-shore. Proclus says he died in consequence of falling over a stone. Plutarch tells a different story. He preserves two responses of an oracle to the poet, in both of which he was cautioned to beware of the young men's riddle; and relates that the poet, being on a voyage to Thebes, to attend a musical or poetical contest at the feast of Saturn, in that city, landed in the island of Io, and, whilst sitting on a rock by the sea-shore, observed some young fishermen in a boat. Homer asked them if they had anything, and the young wags, who, having had no sport, had been diligently catching and killing as many as they could, of certain personal companions of a race not even yet extinct, answered,--"As many as we caught, we left; as many as we could not catch, we carry with us." The catastrophe of this absurd story is, that Homer, being utterly unable to guess the riddle, broke his heart, out of pure vexation; and the inhabitants of the island buried him with great magnificence, and placed the following inscription on his tomb:-- Here Homer, the divine in earthly bed, Poet of Heroes, rests his sacred head. The general theory in regard to the poems of Homer, is that they were composed and recited by him, to the people living upon the islands and the main land along the coasts of Asia Minor. At that time books were unknown, and it is a question whether even the art of writing was then practised. Homer, therefore, published his poems in the only way he could do it--by oral delivery. Whether his verses were sung, or only recited, we cannot determine; but there is no doubt that he obtained both fame and maintenance by his performances. So deep was the impression made by the poet, that his verses were learned by heart, and preserved in the memories of succeeding rhapsodists and minstrels. His reputation was diffused over all Greece; and Lycurgus, who had heard of his compositions, is supposed to have taken pains, during his travels, to have them written down, and to have brought them in a collected form to Greece. They were, however, still in fragments, and the task of arranging and uniting them was performed by Pisistratus, with the help of the poets of his time. In this way, they received nearly the form they now possess; the division of each of the two epics into twenty-four books, corresponding with the letters of the Greek alphabet, being the work of the Alexandrian critics, some centuries after. It must be remembered, however, that although the poems of Homer were thus committed to writing in the time of Pisistratus, they continued to be recited by the rhapsodists, who were much favored in Greece, and in this way alone, for several centuries, were popularly known. It is probable that in these recitations, there was a good deal of dramatic action, and that they possessed something of the interest which belongs to theatrical representation. The vicissitudes to which Homer's reputation and influence have been subject, deserve notice. From the arrangement of the Iliad and Odyssey, in the time of the Pisistratidæ, to the promulgation of Christianity, the love and reverence with which the name of Homer was regarded, went on constantly increasing, till at last public games were instituted in his honor, statues dedicated, temples erected, and sacrifices offered to him, as a divinity. There were such temples at Smyrna, Chios, and Alexandria; and, according to Ælian, the Argives sacrificed to, and invoked the names and presence of, Apollo and Homer together. But about the beginning of the second century of the Christian era, when the struggle between the old and the new religions was warm and active, the tide turned. Heathenism, says Pope, was then to be destroyed, and Homer appeared to be the father of those fictions which were at once the belief of the Pagan religion, and the objections of Christianity against it. He became, therefore, deeply involved in the question, not with that honor which had hitherto attended him, but as a criminal, who had drawn the world into folly. These times, however, are past, and Homer stands on the summit of the ancient Parnassus, the boast and glory of Greece, and the wonder and admiration of mankind. The Iliad, with the exception of the Pentateuch and some others of the books of the Old Testament, is the most ancient composition known. It is interesting not only as a splendid poem, but also on account of the light it throws upon the history and manners of the remote ages in which it was written. We are struck with the similarity of the customs of the Asiatic Greeks to those of the Hebrews, as set forth in the Bible; and also with the fact that the Jupiter of Homer rises to that unchecked omnipotence assigned to Jehovah. The design of the Iliad seems to be to set forth the revenge which Achilles took on Agamemnon, for depriving him of his mistress, Briseis, while engaged in the siege of Troy--with the long train of evils which followed. The admirers of Homer have pretended to discover in the work the most profound art in the construction of the poem, and have hence deduced rules for the formation of the epic poem; but nothing is more clear than that, in the simple lines of Homer, the poet had no other guide than a profound knowledge of human nature and human sympathies; and that he only sought to operate on these by telling a plain story, in the most simple, yet effective manner. The absence of all art is one of the chief characteristics of the Iliad;--its naturalness is the great secret of its power. That this poem is the greatest of human productions--a point often assumed--is by no means to be received as true. It strikes us with wonder, when we consider the age in which it was composed, and we feel that Homer was indeed one of the great lights of the world. The following passage, one of the finest in the Iliad, is full of truth, nature and pathos--and it shows that the heroes of Troy, nearly three thousand years ago, had the same feelings and sympathies as those which beat in the bosoms of our time; yet we can point to a great number of passages in modern poems, far, very far superior to this. The scene represents Priam--who has come to the Greek camp for the purpose of redeeming the body of his son Hector--as addressing the chieftain, Achilles: "Think, O Achilles, semblance of the gods! On thy own father, full of days like me, And trembling on the gloomy verge of life: Some neighbor chief, it may be, even now, Oppresses him, and there is none at hand, No friend to succor him in his distress; Yet doubtless, hearing that Achilles lives, He still rejoices, hoping day by day, That one day he shall see the face again Of his own son from distant Troy returned. But me no comfort cheers, whose bravest sons, So late the flower of Ilium, all are slain. When Greece came hither, I had fifty sons; Nineteen were children of one bed; the rest Born of my concubines. A numerous house! But fiery Mars hath thinned it. One I had, One, more than all my sons, the strength of Troy, Whom standing for his country thou hast slain,-- Hector. His body to redeem I come; Into Achia's fleet bringing myself Ransom inestimable to thy tent. Rev'rence the gods, Achilles! recollect Thy father; for his sake compassion show To me, more pitiable still, who draw Home to my lips (humiliation yet Unseen on earth) his hand who slew my son! "So saying, he awakened in his soul regret Of his own sire; softly he placed his hand On Priam's hand, and pushed him gently away. Remembrance melted both. Rolling before Achilles feet, Priam his son deplored, Wide slaughtering Hector, and Achilles wept By turns his father, and by turns his friend Patroclus: sounds of sorrow filled the tent." Beside the Iliad, another epic, divided into twenty-four books, and entitled the Odyssey, with a number of smaller pieces, are attributed to Homer, and doubtless upon good and substantial grounds. The Odyssey is a tale of adventures, like Robinson Crusoe, and Sinbad the Sailor, heightened by an object, and dignified by a moral far above these works. It tells us what befel Ulysses, in returning from the siege of Troy to his home in Greece; and is wrought up with wonderful powers of invention and fancy. It is esteemed inferior, on the whole, to the Iliad, and an eminent critic has said, that, in the former, Homer appears like the rising, and in the latter, like the setting sun. [Illustration] [Footnote 15: These Marbles consist of a large collection of busts, statues, altars, inscriptions, mutilated figures, &c., formed by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, in the early part of the seventeenth century, and presented to the University of Oxford, by Henry Howard, the earl's grandson. They were obtained in various parts of Greece; many are of great antiquity and of great value, as well for the light they shed upon history as upon the arts, customs, and manners of past ages.] [Illustration] CONFUCIUS. This greatest of Chinese philosophers was born in the petty kingdom of Lú, now the province of Shántung, in the year 549 B. C.--the same year that Cyrus became king of the Medes and Persians. The Chinese, in their embellishments of his history, tell us that his birth was attended with heavenly music, filling the air; that two dragons were seen winding over the roof; that five old men appeared at the door, and after consulting together, suddenly vanished; and that a unicorn brought to his mother a tablet in his mouth. It is also related that when he was born, five characters were seen on his breast, declaring him to be "the maker of a rule for settling the world." These and other marvels are a part of the established biography of the philosopher, as received by the Chinese. The father of Confucius, who was a magistrate of the district where he lived, died when the son was but three years old. The latter was poor and unknown during his youth--though his gravity and attention to study attracted the attention of his townsmen. When he approached manhood, he was esteemed remarkable for his wisdom, and equal to the learned men of the country in his knowledge of antiquity. At the age of seventeen he received an appointment as clerk in the grain department of the government; and so attentive was he in his trust, as, two years after, to be advanced to the general supervision of the fields and parks, and the breeding of cattle. About this time he was married, and two years after, his only son was born. Upon this occasion, Lord Cháu the governor of Lú, sent him two carp as a present, and accordingly Confucius named his son Lí or Carp. His humor went even farther, and he gave the boy the additional title of Piyü, or Uncle Fish. At the age of twenty-four, Confucius lost his mother, whom he buried in the same grave with his father, who had been dead some time. He then resigned his office, that he might mourn three years for his mother, according to the ancient custom of the country. This practice had fallen into neglect, and, consequently, the example of Confucius, in following the holy custom of the fathers of the country, gained him great renown for his piety. His reputation was thus extended, and his example began to be followed. The three years of his mourning were not lost--for he then devoted himself to study. He diligently examined the books of the old authors, seeking to discover the means by which the ancient kings and sages sought to attain the perfection of morals. The result was, a conviction that the social virtues were best cultivated by an observance of the ancient usages of the country; and accordingly he resolved to devote his life to them, and to their permanent establishment in China. This great work he accomplished; and if we consider the effect he has produced on the most populous nation of the globe, and during a space of nearly two thousand years, we shall perceive the mighty consequence of his labors. The actual amount of influence he has exercised, perhaps exceeds that of any other human being, save Aristotle alone. Appearing to have a clear view of his great work, Confucius entered upon it with systematic diligence. He resolved to establish schools where his philosophy should be taught to pupils who would go forth and spread his doctrines through the empire. He also proposed to write a series of books, setting forth his views. All these things he lived to accomplish. The greater part of the life of Confucius was passed in travelling, visiting the courts of the petty princes, whose states then constituted the empire under the sovereign of the Chán dynasty. This course was, as might be expected, fruitless in reforming these states, but it diffused a general knowledge of himself and his doctrines, and procured him scholars. The prince of Tsí was the first who invited him to his court, and received him with distinction. This potentate heard him with pleasure, and applauded his maxims; but, to the chagrin of Confucius, he continued to live in luxury, and to allow his ministers to oppress his subjects and abuse their power. He, however, offered him for his maintenance the revenue of a considerable city, which the philosopher thought proper to decline, alleging that he had done nothing to merit such a recompense. After sojourning a year in Tsí, and seeing that his discourse produced no effect to reform the abuses and evils of the country, he left it, and visited some of the principal cities of China. On the road between Tsí and Chin, he fell into a difficulty. The prince of Wú having attacked Chin, the lord of Tsú came to his relief, and sent an invitation to Confucius to join him; but the other party, fearing that he would do them a disservice, sent people to intercept him. They surrounded him in the wilderness, and would have starved him to death, had not a friend come to his relief, after a detention of seven days. After this narrow escape, he returned home and the prince of Lú gave him a carriage, two horses and a servant, with which he set off for King-yang, the capital of the empire. Here he passed his time in observing the forms of government, the condition of the people and their manners, and how the rites and ceremonies of the ancient kings were regarded. He held several interviews with the ministers of the court, was permitted to visit the emperor's ancestral hall, and other sacred places, and had access to the archives of the kingdom, from which he was allowed to take extracts. One object in the visit of Confucius to the capital, was to see Láutsz', the founder of the Táu sect, or Rationalists, who lived in a retired place, some distance from court. This old philosopher, accustomed to visits from men of all ranks, received Confucius and his disciples with indifference. He was reclining on an elevated platform, and hearing that his visitor had come to hear from his own mouth an exposition of his tenets, and to ask him about _propriety_, he roused himself to receive him. "I have heard speak of you," says he, "and I know your reputation. I am told that you talk only of the ancients, and discourse only upon what they taught. Now, of what use is it to endeavor to revive the memory of men of whom no trace remains on the earth? The sage ought to interest himself with the times in which he lives, and regard present circumstances; if they are favorable, he will improve them; but if, on the contrary, they are unfavorable, he will retire and wait tranquilly, without grieving at what others do. He who possesses a treasure, will try to have everybody know it; he will preserve it against the day of need; this you will do if you are a sage. It seems, judging by your conduct, that you have some ostentation in your plans of instruction and that you are proud. Correct these faults, and purify your heart from all love of pleasure; you will, in this way, be much more useful than seeking to know what the ancients said." Láutsz' also observed, "A discreet merchant keeps his affairs to himself as if he knew nothing; an excellent man, although highly intelligent, demeans himself like an ignorant man." Confucius remarked to his disciples, "I have seen Láutsz'; have I not seen something like a dragon?" On leaving him, Láutsz' said, "I have heard that the rich dismiss their friends with a present, and the benevolent send away people with a word of advice; whoever is talented, and prying into everything, will run himself into danger, because he loves to satirize and slander men; and he who wishes to thoroughly understand recondite things will jeopard his safety, because he loves to publish the failings of men." Confucius replied, "I respectfully receive your instructions," and thus left him. Láutsz' advice seemed directed against a too inquisitive philosophy, and meddling too much in the affairs of the world; he was rather of the Budhistic school of quietists, while Confucius wished men to endeavor to make each other better. Confucius, like Aristotle and other masters, used to teach his disciples while walking with them, deriving instruction from what they saw. Once, while walking with them by the bank of a stream, he stopped from time to time to look very intently at the water, until their attention was excited, and they were induced to ask him the reason of his conduct. He replied, "The running of water in its bed is a very simple thing, the reason of which everybody knows. I was, however, rather making a comparison in my own mind between the running of water and doctrine. The water, I reflected, runs unceasingly, by day and by night, until it is lost in the bosom of the mighty deep. Since the days of Yáu and Shun, the pure doctrine has uninterruptedly descended to us: let us in our turn transmit it to those who come after us, that they, from our example, may give it to their descendants to the end of time. Do not imitate those isolated men, (referring to Láutsz',) who are wise only for themselves. To communicate the knowledge and virtue we possess, to others, will never impoverish ourselves. This is one of the reflections I would make upon the running of water." This peripatetic habit, and the aptitude for drawing instruction from whatever would furnish instruction, was usual with the philosopher, and he seldom omitted to improve an occasion. Once, when walking in the fields, he perceived a fowler, who, having drawn in his nets, distributed the birds he had taken into different cages. On coming up to him to ascertain what he had caught, Confucius attentively remarked the vain efforts of the captive birds to regain their liberty, until his disciples gathered round him, when he addressed the fowler,--"I do not see any old birds here; where have you put them?" "The old birds," said he, "are too wary to be caught; they are on the look-out, and if they see a net or a cage, far from falling into the snare, they escape, and never return. Those young ones which are in company with them, likewise escape, but such only as separate into a flock by themselves, and rashly approach, are the birds I catch. If perchance I catch an old bird, it is because he follows the young ones." "You have heard him," said Confucius, turning to his disciples; "the words of this fowler afford us matter for instruction. The young birds escape the snare only when they keep with the old ones; the old ones are taken when they follow the young. It is thus with mankind. Presumption, hardihood, want of forethought, and inattention are the principal reasons why young people are led astray. Inflated with their small attainments, they have scarcely made a commencement in learning, before they think they know everything; they have scarcely performed a few virtuous acts, and straight they fancy themselves at the height of wisdom. Under this false impression they doubt nothing; they rashly undertake acts without consulting the aged and experienced, and thus, securely following their own notions, they are misled, and fall into the first snare laid for them. If you see an old man of sober years so badly advised as to be taken with the giddiness of a youth, attached to him, and thinking and acting with him, he is led astray by him, and soon taken in the same snare. Do not forget the answer of the fowler, but reflect on it occasionally." Having completed his observations at the capital, Confucius returned, by the way of Tsí, to his native state of Lú, where he remained ten years. His house now became a sort of lyceum, open to every one who wished to receive instruction. His manner of teaching was to allow his disciples or others to come and go when they pleased, asking his opinion on such points, either in morals, politics, history, or literature, as they wished to have explained. He gave them the liberty of choosing their subject, and then he discoursed upon it. From these conversations and detached expressions of the philosopher, treasured up by his disciples, they afterwards composed Lun Yü, now one of the Four Books. Confucius, it is said, numbered upwards of three thousand disciples, or perhaps we ought to call them advocates or hearers of his doctrine. They consisted of men of all ranks and ages, who attended upon him when their duties or inclinations permitted, and who materially assisted in diffusing a knowledge of his tenets over the whole country. There were, however, a select few, who attached themselves to his person, lived with him, and followed him wherever he went; and to whom he entrusted the promulgation of his doctrines. After several years of retirement, Confucius was called into public life. The prince of Lú died, and his son, entertaining a great respect for the philosopher, and esteem for his instructions, invited him to court, in order to learn his doctrines more fully. After becoming well acquainted with him, and reposing confidence in his integrity, the young ruler committed the entire management of the state to him; and the activity, courage, and disinterested conduct which he exhibited in the exercise of his power, soon had the happiest effect upon the country. By his wise rules and the authority of his example and his maxims he soon reformed many vicious practices, and introduced sobriety and order, in the place of waste and injustice. He occupied himself with agriculture, and regulated the revenue and the manner of receiving it; so that, in consequence of his measures, the productions of the state were increased, the happiness of the people was extended, and the revenue considerably augmented. He carried his reforms into every department of justice, in which, soon after he entered upon his duties as minister, he had an opportunity of exhibiting his inflexibility. One of the most powerful nobles of the state had screened himself from the just punishment due to his many crimes, under the dread of his power and riches, and the number of his retainers. Confucius caused him to be arrested, and gave order for his trial; and when the overwhelming proofs brought forward had convinced all of his guilt, he condemned him to lose his head, and presided himself at the execution. This wholesome severity struck a dread into other men of rank, and likewise obtained the plaudits of all men of sense, as well as of the people, who saw in the minister a courageous protector, ready to defend them against the tyranny of men in power. These salutary reforms had not been long in operation, before the neighboring states took alarm at the rising prosperity of Lú; and the prince of Tsí, who had recently usurped the throne by assassinating its occupant, resolved to ruin the plans of Confucius. To this end he appointed an envoy to the young prince, with whose character he was well acquainted, desiring to renew the ancient league of friendship between the two countries. This envoy was charged with thirty-five horses, beautifully caparisoned, a large number of curious rarities, and twenty-four of the most accomplished courtesans he could procure in his dominions. The scheme succeeded; before these seductive damsels, the austere etiquette of the court of Lú soon gave way, and fetes, comedies, dances, and concerts, took the place of propriety and decorum. The presence of the sage soon became irksome to his master, and he at last forbid him to come into his sight, having become quite charmed with the fair enchantresses, and no longer able to endure the remonstrances of his minister. Confucius, thus disgraced in his own country, and now at the age of fifty, left it, and retired to the kingdom of Wei, where he remained more than ten years, without seeking to exercise any public office, but principally occupied with completing his works, and instructing his disciples in his doctrines. During his residence in Wei, he frequently made excursions into other states, taking with him such of his disciples as chose to accompany him. He was at times applauded and esteemed, but quite as often was the object of persecution and contempt. More than once his life was endangered. He compared himself to a dog driven from his home: "I have the fidelity of that animal, and I am treated like it. But what matters the ingratitude of men? They cannot hinder me from doing all the good that is appointed me. If my precepts are disregarded, I have the consolation in my own breast of knowing that I have faithfully performed my duty." He sometimes spoke in a manner that showed his own impression to be that Heaven had conferred on him a special commission to instruct the world. When an attempt was made on his life, he said, "As Heaven has produced such a degree of virtue in me, what can Hwántúi do to me?" On another occasion of danger, he said, "If Heaven means not to obliterate this doctrine from the earth, the men of Kwáng can do nothing to me." At the age of sixty-eight, after an absence of eighteen years, Confucius returned to his native country, where he lived a life of retirement, employed in putting the finishing hand to his works. In his sixty-sixth year, his wife died, and his son, Piyü, mourned for her a whole year; but one day overhearing his father say, "Ah! it is carried too far;" he dried up his tears. Three years after this, this son also died, leaving a son, Tsz'sz', who afterwards emulated his grandfather's fame as a teacher, and became the author of the Chung Yung, or True Medium. The next year, Yen Hwui, the favorite disciple of the sage, died, whose loss he bitterly mourned, saying, "Heaven has destroyed me! heaven has destroyed me!" He had great hopes of this pupil, and had depended upon him to perpetuate his doctrines. An anecdote is related of him about this time of life, which the Chinese regard as highly creditable to their sage. Tsz'kung, one of his disciples, was much surprised one morning to meet his master at the door, dressed with much elegance and nicety. On asking him where he was going, Confucius, with a sigh, replied, "I am going to court, and that too, without being invited. I have not been able to resist a feeling which possesses me to make a last effort to bring a just punishment upon Chin Chen, the usurper of the throne of Tsí. I am prepared by purification and fasting, for this audience, so that if I fail, I shall not have to accuse myself." On presenting himself, he was received with respect, and immediately admitted to an audience; and the prince of Lú asked him what important affair had called him from his retirement. Confucius, replied: "Sire, that which I have to communicate, alike concerns all kings. The perfidious Chin Chen has imbued his hands in the blood of his legitimate sovereign, Kien. You are a prince; your state borders upon Tsí; Kien was your ally, and originally of the same race as yourself. Any one of these reasons is sufficient to authorize you to declare war against Chin Chen, and all of them combined make it your duty to take up arms. Assemble your forces and march to exterminate a monster whom the earth upholds with regret. This crime is such that it cannot be pardoned, and, in punishing it, you will at once avenge an outrage against heaven, from which every king derives his power; against royalty, which has been profaned by this perfidy; against a parent, to whom you are allied by ties of blood, alliance and friendship." The prince, convinced of the criminality of Chin Chen, applauded the just indignation which inspired the heart of Confucius, but suggested that before he entered upon such an enterprise, it would be best to confer with his ministers. "Sire," said the philosopher, "I have acquitted myself of a duty in laying this case before you; but it will be useless to insist upon it before your ministers, whom I know are disinclined to enter into my views. Reflect, I pray you, as a sovereign, upon what I now propose, and consult only with yourself as to its execution. Your servants are not sovereigns, and have no other than their own ends to gain, to which they sometimes sacrifice the good of their master and the glory of the state. I have no other end in view than to support the cause of justice; and I conjure you, by the sacred names of justice and good order, to go and exterminate this miscreant from the earth, and, by restoring the throne of Tsí to its rightful owner, to exhibit to the world your justice, and strike a salutary terror into the hearts of all who may wish to imitate this successful villany." On leaving, the prince said to Confucius, "I will think seriously on what you have said, and, if it be possible, will carry it into execution." Towards the end of his days, when he had completed his revision of the Five Classes, he, with great solemnity, dedicated them to Heaven. He assembled all his disciples and led them out of the town to one of the hills where sacrifices had been usually offered for many years. He here erected a table, or altar, upon which he placed the books; and then, turning his face to the north, adored Heaven, and returned thanks upon his knees, in a humble manner, for having had life and strength granted him to enable him to accomplish this laborious undertaking; he implored heaven to grant that the benefit to his countrymen from so arduous a labor might not be small. He had prepared himself for this ceremony by privacy, fasting and prayer. Chinese pictures of this scene represent the sage in the attitude of supplication, and a pencil of light, or a rainbow, descending from the sky upon the books, while his scholars stand around in admiring wonder. In his seventy-third year, a few days before his death, leaning upon his staff, Confucius tottered about the house, singing out,-- "The great mountain is broken! The strong beam is thrown down! The wise man is decayed!" He then related a dream he had had the night before, to his pupil, Tsz'kung, which he regarded as a presage of his own death; and, after keeping his bed seven days, he died on the 18th day of the second month, and was buried in the same grave with his wife. Tsz'kung mourned for him six years in a shed erected by the side of his grave, and then returned home. His death occurred 479 B. C., the year of the battle of Platæa, in Greece, and about seven years before the birth of Socrates. Many events of great importance happened during his life, in western countries, of which the return of the Jews, and building of the second temple, Xerxes' invasion of Greece, the expulsion of the kings from Rome, the conquest of Egypt, and establishment of the Persian monarchy in its fullest extent, were the most important. Posthumous honors in great variety have been conferred upon Confucius. Soon after his death, the prince of Lú entitled him _Ní fú_, or father Ní; which under the reign of Lintí, of the Hán dynasty, 197 B. C., was changed to _Ní kung_, or duke _Ní_, and his portrait was ordered to be hung up in the public school. By the emperors of the Tang dynasty it was made _sien shing_, the ancient sage. He was next styled the royal preacher, and his effigy clad in king's robes, and a crown put on its head. The Ming dynasty called him the most holy ancient teacher, Kungtsz', which title is now continued to him. His descendants have continued to dwell in Shántung province, and the heads of the family have enjoyed the rank of nobility, being almost the only hereditary noblemen in the empire out of the imperial kingdom. They are called Yenshing kung. In the reign of Kánghí, one hundred and twenty years ago, the descendants of the sage numbered eleven thousand males; the present is said to be the seventy-fourth generation. The chief of the family is commonly called the "holy duke," and enjoys all the honors of a prince. Whenever he visits the court, the emperor receives him with almost the same respect and ceremony as he does ambassadors from foreign countries. P. Amiot relates that he was honored with a call from him, upon one of his visits to court. "He was a pleasant and modest man, whom knowledge had not filled with conceit. He received, when he came to our house, some religious books, which we offered him in exchange for some Chinese books he gave us. His name was Kung Chauhán, and he was of the seventy-first generation in direct descent from the sage,--in all probability the oldest family in the world, of which the regular descent can be traced." In the Life of Confucius, written by Amiot, which forms one of the volumes of the _Mémoires sur les Chinoises_, there is a brief account of each of these heads of this family, with notices of other distinguished persons belonging to the house. In every district in the empire there is a temple dedicated to Confucius, and his name is usually suspended in every school-room in the land, and incense is burned before it morning and evening by the scholars. Adoration is paid to him by all ranks. In 1457, Jentsung, of the Ning dynasty, set up a copper statue of the sage in one of the halls of the palace, and ordered his officers, whenever they came to the palace, to go to this room, and respectfully salute Confucius before speaking of the affairs of state, even if the monarch were present. But this custom was represented to another emperor as tending to the worship of images, like the Budhists; and on that account the memorialist represented that simple tablets, inscribed with the name of him who was worshipped, were much better. This advice was followed; the statues of Confucius and his disciples were suppressed, by order of the emperor Chítsung, in 1530, and simple tablets have since been set up in the temples erected to his name. The writings of Confucius, as might be expected are held in great veneration, and regarded as the best books in the language. He revised all the ancient books, containing the precepts of the kings and emperors of former times, and left them pretty much as they are at the present day. He explained the Yi King, or Book of Changes, commented upon the Lí Kí, or Book of Rites, and compiled the Shí King, or Book of Odes. He composed the Shú King, or Book of Records, and the Chun Tsaú, or Spring and Autumn Annals,--so called, it is said, because the commendations contained therein are life-giving, like spring, and the reproofs are life-withering, like autumn. The books are collectively called the Wú King, or Five Classics. The Hiáu King, or Memoir on Filial Duty; the Chung yung, or True Medium; the Tái Hióh, or Superior Lessons, and the Lun Yü, or Conversations of Confucius, are all considered, by the Chinese, as containing the doctrines of the sage; the first one is sometimes ascribed to his own pen. The last three, with the work of Mencius, constitute the Sz Shü, or Four Books, and were arranged in their present form by Ching fútsz, about eight hundred years ago. The leading features of the morality of Confucius are, subordination to superiors, and kind, upright dealing with our fellow-men. From the duty, honor, and obedience owed by a child to his parents, he proceeds to inculcate the obligations of wives to their husbands, of subjects to their prince, and of ministers to their king, while he makes him amenable to Heaven. These principles are perpetually inculcated in the Confucian writings, and are imbodied in solemn ceremonials, and apparently trivial forms of mere etiquette. And, probably, it is this feature of his ethics which has made him such a favorite with all the governments of China for many centuries past, and at this day. These principles, and these forms, are early instilled into young minds, and form their conscience; the elucidation and enforcement of these principles and forms is the business of students who aspire to be magistrates or statesmen; and it is no doubt owing in great part, to the force of these principles on the national mind and habits, that China holds steadfastly together--the largest associated population in the world. Every one is interested in upholding doctrines which give him power over those under him; and as the instruction of his own youthful days has given him the habit of obedience and respect to all his superiors, so now, when he is a superior, he exacts the same obedience from his juniors, and public opinion accords it to him. The observance of such principles has tended to consolidate the national mind of China in that peculiar uniformity which has been remarked by those who have known this people. It has also tended to restrain all independence of thought, and keep even the most powerful intellects under an incubus which, while they were prevented by outward circumstances from getting at the knowledge of other lands was too great for their unassisted energies to throw off. It cannot be doubted that there have been many intellects of commanding power among the Chinese, but ignorance of the literature and condition of other nations has led them to infer that there was nothing worthy of notice out of their own borders, and to rest contented with explaining and enforcing the maxims of their sage. Confucius must be regarded as a great man, if superiority to the times in which one lives is a criterion of greatness. The immense influence he has exercised over the minds of his countrymen cannot, perhaps, be regarded as conclusive evidence of his superiority; but no mind of weak or ordinary powers could have stamped its own impress upon other minds as he has done. He never rose to those sublime heights of contemplation which Plato attained, nor does his mind seem to have been of a very discursive nature. He was content with telling his disciples how to act, and encouraging them to make themselves and others better, by following the rules he gave; not leading them into those endless disquisitions and speculations, upon which the Greek moralists so acutely reasoned, but which exercised no power over the conscience and life. The leading features of his doctrines have been acknowledged by mankind the world over, and are imbodied in their most common rules of life. "Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God," is a direction of inspired Writ; and, so far as he knew these duties, he inculcated them. He said little or nothing about spirits or gods, nor did he give any directions about worshipping them; but the veneration for parents, which he enforced, was, in fact, idolatrous, and has since degenerated into the grossest idolatry. [Illustration] Transcriber's Note: Italics are indicated by _underscores_. Small capitals have been rendered in full capitals. Footnote is placed to the end of chapter. Ligatures [oe] have been converted into oe. A number of minor spelling errors have been corrected without note. 
9051	----	SANINE BY MICHAEL ARTZIBASHEF TRANSLATED BY PERCY PINKERTON WITH A PREFACE BY GILBERT CANNAN _SOME PRESS NOTICES OF_ _SANINE_ "_It has a treble interest. It discusses sex-problems with unusual candour ... it gives a vivid picture of Russian life ... and it reflects the welter of thoughts and aspirations which are common to the whole contemporary Western world_." NEW STATESMAN. "_A book which deals with powerful human passions in no lethargic way. It may horrify by its brutality, and its assault on ordinary morality may well be considered startling: yet it counts for something that M. Artzibashef does not display the common fear of life_." STANDARD. "_It is of the greatest interest psychologically, as an outstanding product of a despairing epoch in Russian history_." DAILY CHRONICLE. "_The artistry of the novel, brutal, direct, detached, courageous, desperately poignant, is not to be disputed_." EVENING STANDARD. "_The strength of the book is undeniable_" SUNDAY TIMES. "_This is a strong and fascinating story depicting the unfettered life of a young Russian ... the background of society and Russian scenery is excellent_." MANCHESTER COURIER. PREFACE _"Sanine" is a thoroughly uncomfortable book, but it has a fierce energy which has carried it in a very short space of time into almost every country in Europe and at last into this country, where books, like everything else, are expected to be comfortable. It has roused fury both in Russia and in Germany, but, being rather a furious effort itself, it has thriven on that, and reached an enormous success. That is not necessarily testimony of a book's value or even of its power. On the other hand, no book becomes international merely by its capacity for shocking moral prejudices, or by its ability to titillate the curiosity of the senses. Every nation has its own writers who can shock and titillate. But not every nation has the torment of its existence coming to such a crisis that books like "Sanine" can spring to life in it. This book was written in the despair which seized the Intelligenzia of Russia after the last abortive revolution, when the Constitution which was no constitution was wrung out of the grand dukes. Even suppose the revolution had succeeded, the intellectuals must have asked themselves, even suppose they had mastered the grand dukes and captured the army, would they have done more than altered the machinery of government, reduced the quantity of political injustice, amended the principles of taxation, and possibly changed the colours of the postage stamps? Could they have made society less oppressive to the life of the individual? Like all intellectuals, M. Artzibashef is fascinated by the brutality of human life, and filled with hatred of his own disgust at it. As with all artists, it is necessary for him to shake free of his own disgust, or there will be an end of his art. Intellectual and an artist, less artist for being intellectual, responding to the despairing mood of those around him, it became clear to him that political agitation had failed and must fail because it has a vision of government and no vision of human life. Society is factitious. The intellectual asks why. The artist never asks these absurd questions. Art is free. If he can attain art that is enough for him. Life, whether or no it be the slow process of evolution it is generally supposed to be, can and does look after itself. Society is certainly a nuisance and a heavy drag upon human energy, but so long as that energy can express itself in art, society cannot be altogether obstructive. That, says the intellectual, is well enough for the artist, but what of the individuals to whom art can only be at best a keen stimulus, at worst a drugging pleasure? Is the dead weight of society altogether to crush their delight in life? What is society? What is it but the accumulated emanations of the fear and timidity and shyness that beset human beings whenever they are gathered together? And to this accumulation are those who are not artists to bring nothing but fear and shyness and timidity to make the shadow over life grow denser and darker? Is there to be no reaction? How can there be individuals worthy of being alive except through reaction? And how can there be good government unless there are good individuals to be governed--individuals in fine, worthy of being governed?_ _In the matters of being fed, clothed, and housed few men and women feel the hindrance of society. Indeed it is for those purposes that they are gathered together. Being so, it is then that their fear and shyness and timidity make them disguise their real natures and suppress their other desires and aspirations. It is in the matter of love that men and women feel society's oppression, submit to it and; set up their subjection as the rule which must be obeyed. Very rarely is it obeyed except by a few virtuous women who go through life coldly and destructively, driving the men with whom they come in contact into the arms of their more generous sisters. Women have fewer defences against the tyranny of society, which makes all but a very few either prostitutes or prigs, exploiting their womanhood in emotional and physical excitement, their motherhood to defend themselves and their self-respect from the consequences of that indulgence. Men are of harder stuff. Some of them can escape into the intellectual life; many preserve only their practical cunning and, for the rest, are insensible and stupid and fill their lives with small pleasures and trifling discontents, and feed their conceit with success or failure as they happen._ _In Vladimir Saline Artzibashef has imagined, postulated, a man who has escaped the tyranny of society, is content to take his living where he finds it, and determined to accept whatever life has to offer of joy or sorrow. Returning to his home, he observes and amuses himself with all that is going on in the little provincial garrison town, where men and women--except his mother, who is frozen to the point of living altogether by formula--are tormented by the exasperation of unsatisfied desires. He sees Novikoff absurdly and hopelessly in love with his sister, Lida; he sees Lida caught up in an intrigue with an expert soldier love-maker, and bound, both by her own weakness and by her dependence upon society for any opinion of her own actions, to continue in that hateful excitement; he sees men and women all round him letting their love and their desire trickle through their fingers; he sees Semenoff die, and death also in that atmosphere is blurred and meaningless. Men and women plunge into horrible relationships and constantly excuse themselves. They seek to propitiate society by labouring to give permanence to fleeting pleasures, the accidents of passion and propinquity. Love is rare; physical necessity is common to all men and women; it is absurd to expect the growth of the one and the satisfaction of the other often to coincide. Nature is apparently indifferent and does not demand love of human beings but only mutual attraction, and of that are most children born. They grow up to dwell in the heated confusion which passes for life. Of that mutual attraction and in that heated confusion two children are born in this book, Lida's and Sarudine's, Sanine's and Karsavina's. Lida yields to Society's view of such affairs and is near broken by it; Sanine sustains Karsavina and brings her to the idea, cherished by Thomas Hardy among others, as a way out of confusion, of a woman's right to have a child without suffering from impertinent curiosity as to who the father may be if he be such that she thinks herself better rid of him. This does not necessarily mean that women would at once become as loose and casual as men. On the contrary, it would probably make many of them realize their responsibility and fewer of them would capture men as Arabella captured Jude the Obscure. In any case there is no excuse for the cruelty which regards a child born out of wedlock as nothing but evidence of wickedness. A child born in wedlock may be as lustfully and lovelessly begotten. Marriage does not necessarily provide relief from physical necessity and often aggravates it; and when a child, as often happens, is nothing to its father and mother but a sordid tie, a constant reminder of a connexion which both would be happier to forget, then, for its sake, they are better separate._ _It has been objected to M. Artzibashef's work that it deals so little with love and so much with physical necessity. That arises, I fancy, because his journalistic intention has overridden his artistic purpose. He has been exasperated into frankness more than moved to truth. He has desired to lay certain facts of modern existence before the world and has done so in a form which could gain a hearing, as a pure work of art probably could not. He has attempted a re-valuation where it is most needed, where the unhappy Weininger failed. Weininger demanded, insanely, that humanity should renounce sex and the brutality it fosters; Artzibashef suggests that the brutishness should be accepted frankly, cleared of confusion with love, and slowly mastered so that out of passion love can grow. His book has the noble quality of being full of the love of life, however loveless. It cannot possibly give the kind of pleasure sought by those to whom even the Bible is a dirty book. It is too brutal for that. Books which pander to that mean desire are of all books the most injurious. But this is not one of them. GILBERT CANNAN_ SANINE CHAPTER I. That important period in his life when character is influenced and formed by its first contact with the world and with men, was not spent by Vladimir Sanine at home, with his parents. There had been none to guard or guide him; and his soul developed in perfect freedom and independence, just as a tree in the field. He had been away from home for many years, and, when he returned, his mother and his sister Lida scarcely recognized him. His features, voice, and manner had changed but little, yet something strange and new, and riper in his whole personality gave a light to his countenance and endowed it with an altered expression. It was in the evening that he came home, entering the room as quietly as if he had only left it five minutes before. As he stood there, tall, fair, and broad- shouldered, his calm face with its slightly mocking expression at the corners of the mouth showed not a sign of fatigue or of emotion, and the boisterous greeting of his mother and sister subsided of itself. While he was eating, and drinking tea, his sister, sitting opposite, gazed steadfastly at him. She was in love with him, as most romantic girls usually are with their absent brother. Lida had always imagined Vladimir to be an extraordinary person, as strange as any to be found in books. She pictured his life as one of tragic conflict, sad and lonely as that of some great, uncomprehended soul. "Why do you look at me like that?" asked Sanine, smiling. This quiet smile and searching glance formed his usual expression, but, strange to say, they did not please Lida. To her, they seemed self- complacent, revealing nought of spiritual suffering and strife. She looked away and was silent. Then, mechanically, she kept turning over the pages of a book. When the meal was at an end, Sanine's mother patted his head affectionately, and said: "Now, tell us all about your life, and what you did there." "What I did?" said Sanine, laughing. "Well, I ate, and drank, and slept; and sometimes I worked; and sometimes I did nothing!" It seemed at first as if he were unwilling to speak of himself, but when his mother questioned him about this or that, he appeared pleased to narrate his experiences. Yet, for some reason or other, one felt that he was wholly indifferent as to the impression produced by his tales. His manner, kindly and courteous though it was in no way suggested that intimacy which only exists among members of a family. Such kindliness and courtesy seemed to come naturally from him as the light from a lamp which shines with equal radiance on all objects. They went out to the garden terrace and sat down on the steps. Lida sat on a lower one, listening in silence to her brother. At her heart she felt an icy chill. Her subtle feminine instinct told her that her brother was not what she had imagined him to be. In his presence she felt shy and embarrassed, as if he were a stranger. It was now evening; faint shadows encircled them. Sanine lit a cigarette and the delicate odour of tobacco mingled with the fragrance of the garden. He told them how life had tossed him hither and thither; how he had often been hungry and a vagrant; how he had taken part in political struggles, and how, when weary, he had renounced these. Lida sat motionless, listening attentively, and looking as quaint and pretty as any charming girl would look in summer twilight. The more he told her, the more she became convinced that this life which she had painted for herself in such glowing colours was really most simple and commonplace. There was something strange in it as well. What was it? That she could not define. At any rate, from her brother's account, it seemed to her very simple, tedious and boring. Apparently he had lived just anywhere, and had done just anything; at work one day, and idle the next; it was also plain that he liked drinking, and knew a good deal about women. But life such as this had nothing dark or sinister about it; in no way did it resemble the life she imagined her brother had led. He had no ideas to live for; he hated no one; and for no one had he suffered. At some of his disclosures she was positively annoyed, especially when he told her that once, being very hard up, he was obliged to mend his torn trousers himself. "Why, do you know how to sew?" she asked involuntarily, in a tone of surprise and contempt. She thought it paltry; unmanly, in fact. "I did not know at first, but I soon had to learn," replied Sanine, who smilingly guessed what his sister thought. The girl carelessly shrugged her shoulders, and remained silent, gazing at the garden. It seemed to her as if, dreaming of sunshine, she awoke beneath a grey, cold sky. Her mother, too, felt depressed. It pained her to think that her son did not occupy the position to which, socially, he was entitled. She began by telling him that things could not go on like this, and that he must be more sensible in future. At first she spoke warily, but when she saw that he paid scarcely any attention to her remarks, she grew angry, and obstinately insisted, as stupid old women do, thinking her son was trying to tease her. Sanine was neither surprised nor annoyed: he hardly seemed to understand what she said, but looked amiably indifferent, and was silent. Yet at the question, "How do you propose to live?" he answered, smiling, "Oh! somehow or other." His calm, firm voice, and open glance made one feel that those words, which meant nothing to his mother, had for him a deep and precise significance. Maria Ivanovna sighed, and after a pause said anxiously: "Well, after all, it's your affair. You're no longer a child. You ought to walk round the garden. It's looking so pretty now." "Yes, of course! Come along, Lida; come and show me the garden," said Sanine to his sister, "I have quite forgotten what it looks like." Roused from her reverie, Lida sighed and got up. Side by side they walked down the path leading to the green depths of the dusky garden. The Sanines' house was in the main street of the town, and, the town being small, their garden extended as far as the river, beyond which were fields. The house was an old mansion, with rickety pillars on either side and a broad terrace. The large gloomy garden had run to waste; it looked like some dull green cloud that had descended to earth. At night it seemed haunted. It was as if some sad spirit were wandering through the tangled thicket, or restlessly pacing the dusty floors of the old edifice. On the first floor there was an entire suite of empty rooms dismal with faded carpets and dingy curtains. Through the garden there was but one narrow path or alley, strewn with dead branches and crushed frogs. What modest, tranquil life there was appeared to be centred in one corner. There, close to the house, yellow sand and gravel gleamed, and there, beside neat flower-beds bright with blossom stood the green table on which in summer-time tea or lunch was set. This little corner, touched by the breath of simple peaceful life, was in sharp contrast to the huge, deserted mansion, doomed to inevitable decay. When the house behind them had disappeared from view and the silent, motionless trees, like thoughtful witnesses, surrounded them, Sanine suddenly put his arm round Lida's waist and said in a strange tone, half fierce, half tender: "You've become quite a beauty! The first man you love will be a happy fellow." The touch of his arm with its muscles like iron sent a fiery thrill through Lida's soft, supple frame. Bashful and trembling, she drew away from him as if at the approach of some unseen beast of prey. They had now reached the river's edge. There was a moist, damp odour from the reeds that swayed pensively in the stream. On the other side, fields lay dim in twilight beneath the vast sky where shone the first pale stars. Stepping aside, Sanine seized a withered branch, broke it in two, and flung the pieces into the stream where swiftly circles appeared on its surface and swiftly vanished. As if to hail Sanine as their comrade, the reeds bent their heads. CHAPTER II. It was about six o'clock. The sun still shone brightly, but in the garden there were already faint green shadows. The air was full of light and warmth and peace. Maria Ivanovna was making jam, and under the green linden-tree there was a strong smell of boiling sugar and raspberries. Sanine had been busy at the flower-beds all the morning, trying to revive some of the flowers that suffered most from the dust and heat. "You had better pull up the weeds first," suggested his mother, as from time to time she watched him through the blue, quivering stream. "Tell Grounjka, and she'll do it for you." Sanine looked up, hot and smiling. "Why?" said he, as he tossed back his hair that clung to his brow. "Let them grow as much as they like. I am fond of everything green." "You're a funny fellow!" said his mother, as she shrugged her shoulders, good-humouredly. For some reason or other, his answer had pleased her. "It is you yourselves that are funny," said Sanine, in a tone of conviction. He then went into the house to wash his hands, and, coming back, sat down at his ease in a wicker arm-chair near the table. He felt happy, and in a good temper. The verdure, the sunlight and the blue sky filled him with a keener sense of the joy of life. Large towns with their bustle and din were to him detestable. Around him were sunlight and freedom; the future gave him no anxiety; for he was disposed to accept from life whatever it could offer him. Sanine shut his eyes tight, and stretched himself; the tension of his sound, strong muscles gave him pleasurable thrills. A gentle breeze was blowing. The whole garden seemed to sigh. Here and there, sparrows chattered noisily about their intensely important but incomprehensible little lives, and Mill, the fox-terrier, with ears erect and red tongue lolling out, lay in the long grass, listening. The leaves whispered softly; their round shadows quivered on the smooth gravel path. Maria Ivanovna was vexed at her son's calmness. She was fond of him, just as she was fond of all her children, and for that very reason she longed to rouse him, to wound his self-respect, if only to force him to heed her words and accept her view of life. Like an ant in the sand, she had employed every moment of a long existence in building up the frail structure of her domestic well-being. It was a long, bare, monotonous edifice, like a barrack or a hospital, built with countless little bricks that to her, as an incompetent architect, constituted the graces of life, though in fact they were petty worries that kept her in a perpetual state of irritation or of anxiety. "Do you suppose things will go on like this, later on?" she said, with lips compressed, and feigning intense interest in the boiling jam. "What do you mean by 'later on'?" asked Sanine, and then sneezed. Maria Ivanovna thought that he had sneezed on purpose to annoy her, and, absurd though such a notion was, looked cross. "How nice it is to be here, with you!" said Sanine, dreamily. "Yes, it's not so bad," she answered, drily. She was secretly pleased at her son's praise of the house and garden that to her were as lifelong kinsfolk. Sanine looked at her, and then said, thoughtfully: "If you didn't bother me with all sorts of silly things, it would be nicer still." The bland tone in which these words were spoken seemed at variance with their meaning, so that Maria Ivanovna did not know whether to be vexed or amused. "To look at you, and then to think that, as a child, you were always rather odd," said she, sadly, "and now--" "And now?" exclaimed Sanine, gleefully, as if he expected to hear something specially pleasant and interesting. "Now you are more crazy than ever!" said Maria Ivanovna sharply, shaking her spoon. "Well, all the better!" said Sanine, laughing. After a pause, he added, "Ah! here's Novikoff!" Out of the house came a tall, fair, good-looking man. His red silk shirt, fitting tight to his well-proportioned frame, looked brilliant in the sun; his pale blue eyes had a lazy, good-natured expression. "There you go! Always quarrelling!" said he, in a languid, friendly tone. "And in Heaven's name, what about?" "Well, the fact is, mother thinks that a Grecian nose would suit me better, while I am quite satisfied with the one that I have got." Sanine looked down his nose and, laughing, grasped the other's big, soft hand. "So, I should say!" exclaimed Maria Ivanovna, pettishly. Novikoff laughed merrily; and from the green thicket, came a gentle echo in reply, as if some one yonder heartily; shared his mirth. "Ah! I know what it is! Worrying about your future." "What, you, too?" exclaimed Sanine, in comic alarm. "It just serves you right." "Ah!" cried Sanine. "If it's a case of two to one, I had better clear out." "No, it is I that will soon have to clear out," said Maria Ivanovna with sudden irritation at which she herself was vexed. Hastily removing her saucepan of jam, she hurried into the house, without looking back. The terrier jumped up, and with ears erect watched her go. Then it rubbed its nose with its front paw, gave another questioning glance at the house and ran off into the garden. "Have you got any cigarettes?" asked Sanine, delighted at his mother's departure. Novikoff with a lazy movement of his large body produced a cigarette- case. "You ought not to tease her so," said he, in a voice of gentle reproof. "She's an old lady." "How have I teased her?" "Well, you see--" "What do you mean by 'well, you see?' It is she who is always after me. I have never asked anything of anybody, and therefore people ought to leave me alone." Both remained silent. "Well, how goes it, doctor?" asked Sanine, as he watched the tobacco- smoke rising in fantastic curves above his head. Novikoff, who was thinking of something else, did not answer at once. "Badly." "In what way?" "Oh! in every way. Everything is so dull and this little town bores me to death. There's nothing to do." "Nothing to do? Why it was you that complained of not having time to breathe!" "That is not what I mean. One can't be always seeing patients, seeing patients. There is another life besides that." "And who prevents you from living that other life?" "That is rather a complicated question." "In what way is it complicated? You are a young, good-looking, healthy man; what more do you want?" "In my opinion that is not enough," replied Novikoff, with mild irony. "Really!" laughed Sanine. "Well, I think it is a very great deal." "But not enough for me," said Novikoff, laughing in his turn. It was plain that Sanine's remark about his health and good looks had pleased him, and yet it had made him feel shy as a girl. "There's one thing that you want," said Sanine, pensively. "And what is that?" "A just conception of life. The monotony of your existence oppresses you; and yet, if some one advised you to give it all up, and go straight away into the wide world, you would be afraid to do so." "And as what should I go? As a beggar? H .. m!" "Yes, as a beggar, even! When I look at you, I think: there is a man who in order to give the Russian Empire a constitution would let himself be shut up in Schlusselburg [Footnote: A fortress for political prisoners.] for the rest of his life, losing all his rights, and his liberty as well. After all, what is a constitution to him? But when it is a question of altering his own tedious mode of life, and of going elsewhere to find new interests, he at once asks, 'how should I get a living? Strong and healthy as I am, should I not come to grief if I had not got my fixed salary, and consequently cream in my tea, my silk shirts, stand-up collars, and all the rest of it?' It's funny, upon my word it is!" "I cannot see anything funny in it at all. In the first case, it is the question of a cause, an idea, whereas in the other--" "Well?" "Oh! I don't know how to express myself!" And Novikoff snapped his fingers. "There now!" said Sanine, interrupting. "That's how you always evade the point. I shall never believe that the longing for a constitution is stronger in you than the longing to make the most of your own life." "That is just a question. Possibly it is." Sanine waved his hand, irritably. "Oh! don't, please! If somebody were to cut off your finger, you would feel it more than if it were some other Russian's finger. That is a fact, eh?" "Or a cynicism," said Novikoff, meaning to be sarcastic when he was merely foolish. "Possibly. But, all the same, it is the truth. And now though in Russia and in many other States there is no constitution, nor the slightest sign of one, it is your own unsatisfactory life that worries you, not the absence of a constitution. And if you say it isn't, then you're telling a lie. What is more," added Sanine, with a merry twinkle in his eyes, "you are worried not about your life but because Lida has not yet fallen in love with you. Now, isn't that so?" "What utter nonsense you're talking!" cried Novikoff, turning as red as his silk shirt. So confused was he, that tears rose to his calm, kindly eyes. "How is it nonsense, when besides Lida you can see nothing else in the whole world? The wish to possess her is written in large letters on your brow." Novikoff winced perceptibly and began to walk rapidly up and down the path. If anyone but Lida's brother had spoken to him in this way it would have pained him deeply, but to hear such words from Sanine's mouth amazed him; in fact at first he scarcely understood them. "Look here," he muttered, "either you are posing, or else--" "Or else--what?" asked Sanine, smiling. Novikoff looked aside, shrugged his shoulders, and was silent. The other inference led him to regard Sanine as an immoral, bad man. But he could not tell him this, for, ever since their college days, he had always felt sincere affection for him, and it seemed to Novikoff impossible that he should have chosen a wicked man as his friend. The effect on his mind was at once bewildering and unpleasant. The allusion to Lida pained him, but, as the goddess whom he adored, he could not feel angry with Sanine for speaking of her. It pleased him, and yet he felt hurt, as if a burning hand had seized his heart and had gently pressed it. Sanine was silent, and smiled good-humouredly. After a pause he said: "Well, finish your statement; I am in no hurry!" Novikoff kept walking up and down the path, as before. He was evidently hurt. At this moment the terrier came running back excitedly and rubbed against Sanine's knees, as if wishful to let every one know how pleased he was. "Good dog!" said Sanine, patting him. Novikoff strove to avoid continuing the discussion, being afraid that Sanine might return to the subject which for personally was the most interesting in the whole world. Anything that did not concern Lida seemed le to him--dull. "And--where is Lidia Petrovna?" he asked mechanically, albeit loth to utter the question that was uppermost in his mind. "Lida? Where should she be? Walking with officers on the boulevard, where all our young ladies are to be found at this time of day." A look of jealousy darkened his face, as Novikoff asked: "How can a girl so clever and cultivated as she waste her time with such empty-headed fools?" "Oh! my friend," exclaimed Sanine, smiling, "Lida is handsome, and young, and healthy, just as you are; more so, in fact, because she has that which you lack--keen desire for everything. She wants to know everything, to experience everything--why, here she comes! You've only got to look at her to understand that. Isn't she pretty?" Lida was shorter and much handsomer than her brother. Sweetness combined with supple strength gave to her whole personality charm and distinction. There was a haughty look in her dark eyes, and her voice, of which she was proud, sounded rich and musical. She walked slowly down the steps, moving with the lithe grace of a thoroughbred, while adroitly holding up her long grey dress. Behind her, clinking their spurs, came two good-looking young officers in tightly-fitting riding- breeches and shining top-boots. "Who is pretty? Is it I?" asked Lida, as she filled the whole garden with the charm of her voice, her beauty and her youth. She gave Novikoff her hand, with a side-glance at her brother, about whose attitude she did not feel quite clear, never knowing whether he was joking or in earnest. Grasping her hand tightly, Novikoff grew very red, but his emotions were unnoticed by Lida, used as she was to his reverent, bashful glance that never troubled her. "Good evening, Vladimir Petrovitch," said the elder, handsomer and fairer of the two officers, rigid, erect as a spirited stallion, while his spurs clinked noisily. Sanine knew him to be Sarudine, a captain of cavalry, one of Lida's most persistent admirers. The other was Lieutenant Tanaroff, who regarded Sarudine as the ideal soldier, and strove to copy everything he did. He was taciturn, somewhat clumsy, and not so good-looking as Sarudine. Tanaroff rattled his spurs in his turn, but said nothing. "Yes, you!" replied Sanine to his sister, gravely. "Why, of course I am pretty. You should have said indescribably pretty!" And, laughing gaily, Lida sank into a chair, glancing again at Sanine. Raising her arms and thus emphasizing the curves of her shapely bosom, she proceeded to remove her hat, but, in so doing, let a long hat-pin fall on the gravel, and her veil and hair became disarranged. "Andrei Pavlovitch, do please help me!" she plaintively cried to the taciturn lieutenant. "Yes, she's a beauty!" murmured Sanine, thinking aloud, and never taking his eyes off her. Once more Lida glanced shyly at her brother. "We're all of us beautiful here," said she. "What's that? Beautiful? Ha! Ha!" laughed Sarudine, showing his white, shining teeth. "We are at best but the modest frame that serves to heighten the dazzling splendour of your beauty." "I say, what eloquence, to be sure!" exclaimed Sanine, in surprise. There was a slight shade of irony in his tone. "Lidia Petrovna would make anybody eloquent," said Tanaroff the silent, as he tried to help Lida to take off her hat, and in so doing ruffled her hair. She pretended to be vexed, laughing all the while. "What?" drawled Sanine. "Are you eloquent too?" "Oh! let them be!" whispered Novikoff, hypocritically, though secretly pleased. Lida frowned at Sanine, to whom her dark eyes plainly said: "Don't imagine that I cannot see what these people are. I intend to please myself. I am not a fool any more than you are, and I know what I am about." Sanine smiled at her. At last the hat was removed, which Tanaroff solemnly placed on the table. "Look! Look what you've done to me, Andrei Pavlovitch!" cried Lida half peevishly, half coquettishly. "You've got my hair into such a tangle! Now I shall have to go indoors." "I'm so awfully sorry!" stammered Tanaroff, in confusion. Lida rose, gathered up her skirts, and ran indoors laughing, followed by the glances of all the men. When she had gone they seemed to breathe more freely, without that nervous sense of restraint which men usually experience in the presence of a pretty young woman. Sarudine lighted a cigarette which he smoked with evident gusto. One felt, when he spoke, that he habitually took the lead in a conversation, and that what he thought was something quite different from what he said. "I have just been persuading Lidia Petrovna to study singing seriously. With such a voice, her career is assured." "A fine career, upon my word!" sullenly rejoined Novikoff, looking aside. "What is wrong with it?" asked Sarudine, in genuine amazement, removing the cigarette from his lips. "Why, what's an actress? Nothing else but a harlot!" replied Novikoff, with sudden heat. Jealousy tortured him; the thought that the young woman whose body he loved could appear before other men in an alluring dress that would exhibit her charms in order to provoke their passions. "Surely it is going too far to say that," replied Sarudine, raising his eyebrows. Novikoff's glance was full of hatred. He regarded Sarudine as one of those men who meant to rob him of his beloved; moreover, his good looks annoyed him. "No, not in the least too far," he retorted. "To appear half nude on the stage and in some voluptuous scene exhibit one's personal charms to those who in an hour or so take their leave as they would of some courtesan after paying the usual fee! A charming career indeed!" "My friend," said Sanine, "every woman in the first instance likes to be admired for her personal charms." Novikoff shrugged his shoulders irritably. "What a silly, coarse statement!" said he. "At any rate, coarse or not, it's the truth," replied Sanine. "Lida would be most effective on the stage, and I should like to see her there." Although in the others this speech roused a certain instinctive curiosity, they all felt ill at ease. Sarudine, who thought himself more intelligent and tactful than the rest, deemed it his duty to dispel this vague feeling of embarrassment. "Well, what do you think the young lady ought to do? Get married? Pursue a course of study, or let her talent be lost? That would be a crime against nature that had endowed her with its fairest gift." "Oh!" exclaimed Sanine, with undisguised sarcasm, "till now the idea of such a crime had never entered my head." Novikoff laughed maliciously, but replied politely enough to Sarudine. "Why a crime? A good mother or a female doctor is worth a thousand times more than an actress." "Not at all!" said Tanaroff, indignantly. "Don't you find this sort of talk rather boring?" asked Sanine. Sarudine's rejoinder was lost in a fit of coughing. They all of them really thought such a discussion tedious and unnecessary; and yet they all felt somewhat offended. An unpleasant silence reigned. Lida and Maria Ivanovna appeared on the verandah. Lida had heard her brother's last words, but did not know to what they referred. "You seem to have soon become bored!" cried she, laughing. "Let us go down to the river. It is charming there, now." As she passed in front of the men, her shapely figure swayed slightly, and there was a look of dark mystery in her eyes that seemed to say something, to promise something. "Go for a walk till supper-time," said Maria Ivanovna. "Delighted," exclaimed Sarudine. His spurs clinked, as he offered Lida his arm. "I hope that I may be allowed to come too," said Novikoff, meaning to be satirical, though his face wore a tearful expression. "Who is there to prevent you?" replied Lida, smiling, at him over her shoulder. "Yes, you go, too," exclaimed Sanine. "I would come with you if she were not so thoroughly convinced that I am her brother." Lida winced somewhat, and glanced swiftly at Sanine, as she laughed, a short, nervous laugh. Maria Ivanovna was obviously displeased. "Why do you talk in that stupid way?" she bluntly exclaimed. "I suppose you think it is original?" "I really never thought about it at all," was Sanine's rejoinder. Maria Ivanovna looked at him in amazement. She had never been able to understand her son; she never could tell when he was joking or in earnest, nor what he thought or felt, when other comprehensible persons felt and thought much as she did herself. According to her idea, a man was always bound to speak and feel and act exactly as other men of his social and intellectual status were wont to speak and feel and act. She was also of opinion that people were not simply men with their natural characteristics and peculiarities, but that they must be all cast in one common mould. Her own environment encouraged and confirmed this belief. Education, she thought, tended to divide men into two groups, the intelligent and the unintelligent. The latter might retain their individuality, which drew upon them the contempt of others. The former were divided into groups, and their convictions did not correspond with their personal qualities but with their respective positions. Thus, every student was a revolutionary, every official was bourgeois, every artist a free thinker, and every officer an exaggerated stickler for rank. If, however, it chanced that a student was a Conservative, or an officer an Anarchist, this must be regarded as most extraordinary, and even unpleasant. As for Sanine, according to his origin and education he ought to have been something quite different from what he was; and Maria Ivanovna felt as Lida, Novikoff and all who came into contact with him felt, that he had disappointed expectation. With a mother's instinct she quickly saw the impression that her son made on those about him; and it pained her. Sanine was aware of this. He would fain have reassured her, but was at a loss how to begin. At first he thought of professing sentiments that were false, so that she might be pacified; however, he only laughed, and, rising, went indoors. There, for a while, he lay on his bed, thinking. It seemed as if men wished to turn the whole world into a sort of military cloister, with one set of rules for all, framed with a view to destroy all individuality, or else to make this submit to one vague, archaic power of some kind. He was even led to reflect upon Christianity and its fate, but this bored him to such an extent that he fell asleep, and did not wake until evening had turned to night. Maria Ivanovna watched him go, and she, too, sighing deeply, became immersed in thought. Sarudine, so she said to herself, was obviously paying court to Lida, and she hoped that his intentions were serious. "Lida's already twenty, and Sarudine seems to be quite a nice sort of young man. They say he'll get his squadron this year. Of course, he's heavily in debt--But oh! why did I have that horrid dream? I know it's absurd, yet somehow I can't get it out of my head!" This dream was one that she had dreamed on the same day that Sarudine had first entered the house. She thought that she saw Lida, dressed all in white, walking in a green meadow bright with flowers. Maria Ivanovna sank into an easy chair, leaning her head on her hand, as old women do, and she gazed at the darkening sky. Thoughts gloomy and tormenting gave no respite, and there was an indefinable something caused her to feel anxious and afraid. CHAPTER III. It was already quite dark when the others returned from their walk. Their clear, merry voices rang out through the soft dusk that veiled the garden. Lida ran, flushed and laughing, to her mother. She brought with her cool scents from the river that blended delightfully with the fragrance of her own sweet youth and beauty which the companionship of sympathetic admirers heightened and enhanced. "Supper, mamma, let's have supper!" she cried playfully dragging her mother along. "Meanwhile Victor Sergejevitsch is going to sing something to us." Maria Ivanovna, as she went out to get supper ready, thought to herself that Fate could surely have nothing but happiness in store for so beautiful and charming a girl as her darling Lida. Sarudine and Tanaroff went to the piano in the drawing-room, while Lida reclined lazily in the rocking-chair on the veranda. Novikoff, mute, walked up and down on the creaking boards of the veranda floor, furtively glancing at Lida's face, at her firm, full bosom, at her little feet shod in yellow shoes, and her dainty ankles. But she took no heed of him nor of his glances, so enthralled was she by the might and magic of a first passion. She shut her eyes, and smiled at her thoughts. In Novikoff's soul there was the old strife; he loved Lida, yet he could not be sure of her feelings towards himself. At times she loved him, so he thought; and again, there were times when she did not. If he thought 'yes,' how easy and pleasant it seemed for this young, pure, supple body to surrender itself to him. If he thought 'no,' such an idea was foul and detestable; he was angry at his own lust, deeming himself vile, and unworthy of Lida. At last be determined to be guided by chance. "If I step on the last board with my right foot, then I've got to propose; and if with the left, then--" He dared not even think of what would happen in that case. He trod on the last board with his left foot. It threw him into a cold sweat; but he instantly reassured himself. "Pshaw! What nonsense! I'm like some old woman! Now then; one, two, three--at three I'll go straight up to her, and speak. Yes, but what am I going to say? No matter! Here goes! One, two, three! No, three times over! One, two, three! One, two--" His brain seemed on fire, his mouth grew parched, his heart beat so violently that his knees shook. "Don't stamp like that!" exclaimed Lida, opening her eyes. "One can't hear anything." Only then was Novikoff aware that Sarudine was singing. The young officer had chosen that old romance, _I loved you once! Can you forget? Love in my heart is burning yet_. He did not sing badly, but after the style of untrained singers who seek to give expression by exaggerated tone-colour. Novikoff found nothing to please him in such a performance. "What is that? One of his own compositions?" asked he, with unusual bitterness. "No! Don't disturb us, please, but sit down!" said Lida, sharply. "And if you don't like music, go and look at the moon!" Just then the moon, large, round and red, was rising above the black tree-tops. Its soft evasive light touched the stone steps, and Lida's dress, and her pensive, smiling face. In the garden the shadows had grown deeper; they were now sombre and profound as those of the forest. Novikoff sighed, and then blurted out. "I prefer you to the moon," thinking to himself, "that's an idiotic remark!" Lida burst out laughing. "What a lumpish compliment!" she exclaimed. "I don't know how to pay compliments," was Novikoff's sullen rejoinder. "Very well, then, sit still and listen," said Lida, shrugging her shoulders, pettishly. _But you no longer care, I know, Why should I grieve you with my woe_? The tones of the piano rang out with silvery clearness through the green, humid garden. The moonlight became more and more intense and the shadows harder. Crossing the grass, Sanine sat down under a linden-tree and was about to light a cigarette. Then he suddenly stopped and remained motionless, as if spell-bound by the evening calm that the sounds of the piano and of this youthfully sentimental voice in no way disturbed, but rather served to make more complete. "Lidia Petrovna!" cried Novikoff hurriedly, as if this particular moment must never be lost. "Well?" asked Lida mechanically, as she looked at the garden and the moon above it and the dark boughs that stood out sharply against its silver disc. "I have long waited--that is--I have been anxious to say something to you," Novikoff stammered out. Sanine turned his head round to listen. "What about?" asked Lida, absently. Sarudine had finished his song and after a pause began to sing again. He thought that he had a voice of extraordinary beauty, and he much liked to hear it. Novikoff felt himself growing red, and then pale. It was as if he were going to faint. "I--look here--Lidia Petrovna--will you be my wife?" As he stammered out these words he felt all the while that he ought to have said something very different and that his own emotions should have been different also. Before he had got the words out he was certain that the answer would be "no"; and at the same time he had an impression that something utterly silly and ridiculous was about to occur. Lida asked mechanically, "Whose wife?" Then suddenly, she blushed deeply, and rose, as if intending to speak. But she said nothing and turned aside in confusion. The moonlight fell full on her features. "I--love you!" stammered Novikoff. For him, the moon no longer shone; the evening air seemed stifling, the earth, he thought, would open beneath his feet. "I don't know how to make speeches--but--no matter, I love you very much!" ("Why, very much?" he thought to himself, "as if I were alluding to ice-cream.") Lida played nervously with a little leaf that had fluttered down into her hands. What she had just heard embarrassed her, being both unexpected and futile; besides, it created a novel feeling of disagreeable restraint between herself and Novikoff whom from her childhood she had always looked upon as a relative, and whom she liked. "I really don't know what to say! I had never thought about it." Novikoff felt a dull pain at his heart, as if it would stop beating. Very pale, he rose and seized his cap. "Good-bye," he said, not hearing the sound of his own voice. His quivering lips were twisted into a meaningless smile. "Are you going? Good-bye!" said Lida, laughing nervously and proffering her hand. Novikoff grasped it hastily, and without putting on his cap strode out across the grass, into the garden. In the shade he stood still and gripped his head with both hands. "My God! I am doomed to such luck as this! Shoot myself? No, that's all nonsense! Shoot myself, eh?" Wild, incoherent thoughts flashed through his brain. He felt that he was the most wretched and humiliated and ridiculous of mortals. Sanine at first wished to call out to him, but checking the impulse, he merely smiled. To him it was grotesque that Novikoff should tear his hair and almost weep because a woman whose body he desired would not surrender herself to him. At the same time he was rather glad that his pretty sister did not care for Novikoff. For some moments Lida remained motionless in the same place, and Sanine's curious gaze was riveted on her white silhouette in the moonlight. Sarudine now came from the lighted drawing-room on to the veranda. Sanine distinctly heard the faint jingling of his-spurs. In the drawing-room Tanaroff was playing an old-fashioned, mournful waltz whose languorous cadences floated on the air. Approaching Lida, Sarudine gently and deftly placed his arm round her waist. Sanine could perceive that both figures became merged into one that swayed in the misty light. "Why so pensive?" murmured Sarudine, with shining eyes, as his lips touched Lida's dainty little ear, Lida was at once joyful and afraid. Now, as on all occasions when Sarudine embraced her, she felt a strange thrill. She knew that in intelligence and culture he was her inferior, and that she could never be dominated by him; yet at the same time she was aware of something delightful and alarming in letting herself be touched by this strong, comely young man. She seemed to be gazing down into a mysterious, unfathomable abyss, and thinking, "I could hurl myself in, if I chose." "We shall be seen," she murmured half audibly. Though not encouraging his embrace, she yet did not shrink from it; such passive surrender excited him the more. "One word, just one!" whispered Sarudine, as he crushed her closer to him, his veins throbbing with desire; "will you come?" Lida trembled. It was not the first time that he had asked her this question, and each time she had felt strange tremors that deprived her of her will. "Why?" she asked, in a low voice as she gazed dreamily at the moon. "Why? That I may have you near me, and see you, and talk to you. Oh! like this, it's torture! Yes, Lida, you're torturing me! Now, will you come?" So saying, he strained her to him, passionately. His touch as that of glowing iron, sent a thrill through her limbs; it seemed as if she were enveloped in a mist, languorous, dreamy, oppressive. Her lithe, supple frame grew rigid and then swayed towards him, trembling with pleasure and yet with fear. Around her all things had undergone a curious, sudden change. The moon was a moon no longer; it seemed close, close to the trellis-work of the veranda, as if it hung just above the luminous lawn. The garden was not the one that she knew, but another garden, sombre, mysterious, that, suddenly approaching, closed round her. Her brain reeled. She drew back, and with strange languor, freed herself from Sarudine's embrace. "Yes," she murmured with difficulty. Her lips were white and parched. With faltering steps she re-entered the house, conscious of something terrible yet alluring that inevitably drew her to the brink of an abyss. "Nonsense!" she reflected. "It's not that at all. I am only joking. It just interests me, and it amuses me, too." Thus did she seek to persuade herself, as she stood facing the darkened mirror in her room, wherein she only saw herself _en silhouette_ against the glass door of the brightly lighted dining-room. Slowly she raised both arms above her head, and lazily stretched herself, watching meanwhile the sensuous movements of her supple body. Left to himself, Sarudine stood erect and shook his shapely limbs. His eyes were half closed, and, as he smiled, his teeth shone beneath his fair moustache. He was accustomed to have luck, and on this occasion he foresaw even greater enjoyment in the near future. He imagined Lida in all her voluptuous beauty at the very moment of surrender. The passion of such a picture caused him physical pain. At first, when he paid court to her, and after that, when she had allowed him to embrace her and kiss her, Lida had always made him feel somewhat afraid. While he caressed her, there was something strange, unintelligible in her dark eyes, as though she secretly despised him She seemed to him so clever, so absolutely unlike other women to whom he had always felt himself obviously superior, and so proud, that for a kiss he looked to receive a box on the ear. The thought of possessing her was almost disquieting. At times he believed that she was just playing with him and his position appeared simply foolish and absurd. But to-day, after this promise, uttered hesitatingly, in faltering tones such as he had heard other women use, he felt suddenly certain of his power and that victory was near. He knew that things would be just as he had desired them to be. And to this sense of voluptuous expectancy was added a touch of spite: this proud, pure, cultured girl should surrender to him, as all the others had surrendered; he would use her at his pleasure, as he had used the rest. Scenes libidinous and debasing rose up before him. Lida nude, with hair dishevelled and inscrutable eyes, became the central figure in a turbulent orgy of cruelty and lust. Suddenly he distinctly saw her lying on the ground; he heard the swish of the whip; he observed a blood-red stripe on the soft, nude, submissive body. His temples throbbed, he staggered backwards, sparks danced before his eyes. The thought of it all became physically intolerable. His hand shook as he lit a cigarette; again his strong limbs twitched convulsively, and he went indoors. Sanine who had heard nothing yet who had seen and comprehended all, followed him, roused almost to a feeling of jealousy. "Brutes like that are always lucky," he thought to himself, "What the devil does it all mean? Lida and he?" At supper, Maria Ivanovna seemed in a bad temper. Tanaroff as usual said nothing. He thought what a fine thing it would be if he were Sarudine, and had such a sweetheart as Lida to love him. He would have loved her in quite a different way, though. Sarudine did not know how to appreciate his good fortune. Lida was pale and silent, looking at no one. Sarudine was gay, and on the alert, like a wild beast that scents its prey. Sanine yawned as usual, ate, drank a good deal of brandy and apparently seemed longing to go to sleep. But when supper was over, he declared his intention of walking home with Sarudine. It was near midnight, and the moon shone high overhead. Almost in silence the two walked towards the officer's quarters. All the way Sanine kept looking furtively at Sarudine, wondering if he should, or should not, strike him in the face. "Hm! Yes!" he suddenly began, as they got close to the house, "there are all sorts of blackguards in this world!" "What do you mean by that?" asked Sarudine, raising his eyebrows. "That is so; speaking generally. Blackguards are the most fascinating people." "You don't say so?" exclaimed Sarudine, smiling. "Of course they are. There's nothing so boring in all the world as your so-called honest man. What is an honest man? With the programme of honesty and virtue everybody has long been familiar; and so it contains nothing that is new. Such antiquated rubbish robs a man of all individuality, and his life is lived within the narrow, tedious limits of virtue. Thou shalt not steal, nor lie, nor cheat, nor commit adultery. The funny thing is, that all that is born is one! Everybody steals, and lies, and cheats and commits adultery as much as he can." "Not everybody," protested Sarudine loftily. "Yes, yes; everybody! You have only got to examine a man's life in order to get at his sins. Treachery, for instance. Thus, after rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, when we go quietly to bed, or sit down to table, we commit acts of treachery." "What's that you say?" cried Sarudine, half angrily. "Of course we do. We pay taxes; we serve our time in the army, yes; but that means that we harm millions by warfare and injustice, both of which we abhor. We go calmly to our beds, when we should hasten to rescue those who in that very moment are perishing for us and for our ideas. We eat more than we actually want, and leave others to starve, when, as virtuous folk, our whole lives should be devoted to their welfare. So it goes on. It's plain enough. Now a blackguard, a real, genuine blackguard is quite another matter. To begin with he is a perfectly sincere, natural fellow." "Natural?" "Of course he is. He does only what a man naturally does. He sees something that does not belong to him, something that he likes--and, he takes it. He sees a pretty woman who won't give herself to him, so he manages to get her, either by force or by craft. And that is perfectly natural, the desire and the instinct for self-gratification being one of the few traits that distinguish a man from a beast. The more animal an animal is, the less it understands of enjoyment, the less able it is to procure this. It only cares to satisfy its needs. We are all agreed that man was not created in order to suffer, and that suffering is not the ideal of human endeavour." "Quite so," said Sarudine. "Very well, then, enjoyment is the aim of human life. Paradise is the synonym for absolute enjoyment, and we all of us, more or less, dream of an earthly paradise. This legend of paradise is by no means an absurdity, but a symbol, a dream." "Yes," continued Sanine, after a pause, "Nature never meant men to be abstinent, and the sincerest men are those who do not conceal their desires, that is to say, those who socially count as blackguards, fellows such as--you, for instance." Sarudine started back in amazement. "Yes, you," continued Sanine, affecting not to notice this, "You're the best fellow in the world, or, at any rate, you think you are. Come now, tell me, have you ever met a better?" "Yes, lots of them," replied Sarudine, with some hesitation. He had not the least idea what Sanine meant, nor if he ought to appear amused or annoyed. "Well, name them, please," said Sanine. Sarudine shrugged his shoulders, doubtfully. "There, you see!" exclaimed Sanine gaily. "You yourself are the best of good fellows, and so am I; yet we both of us would not object to stealing, or telling lies or committing adultery--least of all to committing adultery." "How original!" muttered Sarudine, as he again shrugged his shoulders. "Do you think so?" asked the other, with a slight shade of annoyance in his tone. "Well, I don't! Yes, blackguards, as I said, are the most sincere and interesting people imaginable, for they have no conception of the bounds of human baseness. I always feel particularly pleased to shake hands with a blackguard." He immediately grasped Sarudine's hand and shook it vigorously as he looked him full in the face. Then he frowned, and muttered curtly, "Good-bye, good-night," and left him. For a few moments Sarudine stood perfectly still and watched him depart. He did not know how to take such speeches as these of Sanine; he became at once bewildered and uneasy. Then he thought of Lida, and smiled. Sanine was her brother, and what he had said was really right after all. He began to feel a sort of brotherly attachment for him. "An amusing fellow, by Gad!" he thought, complacently, as if Sanine in a way belonged to him, also. Then he opened the gate, and went across the moonlit courtyard to his quarters. On reaching home, Sanine undressed and got into bed, where he tried to read "Thus spake Zarathustra" which he had found among Lida's books. But the first few pages were enough to irritate him. Such inflated imagery left him unmoved. He spat, flung the volume aside, and soon fell fast asleep. CHAPTER IV. Colonel Nicolai Yegorovitch Svarogitsch who lived in the little town awaited the arrival of his son, a student at the Moscow Polytechnic. The latter was under the surveillance of the police and had been expelled from Moscow as a suspected person. It was thought that he was in league with revolutionists. Yourii Svarogitsch had already written to his parents informing them of his arrest, his six months' imprisonment, and his expulsion from the capital, so that they were prepared for his return. Though Nicolai Yegorovitch looked upon the whole thing as a piece of boyish folly, he was really much grieved, for he was very fond of his son, whom he received with open arms, avoiding any allusion to this painful subject. For two whole days Yourii had travelled third-class, and owing to the bad air, the stench, and the cries of children, he got no sleep at all. He was utterly exhausted, and had no sooner greeted his father and his sister Ludmilla (who was always called Lialia) than he lay down on her bed, and fell asleep. He did not wake until evening, when the sun was near the horizon, and its slanting rays, falling through the panes, threw rosy squares upon the wall. In the next room there was a clatter of spoons and glasses; he could hear Lialia's merry laugh, and also a man's voice both pleasant and refined which he did not know. At first it seemed to him as if he were still in the railway-carriage and heard the noise of the train, the rattle of the window-panes and the voices of travellers in the next compartment. But he quickly remembered where he was, and sat bolt upright on the bed. "Yes, here I am," he yawned, as, frowning, he thrust his fingers through his thick, stubborn black hair. It then occurred to him that he need never have come home. He had been allowed to choose where he would stay. Why, then, did he return to his parents? That he could not explain. He believed, or wished to believe, that he had fixed upon the most likely place that had occurred to him. But this was not the case at all. Yourii had never had to work for a living; his father kept him supplied with funds, and the prospect of being alone and without means among strangers seemed terrible to him. He was ashamed of such a feeling, and loth to admit it to himself. Now, however, he thought that he had made a mistake. His parents could never understand the whole story, nor form any opinion regarding it; that was quite plain. Then again, the material question would arise, the many useless years that he had cost his father--it all made a mutually cordial, straightforward understanding impossible. Moreover, in this little town, which he had not seen for two years, he would find it dreadfully dull. He looked upon all the inhabitants of petty provincial towns as narrow-minded folk, incapable of being interested in, or even of understanding those philosophical and political questions which for him were the only really important things of life. Yourii got up, and, opening the window, leaned out. Along the wall of the house there was a little flower-garden bright with flowers, red, yellow, blue, lilac and white. It was like a kaleidoscope. Behind it lay the large dusky garden that, as all gardens in this town, stretched down to the river, which glimmered like dull glass between the stems of the trees. It was a calm, clear evening. Yourii felt a vague sense of depression. He had lived too long in large towns built of stone, and though he liked to fancy that he was fond of nature, she really gave him nothing, neither solace, nor peace, nor joy, and only roused in him a vague, dreamy, morbid longing. "Aha! You're up at last! it was about time," said Lialia, as she entered the room. Oppressed as he was by the sense of his uncertain position and by the melancholy of the dying day, Yourii felt almost vexed by his sister's gaiety and by her merry voice. "What are you so pleased about?" he asked abruptly. "Well, I never!" cried Lialia, wide-eyed, while she laughed again, just as if her brother's question had reminded her of something particularly amusing. "Imagine your asking me why I am so pleased? You see, I am never bored. I have no time for that sort of thing." Then, in a graver tone, and evidently proud of her last remark, she added. "We live in such interesting times that it would really be a sin to feel bored. I have got the workmen to teach, and then the library takes up a lot of my time. While you were away, we started a popular library, and it is going very well indeed." At any other time this would have interested Yourii, but now something made him indifferent. Lialia looked very serious, waiting, as a child might wait, for her brother's praise. At last he managed to murmur. "Oh! really!" "With all that to do, can you expect me to be bored?" said Lialia contentedly. "Well, anyhow, everything bores me," replied Yourii involuntarily. She pretended to be hurt. "That's very nice of you, I am sure. You've hardly been two hours in the house, and asleep most of the time, yet you are bored already!" "It is not my fault, but my misfortune," replied Yourii, in a slightly arrogant tone. He thought it showed superior intelligence to be bored rather than amused. "Your misfortune, indeed!" cried Lialia, mockingly. "Ha! Ha!" She pretended to slap him. "Ha! Ha!" Yourii did not perceive that he had already recovered his good humour. Lialia's merry voice and her joy of living had speedily banished his depression which he had imagined to be very real and deep. Lialia did not believe in his melancholy, and therefore his remarks caused her no concern. Yourii looked at her, and said with a smile. "I am never merry." At this Lialia laughed, as though he had said something vastly droll. "Very well, Knight of the Rueful Countenance, if you aren't you aren't. Never mind, come with me, and I will introduce you to a charming young man. Come!" So saying she took her brother's hand, and laughingly led him along. "Stop! Who is this charming young man?" "My fiancé," cried Lialia, as, joyful and confused, she twisted sharply round so that her gown was puffed out. Yourii knew already, from his father's and sister's letters, that a young doctor recently established in the town had been paying court to Lialia, but he was not aware that their engagement was a _fait accompli_. "You don't say so?" said he, in amazement. It seemed to him so strange that pretty, fresh-looking little Lialia, almost a child, should already have a lover, and should soon become a bride--a wife. It touched him to a vague sense of pity for his sister. Yourii put his arm round Lialia's waist and went with her into the dining-room where in the lamp-light shone the large, highly polished samovar. At the table, by the side of Nicolai Yegorovitch sat a well-built young man, not Russian in type, with bronzed features and keen bright eyes. He rose in simple, friendly fashion to meet Yourii. "Introduce me." "Anatole Pavlovitch Riasantzeff!" cried Lialia, with a gesture of comic solemnity. "Who craves your friendship and indulgence," added Riasantzeff, joking in his turn. With a sincere wish to become friends, the two shook hands. For a moment it seemed as if they would embrace, but they refrained, merely exchanging frank, amicable glances. "So this is her brother, is it?" thought Riasantzeff, in surprise, for he had imagined that a brother of Lialia, short, fair, and merry, would be short, fair and merry too. Yourii, on the contrary was tall, thin and dark, though as good-looking as Lialia, and with the same regular features. And, as Yourii looked at Riasantzeff, he thought to himself: "So this is the man who in my little sister Lialia, as fresh and fair as a spring morning, loves the woman; loves her just as I myself have loved women." Somehow, it hurt him to look at Lialia and Riasantzeff, as if he feared that they would read his thoughts. The two men felt that they had much that was important to say to each other. Yourii would have liked to ask: "Do you love Lialia? Really and truly? It would be sad, and indeed shameful, if you were to betray her; she's so pure, so innocent!" And Riasantzeff would have liked to answer: "Yes, I love your sister deeply; who could do anything else but love her? Look how pure and sweet, and charming she is; how fond she is of me; and what a pretty dimple she's got!" But instead of all this, Yourii said nothing, and Riasantzeff asked: "Have you been expelled for long?" "For five years," was Yourii's answer. At these words Nicolai Yegorovitch, who was pacing up and down the room, stopped for a moment and then, recollecting himself, he continued his walk with the regular, precise steps of an old soldier. As yet he was ignorant of the details of his son's exile, and this unexpected news came as a shock. "What the devil does it all mean?" he muttered to himself. Lialia understood this movement of her father's. She was afraid of scenes, and tried to change the conversation. "How foolish of me," she thought, "not to have remembered to tell Anatole!" But Riasantzeff did not know the real facts, and, replying to Lialia's invitation to have some tea, he again began to question Yourii. "And what do you think of doing now?" Nicolai Yegorovitch frowned, and said nothing. Yourii at once knew what his father's silence meant; and before he had reflected upon the consequences of such an answer he replied, defiantly and with irritation, "Nothing for the moment." "How do you mean--nothing?" asked Nicolai Yegorovitch, stopping short. He had not raised his voice, but its tone clearly conveyed a hidden reproach. "How can you say such a thing? As if I were obliged always to have you round my neck! How can you forget that I am old, and that it is high time that you earned your own living? I say nothing. Live as you like! But can't you yourself understand?" The tone implied all this. And the more it made Yourii feel that his father was right in thinking as he did, the more he took offence. "Yes, nothing! What do you expect me to do?" he asked provocatively. Nicolai Yegorovitch was about to make a cutting retort, but said nothing, merely shrugging his shoulders and with measured tread resuming his march from one corner of the room to the other. He was too well-bred to wrangle with his son on the very day of his arrival. Yourii watched him with flashing eyes, being hardly able to control himself and ready on the slightest chance to open the quarrel. Lialia was almost in tears. She glanced imploringly from her brother to her father. Riasantzeff at last understood the situation, and he felt so sorry for Lialia, that, clumsily enough, he turned the talk into another channel. Slowly, tediously, the evening passed. Yourii would not admit that he was blameworthy, for he did not agree with his father that politics were no part of his business. He considered that his father was incapable of understanding the simplest things, being old and void of intelligence. Unconsciously he blamed him for his old age and his antiquated ideas: they enraged him. The topics touched upon by Riasantzeff did not interest him. He scarcely listened, but steadily watched his father with black, glittering eyes. Just at supper-time came Novikoff, Ivanoff and Semenoff. Semenoff was a consumptive student who for some months past had lived in the town, where he gave lessons. He was thin, ugly, and looked very delicate. Upon his face, which was prematurely aged, lay the fleeting shadow of approaching death. Ivanoff was a schoolmaster, a long-haired, broad-shouldered, ungainly man. They had been walking on the boulevard, and hearing of Yourii's arrival had come to salute him. With their coming things grew more cheerful. There was laughter and joking, and at supper much was drunk. Ivanoff distinguished himself in this respect. During the few days that followed his unfortunate proposal to Lida, Novikoff had become somewhat calmer. That Lida had refused him might have been accidental, he thought; it was his fault, indeed, as he ought to have prepared her for such an avowal. Nevertheless it was painful to him to visit the Sanines. Therefore he endeavoured to meet Lida elsewhere, either in the street, or at the house of a mutual friend. She, for her part, pitied him, and, in a way, blamed herself which caused her to treat him with exaggerated cordiality, so that Novikoff once more began to hope. "What do you say to this?" he asked, just as they were all going, "Let's arrange a picnic at the convent, shall we?" The convent, situated on a hill at no great distance from the town, was a favourite place for excursions. It was near the river, and the road leading to it was good. Devoted as she was to every kind of amusement such as bathing, rowing and walks in the woods, Lialia welcomed the idea with enthusiasm. "Yes, of course! Of course! But when is it to be?" "Well, why not to-morrow?" said Novikoff. "Who else shall we ask?" asked Riasantzeff, equally pleased at the prospect of a day's outing. In the woods he would be able to hold Lialia in his arms, to kiss her, and feel that the sweet body he coveted was near. "Let us see. We are six. Suppose we ask Schafroff?" "Who is he?" inquired Yourii. "Oh! he's a young student." "Very well; and Ludmilla Nicolaievna will invite Karsavina and Olga Ivanovna." "Who are they?" asked Yourii once more. Lialia laughed. "You will see!" she said, kissing the tips of her fingers and looking very mysterious. "Aha!" said Yourii, smiling. "Well, we shall see what we shall see!" After some hesitation, Novikoff with an air of indifference, remarked: "We might ask the Sanines too." "Oh! we _must_ have Lida," cried Lialia, not because she particularly liked the girl, but because she knew of Novikoff's passion, and wished to please him. She was so happy herself in her own love, that she wanted all those about her to be happy also. "Then we shall have to invite the officers, too," observed Ivanoff, maliciously. "What does that matter? Let us do so. The more the merrier!" They all stood at the front door, in the moonlight. "What a lovely night!" exclaimed Lialia, as unconsciously she drew closer to her lover. She did not wish him to go yet. Riasantzeff with his elbow pressed her warm, round arm. "Yes, it's a wonderful night!" he replied, giving to these simple words a meaning that they two alone could seize. "Oh! you, and your night!" muttered Ivanoff in his deep bass. "I'm sleepy, so good-night, sirs!" And he slouched off, along the street, swinging his arms like the sails of a windmill. Novikoff and Semenoff went next, and Riasantzeff was a long while saying good-bye to Lialia, pretending to talk about the picnic. "Now, we must all go to bye-bye," said Lialia, laughingly, when he had taken his leave. Then she sighed, being loth to leave the moonlight, the soft night air, and all for which her youth and beauty longed. Yourii remembered that his father had not yet retired to rest, and feared that, if they met, a painful and useless discussion would be inevitable. "No!" he replied, his eyes fixed on the faint blue mist about the river, "No! I don't want to go to sleep. I shall go out for a while." "As you like," said Lialia, in her sweet, gentle voice. Stretching herself, she half closed her eyes like a cat, smiled at the moonlight, and went in. For a few minutes Yourii stood there, watching the dark shadows of the houses and the trees; then he went in the same direction that Semenoff had taken. The latter had not gone far, walking slowly and stooping as he coughed. His black shadow followed him along the moonlit road. Yourii soon overtook him and at once noticed how changed he was. During supper Semenoff had joked and laughed more perhaps than anyone else, but now he walked along, gloomy and self-absorbed, and in his hollow cough there was something hopeless and threatening like the disease from which he suffered. "Ah! it's you!" he said, somewhat peevishly, as Yourii thought. "I wasn't sleepy. I'll walk back with you, if you like." "Yes, do!" replied Semenoff, carelessly. "Aren't you cold?" asked Yourii, merely because this distressing cough made him nervous. "I am always cold," replied Semenoff irritably. Yourii felt pained, as if he had purposely touched a sore point. "Is it a long while since you left the University?" he asked. Semenoff did not immediately reply. "A long while," he said, at last. Yourii then spoke of the feeling that actually existed among the students and of what they considered most important and essential. He began simply and impassively, but by degrees let himself go, expressing himself with fervour and point. Semenoff said nothing, and listened. Then Yourii deplored the lack of revolutionary spirit among the masses. It was plain that he felt this deeply. "Did you read Bebel's last speech?" he asked. "Yes, I did," replied Semenoff. "Well, what do you say?" Semenoff irritably flourished his stick, which had a crooked handle. His shadow similarly waved a long black arm which made Yourii think of the black wings of some infuriated bird of prey. "What do I say?" he blurted out. "I say that I am going to die." And again he waved his stick and again the sinister shadow imitated his gesture. This time Semenoff also noticed it. "Do you see?" said he bitterly. "There, behind me, stands Death, watching my every movement. What's Bebel to me? Just a babbler, who babbles about this. And then some other fool will babble about that. It is all the same to me! If I don't die to-day, I shall die to-morrow." Yourii made no answer. He felt confused and hurt. "You, for instance," continued Semenoff, "you think that it's very important, all this that goes on at the University, and what Bebel says. But what I think is that, if you knew for certain, as I do, that you were going to die you would not care in the least what Bebel or Nietzsche or Tolstoi or anybody else said." Semenoff was silent. The moon still shone brightly, and ever the black shadow followed in their wake. "My constitution's done for!" said Semenoff suddenly in quite a different voice, thin and querulous. "If you knew how I dread dying.... Especially on such a bright, soft night as this," he continued plaintively, turning to Yourii his ugly haggard face and glittering eyes. "Everything lives, and I must die. To you that sounds a hackneyed phrase, I feel certain. 'And I must die.' But it is not from a novel, not taken from a work written with 'artistic truth of presentment.' I really _am_ going to die, and to me the words do not seem hackneyed. One day you will not think that they are, either. I am dying, dying, and all is over!" Semenoff coughed again. "I often think that before long I shall be in utter darkness, buried in the cold earth, my nose fallen in, and my hands rotting, and here in the world all will be just as it is now, while I walk along alive. And you'll be living, and breathing this air, and enjoying this moonlight, and you'll go past my grave where I lie, hideous and corrupted. What do you suppose I care for Bebel, or Tolstoi or a million other gibbering apes?" These last words he uttered with sudden fury. Yourii was too depressed to reply. "Well, good-night!" said Semenoff faintly. "I must go in." Yourii shook hands with him, feeling deep pity for him, hollow-chested, round- shouldered, and with the crooked stick hanging from a button of his overcoat. He would have liked to say something consoling that might encourage hope, but he felt that this was impossible. "Good-bye!" he said, sighing. Semenoff raised his cap and opened the gate. The sound of his footsteps and of his cough grew fainter, and then all was still. Yourii turned homewards. All that only one short half-hour ago had seemed to him bright and fair and calm--the moonlight, the starry heaven, the poplar trees touched with silvery splendour, the mysterious shadows--all were now dead, and cold and terrible as some vast, tremendous tomb. On reaching home, he went softly to his room and opened the window looking on to the garden. For the first time in his life he reflected that all that had engrossed him, and for which he had shown such zeal and unselfishness was really not the right, the important thing. If, so he thought, some day, like Semenoff, he were about to die, he would feel no burning regret that men had not been made happier by his efforts, nor grief that his life-long ideals remained unrealized. The only grief would be that he must die, must lose sight, and sense, and hearing, before having had time to taste all the joys that life could yield. He was ashamed of such a thought, and, putting it aside, sought for an explanation. "Life is conflict." "Yes, but conflict for whom, if not for one's self, for one's own place in the sun?" Thus spake a voice within. Yourii affected not to hear it and strove to think of something else. But his mind reverted to this thought without ceasing; it tormented him even to bitter tears. CHAPTER V. When Lida Sanine received Lialia's invitation, she showed it to her brother. She thought that he would refuse; in fact, she hoped as much. She felt that on the moonlit river she would again be drawn to Sarudine, and would again experience that sensation at once delicious and disquieting. At the same time she was ashamed that her brother should know that it was Sarudine, of all people, whom he cordially despised. But Sanine at once accepted with pleasure. The day was an ideal one; bright sunlight and a cloudless sky. "No doubt there will be some nice girls there, whose acquaintance you may care to make," said Lida, mechanically. "Ah! that's good!" said Sanine. "The weather is lovely, too; so let's go!" At the time appointed, Sarudine and Tanaroff drove up in the large _lineika_ belonging to their squadron with two big regimental horses. "Lidia Petrovna, we are waiting for you," cried Sarudine, looking extremely smart in white, and heavily scented. Lida in a light gauzy dress with a collar and waist-band of rose- coloured velvet ran down the steps and held out both her hands to Sarudine. For a moment he grasped them tightly, as he glanced admiringly at her person. "Let us go, let us go," she exclaimed, in excitement, and confusion, for she knew the meaning of that glance. Very soon the _lineika_ was swiftly rolling along the little-used road across the steppes. The tall stems of the grass bent beneath the wheels; the fresh breeze as it lightly touched the hair, made the grasses wave on either side. Outside the town they overtook another carriage containing Lialia, Yourii, Riasantzeff, Novikoff, Ivanoff and Semenoff. They were cramped and uncomfortable, yet all were merry and in high spirits. Only Yourii, after last night's talk, was puzzled by Semenoff's behaviour. He could not understand how the latter could laugh and joke like the others. After all that he had told him, such mirth seemed strange. "Was it all put on?" he thought, as he furtively glanced at Semenoff. He shrank from such an explanation. From both carriages there was a lively interchange of wit and raillery. Novikoff jumped down and ran races through the grass with Lida. Apparently there was a tacit understanding between them to appear to be the best of friends, for they kept merrily teasing each other all the time. They now approached the hill on whose summit stood the convent with its glittering cupolas and white stone walls. The hill was covered by woods, and the curled tips of the oak-trees looked like wool. There were oak-trees also on the islands at the foot of it, where the broad, calm river flowed. Leaving the road, the horses trotted over the moist, rich turf in which the carriage-wheels made deep ruts. There was a pleasant odour of earth and of green leaves. At the appointed place, a meadow, seated on the grass were a young student and two girls wearing the dress of Little Russia. Being the first to arrive, they were busily preparing tea and light refreshments. When the carriage stopped, the horses snorted and whisked away flies with their tails. Everybody jumped down, enlivened and refreshed by the drive and the sweet country air. Lialia bestowed resounding kisses upon the two girls who were making tea, and introduced them to her brother and to Sanine, whom they regarded with shy curiosity. Lida suddenly remembered that the two men did not know each other. "Allow me," she said to Yourii, "to introduce to you my brother Vladimir." Sanine smiled and grasped Yourii's hand, but the latter scarcely noticed him. Sanine found everybody interesting and liked making new acquaintances. Yourii considered that very few people in this world were interesting, and always felt disinclined to meet strangers. Ivanoff knew Sanine slightly and liked what he had about him. He was the first to go up to him and begin talking, while Semenoff ceremoniously shook hands with him. "Now we can all enjoy ourselves after these tiresome formalities," cried Lialia. At first a certain stiffness prevailed, for many of the party were complete strangers to each other. But as they began to eat, when the men had had several liqueurs, and the ladies wine, such constraint gave way to mirth. They drank freely, and there was much laughter and joking. Some ran races and others clambered up the hill-side. All around was so calm and bright and the green woods so fair, that nothing sad or sinister could cast its shadows on their souls. "If everybody were to jump about and run like this," said Riasantzeff, flushed and breathless, "nine-tenths of the world's diseases would not exist." "Nor the vices either," added Lialia. "Well, as regards vice there will always be plenty of that," observed Ivanoff, and although no one thought such a remark either witty or wise, it provoked hearty laughter. As they were having tea, it was the sunset hour. The river gleamed like gold, and through the trees fell slanting rays of warm red light. "Now for the boat!" cried Lida, as, holding up her skirts, she ran down to the river-bank. "Who'll get there first?" Some ran after her, while others followed at a more leisurely pace, and amid much laughter they all got into a large painted boat. "Let her go!" cried Lida, in a merry voice of command. The boat slid away from the shore leaving behind it two broad stripes on the water that disappeared in ripples at the river's edge. "Yourii Nicolaijevitch, why are you so silent?" asked Lida. Yourii smiled. "I've got nothing to say." "Impossible!" she answered, with a pretty pout, throwing back her head as if she knew that all men thought her irresistible. "Yourii doesn't like talking nonsense," said Semenoff. "He requires...." "A serious subject, is that it?" exclaimed Lida, interrupting. "Look! there is a serious subject!" said Sarudine, pointing to the shore. Where the bank was steep, between the gnarled roots of a rugged oak one could see a narrow aperture, dark and mysterious, which was partially hidden by weeds and grasses. "What is that?" asked Schafroff, who was unfamiliar with this part of the country. "A cavern," replied Ivanoff. "What sort of cavern?" "The devil only knows! They say that once it was a coiners' den. As usual they were all caught. Rather hard lines, wasn't it?" said Ivanoff. "Perhaps you'd like to start a business of that sort yourself and manufacture sham twenty-copeck pieces?" asked Novikoff. "Copecks? Not I! Roubles, my friend, roubles!" "H--m!" muttered Sarudine, shrugging his shoulders. He did not like Ivanoff, whose jokes to him were unintelligible. "Yes, they were all caught, and the cave was filled up; it gradually collapsed, and no one ever goes into it now. As a child I often used to creep in there. It is a most interesting place." "Interesting? I should rather think so!" exclaimed Lida. "Victor Sergejevitsch, suppose you go in? You're one of the brave ones." "Why?" asked Sarudine, somewhat perplexed. "I'll go!" exclaimed Yourii, blushing to think that the others would accuse him of showing off. "It's a wonderful place!" said Ivanoff by way of encouragement. "Aren't you going too?" asked Novikoff. "No, I'd rather stop here!" At this they all laughed. The boat drew near the bank and a wave of cold air from the cavern passed over their heads. "For heaven's sake, Yourii, don't do such a silly thing!" said Lialia, trying to dissuade her brother. "It really is silly of you!" "Silly? Of course it is." Yourii, smiling, assented. "Semenoff, just give me that candle, will you?" "Where shall I find it?" "There is one behind you, in the hamper." Semenoff coolly produced the candle. "Are you really going?" asked a tall girl, magnificently proportioned. Lialia called her Sina, her surname being Karsavina. "Of course I am. Why not?" replied Yourii, striving to show utter indifference. He recollected having done this when engaged in some of his political adventures. The thought for some reason or other was not an agreeable one. The entrance to the cavern was damp and dark. "Brrr!" exclaimed Sanine, as he looked in. To him it seemed absurd that Yourii should explore a disagreeable, dangerous place simply because others watched him doing it. Yourii, as self-conscious as ever, lighted the candle, thinking inwardly, "I am making myself rather ridiculous, am I not?" But so far from seeming ridiculous, he won admiration, especially from the ladies, who were in an agreeable state of curiosity bordering on alarm. He waited till the candle burnt more brightly and then, laughing to avoid being laughed at, disappeared in the darkness. The light seemed to have vanished, also. They all suddenly felt concern for his safety and intense curiosity as to what would happen. "Look out for wolves!" cried Riasantzeff. "It's all right. I've got a revolver!" came the answer. It sounded faint and weird. Yourii advanced slowly and with caution. The sides of the cavern were low, uneven, and damp as the walls of a large cellar. The ground was so irregular that twice Yourii just missed falling into a hole. He thought it would be best to turn back, or to sit down and wait a while so that he could say that he had gone a good way in. Suddenly he heard the sound of footsteps behind him slipping on the wet clay, and of some one breathing hard. He held the light aloft. "Sinaida Karsavina!" he exclaimed in amazement. "Her very self!" replied Sina gaily, as she caught up her dress and jumped lightly over a hole. Yourii was glad that she, this merry, handsome girl, had come, and he greeted her with laughing eyes. "Let us go on," said Sina shyly. Yourii obediently advanced. No thoughts of danger troubled him now, and he was specially careful to light the way for his companion. He perceived several exits, but all were blocked. In one corner lay a few rotten planks, that looked like the remains of some old coffin. "Not very interesting, eh?" said Yourii, unconsciously lowering his voice. The mass of earth oppressed him. "Oh! yes it is!" whispered Sina, and as she looked round her wide eyes gleamed in the candle-light. She was nervous, and instinctively kept close to Yourii for protection. This Yourii noticed. He felt a strange sympathy for his fair, frail companion. "It is like being buried alive," she continued. "We might scream, but nobody would hear us." "Of course not," laughed Yourii. Then a sudden thought caused his brain to reel. This beautiful girl, so fresh, so desirable, was at his mercy. No one could see or hear them.... To Yourii such a thought seemed unutterably base. He quickly banished it, and said: "Suppose we try?" His voice trembled. Could Sina have read his thoughts? "Try what?" she asked. "Suppose I fire?" said Yourii, producing his revolver. "Will the earth fall in on us?" "I don't know," he replied, though he felt certain that nothing would happen. "Are you afraid?" "Oh no! Fire away!" said Sina, as she retreated a step or so. Holding out the revolver, he fired. There was a flash, and a dense cloud of smoke enveloped them, as the echo of the report slowly died away. "There! That's all," said Yourii. "Let us go back." They retraced their steps, but as Sina walked on in front of Yourii the sight of her round, firm hips again brought sensuous thoughts to his mind that he found it hard to ignore. "I say, Sina Karsavina!" His voice faltered. "I am going to ask you an interesting psychological question. How was it that you did not feel afraid to come here with me? You said yourself that if we screamed no one would hear us.... You don't know me in the least!" Sina blushed in the darkness and was silent. At last she murmured. "Because I thought that you were to be trusted." "And suppose that you had been mistaken?" "Then, I should ... have drowned myself," said Sina almost inaudibly. The words filled Yourii with pity. His passion subsided, and he felt suddenly solaced. "What a good little girl!" he thought, sincerely touched by such frank, simple modesty. Proud of her reply, and gratified by his silent approval, Sina smiled at him, as they returned to the entrance of the cavern. Meanwhile she kept wondering why his question had not seemed offensive or shameful to her, but, on the contrary, quite agreeable. CHAPTER VI. After waiting a while at the entrance, and making sundry jokes at the expense of Sina and Yourii, the others wandered along the river-bank. The men lit cigarettes and threw the matches into the water, watching these make large circles on the surface of the stream. Lida, with arms a-kimbo, tripped along, singing softly as she went, and her pretty little feet in dainty yellow shoes now and again executed an impromptu dance. Lialia picked flowers, which she flung at Riasantzeff, caressing him with her eyes. "What do you say to a drink?" Ivanoff asked Sanine. "Splendid idea!" replied the other. Getting into the boat, they uncorked several bottles of beer and proceeded to drink. "Shocking intemperance!" cried Lialia, pelting them with tufts of grass. "First-rate stuff!" said Ivanoff, smacking his lips. Sanine laughed. "I have often wondered why people are so dead against alcohol," he said jestingly. "In my opinion only a drunken man lives his life as it ought to be lived." "That is, like a brute!" replied Novikoff from the bank. "Very likely," said Sanine, "but at any rate a drunken man only does just that which he wants to do. If he has a mind to sing, he sings; if he wants to dance, he dances; and is not ashamed to be merry and jolly." "And he fights too, sometimes," remarked Riasantzeff. "Yes, so he does. That is, when men don't understand how to drink." "And do you like fighting when you are drunk?" asked Novikoff. "No," replied Sanine, "I'd rather fight when I am sober, but when I'm drunk I'm the most good-natured person imaginable, for I have forgotten so much that is mean and vile." "Everybody is not like that," said Riasantzeff. "I'm sorry for them, that's all," replied Sanine. "Besides, what others are like does not interest me in the least." "One can hardly say that," observed Novikoff. "Why not, if it is the truth?" "A fine truth, indeed!" exclaimed Lialia, shaking her head. "The finest I know, anyhow," replied Ivanoff for Sanine. Lida, who had been singing loudly, suddenly stopped, looking vexed. "They don't seem in any hurry," she said. "Why should they hurry?" replied Ivanoff, "It is a great mistake to do anything in a hurry." "And Sina, I suppose she is the heroine _sans peur et sans reproche_?" said Lida ironically. Tanaroff's thoughts were too much for him at this juncture. He burst out laughing, and then looked thoroughly sheepish. Lida, her hands on her hips and swaying gracefully to and fro, turned to look at him. "I dare say they are enjoying themselves," she observed with a shrug of the shoulders. "Hark!" said Riasantzeff, as the sound of firing reached them. "That was a shot," exclaimed Schafroff. "What's the meaning of it?" cried Lialia, as she nervously clung to her lover's arm. "Don't be frightened! If it is a wolf, at this time of year they are tame, and would never attack two people." Thus Riasantzeff sought to reassure her, while secretly annoyed at Yourii's childish freak. "Tomfoolery!" growled Schafroff, who was equally vexed. "They are coming, they are coming! Don't worry!" said Lida contemptuously. A sound of footsteps could now be heard, and soon Sina and Yourii emerged from the darkness. Yourii blew out the light and smiled uneasily, as he was not sure of his reception. He was covered with yellow clay, and Sina's shoulder bore traces of this, for she had rubbed against the side of the cavern. "Well?" asked Semenoff languidly. "It was quite interesting in there," said Yourii half apologetically. "Only the passage does not lead very far. It has been filled up. We saw some rotten planks lying about." "Did you hear us fire?" asked Sina, and her eyes sparkled. "My friends," shouted Ivanoff, interrupting, "we have drunk all the beer, and our souls are abundantly refreshed. Let us be going." By the time that the boat reached a broader part of the stream the moon had already risen. It was a strangely calm, clear evening. Above and below, in the heaven as in the river, the golden stars gleamed. It was as if the boat was suspended between two fathomless spaces. The dark woods at the edge of the stream had a look of mystery. A nightingale sang, and all listened in silence, not believing it to be a bird, but rather some joyous dreamer in the gloom. Removing her large straw hat, Sina Karsavina now began to sing a Russian popular air, sweet and sad like all Russian songs. Her voice, a high soprano, though not powerful, was sympathetic in quality. Ivanoff muttered, "That's sweet!" and Sanine exclaimed "Charming!" When she had finished they all clapped their hands and the sound was echoed strangely in the dark woods on either side. "Sing something else, Sinotschka!" cried Lialia; "or, better still, recite one of your own poems." "So you're a poetess, too?" asked Ivanoff. "How many gifts does the good God bestow upon his creatures!" "Is that a bad thing?" asked Sina in confusion. "No, it's a very good thing," replied Sanine. "If a girl's got youth and good looks, what does she want with poetry, I should like to know?" observed Ivanoff. "Never mind! Recite something, Sinotschka, do!" cried Lialia, amorous and tender. Sina smiled, and looked away self-consciously before she began to recite in her clear, musical voice the following lines: _Oh! love, my own true love, To thee I'll never tell it, Never to thee I'll tell my burning love! But I will close these amorous eyes, And they shall guard my secret well. Only by days of yearning is it known. The calm blue nights, the golden stars, The dreaming woods that whisper in the night, These, yes, they know it, but are dumb; They will not show the mystery of my great love_. Once more there was great enthusiasm, and they all loudly applauded Sina, not because her little poem was a good one, but because it was expressive of their mood, and because they were all longing for love and love's delicious sorrow. "O Night, O Day! O lustrous eyes of Sina, I pray you tell me that it is I, the happy man!" cried Ivanoff ecstatically in a deep bass voice which startled them all. "Well, I can assure you that it is not you," replied Semenoff. "Ah! woe is me!" wailed Ivanoff; and everybody laughed. "Are my verses bad?" Sina asked Yourii. He did not think that they had much originality, for they reminded him of hundreds of similar effusions. But Sina was so pretty and looked at him with those dark eyes of hers in such a pleading way that he gravely replied: "I thought them quite charming and melodious." Sina smiled, surprised that such praise could please her so much. "Ah I you don't know my Sinotschka yet!" said Lialia, "she is all that is beautiful and melodious." "You don't say so!" exclaimed Ivanoff. "Yes, indeed I do!" persisted Lialia. "Her voice is beautiful and melodious, and so are her poems; she herself is a beauty; her name, even, is beautiful and melodious." "Oh! my goodness! What more can you say than that!" cried Ivanoff. "But I am quite of your opinion." At all these compliments Sina blushed with pleasure and confusion. "It is time to go home," said Lida abruptly. She did not like to hear Sina praised, for she considered herself far prettier, cleverer, and more interesting. "Are you going to sing something?" asked Sanine. "No," she replied, "I am not in voice." "It really is time to be going," observed Riasantzeff, for he remembered that early next morning he must be in the dissecting-room of the hospital. All the others wished that they could have stayed for a while. On their homeward way they were silent, feeling tired and contented. As before, though unseen, the tall stems of the grasses bent beneath the carriage-wheels, and the dust soon settled on the white road again. The bare grey fields looked vast and limitless in the faint light of the moon. CHAPTER VII. Three days afterwards, late in the evening, Lida came home sad, tired, and heavy-hearted. On reaching her room, she stood still, with hands clasped, and stared at the floor. She suddenly realized, to her horror, that in her relations with Sarudine she had gone too far. For the first time since that strange moment of irreparable weakness she perceived what a humiliating hold this empty-headed officer had over her, inferior as he was to herself in every way. She must now come if he called; she could no longer trifle with him as she liked, submitting to his kisses or laughingly resisting them. Now, like a slave, she must endure and obey. How this had come about she could not comprehend. As always, she had ruled him, had borne with his amorous attentions; all had been as agreeable, amusing, and exciting, as heretofore. Then came a moment when her whole frame seemed on fire and her brain clouded as by a mist, annihilating all except the one mad desire to plunge into the abyss. It was as if the earth gave way beneath her feet; she lost control of her limbs, conscious only of two magnetic eyes that gazed boldly into hers. Her whole being was thrilled and shaken with passion; she became the sacrifice of overwhelming lust; and yet she longed once more that such passionate experiences might be repeated. At the very thought of it all Lida trembled; she raised her shoulders and hid her face in her hands. With faltering steps she crossed the room and opened the window. For a long while she gazed at the moon that hung just above the garden, and in distant foliage a nightingale sang. Grief oppressed her. She felt strangely agitated by a sense of remorse and of wounded pride to think that she had ruined her life for a silly, shallow man, and that her false step had been foolish, base, and, indeed, accidental. The future seemed threatening; but she sought to dissipate her fears by obstinate bravado. "Well, I did it, and there's an end of it!" she said to herself, frowning, and striving to find some sort of grim satisfaction from this hackneyed phrase. "What nonsense it all is! I wanted to do it and I did it; and I felt so happy--oh, so happy! It would have been silly not to enjoy myself when the moment came. I must not think of it; it can't be helped, now." She languidly withdrew from the window and began to undress, letting her clothes slip from her on to the floor. "After all, one only lives once," she thought, shivering at the touch of the cool night air on her bare shoulders and arms. "What should I have gained by waiting till I was lawfully married? And of what good would that have been to me? It's all the same thing! What is there to worry about?" All at once it seemed to her that in this hazard she had got all that was best and most interesting; and that now, free as a bird an eventful life of happiness and pleasure lay before her. "I'll love if I will; if I don't, then I won't!" sang Lida softly to herself, thinking meanwhile that her voice was a much better one than Sina Karsavina's. "Oh! it's all nonsense! If I like, I'll give myself to the devil!" Thus she made sudden answer to her thoughts, holding her bare arms above her head so that her bosom shook. "Aren't you asleep yet, Lida?" said Sanine's voice outside the window. Lida started back in alarm, and then, with a smile, flung a shawl round her shoulders as she approached the window. "What a fright you gave me!" she said. Sanine came nearer and leant with both elbows on the window-sill. His eyes shone, and he smiled. "There was no need for that!" he muttered playfully. Lida looked round. "Without a shawl you looked much nicer," he said in a low voice, impressively. Lida looked at him in amazement, and instinctively drew the shawl tighter round her. Sanine laughed. In confusion, she also leant upon the window-sill, and now she felt his breath on her cheek. "What a beauty you are!" he said. Lida glanced swiftly at him, fearful of what she thought she could read in his face. With her whole body she felt that her brother's eyes were fixed upon her, and she turned away in horror. It was so terrible, so loathsome, that her heart seemed frozen. Every man looked at her just like that, and she liked it, but for her brother to do so was incredible, impossible. Recovering herself, she said, smiling: "Yes, I know." Sanine calmly watched her. The shawl and her chemise had slipped when she leant on the window-sill, and partly disclosed her tender bosom, white in the moonlight. "Men always build up a Wall of China between themselves and happiness," he said in a low, trembling voice. Lida was terrified. "How do you mean?" she asked faintly, her eyes still fixed on the garden for fear of encountering his. To her it seemed that something was going to happen of which one hardly dared to think. Yet she had no doubt as to what it was. It was awful, hideous, and yet interesting. Her brain was on fire; she could scarcely see, as with horror and yet with curiosity she felt hot breath against her cheek that stirred her hair and sent shivers through her frame. "Why, like this!" replied Sanine, and his voice faltered. As if by an electric shock, Lida started backwards and, without knowing what she did, leant over the table and blew out the light. "It is bed-time," she said, and shut the window. The light having been extinguished, it seemed less dark out of doors, and Sanine's figure was clearly discernible, his features appearing blueish in the moonlight. He stood in the long, dew-drenched grass and smiled. Lida left the window and sat down mechanically on her bed. She trembled in every limb, unable to collect her thoughts, and the sound of Sanine's footsteps on the grass outside set her heart beating violently. "Am I going mad?" she asked herself in disgust. "How awful! A chance phrase like that to put such thoughts into my head! Is this erotomania? Am I really so bad, so depraved? I must have sunk very low to think of such a thing!" Burying her face in the pillows, she wept bitterly. "Why am I weeping?" she thought, not knowing the reason for such tears, but feeling miserable, humiliated, and unhappy. She wept because she had yielded herself to Sarudine, because she was no longer a proud, pure maiden, and because of that insulting, horrible look in her brother's eyes. Formerly he would never have looked at her like that. It was, so she thought, because she had fallen. But the bitterest, most harassing thought of all was that she had now become a woman, and that as long as she was young, strong, and good- looking her best powers must be at the service of men and devoted to their gratification, while the greater the enjoyment she procured for them and for herself the more would they despise her. "Why should they? Who gave them this right? Am I not free just as much as they are?" she asked herself, as she gazed into the dreary darkness of her room. "Shall I never get to know another, better life?" Her whole youthful physique imperiously told her that she had a right to take from life all that was interesting, pleasurable and necessary to her; and that she had a right to do whatever she chose with her strong, beautiful body that belonged to her alone. But this idea was lost in a tangle of confused and conflicting thoughts. CHAPTER VIII. For some time past Yourii Svarogitsch had been working at painting, of which he was fond, and to which he devoted all his spare time. It had once been his dream to become an artist, but want of money, in the first place, and also his political activity prevented this, so that now he painted occasionally, as a pastime, without any special end in view. For this reason, indeed, and because he had no training, art gave him no pleasant satisfaction; it was a source of chagrin and of disenchantment. Whenever his work did not prove successful, he became irritable and depressed; if, on the other hand, it came out well, he fell into a sort of gloomy reverie, conscious of the futility of his efforts that brought him neither happiness nor success. Yourii had taken a great fancy to Sina Karsavina. He liked tall, well-formed young women with fine voices and romantic eyes. He thought her beauty and purity of soul were what attracted him, though really it was because she was handsome and desirable. However, he tried to persuade himself that, for him, her charm was a spiritual, not a physical one, this being, as he thought, a nobler, finer definition, though it was precisely this maidenly purity and innocence of hers which fired his blood and aroused desire. Ever since the evening when he first met her, he had felt a vague yet vehement longing to sully her innocence, a longing indeed that the presence of any handsome woman provoked. And now that his thoughts were set on a comely girl, blithe, wholesome, and full of the joy of life, Yourii had an idea that he would paint Life. As most new ideas were wont to do, this one stirred him to enthusiasm, and on this occasion he believed that he would bring his task to a successful end. Having prepared a huge canvas, he set to work with feverish haste, as if he dreaded delay. When he first touched the canvas with colour, producing a harmonious and pleasing effect, he felt a thrill of delight, and the picture that was to be stood clearly before him with all its details. As, however, the work progressed, so technical difficulties became more numerous, and with these Yourii felt unable to cope. All that in his imagination seemed luminous and beautiful and strong, became thin and feeble on the canvas. Details no longer fascinated him, but were annoying and depressing. In fact, he ignored them and began to paint in a broad, slap-dash style. Thus, instead of a clear, powerful portrayal of life, the picture became ever more plain of a tawdry, slovenly female. There was nothing original or charming about such a dull stereotyped piece of work, so he thought; a veritable imitation of a Moukh drawing, banal in idea as in execution; and, as usual, Yourii became sad and gloomy. Had it not for some reason or other seemed shameful to weep, he would have wept, hiding his face in the pillow, and sobbing aloud. He longed to complain to some one about something, but not about his own incompetence. Instead of this he gazed ruefully at the picture thinking that life generally was tedious and sad and feeble, containing nothing of interest to him, personally. It horrified him to look forward to living, as he would have to do, for many years in this little town. "Why, it is simply death!" thought Yourii, as his brow grew cold as ice. Then he felt a desire to paint "Death." Seizing a knife, he angrily began to scrape off his picture of "Life." It vexed him that that which he had wrought with such enthusiasm should disappear with such difficulty. The colour did not come off easily; the knife slipped and twice cut the canvas. Then he found that chalk would make no mark on the oil paint. This greatly troubled him. With a brush he commenced to sketch in his subject in ochre, and then painted slowly, carelessly, in a spiritless, dejected way. His present work, however, did not lose, but gained by such slipshod methods and by the dull, heavy colour scheme. The original idea of "Death" soon disappeared of itself; and so Yourii proceeded to depict "Old Age" as a lean hag tottering along a rough road in the dusk. The sun had sunk, and against the livid sky sombre crosses were seen _en silhouette_. Beneath the weight of a heavy black coffin the woman's bony shoulders were bent, and her expression was mournful and despairing, as with one foot she touched the brink of an open grave. It was a picture appalling in its misery and gloom. At lunch-time they sent for Yourii, but he did not go, and continued working. Later on, Novikoff came to tell him something, but he neither listened nor replied. Novikoff sighed, and sat down on the sofa. He liked to be quiet and think matters over. He only came to see Yourii because, at home, by himself, he was sad and worried. Lida's refusal still distressed him, and he could not be sure if he felt grieved or humiliated. As a straightforward, indolent fellow, he had so far heard nothing of the local gossip concerning Lida and Sarudine. He was not jealous, but only sorrowful that the dream which brought happiness so near to him had fled. Novikoff thought that his life was a failure, but it never occurred to him to end it, since to live on was futile. On the contrary, now that his life had become a torture to him, he considered that it was his duty to devote it to others, putting his own happiness aside. Without being able to account for it, he had a vague desire to throw up everything and go to St. Petersburg where he could renew his connection with "the party" and rush headlong to death. This was a fine, lofty thought, so he believed, and the knowledge that it was his lessened his grief, and even gladdened him. He became grand in his own eyes, crowned as with a shining aureole, and his sadly reproachful attitude towards Lida almost moved him to tears. Then he suddenly felt bored. Yourii went on painting, and gave him no attention whatever. Novikoff got up lazily and approached the picture. It was still unfinished, and for that reason produced the effect of a somewhat powerful sketch. Yourii had got as far as he could go. Novikoff thought it was wonderful, as with open mouth he gazed in childish admiration at the artist. "Well?" said Yourii, stepping backwards. Personally, he thought it the most interesting picture that he had ever seen, though certainly it had defects both obvious and considerable. Why he was of this opinion he could not tell, but if Novikoff had thought the picture a bad one, he would have felt thoroughly hurt and annoyed. However, Novikoff murmured ecstatically, "Ve ... ry fine indeed!" Yourii felt as if he were a genius despising his own work. He sighed and flung down his brush which stained the edge of the couch, and he moved away without looking at the picture. "Ah! my friend!" he exclaimed. He was on the point of confessing to himself and to Novikoff the doubt which destroyed his pleasure in succeeding, as he felt that he could never do anything with what was now a promising sketch. However, after a moment of reflection he merely said: "All that is of no use at all!" Novikoff thought that this was pose on his friend's part, and mindful of his own bitter disappointment he inwardly observed: "That's true." Then after a while he asked: "How do you mean that it is of no use?" To this question Yourii could give no exact answer, and he remained silent. Novikoff examined the picture once more, and then lay down on the sofa. "I read your article in the _Krai_," he said. "It was pretty hot." "The deuce take it!" replied Yourii, angrily, yet unable to account for his anger, as he remembered Semenoff's words. "What good will it do? It won't stop executions and robberies and violence; they will go on just as before. Articles won't help matters. For what purpose, pray? To be read by two or three idiots! Much good that is! After all, what business is it of mine? And why dash one's brains out against a wall?" Passing before his eyes, Yourii seemed to see the early years of his political activity; the secret meetings, propaganda, risks and reverses, his own enthusiasm and the profound apathy of those whom he was so eager to save. He walked up and down the room, gesticulating. "Then, it is not worth while doing anything," drawled Novikoff, and, thinking of Sanine, he added, "Egoists, that's all you are!" "No, it's not!" replied Yourii vehemently, influenced by his memories of the past and by the dusk that gave a grey look to all things in the room. "If one speaks of Humanity, of what good are all our efforts in the cause of constitutions or of revolutions if one cannot even approximately estimate what humanity really requires? Perhaps in this liberty of which we dream lie the germs of future degeneracy, and man, having realized his ideal, will go back, walking once more on all fours? Thus, all would have to be recommenced. And if I care for nothing but myself, what then? What do I gain by it? The most I could do would be to get fame by my talents and achievements, intoxicated by the respect of my inferiors, that is to say by the respect of those whom I do not esteem and whose veneration ought to be valueless to me. And then? To go on living, living, until the grave--nothing after that! And the crown of laurels would fit my skull so closely, that I should soon find it irksome!" "Always about himself!" muttered Novikoff, mockingly. Yourii did not hear him, being morbidly pleased with his own eloquence. There was a beautiful gloom about his utterances, so he thought; they seemed to ennoble him, to heighten his sense of self-respect. "At the worst, I should become a genius misjudged, a ridiculous dreamer, a theme for humorous tales, a foolish individual, of no use to anybody!" "Aha!" cried Novikoff, as he rose from the couch, "Of no use to anybody. You admit that yourself, then?" "How absurd you are!" exclaimed Yourii, "do you really think that I don't know for what to live and in what to believe? Possibly I should gladly submit to crucifixion if I believed that my death could save the world. But I don't believe this; and whatever I did would never alter the course of history; moreover, my help would be so slight, so insignificant, that the world would not have suffered a jot if I had never existed. Yet, for the sake of such infinitesimal help, I am obliged to live, and suffer, and sorrowfully wait for death." Yourii did not perceive that he was now talking of something quite different, replying, not to Novikoff, but to his own strange, depressing thoughts. Suddenly he remembered Semenoff, and stopped short. A cold shiver ran down his spine. "The fact is, I dread the inevitable," he said in a low tone, as he looked stolidly at the darkening window. "It is natural, I know, and that I can do nothing to avoid it, but yet it is awful--hideous!" Novikoff, though inwardly horrified at the truth of such a statement, replied: "Death is a necessary physiological phenomenon." "What a fool!" thought Yourii, as he irritably exclaimed, "Good gracious me! What does it matter if our death is necessary to anyone else or not?" "How about your crucifixion?" "That is a different thing," replied Yourii, with some hesitation. "You are contradicting yourself," observed Novikoff in a slightly patronising tone. This greatly annoyed Yourii. Thrusting his fingers through his unkempt black hair, he vehemently retorted: "I never contradict myself. It stands to reason that if, of my own free will, I choose to die--" "It's all the same," continued Novikoff obdurately, in the same tone. "All of you want fireworks, applause, and the rest of it. It's nothing else but egoism!" "What if it is? That won't alter matters." The discussion became confused. Yourii felt that he had not meant to say that, but the thread escaped him which a moment before had seemed so clear and tense. He paced up and down the room, endeavouring to overcome his vexation, as he said to himself. "Sometimes one is not in the humour. At other times one can speak as clearly as if the words were set before one's eyes. Sometimes I seem to be tongue-tied, and I express myself clumsily. Yes, that often happens." They were both silent. Yourii at last stopped by the window and took up his cap. "Let us go for a stroll," he said. "All right," Novikoff readily assented, secretly hoping, while joyful yet distressed, that he might meet Lida Sanine. CHAPTER IX. They walked up and down the boulevard once or twice, meeting no one they knew, and they listened to the band which was playing as usual in the garden. It was a very poor performance; the music being harsh and discordant, but at a distance it sounded languorous and sad. They only met men and women joking and laughing, whose noisy merriment seemed at variance with the mournful music and the dreary evening. It irritated Yourii. At the end of the boulevard Sanine joined them, greeting them effusively. Yourii did not like him, so conversation was scarcely brisk. Sanine kept on laughing at everybody he saw. Later on they met Ivanoff, and Sanine went off with him. "Where are you going?" asked Novikoff. "To treat my friend," replied Ivanoff, producing a bottle of vodka which he showed to them in triumph. Sanine laughed. To Yourii this vodka and laughter seemed singularly coarse and vulgar. He turned away in disgust. Sanine observed this, but said nothing. "God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men," exclaimed Ivanoff mockingly. Yourii reddened, "A stale joke like that into the bargain!" he thought, as, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously, he walked away. "Novikoff, guileless Pharisee, come along with us!" cried Ivanoff. "What for?" "To have a drink." Novikoff glanced round him ruefully, but Lida was not to be seen. "Lida is at home, doing penance for her sins!" laughed Sanine. "What nonsense!" exclaimed Novikoff testily. "I've got to see a patient..." "Who is quite able to die without your help," said Ivanoff. "For that matter, we can polish off the vodka without your help, either." "Suppose I get drunk?" thought Novikoff. "All right! I'll come," he said. As they went away, Yourii could hear at a distance Ivanoff's gruff bass voice and Sanine's careless, merry laugh. He walked once more along the boulevard. Girlish voices called to him through the dusk. Sina Karsavina and the school-mistress Dubova were sitting on a bench. It was now getting dark, and their figures were hardly discernible. They wore dark dresses, were without hats, and carried books in their hands. Yourii hastened to join them. "Where have you been?" he asked. "At the library," replied Sina. Without speaking, her companion moved to make room for Yourii who would have preferred to sit next to Sina, but, being shy, he took a seat beside the ugly schoolteacher, Dubova. "Why do you look so utterly miserable?" asked Dubova, pursing up her thin, dry lips, as was her wont. "What makes you think that I am miserable? On the contrary I am in excellent spirits. Somewhat bored, perhaps." "Ah! that's because you've nothing to do," said Dubova. "Have you so much to do, then?" "At any rate, I have not the time to weep." "I am not weeping, am I?" "Well," said Dubova, teasing him, "you're in the sulks." "My life," replied Yourii, "has caused me to forget what laughing is." This was said in such a bitter tone that there was a sudden silence. "A friend of mine told me that my life is most instructive," said Yourii after a pause, though no one had ever made such a statement to him. "In what way?" asked Sina cautiously. "As an example of how not to live." "Oh! do tell us all about it. Perhaps we might profit by the lesson," said Dubova. Yourii considered that his life was an absolute failure, and that he himself was the most luckless and wretched of men. In such a belief there lay a certain mournful solace, and it was pleasant to him to complain about his own life and mankind in general. To men he never spoke of such things, feeling instinctively that they would not believe him, but to women, especially if they were young and pretty, he was ever ready to talk at length about himself. He was good-looking, and talked well, so women always felt for him affectionate pity. On this occasion also, if jocular at the outset, Yourii relapsed into his usual tone; discoursing at great length about his own life. From his own description he appeared to be a man of extraordinary powers, cramped and crushed by the force of circumstances, misunderstood by his party, and one who by unlucky chance and human folly was doomed to be just a mere student in exile instead of a leader of the people! Like all extremely self-satisfied persons Yourii entirely failed to perceive that all this in no way proved his extraordinary powers, and that men of genius were surrounded by just such associates, and hampered by just such misfortunes. It seemed to him that he alone was the victim of an inexorable destiny. As he talked well and with great vivacity and point, what he said sounded true enough, so that girls believed him, pitied him, and sympathized with him in his misfortunes. The band was still playing its sad, discordant tunes, the evening was gloomy and depressing, and they all three felt in a melancholy mood. When Yourii ceased talking, Dubova, meditating on her own dull, monotonous existence and vanishing youth without joy or love, asked him in a low voice, "Tell me, Yourii, has the thought of suicide never crossed your mind?" "Why do you ask me that?" "Oh! well, I don't know ..." They said no more. "You are on the committee, aren't you?" asked Sina eagerly. "Yes," replied Yourii curtly, as if unwilling to admit the fact, but in reality pleased to do so, because he thought that to this charming girl he would appear weirdly interesting. He then walked back with them to their house, and on the way they laughed and talked much. All depression had vanished. "How nice he is!" said Sina, when Yourii had gone. Dubova shook her finger threateningly: "Mind that you don't fall in love with him." "What an idea!" laughed Sina, though secretly afraid. Yourii reached home in a brighter, more hopeful mood. He went to look at the picture that he had begun. It produced no impression upon him, and he lay down contentedly to sleep. That night in dreams he had visions of fair women, radiant and alluring. CHAPTER X. On the following evening Yourii went to the same spot where he had met Sina Karsavina and her companion. Throughout the day he had thought with pleasure of his talk with them on the previous evening, and he hoped to meet them again, discuss the same subjects, and perceive the same look of sympathy and tenderness in Sina's gentle eyes. It was a calm evening. The air was warm, and a slight dust floated above the streets. Except for one or two passers-by, the boulevard was absolutely deserted. Yourii walked slowly along, his eyes fixed on the ground. "How boring!" he thought. "What am I to do?" Suddenly Schafroff, the student, walking briskly, and, swinging his arm, approached him with a friendly smile on his face. "Why are you dawdling along like this, eh?" he asked, stopping short, and giving Yourii a big, strong hand. "Oh! I am bored to death, and there's nothing to do. Where are you going?" asked Yourii, in a languid, patronizing tone. He always spoke thus to Schafroff, because, as a former member of the revolutionary committee he looked upon the lad as just an amateur revolutionist. Schafroff smiled as one thoroughly pleased with himself. "We have got a lecture to-day," he said, pointing to a packet of thin pamphlets in coloured wrappers. Yourii mechanically took one, and, opening it, read the long, dry preface to a popular Socialistic address, once well known to him, but which he had quite forgotten. "Where is the lecture to be given?" he asked with the same slightly contemptuous smile as he handed back the pamphlet. "At the school," replied Schafroff, mentioning the one at which Sina Karsavina and Dubova were teachers. Yourii remembered that Lialia had once told him about these lectures, but he had paid no attention. "May I come with you?" he asked. "Why, of course!" replied Schafroff, eager to assent to this proposal. He looked upon Yourii as a real agitator, and, over-estimating his political abilities, felt a reverence for him that bordered on affection. "I am greatly interested in such matters." Yourii felt it necessary to say this, being all the while glad that he had now got an engagement for the evening, and that he would see Sina again. "Why, yes, of course," said Schafroff. "Then, let us go." They walked quickly along the boulevard and crossed the bridge, from each side of which came humid airs, and they soon reached the school where people had already assembled. In the large, dark room with its rows of benches and desks the white cloth used for the magic lantern was dimly visible, and there were sounds of suppressed laughter. At the window, through which could be seen the dark green boughs of trees in twilight, stood Lialia and Dubova. They gleefully greeted Yourii. "I am so glad that you have come!" said Lialia. Dubova shook him vigorously by the hand. "Why don't you begin?" asked Yourii, as he furtively glanced round, hoping to see Sina. "So Sinaida Pavlovna doesn't attend these lectures?" he observed with evident disappointment. At that moment a lucifer-match flashed close to the lecturer's desk on the platform, illuminating Sina's features. The light shone upon her pretty fresh face; she was smiling gaily. "Don't I attend these lectures?" she exclaimed, as, bending down to Yourii, she held out her hand. He gladly grasped it without speaking, and leaning lightly on him she sprang from the platform. He felt her sweet, wholesome breath close to his face. "It is time to begin," said Schafroff, who came in from the adjoining room. The school attendant with heavy tread walked round the room, lighting one by one the large lamps which soon shed a bright light. Schafroff opened the door leading to the passage, and said in a loud voice: "This way, please!" Shyly at first, and then in noisy haste, the people entered the lecture-room. Yourii scrutinized them closely; his keen interest as a propagandist was roused. There Were old folk, young men, and children. No one sat in the front row; but, later on, it was filled by several ladies whom Yourii did not know; by the fat school-inspector; and by masters and mistresses of the elementary school for boys and girls. The rest of the room was full of men in caftans and long coats, soldiers, peasants, women, and a great many children in coloured shirts and frocks. Yourii sat beside Sina at a desk and listened while Schafroff read, calmly, but badly, a paper on universal suffrage. He had a hard, monotonous voice and everything he read sounded like a column of statistics. Yet everybody listened attentively with the exception of the intellectual people in the front row, who soon grew restless and began whispering to each other. This annoyed Yourii, and he felt sorry that Schafroff should read so badly. The latter was obviously tired, so Yourii said to Sina: "Suppose I finish reading it for him? What do you say?" Sina shot a kindly glance at him from beneath her drooping eye-lashes. "Oh! yes, do read! I wish you would." "Do you think it will matter?" he whispered, smiling at her as if she were his accomplice. "Matter? Not in the least. Everybody will be delighted." During a pause, she suggested this to Schafroff, who being tired and aware how badly he had read, accepted with pleasure. "Of course! By all means!" he exclaimed, as usual, giving up his place to Yourii. Yourii was fond of reading, and read excellently. Without looking at anyone, he walked to the desk on the platform and began in a loud, well modulated voice. Twice he looked down at Sina, and each time he encountered her bright, expressive glance. He smiled at her in pleasure and confusion, and then, turning to his book, began to read louder and with greater emphasis. To him it seemed as if he were doing a most excellent and interesting thing. When he had finished, there was some applause in the front seats. Yourii bowed gravely, and as he left the platform he smiled at Sina as much as to say, "I did that for your sake." There was some murmuring, and a noise of chairs being pushed back as the listeners rose to go. Yourii was introduced to two ladies who complimented him on his performance. Then the lamps were put out and the room became dark. "Thank you very much," said Schafroff as he warmly shook Yourii's hand. "I wish that we always had some one to read to us like that." Lecturing was his business, and so he felt obliged to Yourii as if the latter had done him a personal service, although he thanked him in the name of the people. Schafroff laid stress on the word "people." "So little is done here for the people," he said, as if he were telling Yourii a great secret, "and if anything _is_ done, it is in a half- hearted, careless way. It is most extraordinary. To amuse a parcel of bored gentlefolk dozens of first-rate actors, singers and lecturers are engaged, but for the people a lecturer like myself is quite good enough." Schafroff smiled at his own bland irony. "Everybody's quite satisfied. What more do they want?" "That is quite true," said Dubova. "Whole columns in the newspapers are devoted to actors and their wonderful performances; it is positively revolting; whereas here ..." "Yet what a good work we're doing!" said Schafroff, with conviction, as he gathered his pamphlets together. "Sancta Simplicitas!" ejaculated Yourii inwardly. Sina's presence, however, and his own success inclined him to be tolerant. Indeed Schafroff's utter ingenuousness almost touched him. "Where shall we go now?" asked Dubova, as they came out into the street. Outside it was not nearly so dark as in the lecture-room, and in the sky a few stars shone. "Schafroff and I are going to the Ratoffs," said Dubova. "Will you take Sina home?" "With pleasure," said Yourii. Sina lodged with Dubova in a small house that stood in a large, barren- looking garden. All the way thither she and Yourii talked of the lecture and its impression upon them, so that Yourii felt more and more convinced that he had done a good and great thing. As they reached the house, Sina said: "Won't you come in for a moment?" Yourii gladly accepted. She opened the gate, and they crossed a little grass-grown courtyard beyond which lay the garden. "Go into the garden, will you?" said Sina, laughing. "I would ask you to come indoors, but I am afraid things are rather untidy, as I have been out ever since the morning." She went in, and Yourii sauntered towards the green, fragrant garden. He did not go far, but stopped to look round with intense curiosity at the dark windows of the house, as if something were happening there, something strangely beautiful and mysterious. Sina appeared in the doorway. Yourii hardly recognized her. She had changed her black dress, and now wore the costume of Little Russia, a thin bodice cut low, with short sleeves and a blue skirt. "Here I am!" she said, smiling. "So I see!" replied Yourii with a certain mysterious emphasis that she alone could appreciate. She smiled once more, and looked sideways, as they walked along the garden-path between long grasses and branches of lilac. The trees were small ones, most of them being cherry-trees, whose young leaves had an odour of resinous gum. Behind the garden there was a meadow where wild flowers bloomed amid the long grass. "Let us sit down here," said Sina. They sat down by the, fence that was falling to pieces, and looked across the meadow at the dying sunset. Yourii caught hold of a slender lilac-branch, from which fell a shower of dew. "Shall I sing something to you?" asked Sina. "Oh! yes, do!" replied Yourii. As on the evening of the picnic, Sina breathed deeply, and her comely bust was clearly denned beneath the thin bodice, as she began to sing, "Oh, beauteous Star of Love." Pure and passionate, her notes floated out on the evening air. Yourii remained motionless, gazing at her, with bated breath. She felt that his eyes were upon her, and, closing her own, she sang on with greater sweetness and fervour. There was silence everywhere as if all things were listening; Yourii thought of the mysterious hush of woodlands in spring when a nightingale sings. As Sina ceased on a clear, high note, the silence seemed yet more intense. The sunset light had faded; the sky grew dark and more vast. The leaves and the grass quivered imperceptibly; across the meadow and through the garden there passed a soft, perfumed breeze; faint as a sigh. Sina's eyes, shining in the gloom, turned to Yourii. "Why so silent?" she asked. "It is almost too delightful here!" he murmured, and again he grasped a dewy branch of lilac. "Yes, it is very beautiful," replied Sina dreamily. "In fact it is beautiful to be alive," she added. A thought, vague and disquieting, crossed Yourii's mind, but it vanished without taking any clear shape. Some one loudly whistled twice on the other side of the meadow, and then came silence, as before. "Do you like Schafroff?" asked Sina suddenly, being inwardly amused at so apparently inept a question. Yourii felt a momentary pang of jealousy, but with a slight effort he replied gravely. "He's a good fellow." "How devoted he is to his work!" Yourii was silent. A faint grey mist rose from the meadow and the grass grew paler in the dew. "It is getting damp," said Sina, shivering slightly. Yourii unconsciously looked at her round, soft shoulders, feeling instantly confused, and she, aware of his glance became confused also, although it was pleasant to her. "Let us go." Regretfully they returned along the narrow garden-path, each brushing lightly against the other at times as they walked. All around seemed dark and deserted, and Yourii fancied that now the garden's own life was about to begin, a life mysterious and to all unknown. Yonder, amid the trees and across the dew-laden grass strange shadows soon would steal, as the dusk deepened, and voices whispered in green, silent places. This he said to Sina, and her dark eyes wistfully peered into the gloom. If, so Yourii thought, she were suddenly to fling all her clothing aside, and rush all white and nude and joyous over the dewy grass towards the dim thicket, this would not be in the least strange, but beautiful and natural; nor would it disturb the life of the green, dark garden, but would make this more complete. This, too, he had a wish to tell her, but he dared not do so, and spoke instead of the people and of lectures. But their conversation flagged, and then ceased, as if they were only wasting words. Thus they reached the gateway in silence, smiling to themselves, brushing the dew from the branches with their shoulders. Everything seemed as calm and happy and pensive as they were themselves. As before, the courtyard was dark and solitary, but the outer gate was open, and a sound of hasty footsteps in the house could be heard, and of the opening and shutting of drawers. "Olga has come back," said Sina. "Oh! Sina, is that you?" asked Dubova from within, and the tone of her voice suggested some sinister occurrence. Pale and agitated, she appeared in the doorway. "Where were you? I have been looking for you. Semenoff is dying!" she said breathlessly. "What!" exclaimed Sina, horror-struck. "Yes, he is dying. He broke a blood-vessel. Anatole Pavlovitch says that he's done for. They have taken him to the hospital. It was dreadfully sudden. There We were, at the Raton's', having tea, and he was so merry, arguing with Novikoff about something or other. Then he suddenly began to cough, stood up, and staggered, and the blood spurted out, on to the table-cloth, and into a little saucer of jam ... all black, and clotted...." "Does he know it himself?" asked Yourii with grim interest. He instantly remembered the moonlit night, the sombre shadow, and the weak, broken voice, saying, "You will be alive, and you'll pass my grave, and stop, whilst I ..." "Yes, he seems to know," replied Dubova, with a nervous movement of the hands. "He looked at us all, and asked 'What is it?' And then he shook from head to foot and said, 'Already!' ... Oh! isn't it awful?" "It's too shocking!" All were silent. It was now quite dark, yet, though the sky was clear, to them it seemed suddenly to have grown gloomy and sad. "Death is a horrible thing!" said Yourii, turning pale. Dubova sighed, and gazed into vacancy. Sina's chin trembled, and she smiled helplessly. She could not feel so shocked as the others; young as she was, and full of life, she could not fix her thoughts on death. To her it was incredible, inconceivable that on a beautiful summer evening, radiantly pleasant such as this, some one should have to suffer and to die. It was natural, of course, but, for some reason or other, to her it seemed wrong. She was ashamed to have such a feeling, and strove to suppress it, endeavouring to appear sympathetic, an effort which made her distress seem greater than that of her companions. "Oh! poor fellow! ... is he really...?" Sina wanted to ask: "Is he really going to die very soon?" but the words stuck in her throat, and she plied Dubova with fatuous and incoherent questions. "Anatole Pavlovitch says that he will die to-night or to-morrow morning," replied Dubova, in a dull voice. "Shall we go to him?" whispered Sina. "Or do you think that we had better not? I don't know." This was the question uppermost in the minds of them all. Should they go and see Semenoff die? Was it a right or wrong thing to do? They all wanted to go, and yet were fearful of what they should see. Yourii shrugged his shoulders. "Let us go," he said. "Very likely they won't admit us, and perhaps, too--" "Perhaps he might wish to see some one," added Dubova, as if relieved. "Come on! We'll go!" said Sina with decision. "Schafroff and Novikoff are there," added Dubova, as if to justify herself. Sina ran indoors to fetch her hat and coat, and then they went sadly through the town to the large, grey, three-storied building, the hospital where Semenoff lay dying. The long, vaulted passages were dark, and smelt strongly of iodoform and carbolic. As they passed the section for the insane, they heard a strident, angry voice, but no one was visible. They felt scared, and anxiously hastened towards a dark little window. An old, grey-haired peasant, with a long white beard and wearing a large apron came clattering along the passage in his heavy top-boots to meet them. "Who is it that you wish to see?" he asked, stopping short. "A student has been brought here--Semenoff--to-day!" stammered Dubova. "No. 6, please, upstairs," said the attendant, and passed on. They could hear him spit noisily on the flooring and then wipe it with his foot. Upstairs it was brighter and cleaner; and the ceiling was not vaulted. A door with "Doctors' Room" inscribed on it stood ajar. A lamp was burning in this room where a jingling of bottles and glasses could be heard. Yourii looked inside, and called out. The jingling ceased, and Riasantzeff appeared, looking fresh and hearty, as usual. "Ah!" he exclaimed in a cheery voice, being evidently accustomed to events such as that which saddened his visitors. "I am on duty to-day. How do you do, ladies?" Yet, frowning suddenly, he added with grave significance, "He seems to be still unconscious. Let us go to him. Novikoff and the others are there." As they walked in single file along the clean, bare passage, past big white doors with black numbers on them, Riasantzeff said: "A priest has been sent for. It's astonishing how quickly the end came. I was amazed. But latterly he caught cold, you know, and that was what did it. Here we are." Riasantzeff opened a white door and went in, the others following in awkward fashion as they pushed against each other on the threshold. The room was clean and spacious. Four of the six beds in it were empty, each one having its coarse grey coverlet folded neatly, and strangely suggestive of a coffin. On the fifth bed sat a little wizened old man in a dressing-gown, who glanced timidly at the newcomers; and on the sixth bed, beneath a similar coarse coverlet, lay Semenoff. At his side, in a bent posture, sat Novikoff, while Ivanoff and Schafroff stood by the window. To all of them it seemed odd and painful to shake hands in the presence of the dying man, yet not to do so seemed equally embarrassing, as though by such omission they hinted that death was near. Some greeted each other, and some refrained, while all stood still gazing with grim curiosity at Semenoff. He breathed slowly and with difficulty. How different he looked from the Semenoff they knew! Indeed, he hardly seemed to be alive. Though his features and his limbs were the same, they now appeared strangely rigid and dreadful to behold. That which naturally gave life and movement to the bodies of other human beings no longer seemed to exist in his. Something horrible was being swiftly, secretly accomplished within his motionless frame, an important work that could not be postponed. All that remained to him of life was, as it were, concentrated upon this work, observing it with keen, inexplicable interest. The lamp hanging from the ceiling shone clearly upon the dying man's lifeless visage. All standing there gazed upon it, holding their breath as if fearing to disturb something infinitely solemn; and in such silence the laboured, sibilant breathing of the patient sounded terribly distinct. The door opened, and with short, senile steps a fat little priest entered, accompanied by his psalm-singer, a dark, gaunt man. With these came Sanine. The priest, coughing slightly, bowed to the doctors and to all present, who acknowledged his greeting with excessive politeness, and then remained perfectly silent as before. Without noticing anybody, Sanine took up his position by the window, eyeing Semenoff and the others with great curiosity as he sought to discern what the patient and those about him actually felt and thought. Semenoff remained motionless, breathing just as before. "He is unconscious, is he?" asked the priest gently, without addressing anyone in particular. "Yes," replied Novikoff, hastily. Sanine murmured something unintelligible. The priest looked questioningly at him, but, as Sanine remained silent, he turned away, smoothed his hair back, donned his stole and in high-pitched, unctuous tones began to chant the prayers for the dying. The psalm-singer had a bass voice, hoarse and disagreeable, so that the vocal contrast was a painfully discordant one as the sound of this chanting rose to the lofty ceiling. No sooner had it commenced than the eyes of all were fixed in terror upon the dying man. Novikoff, standing nearest to him, thought that Semenoff's eye-lids moved slightly, as if the sightless eyeballs had been turned in the direction of the chanting. To the others, however, Semenoff appeared as strangely motionless as before. At the first notes Sina began to cry, gently but persistently, letting the tears course down her youthful, pretty face. All the others looked at her, and Dubova in her turn began to weep. To the men's eyes tears also rose, which by clenching their teeth they strove to keep back. Every time the chanting grew louder, the girls wept more freely. Sanine frowned, and shrugged his shoulders irritably, thinking how intolerable to Semenoff, if he heard it, such wailing must be when to healthy normal men it was so utterly depressing. "Not so loud!" he said to the priest irritably. The latter amiably bent forward to hear this remark, and, when he understood it, he frowned and only sang louder. His companion glared at Sanine and the others all looked at him as well, in fear and astonishment, as if he had said something offensive. Sanine showed his annoyance by a gesture, but said nothing. When the chanting ceased, and the priest had wrapped up the crucifix in his stole, the suspense was more painful than ever. Semenoff lay there as rigid, as motionless as before. Suddenly the same thought, dreadful but irresistible, came into the minds of all. If only it could all end quickly! If only Semenoff would die! In fear and shame they sought to suppress this wish, exchanging timid glances. "If only this were all over!" said Sanine in an undertone. "Ghastly, isn't it?" "Yes!" replied Ivanoff. They spoke almost in whispers, and it was plain that Semenoff could not hear them, but yet all the others looked shocked. Schafroff was about to say something, but at that moment a new sound, indescribably plaintive, echoed through the room, sending a shiver through all. "Ee--ee--ee!" moaned Semenoff. And, as if he had got that mode of expression which he wanted, he continued to give out this long-drawn note, only interrupted by his laboured, hoarse breathing. At first the others could not conceive what had happened to him, but soon Sina and Dubova and Novikoff began to weep. Slowly and solemnly the priest resumed his chanting. His fat good-tempered face showed evident sympathy and emotion. A few minutes passed. Suddenly Semenoff ceased moaning. "It is all over," murmured the priest. Then slowly, and with much effort, Semenoff moved his tightly-glued lips, and his face became contracted as if by a smile, The onlookers heard his hollow, weird voice that, issuing from the depth of his chest, sounded as if it came through a coffin-lid. "Silly old fool!" he said, looking hard at the priest. His whole body trembled, his eyes rolled madly in their sockets, and he stretched himself at full length. They had all heard these words, but no one moved; and for a moment the sorrowful expression vanished from the priest's fat, moist face. He looked about him anxiously, but encountered no one's glance. Only Sanine smiled. Semenoff again moved his lips, yet no sound escaped from them, while one side drooped of his thin, fair moustache. Once more he stretched his limbs, and became longer and more terrible. There was no sound, nor the slightest movement whatever. Nobody wept now. The approach of death had been more grievous, more appalling than its actual advent; and it seemed strange that so harrowing a scene should have ended so simply and swiftly. For a few moments they stood beside the bed and looked at the dead, peaked features, as if they expected something else to happen. Wishful to rouse within themselves a sense of horror and pity, they watched Novikoff intently as he closed the dead man's eyes and crossed his hands on his breast. Then they went out quietly and cautiously. In the passages lamps were now lighted, and all seemed so familiar and simple that every one breathed more freely. The priest went first, tripping along with short steps. Desiring to say a few words of consolation to the young people, he sighed, and then began softly: "Dear, dear! It is very sad. Such a young man, too. Alas! it is plain that he died unrepentant. But God is merciful, you know--" "Yes, yes, of course," replied Schafroff, who walked next to him and wished to be polite. "Does his family know?" asked the priest. "I really can't tell you," said Schafroff. They all looked at each other in astonishment, as it seemed odd and not altogether decent to be unable to say who Semenoff's people were. "His sister is at the high school, I believe," observed Sine. "Ah! I see! Well, good-bye!" said the priest, slightly raising his hat with his plump fingers. "Good-bye!" they replied in unison. On reaching the street, they sighed, as if relieved. "Where shall we go now?" asked Schafroff. After brief hesitation, they all took leave of each other, and went their different ways. CHAPTER XI. When Semenoff saw the blood, and felt the awful void around him and within him; when they lifted him up, carried him away, laid him down, and did all for him that throughout his life he had been in the habit of doing, then he knew that he was going to die, and wondered why he felt not the least fear of death. Dubova had spoken of his terror because she herself was terrified, assuming that, if the healthy dreaded death, the dying must dread it far more. His pallor and his wild look, the result of loss of blood and weakness, she took to be an expression of fear. But, in reality this was not so. At all times, and especially since he knew that he had got consumption, Semenoff had dreaded death. At the outset of his malady, he was in a state of abject terror, much as that of a condemned man for whom hope of a reprieve there was none. It almost seemed to him as if from that moment the world no longer existed; all in it that formerly he found fair, and pleasant, and gay had vanished. All around him was dying, dying, and every moment, every second, might bring about something fearful, unendurable, hideous as a black, yawning abyss. It was as an abyss, huge, fathomless, and sombre as night, that Semenoff imagined death. Wherever he went, whatever he did, this black gulf was ever before him; in its impenetrable gloom all sounds, all colours, all emotions were lost. Such a state of mind was appalling, yet it did not last long; and, as the days went by, as Semenoff approached death, the more remote and vague and incomprehensible did it seem to him. Everything around him, sounds, colours, and emotions, now once more regained their former value for him. The sun shone as brightly as ever; folk went about their business as usual, and Semenoff himself had important things, as also trivial ones, to do. Just as before, he rose in the morning, washed with scrupulous care, and ate his midday meal, finding food pleasant or unpleasant to his taste. As before, the sun and the moon were a joy to him, and rain or damp an annoyance; as before, he played billiards in the evening with Novikoff and others; as before, he read books, some being interesting, and some both foolish and dull. That all things remained unchanged was irritating, even painful to him at first. Nature, his environment, and he himself, all were the same; and he strove to alter this by compelling people to be interested in him and in his death, to comprehend his appalling position, to realize that all was at an end. When, however, he told his acquaintances of this, he perceived that he ought not to have done so. They appeared astonished at first, and then sceptical, professing to doubt the accuracy of the doctor's diagnosis. Finally, they endeavoured to banish the unpleasant impression by abruptly changing the subject, and Semenoff found himself talking with them about all sorts of things, but never about death. Then he sought to live in seclusion, to become absorbed in himself, and in solitude to suffer, having full, steadfast consciousness of his impending doom. Yet, as in his life and his daily surroundings, all remained the same as formerly, it seemed absurd to imagine that it could be otherwise, or that he, Semenoff, would no longer exist as at the present. The thought of death, which at first had made so deep a wound, grew less poignant; the soul oppressed found freedom. Moments of complete forgetfulness became more and more frequent, and life once again lay before him, rich in colour, in movement, in sound. It was only at night-time, when alone, that he was haunted by the sense of a black abyss. After he had put out the lamp, something devoid of form or features rose up slowly above him in the gloom, and whispered, "Sh ... sh ... sh!" without ceasing, while to this whispering another voice, as from within him, made hideous answer. Then he felt that he was gradually becoming part of this murmuring and this abysmal chaos. His life in it seemed as a faint, flickering flame that might at any moment fade for ever. Then he decided to keep a lamp burning in his room throughout the night. In the light, the strange whisperings ceased, the darkness vanished; nor had he the impression of being poised above a yawning abyss, because light made him conscious of a thousand trivial and ordinary details in his life; the chairs, the light, the inkstand, his own feet, an unfinished letter, an _ikon_, with its lamp that he had never lighted, boots that he had forgotten to put outside the door, and many other everyday things that surrounded him. Yet, even then, he could hear whisperings that came from the corners of the room which the light of the lamp did not reach, and again the black gulf yawned to receive him. He was afraid to look into the darkness, or even to think of it, for then, in a moment, dreadful gloom surrounded him, veiling the lamp, hiding the world as with a cold, dense mist from his view. It was this that tortured, that appalled him. He felt as if he must cry like a child, or beat his head against the wall. But as the days went past, and Semenoff drew nearer to death, he grew more used to such impressions. They only became stronger and more awful if by a word or a gesture, by the sight of a funeral or of a graveyard, he was reminded that he, too, must die. Anxious to avoid such warnings, he never went into any street that led to the cemetery, nor ever slept on his back with hands folded across his breast. He had two lives, as it were; his former life, ample and obvious, which could not give a thought to death, but ignored it, being concerned about its own affairs, While hoping to live on for ever, cost what it might; and another life, mysterious, indefinite, obscure, that, as a worm in an apple, secretly gnawed at the core of his former life, poisoning it, making it insufferable. It was owing to this double life that Semenoff, when at last he found himself face to face with death and knew that his end was nigh, felt scarcely any fear. "Already?" That is all he asked, in order to know exactly what to expect. When in the faces of those around him he read the answer to his question, he merely wondered that the end should seem so simple, so natural, like that of some heavy task, which had overtaxed his powers. At the same time, by a new and strange inner consciousness he perceived that it could not be otherwise, and that death was the normal result of his enfeebled vitality. He only felt sorry that he would never see anything again. As they took him in a _droschky_ to the hospital, he gazed about him with wide-opened eyes, striving to note everything at a glance, grieved that he could not firmly fix in his memory every little detail of this world with its ample sky, its human beings, its verdure, and its distant blue horizons. Equally dear, in fact, unspeakably precious to him, were all the little things that he had never noticed, as well as those which he had always found full of beauty and importance; the heaven, dark and vast, with its golden stars, the driver's gaunt back, in its shabby smock; Novikoff's troubled countenance; the dusty road; houses with their lighted windows; the dark trees that silently stayed behind; the jolting wheels; the soft evening breeze--all that he could see, and hear, and feel. Later on, in the hospital, his eyes wandered swiftly round the large room, watching every movement, every figure intently until prevented by physical pain which produced a sense of utter isolation. His perceptions were now concentrated in his chest, the source of all his suffering. Gradually, very gradually, he began to drift away from life. When now he saw something, it seemed to him strange and meaningless. The last fight between life and death had begun; it filled his whole being; it created a new world, strange and lonely, a world of terror, agony and despairing conflict. Now and again there were more lucid moments; the pain ceased; his breathing was deeper and calmer, and through the white veil sounds and shapes became more or less plain. But all seemed faint and futile, as if they came from afar. He heard sounds plainly, and then again they were inaudible; the figures moved noiselessly as those in a cinematograph; familiar faces appeared strange and he could not recollect them. On the adjoining bed a man with a quaint, clean-shaven face was reading aloud, but why he read, or to whom he read, Semenoff never troubled to think. He distinctly heard that the parliamentary elections had been postponed, and that an attempt had been made to assassinate a Grand Duke, but the words were empty and meaningless; like bubbles, they burst and vanished, leaving no trace. The man's lips moved, his teeth gleamed, his round eyes rolled, the paper rustled, and the lamp shone from the ceiling round which large, black, fierce-looking flies revolved. In Semenoff's brain something seemed to flame upwards, illuminating all that surrounded him. He was suddenly conscious that all was now of no account to him, and that all the work and business in the world could not add one single hour to his life; but that he must die. Once more he sank down into the waves of black mist; again the silent conflict began between two terrible and secret forces, the one convulsively striving to destroy the other. The second time that Semenoff regained consciousness was when he heard weeping and chanting. This seemed to him utterly unnecessary, having no sort of relation to all that was going on within him. For a moment, however, it lighted up the flame in his brain, and Semenoff clearly perceived the mock-mournful face of a man who was absolutely uninteresting to him. That was the last sign of life. What followed was for those living wholly beyond the pale of their thought or comprehension. CHAPTER XII. "Come to my place, and we will hold a memorial service for the departed," said Ivanoff to Sanine. The latter nodded his acceptance. On the way, they bought vodka and _hors d'oeuvres,_ and overtook Yourii Svarogitsch, who was walking slowly along the boulevard, looking much depressed. Semenoff's death had made a confused and painful impression upon him which he found it necessary, yet almost impossible, to analyse. "After all, it is simple enough!" said Yourii to himself, endeavouring to draw a straight, short line in his mind. "Man never existed before he was born; that does not seem to be terrible nor incomprehensible. Man's existence ends when he dies. That is equally simple and easy to comprehend. Death, the complete stoppage of the machine that creates vital force, is perfectly comprehensible; there is nothing terrible about it. There was once a boy named Youra who went to college and fought with his comrades, who amused himself by chopping off the heads of thistles and lived his own special and interesting life in his own special way. This Youra died, and in his place quite another man walks and thinks, the student, Yourii Svarogitsch. If they were to meet, Youra would not understand Yourii, and might even hate him as a possible tutor ready to cause him no end of annoyance. Therefore, between them there is a gulf, and therefore, if the boy Youra is dead, I am dead myself, though till now I never noticed it. That is how it is. Quite natural and simple, after all! If one reflects, what do we lose by dying? Life, at any rate, contains more sadness than happiness. True it has its pleasures and it is hard to lose them, but death rids us of so many ills, that in the end we gain by it. That's simple, and not so terrible, is it?" said Yourii, aloud, with a sigh of relief; but suddenly he started, as another thought seemed to sting him. "No, a whole world, full of life and extraordinarily complicated, suddenly transformed into nothing? No, that is not the transformation of the boy Youra into Yourii Svarogitsch! That is absurd and revolting, and therefore terrible and incomprehensible!" With all his might Yourii strove to form a conception of this state which no man finds it possible to support, yet which every man supports, just as Semenoff had done. "He did not die of fear, either," thought Yourii, smiling at the strangeness of such a reflection. "No, he was laughing at us all, with our priest, and our chanting, and tears. How was it that Semenoff could laugh, knowing that in a few moments all would be at an end? Was he a hero? No; it was not a question of heroism. Then death is not as terrible as I thought." While he was musing thus Ivanoff suddenly hailed him in a loud voice. "Ah! it's you! Where are you going?" asked Yourii, shuddering. "To say a mass for our departed friend," replied Ivanoff, with brutal jocularity. "You had better come with us. What's the good of being always alone?" Feeling sad and dispirited, Yourii did not find Sanine and Ivanoff as distasteful to him as usual. "Very well, I will," he replied, but suddenly recollecting his superiority, he thought to himself, "what have I really in common with such fellows? Am I to drink their vodka, and talk commonplaces?" He was on the point of turning back, but he felt such an utter horror of solitude that he went along with them. Ivanoff and Sanine proffered no remarks, and thus in silence they reached the former's lodging. It was already quite dark. At the door, the figure of a man could be dimly seen. He had a thick stick with a crooked handle. "Oh! it's Uncle Peter Ilitsch!" exclaimed Ivanoff gleefully. "Yes! that's he!" replied the figure, in a deep, resonant voice. Yourii remembered that Ivanoff's uncle was an old, drunken church chorister. He had a grey moustache like one of the soldiers at the time of Nicholas the First, and his shabby black coat had a most unpleasant smell. "Boum! Boum!" His voice seemed to come out of a barrel, when Ivanoff introduced him to Yourii, who awkwardly shook hands with him, hardly knowing what to say to such a person. He recollected, however, that for him all men should be equal, so he politely gave precedence to the old singer as they went in. Ivanoff's lodging was more like an old lumber-room than a place for human habitation, being very dusty and untidy. But when his host had lighted the lamp, Yourii perceived that the walls were covered with engravings of pictures by Vasnetzoff, and that what had seemed rubbish were books piled up in heaps. He still felt somewhat ill at ease, and, to hide this, he began to examine the engravings attentively. "Do you like Vasnetzoff?" asked Ivanoff as, without waiting for an answer, he left the room to fetch a plate. Sanine told Peter Ilitsch that Semenoff was dead. "God rest his soul!" droned the latter. "Ah! well, it's all over for him now." Yourii glanced wistfully at him, and felt a sudden sympathy for the old man. Ivanoff now brought in bread, salted cucumbers, and glasses, which he placed on the table that was covered with a newspaper. Then, with a swift, scarcely perceptible movement, he uncorked the bottle, not a drop of its contents being spilt. "Very neat!" exclaimed Ilitsch approvingly. "You can tell in a minute if a man knows what he's about," said Ivanoff, with a self-complacent air, as he filled the glasses with the greenish liquid. "Now gentlemen," said he, raising his voice as he took up his glass. "To the repose of the departed, &c.!" With that they began to eat, and more vodka was consumed. They talked little, and drank the more. Soon the atmosphere of the little room grew hot and oppressive. Peter Ilitsch lighted a cigarette, and the air was filled with the bluish fumes of bad tobacco. The drink and the smoke and the heat made Yourii feel dizzy. Again he thought of Semenoff. "There's something dreadful about death," he said. "Why?" asked Peter Ilitsch. "Death? Ho! ho!! It's absolutely necessary. Death? Suppose one went on living for ever? Ho! ho!! You mustn't talk like that! Eternal life, indeed! What would eternal life be, eh?" Yourii at once tried to imagine what living for ever would be like. He saw an endless grey stripe that stretched aimlessly away into space, as though swept onward from one wave to another. All conception of colour, sound and emotion was blurred and dimmed, being merged and fused in one grey turbid stream that flowed on placidly, eternally. This was not life, but everlasting death. The thought of it horrified him. "Yes, of course," he murmured. "It appears to have made a great impression upon you," said Ivanoff. "Upon whom does it not make an impression?" asked Yourii. Ivanoff shook his head vaguely, and began to tell Ilitsch about Semenoff's last moments. It was now insufferably close in the room. Yourii watched Ivanoff, as his red lips sipped the vodka that shone in the lamplight. Everything seemed to be going round and round. "A--a--a--a--a!" whispered a voice in his ear, a strange small voice. "No! death is an awful thing!" he said again, without noticing that he was replying to the mysterious voice. "You're over-nervous about it," observed Ivanoff contemptuously. "Aren't you?" said Yourii. "I? N--no! Certainly, I don't want to die, as there's not much fun in it, and living is far jollier. But, if one has to die, I should like it to be quickly, without any fuss or nonsense." "You have not tried yet!" laughed Sanine. "No; that's quite true!" replied the other. "Ah! well," continued Yourii, "one has heard all that before. Say what you will, death is death, horrible in itself, and sufficient to rob a man of all pleasure in life who thinks of such a violent and inevitable end to it. What is the meaning of life?" "It has no meaning," cried Ivanoff irritably. "No, that is impossible," replied Yourii, "everything is too wisely and carefully arranged, and--" "In my opinion," said Sanine, "there's nothing good anywhere." "How can you say that? What about Nature?" "Nature! Ha, ha!" Sanine laughed feebly, and waved his hand in derision. "It is customary, I know, to say that Nature is perfect. The truth is, that Nature is just as defective as mankind. Without any great effort of imagination any of us could present a world a hundred times better than this one. Why should we not have perpetual warmth and light, and a garden ever verdant and ever gay? As to the meaning of life, of course it has a meaning of some sort, because the aim implies the march of things; without an aim all would be chaos, But this aim lies outside the pale of our existence, in the very basis of the universe. That is certain. We cannot be the origin nor the end of the universe. Our role is a passive, and auxiliary one. By the mere fact of living we fulfil our mission. Our life is necessary; thus our death is necessary also." "For what?" "How should I know?" replied Sanine, "and, besides, what do I care? My life means my sensations, pleasant or unpleasant; what is outside those limits; well, to the deuce with it all! Whatever hypothesis we may like to invent, it will always remain an hypothesis upon which it would be folly to construct life. Let him who likes worry about it; as for me, I mean to live!" "Let us all have a drink on the strength of it!" suggested Ivanoff. "But you believe in God, don't you?" said Ilitsch, looking at Sanine with bleared eyes. "Nowadays nobody believes in anything--not even in that which is easy of belief." Sanine laughed. "Yes, I believe in God. As a child I did that, and there's no need to dispute or to affirm any reasons for doing so. It's the most profitable thing, really, for if there is a God, I offer Him sincere faith, and, if there isn't, well, all the better for me." "But on belief or on unbelief all life is based?" said Yourii. Sanine shook his head, and smiled complacently. "No, my life is not based on such things," he said. "On what, then?" asked Yourii, languidly. "A--a--a! I mustn't drink any more," he thought to himself, as he drew his hand across his cold, moist brow. If Sanine made any reply he did not hear it. His head was in a whirl, and for a moment he felt quite overcome. "I believe that God exists," continued Sanine, "though I am not certain, absolutely certain. But whether He does or not, I do not know Him, nor can I tell what He requires of me. How could I possibly know this, even though I professed the most ardent faith in Him? God is God, and, not being human, cannot be judged by human standards. His created world around us contains all; good and evil, life and death, beauty and ugliness--everything, in fact, and thus all sense and all exact definition are lost to us, for His sense is not human, nor His ideas of good and evil human, either. Our conception of God must always be an idolatrous one, and we shall always give to our fetish the physiognomy and the garb suitable to the climatic conditions of the country in which we live. Absurd, isn't it." "Yes, you're right," grunted Ivanoff, "quite right!" "Then, what is the good of living?" asked Yourii, as he pushed back his glass in disgust, "or of dying, either?" "One thing I know," replied Sanine, "and that is, that I don't want my life to be a miserable one. Thus, before all things, one must satisfy one's natural desires. Desire is everything. When a man's desires cease, his life ceases, too, and if he kills his desires, then he kills himself." "But his desires may be evil?" "Possibly." "Well, what then." "Then ... they must just be evil," replied Sanine blandly, as he looked Yourii full in the face with his clear, blue eyes. Ivanoff raised his eyebrows incredulously and said nothing. Yourii was silent also. For some reason or other he felt embarrassed by those clear, blue eyes, though he tried to keep looking at them. For a few moments there was complete silence, so that one could plainly hear a night-moth desperately beating against the window-pane. Peter Ilitsch shook his head mournfully, and his drink-besotted visage drooped towards the stained, dirty newspaper. Sanine smiled again. This perpetual smile irritated and yet fascinated Yourii. "What clear eyes he has!" thought he. Suddenly Sanine rose, opened the window, and let out the moth. A wave of cool, pleasant air, as from soft wings, swept through the room. "Yes," said Ivanoff, in answer to his own thought, "there are no two men alike, so, on the strength of that, let's have another drink." "No." said Yourii, shaking his head, "I won't have any more." "Eh--why not?" "I never drink much." The vodka and the heat had made his head ache. He longed to get out into the fresh air. "I must be going," he said, getting up. "Where? Come on, have another drink!" "No really, I ought to--" stammered Yourii, looking for his cap. "Well, good-bye!" As Yourii shut the door he heard Sanine saying to Ilitsch, "Of course you're not like children; they can't distinguish good from bad; they are simple and natural; and that is why they--" Then the door was closed, and all was still. High in the heavens shone the moon, and the cool night-air touched Yourii's brow. All seemed beautiful and romantic, and as he walked through the quiet moonlit streets the thought to him was dreadful that in some dark, silent chamber Semenoff lay on a table, yellow and stiff. Yet, somehow, Yourii could not recall those grievous thoughts that had recently oppressed him, and had shrouded the whole world in gloom. His mood was now of one tranquil sadness, and he felt impelled to gaze at the moon. As he crossed a white deserted square he suddenly thought of Sanine. "What sort of man is that?" he asked himself. Annoyed to think that there was a man whom he, Yourii, could not instantly define, he felt a certain malicious pleasure in disparaging him. "A phrase-maker, that's all he is! Formerly the fellow posed as a pessimist, disgusted with life and bent upon airing impossible views of his own; now, he's trifling with animalism." From Sanine Yourii's thoughts reverted to himself. He came to the conclusion that he trifled with nothing but that his thoughts, his sufferings, his whole personality, were original, and quite different from those of other men. This was most agreeable; yet something seemed to be missing. Once more he thought of Semenoff. It was grievous to know that he should never set eyes upon him again, and though he had never felt any affection for Semenoff, he now had become near and dear to him. Tears rose to his eyes. He pictured the dead student lying in the grave, a mass of corruption, and he remembered these words of his: "You'll be living, and breathing this air, and enjoying this moonlight, and you'll go past my grave where I lie." "Here, under my feet, like human beings, too," thought Yourii, looking down at the dust. "I am trampling on brains, and hearts, and human eyes! Oh!... And I shall die, too, and others will walk over me, thinking just as I think now. Ah! before it is too late, one must live, one must live! Yes; but live in the right way, so that not a moment of one's life be lost. Yet how is one to do that?" The market-place lay white and bare in the moonlight. All was silent in the town. _Never more shall singer's lute Tidings of him tell_. Yourii hummed this softly to himself. Then he said, aloud: "How tedious, sad, and dreadful it all is!" as if complaining to some one. The sound of his own voice alarmed him, and he turned round to see if he had been overheard. "I am drunk," he thought. Silent and serene, the night looked down. CHAPTER XIII. While Sina Karsavina and Dubova were absent on a visit, Yourii's life seemed uneventful and monotonous. His father was engaged, either at the club or with household matters, and Lialia and Riasantzeff found the presence of a third person embarrassing, so that Yourii avoided their society. It thus became his habit to go to bed early and not to rise till the midday meal. All day long, when in his room, or in the garden, he brooded over matters, waiting for a supreme access of energy that should spur him on to do some great work. This "great work" each day assumed a different form. Now it was a picture, or, again, it was a series of articles that should show the world what a huge mistake the social democrats had made in not giving Yourii a leading role in their party. Or else it was an article in favour of adherence to the people and of strenuous co-operation with it--a very broad, imposing treatment of the subject. Each day, however, as it passed, brought nothing but boredom. Once or twice Novikoff and Schafroff came to see him. Yourii also attended lectures and paid visits, yet all this seemed to him empty and aimless. It was not what he sought, or fancied that he sought. One day he went to see Riasantzeff. The doctor had large, airy rooms filled with all such things as an athletic, healthy man needs for his amusement; Indian clubs, dumb-bells, rapiers, fishing-rods, nets, tobacco-pipes, and much else that savoured of wholesome, manly recreation. Riasantzeff received him with frank cordiality, chatted pleasantly, offered him cigarettes, and finally asked him to go out shooting with him. "I have not got a gun," said Yourii. "Have one of mine. I have got five," replied Riasantzeff. To him, Yourii was the brother of Lialia, and he was anxious to be as kind to him as possible. He therefore insisted upon Yourii's acceptance of one of his guns, eagerly displaying them all, taking them to pieces, and explaining their make. He even fired at a target in the yard, so that at last Yourii laughingly accepted a gun and some cartridges, much to Riasantzeff's pleasure. "That's first-rate!" he said, "I had meant to get some duck-shooting to-morrow, so we'll go together, shall we?" "I should like it very much," replied Yourii. When he got home he spent nearly two hours examining his gun, fingering the lock, and taking aim at the lamp. He then carefully greased his old shooting-boots. On the following day, towards evening, Riasantzeff, fresh, hearty as ever, drove up in a _droschky_ with a smart bay to fetch Yourii. "Are you ready?" he called out to him through the open window. Yourii, who had already donned cartridge-belt and game bag, and carried his gun, came out, looking somewhat overweighted and ill at ease. "I'm ready, I'm ready," he said. Riasantzeff, who was lightly and comfortably clad, seemed somewhat astonished at Yourii's accoutrements. "You'll find those things too heavy," he said, smiling. "Take them all off and put them here. You needn't wear them till we get there." He helped Yourii to divest himself of his shooting-kit and placed them underneath the seat. Then they drove away at a good pace. The day was drawing to a close, but it was still warm and dusty. The _droschky_ swayed from side to side so that Yourii had to hold tightly to the seat. Riasantzeff talked and laughed the whole time, and Yourii was compelled to join in his merriment. When they got out into the fields where the stiff meadow-grass lightly brushed against their feet it was cooler, and there was no dust. On reaching a broad level field Riasantzeff pulled up the sweating horse and, placing his hand to his mouth, shouted, in a clear, ringing voice, "Kousma--a ... Kousma--a--a!" At the extreme end of the field, like silhouettes, a row of little men could be descried who, at the sound of Riasantzeff's voice, looked eagerly in his direction. One of the men then came across the field, walking carefully between the furrows. As he approached, Yourii saw that he was a burly, grey- haired peasant with a long beard and sinewy arms. He came up to them slowly, and said, with a smile, "You know how to shout, Anatole Pavlovitch!" "Good day, Kousma; how are you? Can I leave the horse with you?" "Yes, certainly you can," said the peasant in a calm, friendly voice, as he caught hold of the horse's bridle. "Come for a little shooting, eh? And who is that?" he asked, with a kindly glance at Yourii. "It is Nicolai Yegorovitch's son," replied Riasantzeff. "Ah, yes! I see that he is just like Ludmilla Nicolaijevna! Yes, yes!" Yourii was pleased to find that this genial old peasant knew his sister and spoke of her in such a simple, friendly way. "Now, then, let us go!" said Riasantzeff, in his cheery voice, as he walked first, after getting his gun and game-bag. "May you have luck!" cried Kousma, and then they could hear him coaxing the horse as he led it away to his hut. They had to walk nearly a verst before they reached the marsh. The sun had almost set, and the soil, covered with lush grasses and reeds, felt moist beneath their feet. It looked darker, and had a damp smell, while in places water shimmered. Riasantzeff had ceased smoking, and stood with legs wide apart, looking suddenly grave as if he had to begin an important and responsible task. Yourii kept to the right, trying to find a dry comfortable place. In front of them lay the water which, reflecting the clear evening sky, looked pure and deep. The other bank, like a black stripe, could be discerned in the distance. Almost immediately, in twos and threes, ducks rose and flew slowly over the water, starting up suddenly out of the rushes, and then passing over the sportsmen's heads, a row of silhouettes against the saffron sky. Raisantzeff had the first shot, and with success. A wounded duck tumbled sideways into the water, beating down the rushes with its wings. "I hit it!" exclaimed Riasantzeff, as he gaily laughed aloud. "He's really a good sort of fellow," thought Yourii, whose turn it was to shoot. He brought down his bird also, but it fell at such a distance that he could not find it, though he scratched his hands and waded knee-deep through the water. This disappointment only made him more keen; it was fine fun, so he thought. Amid the clear, cool air from the river the gun-smoke had a strangely pleasant smell, and, in the darkening landscape, the merry shots flashed out with charming effect. The wounded wild fowl, as they fell, described graceful curves against the pale green sky where now the first faint stars gleamed. Yourii felt unusually energetic and gay. It was as if he had never taken part in anything so interesting or exhilarating. The birds rose more rarely now, and the deepening dusk made it more difficult to take aim. "Hullo there! We must get home!" shouted Riasantzeff, from a distance. Yourii felt sorry to go, but in accordance with his companion's suggestion he advanced to meet him, stumbling over rushes and splashing through the water which in the dusk was not distinguishable from dry soil. As they met, their eyes flashed, and they were both breathless. "Well," asked Riasantzeff, "did you have any luck?" "I should say so," replied Yourii, displaying his well-filled bag. "Ah! you're a better shot than I am," said Riasantzeff pleasantly. Yourii was delighted by such praise, although he always professed to care nothing for physical strength or skill. "I don't know about better," he observed carelessly, "It was just luck." By the time they reached the hut it was quite dark. The melon-field was immersed in gloom, and only the foremost rows of melons shimmered white in the firelight, casting long shadows. The horse stood, snorting, beside the hut, where a bright little fire of dried steppe-grass burnt and crackled. They could hear men talking and women laughing, and one voice, mellow and cheery in tone, seemed familiar to Yourii. "Why, it's Sanine," said Riasantzeff, in astonishment. "How did he get here?" They approached the fire. Grey-bearded Kousma, seated beside it, looked up, and nodded to welcome them. "Any luck?" he asked, in his deep bass voice, through a drooping moustache. "Just a bit," replied Riasantzeff. Sanine, sitting on a huge pumpkin, also raised his head and smiled at them. "How is it that you are here?" asked Riasantzeff. "Oh! Kousma Prokorovitch and I are old friends," explained Sanine, smiling the more. Kousma laughed, showing the yellow stumps of his decayed teeth as he slapped Sanine's knee good-naturedly with his rough hand. "Yes, yes," he said. "Sit down here, Anatole Pavlovitch, and taste this melon. And you, my young master, what is your name?" "Yourii Nicolaijevitch," replied Yourii, pleasantly. He felt somewhat embarrassed, but he at once took a liking to this gentle old peasant with his friendly speech, half Russian, half dialect. "Yourii Nicolaijevitch! Aha! We must make each other's acquaintance, eh? Sit you down, Yourii Nicolaijevitch." Yourii and Riasantzeff sat down by the fire on two big pumpkins. "Now, then show us what you have shot," said Kousma. A heap of dead birds fell out of the game-bags, and the ground was dabbled with their blood. In the flickering firelight they had a weird, unpleasant look. The blood was almost black, and the claws seemed to move. Kousma took up a duck, and felt beneath its wings. "That's a fat one," he said approvingly. "You might spare me a brace, Anatole Pavlovitch. What will you do with such a lot?" "Have them all!" exclaimed Yourii, blushing. "Why all? Come, come, you're too generous," laughed the old man. "I'll just have a brace, to show that there's no ill-feeling." Other peasants and their wives now approached the fire, but, dazzled by the blaze, Yourii could not plainly distinguish them. First one and then another face swiftly emerged from the gloom, and then vanished. Sanine, frowning, regarded the dead birds, and, turning away, suddenly rose. The sight of these beautiful creatures lying there in blood and dust, with broken wings, was distasteful to him. Yourii watched everything with great interest as he greedily ate large, luscious slices of a ripe melon which Kousma cut off with his pocket- knife that had a yellow bone handle. "Eat, Yourii Nicolaijevitch; this melon's good," he said. "I know your little sister, Ludmilla Nicolaijevna, and your father, too. Eat, and enjoy it." Everything pleased Yourii; the smell of the peasants, an odour as of newly-baked bread and sheepskins; the bright blaze of the fire; the gigantic pumpkin upon which he sat; and the glimpse of Kousma's face when he looked downwards, for when the old man raised his head it was hidden in the gloom and only his eyes gleamed. Overhead there was darkness now, which made the lighted place seem pleasant and comfortable. Looking upwards, Yourii could at first see nothing, and then suddenly the calm, spacious heaven appeared and the distant stars. He felt, however, somewhat embarrassed, not knowing what to say to these peasants. The others, Kousma, Sanine, and Riasantzeff, chatted frankly and simply to them about this or that, never troubling to choose some special theme for talk. "Well, how's the land?" he asked, when there was a short pause in the conversation, though he felt that the question sounded forced and out of place. Kousma looked up, and answered: "We must wait, just wait a while, and see." Then he began talking about the melon-fields and other personal matters, Yourii feeling only more and more embarrassed, although he rather liked listening to it all. Footsteps were heard approaching. A little red dog with a curly white tail appeared in the light, sniffing at Yourii and Riasantzeff, and rubbing itself against Sanine's knees, who patted its rough coat. It was followed by a little, old man with a sparse beard and small bright eyes. He carried a rusty single-barrelled gun. "It is grandfather, our guardian," said Kousma. The old man sat down on the ground, deposited his weapon, and looked hard at Yourii and Riasantzeff. "Been out shooting; yes, yes!" he mumbled, showing his shrivelled, discoloured gums. "He! He! Kousma, it's time to boil the potatoes! He! He!" Riasantzeff picked up the old fellow's flint-lock, and laughingly showed it to Yourii. It was a rusty old barrel-loader, very heavy, with wire wound round it. "I say," said he, "what sort of a gun do you call this? Aren't you afraid to shoot with it?" "He! He! I nearly shot myself with it once! Stepan Schapka, he told me that one could shoot without ... caps? He! He! ... without caps! He said that if there were any sulphur left in the gun one could fire without a cap. So I put the loaded rifle on my knee like this, and fired it off at full cock with my finger, like this, see? Then bang! it went off! Nearly killed myself! He! He! Loaded the rifle, and bang!! Nearly killed myself!" They all laughed, and there were tears of mirth in Yourii's eyes, so absurd did the little man seem with his tufted grey beard and his sunken jaws. The old fellow laughed, too, till his little eyes watered. "Very nearly killed myself! He! He!" In the darkness, and beyond the circle of light, one could hear laughter, and the voices of girls whom shyness had kept at a distance. A few feet away from the fire, and in quite a different place from where Yourii imagined him to be seated, Sanine struck a match. In the reddish flare of it Yourii saw his calm, friendly eyes, and beside him a young face whose soft eyes beneath their dark brows looked up at Sanine with simple joy. Riasantzeff, as he winked to Kousma, said: "Grandfather, hadn't you better keep an eye on your granddaughter, eh?" "What's the good!" replied Kousma, with a careless gesture. "Youth is youth." "He! He!" laughed the old man in his turn, as with his fingers he plucked a red-hot coal from the fire. Sanine's laugh was heard in the darkness. The girls may have felt ashamed, for they had moved away, and their voices were scarcely audible. "It is time to go," said Riasantzeff, as he got up. "Thank you, Kousma." "Not at all," replied the other, as with his sleeve he brushed away the black melon-pips that had stuck to his grey beard. He shook hands with both of them, and Yourii again felt a certain repugnance to the touch of his rough, bony hand. As they retreated from the fire, the gloom seemed less intense. Above were the cold, glittering stars and the vast dome of heaven, serenely fair. The group by the fire, the horses, and the pile of melons all became blacker against the light. Yourii tripped over a pumpkin and nearly fell. "Look out!" said Sanine. "Good-bye!" "Good-bye!" replied Yourii, looking round at the other's tall, dark form, leaning against which he fancied that he saw another, the graceful figure of a woman. Yourii's heart beat faster. He suddenly thought of Sina Karsavina, and envied Sanine. Once more the wheels of the _droschky_ rattled, and once again the good old horse snorted as it ran. The fire faded in distance, as did the sound of voices and laughter. Stillness reigned. Yourii slowly looked upwards to the sky with its jewelled web of stars. As they reached the outskirts of the town, lights flashed here and there, and dogs barked. Riasantzeff said to Yourii: "Old Kousma's a philosopher, eh?" Seated behind, Yourii looked at Riasantzeff's Deck, and roused from his own melancholy thoughts, endeavoured to understand what he said. "Oh!... Yes!" he replied hesitatingly. "I didn't know that Sanine was such a gay dog," laughed Riasantzeff. Yourii was not dreaming now, and he recalled the momentary vision of Sanine and that pretty girlish face illumined by the light of a match. Again he felt jealous, yet suddenly it occurred to him that Sanine's treatment of the girl was base and contemptible. "No, I had no idea of it, either," said Yourii, with a touch of irony that was lost upon Riasantzeff, who whipped up the horse and, after a while, remarked: "Pretty girl, wasn't she? I know her. She's the old fellow's grandchild," Yourii was silent. His contemplative mood was in a moment dispelled, and he now felt convinced that Sanine was a coarse, bad man. Riasantzeff shrugged his shoulders, and at last blurted out: "Deuce take it! Such a night, eh? It seems to have got hold of me, too. I say, suppose we drive back, and--" Yourii did not at first understand what he meant. "There are some fine girls there, you know. What do you say? Shall we go back?" continued Riasantzeff, sniggering. Yourii blushed deeply. A thrill of animal lust shot through his frame, and enticing pictures rose up before his heated imagination. Yet, controlling himself, he answered, in a dry voice: "No; it is time that we were at home." Then he added, maliciously: "Lialia is waiting for us." Riasantzeff collapsed. "Oh, yes, of course; yes, we ought to be back by now!" he hastily muttered. Yourii ground his teeth, and, glaring at the driver's broad back in its white jacket, remarked aggressively: "I have no particular liking for adventures of that sort." "No, no; I understand. Ha! Ha!" replied Riasantzeff, laughing in a faint half-hearted way. After that he was silent. "Damn it! How stupid of me!" he thought. They drove home without uttering another word, and to each the way seemed endless. "You will come in, won't you?" asked Yourii, without looking up. "Er ... No! I have got to see a patient. Besides it is rather late," replied Riasantzeff hesitatingly. Yourii got out of the _droschky_, not caring to take the gun or the game. Everything that belonged to Riasantzeff he now seemed to loathe. The latter called out to him. "I say, you've left your gun!" Yourii turned round, took this and the bag with an air of disgust. After shaking hands awkwardly with Riasantzeff, he entered the house. The latter drove on slowly for a short distance and then turned sharply into a side-street. The rattle of wheels on the road could now be heard in another direction. Yourii listened to it, furious, and yet secretly jealous. "A bad lot!" he muttered, feeling sorry for his sister. CHAPTER XIV. Having carried the things indoors, Yourii, for want of something else to do, went down the steps leading to the garden. It was dark as the grave, and the sky with it vast company of gleaming stars enhanced the weird effect. There, on one of the steps, sat Lialia; her little grey form was scarcely perceptible in the gloom. "Is that you, Yourii?" she asked. "Yes, it is," he replied, as he sat down beside her. Dreamily she leant her head on his shoulder, and the fragrance of her fresh, sweet girlhood touched his senses. "Did you have good sport?" said Lialia. Then after a pause, she added softly, "and where is Anatole Pavlovitch? I heard you drive up." "Your Anatole Pavlovitch is a dirty beast!" is what Yourii, feeling suddenly incensed, would have liked to say. However, he answered carelessly: "I really don't know. He had to see a patient." "A patient," repeated Lialia mechanically. She said no more, but gazed at the stars. She was not vexed that Riasantzeff had not come. On the contrary, she wished to be alone, so that, undisturbed by his presence, she might give herself up to delicious meditation. To her, the sentiment that filled her youthful being was strange and sweet and tender. It was the consciousness of a climax, desired, inevitable, and yet disturbing, which should close the page of her past life and commence that of her new one. So new, indeed, that Lialia was to become an entirely different being. To Yourii it was strange that his merry, laughing sister should have become so quiet and pensive. Depressed and irritable himself, everything, Lialia, the dark garden the distant starlit sky seemed to him sad and cold. He did not perceive that this dreamy mood concealed not sorrow, but the very essence and fulness of life. In the wide heaven surged forces immeasurable and unknown; the dim garden drew forth vital sap from the earth; and in Lialia's heart there was a joy so full, so complete, that she feared lest any movement, any impression should break the spell. Radiant as the starry heaven, mysterious as the dark garden, harmonies of love and yearning vibrated within her soul. "Tell me, Lialia, do you love Anatole Pavlovitch very much?" asked Yourii, gently, as if he feared to rouse her. "How can you ask?" she thought, but, recollecting herself, she nestled closer to her brother, grateful to him for not speaking of anything else but of her life's one interest--the man she adored. "Yes, very much," she replied, so softly that Yourii guessed rather than heard what she said, striving to restrain her tears of joy. Yet Yourii thought that he could detect a certain note of sadness in her voice, and his pity for her, as his hatred of Riasantzeff, increased. "Why?" he asked, feeling amazed at such a question. Lialia looked up in astonishment, and laughed gently. "You silly boy! Why, indeed! Because ... Well, have you never been in love yourself? He's so good, so honest and upright ..." "So good-looking, and strong," she would have added, but she only blushed and said nothing. "Do you know him well?" asked Yourii. "I ought not to have asked that," he thought, inwardly vexed, "for, of course she thinks that he is the best man in the whole world." "Anatole tells me everything," replied Lialia timidly, yet triumphantly. Yourii smiled, and, aware now that there was no going back, retorted, "Are you quite sure?" "Of course I am; why should I not be?" Lialia's voice trembled. "Oh! nothing. I merely asked," said Yourii, somewhat confused. Lialia was silent. He could not guess what was passing through her mind. "Perhaps you know something about him?" she said suddenly. There was a suggestion of pain in her voice, which puzzled Yourii. "Oh! no," he said, "not at all. What should I know about Anatole Pavlovitch?" "But you would not have spoken like that, otherwise," persisted Lialia. "All that I meant was--well," Yourii stopped short, feeling half ashamed, "well, we men, generally speaking, are all thoroughly depraved, all of us." Lialia was silent for a while, and then burst out laughing. "Oh! yes, I know that!" she exclaimed. Her laughter to him seemed quite out of place. "You can't take matters so lightly," he replied petulantly, "nor can you be expected to know everything that goes on. You have no idea of all the vile things of life; you are too young, too pure." "Oh! indeed!" said Lialia, laughing, and flattered. Then in a more serious tone she continued, "Do you suppose that I have not thought of such things? Indeed, I have; and it has always pained and grieved me that we women should care so much for our reputation and our chastity, being afraid to take a step lest we--well, lest we should fall, while men almost look upon it as an heroic deed to seduce a girl. That is all horribly unjust, isn't it?" "Yes," replied Yourii, bitterly, finding a certain pleasure in lashing his own sins, though conscious that he, Yourii, was absolutely different from other men. "Yes; that is one of the most monstrously unjust things in the world. Ask any one of us if he would like to marry" (he was going to say "a whore," but substituted) "a _cocotte_, and he will always tell you 'No.' But in what respect is a man really any better than a _cocotte_? She sells herself at least for money, to earn a living, whereas a man simply gives rein to his lust in wanton and shameless fashion." Lialia was silent. A bat darted backwards and forwards beneath the balcony, unseen, struck the wall repeatedly with its wings and then, with faint fluttering, vanished. Yourii listened to all these strange noises of the night, and then he continued speaking with increasing bitterness. The very of his voice drew him on. "The worst of it is that not only do they all know this, and tacitly agree that it must be so, but they enact complete tragi-comedies, allowing themselves to become betrothed, and then lying to God and man. It is always the purest and most innocent girls, too," (he was thinking jealously of Sina Karsavina) "who become the prey of the vilest debauchees, tainted physically and morally. Semenoff once said to me, 'the purer the woman, the filthier the man who possesses her,' and he was right." "Is that true?" asked Lialia, in a strange tone. "Yes, most assuredly it is." Yourii smiled bitterly. "I know nothing--nothing about it," faltered Lialia, with tears in her voice. "What?" cried Yourii, for he had not heard her remark. "Surely Tolia is not like the rest? It's impossible." She had never spoken of him by his pet name to Yourii before. Then, all at once, she began to weep. Touched by her distress, Yourii seized her hand. "Lialia! Lialitschka! What's the matter? I didn't mean to--Come, come, my dear little Lialia, don't cry!" he stammered, as he pulled her hands away from her face and kissed her little wet fingers. "No! It's true! I know it is!" she sobbed. Although she had said that she had thought about this, it was in fact pure imagination on her part, for of Riasantzeff's intimate life she had never yet formed the slightest conception. Of course she knew that she was not his first love, and she understood what that meant, though the impression upon her mind had been a vague and never a permanent one. She felt that she loved him, and that he loved her. This was the essential thing; all else for her was of no importance whatever. Yet now that her brother had spoken thus, in a tone of censure and contempt, she seemed to stand on the verge of a precipice; that of which they talked was horrible, and indeed irreparable, her happiness was at an end; of her love for Riasantzeff there could be no thought now. Almost in tears himself, Yourii sought to comfort her, as he kissed her and stroked her hair. Yet still she wept, bitterly, hopelessly. "Oh! dear! Oh! dear!" she sobbed, just like a child. There, in the dusk, she seemed so helpless, so pitiful, that Yourii felt unspeakably grieved. Pale and confused, he ran into the house, striking his head against the door, and brought her a glass of water, half of which he spilt on the ground and over his hands. "Oh! don't cry, Lialitschka! You mustn't cry like that! What is the matter? Perhaps Anatole Pavlovitch is better than the rest, Lialia!" he repeated in despair. Lialia, still sobbing, shook violently, and he teeth rattled against the rim of the glass. "What is the matter, miss?" asked the maid-servant in alarm, as she appeared in the doorway. Lialia rose, and, leaning against the balustrade, went trembling and in tears towards her room. "My dear little mistress, tell me, what is it? Shall I call the master, Yourii Nicolaijevitch?" Nicolai Yegorovitch at that moment came out of his study, walking in slow, measured fashion. He stopped short in the doorway, amazed at the sight of Lialia. "What has happened?" "Oh! nothing! A mere trifle!" replied Yourii, with a forced laugh. "We were talking about Riasantzeff. It's all nonsense!" Nicolai Yegorovitch looked hard at him and suddenly his face wore a look of extreme displeasure. "What the devil have you been saying?" he exclaimed as, shrugging his shoulders, he turned abruptly on his heel and withdrew. Yourii flushed angrily, and would have made some insolent reply, but a sudden sense of shame caused him to remain silent. Feeling irritated with his father, and grieved for Lialia, while despising himself, he went down the steps into the garden. A little frog, croaking beneath his feet, burst like an acorn. He slipped, and with a cry of disgust sprang aside. Mechanically he wiped his foot for a long while on the wet grass, feeling a cold shiver down his back. He frowned. Disgust mental and physical made him think that all things were revolting and abominable. He groped his way to a seat, and sat there, staring vacantly at the garden, seeing only broad black patches amid the general gloom. Sad, dismal thoughts drifted through his brain. He looked across to where in the dark grass that poor little frog was dying, or perhaps, after terrible agony, lay dead. A whole world had, as it were, been destroyed; an individual and independent life had come to a hideous and, yet utterly unnoticed and unheard. And then, by ways inscrutable, Yourii was led to the strange, disquieting thought that all which went to make up a life, the secret instincts of loving or of hating that involuntarily caused him to accept one thing and to reject another; his intuitive sense regarding good or bad; that all this was merely as a faint mist, in which his personality alone was shrouded. By the world in its huge, vast entirety all his profoundest and most agonising experiences were as utterly and completely ignored as the death-agony of this little frog. In imagining that his sufferings and his emotions were of interest to others, he had expressly and senselessly woven a complicated net between himself and the universe. The moment of death sufficed to destroy this net, and to leave him, devoid of pity or pardon, utterly alone. Once more his thoughts reverted to Semenoff and to the indifference shown by the deceased student towards all lofty ideals which so profoundly interested him, Yourii, and millions of his kind. This brought him to think of the simple joy of living, the charm of beautiful women, of moonlight, of nightingales, a theme upon which he had mournfully reflected on the day following his last sad talk with Semenoff. At that time he had not understood why Semenoff attached importance to futile things such as boating or the comely shape of a girl, while deliberately refusing to be interested in the loftiest and most profound conceptions. Now, however, Yourii perceived that it could not have been otherwise for it was these trivial things that constituted life, the real life, full of sensations, emotions, enjoyments; and that all these lofty conceptions were but empty thoughts, vain verbiage, powerless to influence in the slightest the great mystery of life and death. Important, complete though these might be, other words, other thoughts no less weighty and important must follow in the future. At this conclusion, evolved unexpectedly from his thoughts concerning good and evil, Yourii seemed utterly nonplussed. It was as though a great void lay before him, and, for a moment, his brain felt free and clear, as one in dream feels able to float through space just whither he will. It alarmed him. With all his might he strove to collect his habitual conceptions of life, and then the alarming sensation disappeared. All became gloomy and confused as before. Yourii came near to admitting that life was the realization of freedom, and consequently that it was natural for a man to live for enjoyment. Thus Riasantzeff's point of view, though inferior, was yet a perfectly logical one in striving to satisfy his sexual needs as much as possible, they being the most urgent. But then he had to admit that the conceptions of debauchery and of purity were merely as withered leaves that cover fresh grown grass, and that girls romantic and chaste as Lialia or Sina Karsavina had the right to plunge into the stream of sensual enjoyment. Such an idea shocked him as being both frivolous and nasty, and he endeavoured to drive it from his brain and heart with his usual vehement, stern phrases. "Well, yes," he thought, gazing upwards at the starry sky, "life is emotion, but men are not unreasoning beasts. They must master their passions; their desires must be set upon what is good. Yet, is there a God beyond the stars?" As he suddenly asked himself this, a confused, painful sense of awe seemed to crush him to the ground. Persistently he gazed at a brilliant star in the tail of the Great Bear and recollected how Kousma the peasant in the melon-field had called this majestic constellation a "wheelbarrow." He felt annoyed, in a way, that such an irrelevant thought should have crossed his mind. He gazed at the black garden in sharp contrast to the shining sky, pondering, meditating. "If the world were deprived of feminine purity and grace, that are as the first sweet flowers of spring, what would remain sacred to mankind?" As he thought thus, he pictured to himself a company of lovely maidens, fair as spring flowers, seated in sunlight on green meadows beneath blossoming boughs. Their youthful breasts, delicately moulded shoulders, and supple limbs moved mysteriously before his eyes, provoking exquisitely voluptuous thrills. As if dazed, he passed his hand across his brow. "My nerves are overwrought; I must get to bed," thought he. With sensuous visions such as these before his eyes, depressed and ill at ease, Yourii went hurriedly indoors. When in bed, after vain efforts to sleep, his thoughts reverted to Lialia and Riasantzeff. "Why am I so indignant because Lialia is not Riasantzeff's only love?" To this question he could find no reply. Suddenly the image of Sina Karsavina rose up before him, soothing his heated senses. Yet, though he strove to suppress his feelings, it became ever clearer to him why he wanted her to be just as she was, untouched and pure. "Yes, but I love her," thought Yourii, for the first time, and it was this idea that banished all others, even bringing tears to his eyes. But in another moment he was asking himself with a bitter smile, "Why, then, did I make love to other women, before her? True, I did not know of her existence, yet neither did Riasantzeff know of Lialia. At that time we both thought that the woman whom we desired to possess was the real, the sole, the indispensable one. We were wrong then; perhaps we are wrong now. It comes to this, that we must either remain perpetually chaste, or else enjoy absolute sexual liberty, allowing women, of course, to do the same. Now, after all, Riasantzeff is not to blame for having loved other women before Lialia, but because he still carries on with several; and that is not what I do." The thought made Yourii feel very proud and pure, but only for a moment, for he suddenly recollected his seductive vision of sweet, supple girls in sunlight. He was utterly overwhelmed. His mind became a chaos of conflicting thoughts. Finding it uncomfortable to lie on his right side, he awkwardly turned over on to his left. "The fact is," he thought, "not one of all the women I have known could ever satisfy me for the whole of my life. Thus, what I have called true love is impossible, not to be realized; and to dream of such a thing is sheer folly." Feeling just as uncomfortable when lying on his left side, he turned over again, restless and perspiring, beneath the hot coverlet; and now his head ached. "Chastity is an ideal, but, to realize this, humanity would perish. Therefore, it is folly. And life? what is life but folly too?" He almost uttered the words in a loud voice, grinding his teeth with such fury that yellow stars flashed before his eyes. So, till morning, he tossed from side to side, his heart and brain heavy with despairing thoughts. At last, to escape from them, he sought to persuade himself that he too, was a depraved, sensual egoist, and that his scruples were but the outcome of hidden lust. Yet this only depressed him the more, and relief was finally obtained by the simple question: "Why, after all, do I torment myself in this way?" Disgusted at all such futile processes of self-examination, Yourii, nerveless and exhausted, finally fell asleep. CHAPTER XV. Lialia wept in her room for such a long while that at last, her face buried in the pillows, she fell asleep. She woke next morning with aching head and swollen eyes, her first thought being that she must not cry, as Riasantzeff, who was coming to lunch, would be shocked to see her looking so plain. Then, suddenly, she recollected that all was over between them, and a sense of bitter pain and burning love caused her to weep afresh. "How base, how horrible!" she murmured, striving to keep back her tears. "And why? Why?" she repeated, as infinite grief for love that was lost seemed to overwhelm her. It was revolting to think that Riasantzeff had always lied to her in such a facile, heartless way. "And not only he, but all the others lied, too," she thought. "They all of them professed to be so delighted at our marriage, and said that he was such a good, honest fellow! Well, no, they didn't actually lie about it, but they simply didn't think it was wrong. How hateful of them!" Thus all those who surrounded her seemed odious, evil persons. She leant her forehead against the window-pane and through her tears, gazed at the garden. It was gloomy, there; and large raindrops beat incessantly against the panes, so that Lialia could not tell if it were these or her tears which hid the garden from her view. The trees looked sad and forlorn, their pale, dripping leaves and black boughs faintly discernible amid the general downpour that converted the lawn into a muddy swamp. And Lialia's whole life seemed to her utterly unhappy; the future was hopeless, the past all dark. When the maid-servant came to call her to breakfast, Lialia, though she heard the words, failed to understand their meaning. Afterwards, at table, she felt confused when her father spoke to her. It was as if he spoke with special pity in his voice; no doubt, every one knew by this time how abominably false to her the beloved one had been. She hastily returned to her room and once more sat down and gazed at the grey, dreary garden. "Why should he be so false? Why should he have hurt me like this? Is it that he does not love me? No, Tolia loves me, and I love him. Well, then, what is wrong? Why it's this; he's deceived me; he's been making love to all sorts of nasty women. I wonder if they loved him as I love him?" she asked herself, naively, ardently. "Oh! how silly I am, to be sure! What's the good of worrying about that? He has been false to me, and everything now is at an end. Oh! how perfectly miserable I am! Yes, I ought to worry about it! He was false to me! At least, he might have confessed it to me! But he didn't! Oh! it's abominable! Kissing a lot of other women, and perhaps, even ... It's awful. Oh I I'm so wretched!" _A little frog hopped across the path, With legs outstretched_! Thus sang Lialia, mentally, as she spied a little grey ball hopping timidly across the slippery foot-path. "Yes, I am miserable, and it is all over," thought she, as the frog disappeared in the long grass. "For me it was all so beautiful, so wonderful, and for him, well--just an ordinary, commonplace affair! That is why he always avoided speaking to me of his past life! That is why he always looked so strange, as if he were thinking of something; as if he were thinking 'I know all about that; I know exactly what you feel and what the result of it will be.' While all the time, I was.... Oh! it's horrible! It's shameful! I'll never, never love anybody again!" And she wept again, her cheek pressed against the cool window-pane, as she watched the drifting clouds. "But Tolia is coming to lunch to-day!" The thought of it made her shiver. "What am I to say to him? What ought one to say in cases of this kind?" Lialia opened her mouth and stared anxiously at the wall. "I must ask Yourii about it. Dear Yourii! He's so good and upright!" she thought, as tears of sympathy filled her eyes. Then, being never wont to postpone matters, she hastened to her brother's room. There she found Schafroff who was discussing something with Yourii. She stood, irresolute, in the doorway. "Good morning," she said absently. "Good morning!" replied Schafroff. "Pray come in, Ludmilla Nicolaijevna; your help is absolutely necessary in this matter." Still somewhat embarrassed, Lialia sat down obediently at the table and began fingering in desultory fashion some of the green and red pamphlets which were heaped upon it. "You see, it's like this," began Schafroff, turning towards her as if he were about to explain something extremely complicated, "several of our comrades at Koursk are very hard up, and we must absolutely do what we can to help them. So I think of getting up a concert, eh, what?" This favourite expression of Schafroff's, "eh, what?" reminded Lialia of her object in coming to her brother's room, and she glanced hopefully at Yourii. "Why not? It's a very good idea!" she replied, wondering why Yourii avoided her glance. After Lialia's torrent of tears and the gloomy thoughts which had harassed him all night long, Yourii felt too depressed to speak to his sister. He had expected that she would come to him for advice, yet to give this in a satisfactory way seemed impossible. So, too, it was impossible to take back what he had said in order to comfort Lialia, and thrust her back into Riasantzeff's arms; nor had he the heart to give the death-blow to her childish happiness. "Well, this is what we have decided to do," continued Schafroff, moving nearer to Lialia, as if the matter were becoming much more complex, "we mean to ask Lida Sanina and Sina Karsavina to sing. Each a solo, first of all, and afterwards a duet. One is a contralto, and the other, a soprano, so that will do nicely. Then I shall play the violin, and afterwards Sarudine might sing, accompanied by Tanaroff." "Oh! then, officers are to take part in the concert, are they?" asked Lialia mechanically, thinking all the while of something quite different. "Why, of course!" exclaimed Schafroff, with a wave of his hand. "Lida has only got to accept, and they'll all swarm round her like bees. As for Sarudine, he'll be delighted to sing; it doesn't matter where, so long as he can sing. This will attract a good many of his brother- officers, and we shall get a full house." "You ought to ask Sina Karsavina," said Lialia, looking wistfully at her brother. "He surely can't have forgotten," she thought. "How can he discuss this stupid concert, whilst I ..." "Why, I told you just now we had done so!" replied Schafroff. "Oh! yes, so you did," said Lialia, smiling faintly. "Then there's Lida. But you mentioned her I think?" "Of course I did! Whom else can we ask, eh?" "I really ... don't know!" faltered Lialia. "I've got such a headache." Yourii glanced hurriedly at his sister, and then continued to pore over his pamphlets. Pale and heavy-eyed, she excited his compassion. "Oh! why, why did I say all that to her?" he thought. "The whole question is so obscure, to me, as to so many others, and now it must needs trouble her poor little heart! Why, why did I say that!" He felt as if he could tear his hair. "If you please, miss," said the maid at the door, "Mr. Anatole Pavlovitch has just come." Yourii gave another frightened glance at his sister, and met her sad eyes. In confusion he turned to Schafroff, and said hastily: "Have you read Charles Bradlaugh?" "Yes, we read some of his works with Dubova, and Sina Karsavina. Most interesting." "Yes. Oh! have they come back?" "Yes." "Since when?" asked Yourii, hiding his emotion. "Since the day before yesterday." "Oh! really!" replied Yourii, as he watched Lialia. He felt ashamed and afraid in her presence, as if he had deceived her. For a moment Lialia stood there irresolute, touching things nervously on the table. Then she approached the door. "Oh! what have I done!" thought Yourii, as, sincerely grieved, he listened to the sound of her faltering footsteps. As she went towards the other room, Lialia, doubting and distressed, felt as if she were frozen. It seemed as though she were wandering in a dark wood. She glanced at a mirror, and saw the reflection of her own rueful countenance. "He shall just see me looking like this!" she thought. Riasantzeff was standing in the dining-room, saying in his remarkably pleasant voice to Nicolai Yegorovitch; "Of course, it's rather strange, but quite harmless." At the sound of his voice Lialia felt her heart throb violently, as if it must break. When Riasantzeff saw her, he suddenly stopped talking and came forward to meet her with outstretched arms. She alone knew that this gesture signified his desire to embrace her. Lialia looked up shyly at him, and her lips trembled. Without a word she pulled her hand away, crossed the room and opened the glass door leading to the balcony. Riasantzeff watched her, calmly, but with slight astonishment. "My Ludmilla Nicolaijevna is cross," he said to Nicolai Yegorovitch with serio-comic gravity of manner. The latter burst out laughing. "You had better go and make it up." "There's nothing else to be done!" sighed Riasantzeff, in droll fashion, as he followed Lialia on to the balcony. It was still raining. The monotonous sound of falling drops filled the air; but the sky seemed clearer now, and there was a break in the clouds. Lialia, her cheek propped against one of the cold, damp pillars of the veranda, let the rain beat upon her bare head, so that her hair was wet through. "My princess is displeased ... Lialitschka!" said Riasantzeff, as he drew her closer to him, and lightly kissed moist, fragrant hair. At this touch, so intimate and familiar, something seemed to melt in Lialia's breast, and without knowing what she did, she flung her arms round her lover's strong neck as, amid a shower of kisses, she murmured: "I am very, very angry with you! You're a bad man!" All the while she kept thinking that after all there was nothing so bad, or awful, or irreparable as she had supposed. What did it matter? All that she wanted was to love and be loved by this big, handsome man. Afterwards, at table, it was painful to her to notice Yourii's look of amazement, and, when the chance came, she whispered to him, "It's awful of me, I know!" at which he only smiled awkwardly. Yourii was really pleased that the matter should have ended happily like this, while yet affecting to despise such an attitude of bourgeois complacency and toleration. He withdrew to his room, remaining there alone until the evening, and as, before sunset, the sky grew clear, he took his gun, intending to shoot in the same place where he and Riasantzeff had been yesterday. After the rain, the marsh seemed full of new life. Many strange sounds were now audible, and the grasses waved as if stirred by some secret vital force. Frogs croaked lustily in a chorus; now and again some birds uttered a sharp discordant cry; while at no great distance, yet out of range, ducks could be heard cackling in the wet reeds. Yourii, however, felt no desire to shoot, but he shouldered his gun and turned homeward, listening to sounds of crystalline clearness in the grey calm twilight. "How beautiful!" thought he. "All is beautiful; man alone is vile!" Far away he saw the little fire burning in the melon-field, and ere long by its light he recognized the faces of Kousma and Sanine. "What does he always come here for?" thought Yourii, surprised and curious. Seated by the fire, Kousma was telling a story, laughing and gesticulating meanwhile. Sanine was laughing, too. The fire burned with a slender flame, as that of a taper, the light being rosy, not red as at night-time, while overhead, in the blue dome of heaven, the first stars glittered. There was an odour of fresh mould and rain-drenched grass. For some reason or other Yourii felt afraid lest they should see him, yet at the same time it saddened him to think that he could not join them. Between himself and them there seemed to be a barrier incomprehensible and yet unreal; a space devoid of atmosphere, a gulf that could never be bridged. This sense of utter isolation depressed him greatly. He was alone; from this world with its vesper lights and hues, and fires, and stars, and human sounds, he stood aloof and apart, as though shut close within a dark room. So distressful was this sense of solitude, that as he crossed the melon-field where hundreds of melons were growing in the gloom, to him they seemed like human skulls that Jay strewn upon the ground. CHAPTER XVI. Summer now came on, abounding in light and warmth. Between the luminous blue heaven and the sultry earth there floated a tremulous veil of golden haze. Exhausted with the heat, the trees seemed asleep; their leaves, drooping and motionless, cast short, transparent shadows on the parched, arid turf. Indoors it was cool. Pale green reflections from the garden quivered on the ceiling, and while everything else stirred not, the curtains by the window waved. His linen jacket all unbuttoned, Sarudine slowly paced up and down the room languidly smoking a cigarette, and displaying his large white teeth. Tanaroff, in just his shirt and riding-breeches, lay at full length on the sofa, furtively watching Sarudine with his little black eyes. He was in urgent need of fifty roubles, and had already asked his friend twice for them. He did not venture to do this a third time, and so was anxiously waiting to see if Sarudine himself would return to the subject. The latter had not forgotten by any means, but, having gambled away seven hundred roubles last month, begrudged any further outlay. "He already owes me two hundred and fifty," thought he, as he glanced at Tanaroff in passing. Then, more irritably, "It's astonishing, upon my word! Of course we're good friends, and all that, but I wonder that he's not the least bit ashamed of himself. He might at any rate make some excuse for owing me all that money. No, I won't lend him another penny," he thought maliciously. The orderly now entered the room, a little freckled fellow who in slow, clumsy fashion stood at attention, and, without looking at Sarudine, said, "If you please, sir, you asked for beer, but there isn't any more." Sarudine's face grew red, as involuntarily he glanced at Tanaroff. "Well, this is really a bit too much!" he thought. "He knows that I am hard up, yet beer has to be sent for." "There's very little vodka left, either," added the soldier. "All right! Damn you! You've still got a couple of roubles. Go and buy what is wanted." "Please, sir, I haven't got any money at all." "How's that? What do you mean by lying?" exclaimed Sarudine, stopping short. "If you please, sir, I was told to pay the washerwoman one rouble and seventy copecks, which I did, and I put the other thirty copecks on the dressing-table, sir." "Yes, that's right," said Tanaroff, with assumed carelessness of manner, though blushing for very shame, "I told him to do that yesterday ... the woman had been worrying me for a whole week, don't you know." Two red spots appeared on Sarudine's scrupulously shaven cheeks, and the muscles of his face worked convulsively. He silently resumed his walk up and down the room and suddenly stopped in front of Tanaroff. "Look here," he said, and his voice trembled with anger, "I should be much obliged if, in future, you would leave me to manage my own money- affairs." Tanaroff's face flushed crimson. "H'm! A trifle like that!" he muttered, shrugging his shoulders. "It is not a question of trifles," continued Sarudine, bitterly, "it is the principle of the thing. May I ask what right you ..." "I ..." stammered Tanaroff. "Pray don't explain," said Sarudine, in the same cutting tone. "I must beg you not to take such a liberty again." Tanaroff's lips quivered. He hung his head, and nervously fingered his mother-of-pearl cigarette-holder. After a moment's pause, Sarudine turned sharply round, and, jingling the keys loudly, opened the drawer of his bureau. "There! go and buy what is wanted!" he said irritably, but in a calmer tone, as he handed the soldier a hundred-rouble note. "Very good, sir," replied the soldier, who saluted and withdrew. Sarudine pointedly locked his cash-box and shut the drawer of the bureau. Tanaroff had just time to glance at the box containing the fifty roubles which he needed so much, and then, sighing, lit a cigarette. He felt deeply mortified, yet he was afraid to show this, lest Sarudine should become more angry. "What are two roubles to him?" he thought, "He knows very well that I am hard up." Sarudine continued walking up and down obviously irritated, but gradually growing calmer. When the servant brought in the beer, he drank off a tumbler of the ice-cold foaming beverage with evident gusto. Then as he sucked the end of his moustache, he said, as if nothing had happened. "Lida came again to see me yesterday, A fine girl, I tell you! As hot as they make them." Tanaroff, still smarting, made no reply. Sarudine, however, did not notice this, and slowly crossed the room, his eyes laughing as if at some secret recollection. His strong, healthy organism, enervated by the heat, was the more sensible to the influence of exciting thought. Suddenly he laughed, a short laugh; it was as if he had neighed. Then he stopped. "You know yesterday I tried to ..." (here he used a coarse, and in reference to a woman, a most humiliating, expression) "She jibbed a bit, at first; that wicked look in her eyes; you know the sort of thing!" His animal instincts roused in their turn, Tanaroff grinned lecherously. "But afterwards, it was all right; never had such a time in my life!" said Sarudine, and he shivered at the recollection. "Lucky chap!" exclaimed Tanaroff, enviously. "Is Sarudine at home?" cried a loud voice from the Street. "May we come in?" It was Ivanoff. Sarudine started, fearful lest his words about Lida Sanina should have been heard by some one else. But Ivanoff had hailed him from the roadway, and was not even visible. "Yes, yes, he's at home!" cried Sarudine from the window. In the ante-room there was a noise of laughter and clattering of feet, as if the house were being invaded by a merry crowd. Then Ivanoff, Novikoff, Captain Malinowsky, two other officers, and Sanine all appeared. "Hurrah!" cried Malinowsky, as he pushed his way in. His face was purple, he had fat, flabby cheeks and a moustache like two wisps of straw. "How are you, boys?" "Bang goes another twenty-five-rouble note!" thought Sarudine with some irritation. As he was mainly anxious, however, not to lose his reputation for being a wealthy, open-handed fellow, he exclaimed, smiling, "Hallo! Where are you all going? Here! Tcherepanoff get some vodka, and whatever's wanted. Run across to the club and order some beer. You would like some beer, gentlemen, eh? A hot day like this?" When beer and vodka had been brought, the din grew greater. All were laughing, and shouting and drinking, apparently bent on making as much noise as possible. Only Novikoff seemed moody and depressed; his good- tempered face wore an evil expression. It was not until yesterday that he had discovered what the whole town had been talking about; and at first a sense of humiliation and jealousy utterly overcame him. "It's impossible! It's absurd! Silly gossip!" he said to himself, refusing to believe that Lida, so fair, so proud, so unapproachable, Lida whom he so deeply loved, could possibly have scandalously compromised herself with such a creature as Sarudine whom he looked upon as infinitely inferior and more stupid than himself. Then wild, bestial jealousy took possession of his soul. He had moments of the bitterest despair, and anon he was consumed by fierce hatred of Lida, and specially of Sarudine, To his placid, indolent temperament this feeling was so strange that it craved an outlet. All night long he had pitied himself, even thinking of suicide, but when morning came he only longed with a wild, inexplicable longing to set eyes upon Sarudine. Now amid the noise and drunken laughter, he sat apart, drinking mechanically glass after glass, while intently watching every movement of Sarudine's, much as some wild beast in a wood watches another wild beast, pretending to see nothing, yet ever ready to spring. Everything about Sarudine, his smile, his white teeth, his good looks, his voice, were for Novikoff, all so many daggers thrust into an open wound. "Sarudine," said a tall lean officer with exceptionally long, unwieldy arms, "I've brought you a book." Above the general clamour Novikoff instantly caught the name, Sarudine, and the sound of his voice, as well, all other voices seeming mute. "What sort of book?" "It's about women, by Tolstoi," replied the lanky officer, raising his voice as if he were making a report. On his long sallow face there was a look of evident pride at being able to read and discuss Tolstoi. "Do you read Tolstoi?" asked Ivanoff, who had noticed this naively complacent expression. "Von Deitz is mad about Tolstoi," exclaimed Malinowsky, with a loud guffaw. Sarudine took the slender red-covered pamphlet, and, turning over a few pages, said, "Is it interesting?" "You'll see for yourself," replied Von Deitz with enthusiasm. "There's a brain for you, my word! It's just as if one had known it all one's self!" "But why should Victor Sergejevitsch read Tolstoi when he has his own special views concerning women?" asked Novikoff, in a low tone, not taking his eyes off his glass. "What makes you think that?" rejoined Sarudine warily, scenting an attack. Novikoff was silent. With all that was in him, he longed to hit Sarudine full in the face, that pretty self-satisfied-looking face, to fling him to the ground, and kick him, in a blind fury of passion. But the words that he wanted would not come; he knew, and it tortured him the more to know, that he was saying the wrong thing, as with a sneer, he replied. "It is enough to look at you, to know that." The strange, menacing tone of his voice produced a sudden lull, almost as if a murder had been committed. Ivanoff guessed what was the matter. "It seems to me that ..." began Sarudine coldly. His manner had changed somewhat, though he did not lose his self-control. "Come, come, gentlemen! What's the matter?" cried Ivanoff. "Don't interfere! Let them fight it out!" interposed Sanine, laughing. "It does not seem, but it is so!" said Novikoff, in the same tone, his eyes still fixed on his glass. Instantly, as it were, a living wall rose up between the rivals, amid much shouting, waving of arms, and expressions of amusement or of surprise. Sarudine was held back by Malinowsky and Von Deitz, while Ivanoff and the other officers kept Novikoff in check. Ivanoff filled up the glasses, and shouted out something, addressing no one in particular. The gaiety was now forced and insincere, and Novikoff felt suddenly that he must get away. He could bear it no longer. Smiling foolishly, he turned to Ivanoff and the officers who were trying to engage his attention. "What is the matter with me?" he thought, half-dazed. "I suppose I ought to strike him ... rush at him, and give him one in the eye! Otherwise, I shall look such a fool, for they must all have guessed that I wanted to pick a quarrel...." But, instead of doing this, he pretended to be interested in what Ivanoff and Von Deitz were saying. "As regards women, I don't altogether agree with Tolstoi," said the officer complacently. "A woman's just a female," replied Ivanoff, "In every thousand men you might find one worthy to be called a man. But women, bah! They're all alike--just little naked, plump, rosy apes without tails!" "Rather smart, that!" said Von Deitz, approvingly. "And true, too," thought Novikoff, bitterly. "My dear fellow," continued Ivanoff, waving his hands close to the other's nose, "I'll tell you what, if you were to go to people and say, 'Whatsoever woman looketh on a man to lust after him hath committed adultery with him already in her heart,' most of them would probably think that you had made a most original remark." Von Deitz burst into a fit of hoarse laughter that sounded like the barking of a dog. He had not understood Ivanoff's joke, but felt sorry not to have made it himself. Suddenly Novikoff held out his hand to him. "What? Are you off?" asked Von Deitz in surprise. Novikoff made no reply. "Where are you going?" asked Sanine. Still Novikoff was silent. He felt that in another moment the grief pent up within his bosom must break forth in a flood of tears. "I know what's wrong with you," said Sanine. "Spit on it all!" Novikoff glanced piteously at him. His lips trembled and with a deprecating gesture, he silently went out, feeling utterly overcome at his own helplessness. To soothe himself, he thought: "Of what good would it have been to hit that blackguard in the face? It would have only led to a stupid fight. Better not soil my hands!" But the sense of jealously unsatisfied and of utter impotence still oppressed him, and he returned home in deep dejection. Flinging himself on his bed, he buried his face in the pillows and lay thus almost the whole day long, bitterly conscious that he could do nothing. "Shall we play makao?" asked Malinowsky. "All right!" said Ivanoff. The orderly at once opened the card-table and gaily the green cloth beamed upon them all. Malinowsky's suggestion had roused the company, and he now began to shuffle the cards with his short, hairy fingers. The bright coloured cards were now scattered circle-wise on the green table, as the chink of silver roubles was heard after each deal, while on all sides fingers like spiders closed greedily on the coin. Only brief, hoarse ejaculations were audible, expressing either vexation or pleasure. Sarudine had no luck. He obstinately made a point of staking fifteen roubles, and lost every time. His handsome face wore a look of extreme irritation. Last month he had gambled away seven hundred roubles, and now there was all this to add to his previous loss. His ill-humour was contagious, for soon between Von Deitz and Malinowsky there was an interchange of high words. "I have staked on the side, there!" exclaimed Von Deitz irritably. It amazed him that this drunken boor, Malinowsky, should dare to dispute with such a clever, accomplished person as himself. "Oh! so you say!" replied Malinowsky, rudely. "Damnation, take it! when I win, then you tell me you've staked on the side, and when I lose ..." "I beg your pardon," said Von Deitz, dropping his Russian accent, as he was wont to do when angry. "Pardon be hanged! Take back your stake! No! No! Take it back, I say!" "But let me tell you, sir, that ..." "Good God, gentlemen! what the devil does all this mean?" shouted Sarudine, as he flung down his cards. At this juncture a new comer appeared in the doorway, Sarudine was ashamed of his own vulgar outburst, and of his noisy, drunken guests, with their cards and bottles, for the whole scene suggested a low tavern. The visitor was tall and thin, and wore a loosely-fitting white suit, and an extremely high collar. He stood on the threshold amazed, endeavouring to recognize Sarudine. "Hallo! Pavel Lvovitsch! What brings you here?" cried Sarudine, as, crimson with annoyance, he advanced to greet him. The newcomer entered in hesitating fashion, and the eyes of all were fixed on his dazzlingly white shoes picking their way through the beer- bottles, corks and cigarette-ends. So white and neat and scented was he, that, in all these clouds of smoke, and amid all these flushed, drunken fellows, he might have been likened to a lily in the marsh, had he not looked so frail and worn-out, and if his features had not been so puny, nor his teeth so decayed under his scanty, red moustache. "Where have you come from? Have you been away a long while from Pitjer?" [Footnote: A slang term for St. Petersburg.] said Sarudine, somewhat flurried, as he feared that "Pitjer" was not exactly the word which he ought to have used. "I only got here yesterday," said the gentleman in white, in a determined tone, though his voice sounded like the suppressed crowing of a cock. "My comrades," said Sarudine, introducing the others. "Gentlemen, this is Mr. Pavel Lvovitsch Volochine." Volochine bowed slightly. "We must make a note of that!" observed the tipsy Ivanoff, much to Sarudine's horror. "Pray sit down, Pavel Lvovitsch. Would you like some wine or some beer?" Volochine sat down carefully in an arm-chair and his white, immaculate form stood out sharply against the dingy oil-cloth cover. "Please don't trouble. I just came to see you for a moment," he said, somewhat coldly, as he surveyed the company. "How's that? I'll send for some white wine. You like white wine, don't you?" asked Sarudine, and he hurried out. "Why on earth does the fool want to come here today?" he thought, irritably, as he sent the orderly to fetch wine. "This Volochine will say such things about me in Petersburg that I shan't be able to get a footing in any decent house." Meanwhile Volochine was taking stock of the others with undisguised curiosity, feeling that he himself was immeasurably superior. There was a look in his little glassy, grey eyes of unfeigned interest, as if he were being shown a collection of wild beasts. He was specially attracted by Sanine's height, his powerful physique, and his dress. "An interesting type, that! He must be pretty strong!" he thought, with the genuine admiration of the weakling for the athlete. In fact, he began to speak to Sanine but the latter, leaning against the window- sill, was looking out at the garden. Volochine stopped short; the very sound of his own squeaky voice vexed him. "Hooligans!" he thought. At this moment Sarudine came back. He sat down next to Volochine and asked questions about St. Petersburg, and also about the latter's factory, so as to let the others know what a very wealthy and important person his visitor was. The handsome face of this sturdy animal now wore an expression of petty vanity and self-importance. "Everything's the same with us, just the same!" replied Volochine, in a bored tone of voice. "How is it with you?" "Oh! I'm just vegetating," said Sarudine with a mournful sigh. Volochine was silent, and looked up disdainfully at the ceiling where the green reflections from the garden wavered. "Our one and only amusement is this," continued Sarudine, as with a gesture he indicated the cards, the bottles, and his guests. "Yes, yes!" drawled Volochine; to Sarudine his tone seemed to say, "and you're no better, either." "I think I must be going now. I'm staying at the hotel on the boulevard. I may see you again!" Volochine rose to take his leave. At this moment the orderly entered and saluting in slovenly fashion, said, "The young lady is there, sir." Sarudine started. "What?" he cried. "She has come, sir." "Ah I yes, I know," said Sarudine. He glanced about him nervously, feeling a sudden presentiment. "I wonder if it's Lida?" he thought. "Impossible!" Volochine's inquisitive eyes twinkled. His puny little body in its loose white clothes seemed to acquire new vitality. "Well, good-bye!" he said, laughing. "Up to your old tricks, as usual! Ha! Ha!" Sarudine smiled uneasily, as he accompanied his visitor to the door, and with a parting stare the latter in his immaculate shoes hurried off. "Now, sirs," said Sarudine, on his return, "how's the game going? Take the bank for me, will you, Tanaroff? I shall be back directly." He spoke hastily; his eyes were restless. "That's a lie!" growled the drunken, bestial Malinowsky. "We mean to have a good look at that young lady of yours." Tanaroff seized him by the shoulders and forced him back into his chair. The others hurriedly resumed their places at the card-table, not looking at Sarudine. Sanine also sat down, but there was a certain seriousness in his smile. He had guessed that it was Lida who had come, and a vague sense of jealousy and pity was roused within him for his handsome sister, now obviously in great distress. CHAPTER XVII. Sideways, on Sarudine's bed, sat Lida, in despair, convulsively twisting her handkerchief. As he came in he was struck by her altered appearance. Of the proud, high-spirited girl there was not a trace. He now saw before him a dejected woman, broken by grief, with sunken cheeks and lifeless eyes. These dark eyes instantly met his, and then as swiftly shunned his gaze. Instinctively he knew that Lida feared him, and a feeling of intense irritation suddenly arose within him. Closing the door with a bang, he walked straight up to her. "You really are a most extraordinary person," he began, with difficulty checking his fierce wish to strike her. "Here am I, with a room full of people; your brother's there, too! Couldn't you have chosen some other time to come? Upon my word, it is too provoking!" From the dark eyes there shot such a strange flash that Sarudine quailed. His tone changed. He smiled, showing his white teeth, and taking Lida's hand, sat down beside her on the bed. "Well, well, it doesn't matter. I was only anxious on your account. I am ever so glad that you've come. I was longing to see you." Sarudine raised her hot, perfumed little hand to his lips, and kissed it just above the glove. "Is that the truth?" asked Lida. The curious tone of her voice surprised him. Again she looked up at him, and her eyes said plainly, "Is it true that you love me? You see how wretched I am, now. Not like I was once. I am afraid of you, and I feel all the humiliation of my present state, but I have no one except you that can help me." "How can you doubt it?" replied Sarudine. The words sounded insincere, almost cold. Again he took her hand and kissed it. He was entangled in a strange coil of sensations and of thoughts. Only two days ago on this very pillow had lain the dark tresses of Lida's dishevelled hair as he held her in his arms and their lips had met in a frenzy of passion uncontrolled. In that moment of desire the whole world and all his countless sensuous schemes of enjoyment with other women seemed realized and attained; the desire in deliberate and brutal fashion deeply to wrong this nature placed by passion within his power. And now, all at once, his feeling for her was one of loathing. He would have liked to thrust her from him; he wished never to see her or hear her again. So overpowering was this desire, that to sit beside her became positive torture. At the same time a vague dread of her deprived him of will-power and forced him to remain. He was perfectly aware that there was nothing whatever to bind him to her, and that it was with her own consent that he had possessed her, without any promise on his part. Each had given just as each had taken. Nevertheless he felt as if caught in some sticky substance from which he could not free himself. He foresaw that Lida would make some claim upon him, and that he must either consent, or else commit a base, vile act. He appeared to be as utterly powerless as if the bones had been removed from his legs and arms, and as if, instead of a tongue in his mouth, there were a moist rag. He wanted to shout at her, and let her know once for all that she had no right to ask anything of him, but his heart was benumbed by craven fear, and to his lips there rose a senseless phrase which he knew to be absolutely unfitting. "Oh! women, women!" Lida looked at him in horror. A pitiless light seemed to flash across her mind. In one instant she realized that she was lost. What she had given that was noble and pure, she had given to a man that did not exist. Her fair young life, her purity, her pride, had all been flung at the feet of a base, cowardly brute who instead of being grateful to her had merely soiled her by acts of coarse lubricity. For a moment she felt ready to wring her hands and fall to the ground in an agony of despair, but lightning-swift her mood changed to one of revenge and bitter hatred. "Can't you really see how intensely stupid you are?" she hissed through her clenched teeth, as she looked straight into his eyes. The insolent words and the look of hatred were so unsuited to Lida, gracious, feminine Lida, that Sarudine instinctively recoiled. He had not quite understood their import, and sought to pass them by with a jest. "What words to use!" he said, surprised and annoyed. "I'm not in a mood to choose my words," replied Lida bitterly, as she wrung her hands. Sarudine frowned. "Why all these tragic airs?" he asked. Unconsciously allured by their beauty of outline, he glanced at her soft shoulders and exquisitely moulded arms. Her gesture of helplessness and despair made him feel sure of his superiority. It was as if they were being weighed in scales, one sinking when the other rose. Sarudine felt a cruel pleasure in knowing that this girl whom instinctively he had considered superior to himself was now made to suffer through him. In the first stage of their intimacy he had feared her. Now she had been brought to shame and dishonour; at which he was glad. He grew softer. Gently he took her strengthless hands in his, and drew her closer to him. His senses were roused; his breath came quicker. "Never mind! It'll be all right! There is nothing so dreadful about it, after all!" "So you think, eh?" replied Lida scornfully. It was scorn that helped her to recover herself, and she gazed at him with strange intensity. "Why, of course I do," said Sarudine, attempting to embrace her in a way that he knew to be effective. But she remained cold and lifeless. "Come, now, why are you so cross, my pretty one?" he murmured in a gentle tone of reproof. "Let me go! Let me go, I say!" exclaimed Lida, as she shook him off. Sarudine felt physically hurt that his passion should have been roused in vain. "Women are the very devil!" he thought. "What's the matter with you?" he asked testily, and his face flushed. As if the question had brought something to her mind, she suddenly covered her face with both hands and burst into tears. She wept just as peasant-women weep, sobbing loudly, her face buried in her hands, her body being bent forward, while her dishevelled hair drooped over her wet, distorted countenance. Sarudine was utterly nonplussed. He smiled, though yet afraid that this might give offence, and tried to pull away her hands from her face. Lida stubbornly resisted, weeping all the while. "Oh! my God!" he exclaimed. He longed to shout at her, to wrench her hands aside, to call her hard names, "What are you whining for like this? You've gone wrong with me, worse luck, and there it is! Why all this weeping just to-day? For heaven's sake, stop!" Speaking thus roughly, he caught hold of her hand. The jerk caused her head to oscillate to and fro. She suddenly stopped crying, and removed her hands from her tear-stained face, looking up at him in childish fear. A crazy thought flashed through her mind that anybody might strike her now. But Sarudine's manner again softened, and he said in a consoling voice: "Come, my Lidotschka, don't cry any more! You're to blame, as well! Why make a scene? You've lost a lot, I know; but, still, we had so much happiness, too, didn't we? And we must just forget...." Lida began to sob once more. "Oh! stop it, do!" he shouted. Then he walked across the room, nervously pulling his moustache, and his lips quivered. In the room it was quite still. Outside the window the slender boughs of a tree swayed gently, as if a bird had just perched thereon. Sarudine, endeavouring to check himself, approached Lida, and gently placed his arm round her waist. But she instantly broke away from him and in so doing struck him violently on the chin, so that his teeth rattled. "Devil take it!" he exclaimed angrily. It hurt him considerably, and the droll sound of his rattling teeth annoyed him even more. Lida had not heard this, yet instinctively she felt that Sarudine's position was a ridiculous one, and with feminine cruelty she took advantage of it. "What words to use!" she said, imitating him. "It's enough to make any one furious," replied Sarudine peevishly. "If only I knew what was the matter!" "You mean to say that you still don't know?" said Lida in a cutting tone. There was a pause. Lida looked hard at him, her face red as fire. Sarudine turned pale, as if suddenly covered by a grey veil. "Well, why are you silent? Why don't you speak? Speak! Say something to comfort me!" she shrieked, her voice becoming hysterical in tone. The very sound of it alarmed her. "I ..." began Sarudine, and his under-lip quivered. "Yes, you, and nobody else but you, worse luck!" she screamed, almost stifled with tears of rage and of despair. From him as from her the mask of comeliness and good manners had fallen. The wild untrammelled beast became increasingly evident in each. Ideas like scurrying mice rushed through Sarudine's mind. His first thought was to give Lida money, and persuade her to get rid of the child. He must break with her at once, and for ever. That would end the whole business. Yet though he considered this to be the best way, he said nothing. "I really never thought that ..." he stammered. "You never thought!" exclaimed Lida wildly. "Why didn't you? What right had you not to think?" "But, Lida, I never told you that I ..." he faltered, feeling afraid of what he was going to say, yet conscious that he would yet do so, all the same. Lida, however, had understood, without waiting for him to speak. Her beautiful face grew dark, distorted by horror and despair. Her hands fell limply to her side as she sat down on the bed. "What shall I do?" she said, as if thinking aloud. "Drown myself?" "No, no! Don't talk like that!" Lida looked hard at him. "Do you know, Victor Sergejevitsch, I feel pretty sure that such a thing would not displease you," she said. In her eyes and in her pretty quivering mouth there was something so sad, so pitiful, that Sarudine involuntarily turned away. Lida rose. The thought, consoling at first, that she would find in him her saviour with whom she would always live, now inspired her with horror and loathing. She longed to shake her fist at him, to fling her scorn in his face, to revenge herself on him for having humiliated her thus. But she felt that at the very first words she would burst into tears. A last spark of pride, all that remained of the handsome, dashing Lida, deterred her. In a tone of such intense scorn that it surprised herself as much as Sarudine, she hissed out, "You brute!" Then she rushed out of the room, tearing the lace trimming of her sleeve which caught on the bolt of the door. Sarudine flushed to the roots of his hair. Had she called him "wretch," or "villain," he could have borne that calmly, but "brute" was such a coarse word so absolutely opposed to his conception of his own engaging personality, that it utterly stunned him. Even the whites of his eyes became bloodshot. He sniggered uneasily, shrugged his shoulders, buttoned and then unbuttoned his jacket, feeling thoroughly upset. But simultaneously a sense of satisfaction and relief waxed greater within him. All was at an end. It irked him to think that he would never again possess such a woman as Lida, that he had lost so comely and desirable a mistress. But he dismissed all such regret with a gesture of disdain. "Devil take the lot! I can get hold of as many as I please!" He put his jacket straight, and, his lips still quivering, lit a cigarette. Then assuming his wonted air of nonchalance, he returned to his guests. CHAPTER XVIII. All the gamblers except the drunken Malinowsky had lost their interest in the game. They were intensely curious to know who the lady was that had come to see Sarudine, Those who guessed that it was Lida Sanina felt instinctively jealous, picturing to themselves her white body in Sarudine's embrace. After a while Sanine got up from the table and said: "I shall not play any more. Good-bye." "Wait a minute, my friend, where are you going?" asked Ivanoff. "I'm going to see what they are about, in there," replied Sanine, pointing to the closed door. "Don't be a fool I Sit down and have a drink!" said Ivanoff. "You're the fool!" rejoined Sanine, as he went out. On reaching a narrow side-street where nettles grew in profusion, Sanine bethought himself of the exact spot which Sarudine's windows overlooked. Carefully treading down the nettles, he climbed the wall. When on the top, he almost forgot why he had got up there at all, so charming was it to look down on the green grass and the pretty garden, and to feel the soft breeze blowing pleasantly on his hot, muscular limbs. Then he dropped down into the nettles on the other side, irritably rubbing the places where they had stung him. Crossing the garden, he reached the window just as Lida said: "You mean to say that you still don't know?" By the strange tone of her voice Sanine instantly guessed what was the matter. Leaning against the wall and looking at the garden, he eagerly listened. He felt pity for his handsome sister for whose beautiful personality the gross term "pregnant" seemed so unfitting. What impressed him even more than the conversation peas the singular contrast between these furious human voices and the sweet silence of the verdurous garden. A white butterfly fluttered across the grass, revelling the sunlight. Sanine watched its progress just as intently as he listened to the talking. When Lida exclaimed: "You brute!" Sanine laughed merrily, and slowly crossed the garden, careless as to who should see him. A lizard darted across his path, and for a long while he followed the swift movements of its little supple green body in the long grass. CHAPTER XIX. Lida did not go home, but hurriedly turned her steps in an opposite direction. The streets were empty, the air stifling. Close to the wall and fence lay the short shadows, vanquished by the triumphant sun. Through mere force of habit, Lida opened her parasol. She never noticed if it was cold or hot, light or dark. She walked swiftly past the fences all dusty and overgrown with weeds, her head bowed, her eyes downcast. Now and again she met a few gasping pedestrians half- suffocated by the heat. Over the town lay silence, the oppressive silence of a summer afternoon. A little white puppy had followed Lida. After eagerly sniffing her dress, it ran on in front, and, looking round, wagged its tail, as if to say that they were comrades. At the corner of a street stood a funny little fat boy, a portion of whose shirt peeped out at the back of his breeches. With cheeks distended and fruit-stained, he was vigorously blowing a wooden pipe. Lida beckoned to the little puppy and smiled at the boy. Yet she did so almost unconsciously; her soul was imprisoned. An obscure force, separating her from the world, swept her onward, past the sunlight, the verdure, and all the joy of life, towards a black gulf that by the dull anguish within her she knew to be near. An officer of her acquaintance rode by. On seeing Lida he reined in his horse, a roan, whose glossy coat shone in the sunlight. "Lidia Petrovna!" he cried, in a pleasant, cheery voice, "Where are you going in all this heat?" Mechanically her eyes glanced at his forage-cap, jauntily poised on his moist, sunburnt brow. She did not speak, but merely smiled her habitual, coquettish smile. At that moment, ignorant herself as to what might happen, she echoed his question: "Ah! where, indeed?" She no longer felt angry with Sarudine. Hardly knowing why she had gone to him, for it seemed impossible to live without him, or bear her grief alone. Yet it was as if he had just vanished from her life. The past was dead. That which remained concerned her alone; and as to that she alone could decide. Her brain worked with feverish haste, her thoughts being yet clear and plain. The most dreadful thing was, that the proud, handsome Lida would disappear, and in her stead there would be a wretched being, persecuted, besmirched, defenceless. Pride and beauty must be retained. Therefore, she must go, she must get away to some place where the mud could not touch her. This fact clearly established, Lida suddenly imagined herself encircled by a void; life, sunlight, human beings, no longer existed; she was alone in their midst, absolutely alone. There was no escape; she must die, she must drown herself. In a moment this became such a certainty that it was as if round her a wall of stone had arisen to shut her off from all that had been, and from all that might be. "How simple it really is!" she thought, looking round, yet seeing nothing. She walked faster now; and though hindered by her wide skirts, she almost ran, it seemed to her as if her progress were intolerably slow. "Here's a house, and yonder there's another one, with green shutters; and then, an open space." The river, the bridge, and what was to happen there--she had no clear conception of this. It was as a cloud, a mist that covered all. But such a state of mind only lasted until she reached the bridge. As she leant over the parapet and saw the greenish, turbid water, her confidence instantly forsook her. She was seized with fear and a wild desire to live. Now her perception of living things came back to her. She heard voices, and the twittering of sparrows; she saw the sunlight, the daisies in the grass, and the little white dog, that evidently looked upon her as his rightful mistress. It sat opposite to her, put up a tiny paw, and beat the ground with its tail. Lida gazed at it, longing to hug it convulsively, and large tears filled her eyes. Infinite regret for her beautiful, ruined life overcame her. Half fainting, she leant forward, over the edge of the sun-baked parapet, and the sudden movement caused her to drop one of her gloves into the water. In mute horror she watched it fall noiselessly on the smooth surface of the water, making large circles. She saw her pale yellow glove become darker and darker, and then filling slowly with water, and turning over once, as in its death- agony, sink down gradually with a spiral movement to the green depths of the stream. Lida strained her eyes to mark its descent, but the yellow spot grew ever smaller and more indistinct, and at last disappeared. All that met her gaze was the smooth, dark surface of the water. "How did that happen, miss?" asked a female voice, close to her. Lida started backwards, and saw a fat, snub-nosed peasant-woman who looked at her with sympathetic curiosity. Although such sympathy was only intended for the lost glove, to Lida it seemed as if the good-natured, fat woman knew all, and pitied her. For a moment she was minded to tell her the whole story, and thus gain some relief, but she swiftly rejected the idea as foolish. She blushed, and stammered out, "Oh, it's nothing!" as she reeled backwards from the bridge. "Here it's impossible! They would pull me out!" she thought. She walked farther along the river-bank and followed a smooth foot-path to the left between the river and a hedge. On either side were nettles and daisies, sheep's parsley and ill-smelling garlic. Here it was calm and peaceful as in some village church. Tall willows bent dreamily over the stream; the steep, green banks were bathed in sunlight; tall burdocks flourished amid the nettles, and prickly thistles became entangled in the lace trimming of Lida's dress. One huge plant powdered her with its white seeds. Lida had now to force herself to go farther, striving to overcome a mighty power within which held her back. "It must be! It must! It must!" she repeated, as, dragging herself along, her feet seemed to break their bonds at every step which took her farther from the bridge and nearer to the place at which unconsciously she had determined to stop. On reaching it, when she saw the black, cold water underneath over- arching boughs, and the current swirling past a corner of the steep bank, then she realized for the first time how much she longed to live, and how awful it was to die. Yet die she must, for to live on was impossible. Without looking round, she flung down her other glove and her parasol, and, leaving the path, walked through the tall grasses to the water. In that moment a thousand thoughts passed through her brain. Deep in her soul, where long it had lain dormant, her childish faith awoke, as with simple fervour she repeated this short prayer, "Lord, save me! Lord, help me!" She suddenly recollected the refrain of a song that latterly she had been studying; for an instant she thought of Sarudine, and then she saw the face of her mother who seemed doubly dear to her in this awful moment. Indeed it was this last recollection which drove her faster to the river. Never till then had Lida so keenly realized that her mother and all those who loved her, did not love her for what she really was, with all her defects and desires, but only for that which they wished her to be. Now that she had strayed from the path that according to them was the only right one, these persons, and especially her mother, having loved her much, would now prove proportionately severe. Then, as in a delirious dream, all became confused; fear, the longing to live, the sense of the inevitable, unbelief, the conviction that all was at an end, hope, despair, the horrible consciousness that this was the spot where she must die, and then the vision of a man strangely like her brother who leapt over a hedge and rushed towards her. "You could not have thought of anything sillier!" cried Sanine, breathless. By a strange coincidence it so happened that Lida had reached the very spot adjoining Sarudine's garden where first she had surrendered to him, a place, screened by dark trees from the light of the moon. Sanine had seen her in the distance, and had guessed her intention. At first he was for letting her have her way, but her wild, convulsive movements aroused his pity, and vaulting the garden-seats and the bushes he hastened to her rescue. Her brother's voice had an alarming effect upon Lida. Her nerves, wrought to the utmost pitch by her inward conflict, suddenly gave way. She became giddy; everything swam before her eyes, and she no longer knew if she were in the water or on the river-bank. Sanine had just time to seize her firmly and drag her backwards, secretly pleased at his own strength and adroitness. "There!" he said. He placed her in a sitting posture against the hedge, and then looked about him. "What shall I do with her?" he thought. Lida in that moment recovered consciousness, as pale and confused, she began to weep piteously. "My God! My God!" she sobbed, like a child. "Silly thing!" said Sanine, chiding her good-humouredly. Lida did not hear him, but, as he moved, she clutched at his arm, sobbing more violently. "Ah! what am I doing?" she thought fearfully. "I ought not to weep; I must try and laugh it off, or else he'll guess what is wrong." "Well, why are you so upset?" asked Sanine, as he patted her shoulder tenderly. Lida looked up at him under her hat, timidly as a child, and stopped crying. "I know all about it," said Sanine; "the whole story. I've done so for ever so long." Though Lida was aware that several persons suspected the nature of her relations with Sarudine, yet when Sanine said this, it was as if he had struck her in the face. Her supple form recoiled in horror; she gazed at him dry-eyed, like some wild animal at bay. "What's the matter, now? You behave as if I had trodden on your foot," laughed Sanine. Taking hold of her round, soft shoulders, which quivered at his touch, he tenderly drew her back to her former place by the hedge, and she obediently submitted. "Come now, what is it that distresses you so?" he said. "Is it because I know all? Or do you think your misconduct with Sarudine so dreadful that you are afraid to acknowledge it? I really don't understand you. But, if Sarudine won't marry you, well--that is a thing to be thankful for. You know now, and you must have known before, what a base, common fellow he really is, in spite of his good looks and his fitness for amours. All that he has is beauty, and you have now had your fill of that." "He of mine, not I of his!" she faltered. "Ah I well yes, perhaps I had! Oh! my God, what shall I do?" "And now you are pregnant...." Lida shut her eyes and bowed her head. "Of course, it's a bad business," continued Sanine, gently. "In the first place, giving birth to children is a nasty, painful affair; in the second place, and what really matters, people would persecute you incessantly. After all, Lidotschka, my Lidotschka," he said with a sudden access of affection, "you've not done harm to anybody; and, if you were to bring a dozen babies into the world, the only person to suffer thereby would be yourself." Sanine paused to reflect, as he folded his arms across his chest and bit the ends of his moustache. "I could tell you what you ought to do, but you are too weak and too foolish to follow my advice. You are not plucky enough. Anyhow, it is not worth while to commit suicide. Look at the sun shining, at the calm, flowing stream. Once dead, remember, every one would know what your condition had been. Of what good, then, would that be to you? It is not because you are pregnant that you want to die, but because you are afraid of what other folk will say. The terrible part of your trouble lies, not in the actual trouble itself, but because you put it between yourself and your life which, as you think, ought to end. But, in reality, that will not alter life a jot. You do not fear folk who are remote, but those who are close to you, especially those who love you and who regard your surrender as utterly shocking because it was made in a wood, or a meadow, instead of in a lawful marriage-bed. They will not be slow to punish you for your offence, so, of what good are they to you? They are stupid, cruel, brainless people. Why should you die because of stupid, cruel, brainless people?" Lida looked up at him with her great questioning eyes in which Sanine could detect a spark of comprehension. "But what am I to do? Tell me, what ... what ..." she murmured huskily. "For you there are two ways open: you must get rid of this child that nobody wants, and whose birth, as you must see yourself, will only bring trouble." Lida's eyes expressed wild horror. "To kill a being that knows the joy of living and the terror of death is a grave injustice," he continued; "but a germ, an unconscious mass of flesh and blood ..." Lida experienced a strange sensation. At first shame overwhelmed her, such shame as if she were completely stripped, while brutal fingers touched her. She dared not look at her brother, fearing that for very shame they would both expire. But Sanine's grey eyes wore a calm expression, and his voice was firm and even in tone, as if he were talking of ordinary matters. It was this quiet strength of utterance and the profound truth of his words that removed Lida's shame and fear. Yet suddenly despair prevailed, as she clasped her forehead, while the flimsy sleeves of her dress fluttered like the wings of a startled bird. "I cannot, no, I cannot!" she faltered, "I dare say you're right, but I cannot! It is so awful!" "Well, well, if you can't," said Sanine, as he knelt down, and gently drew away her hands from her face, "we must contrive to hide it, somehow. I will see to it that Sarudine has to leave the town, and you --well, you shall marry Novikoff, and be happy. I know that if you had never met this dashing young officer, you would have accepted Sascha Novikoff. I am certain of it." At the mention of Novikoff's name Lida saw light through the gloom. Because Sarudine had made her unhappy, and she was convinced that Novikoff would never have done so, for an instant it seemed to her that all could easily be set right. She would at once get up, go back, say something or other, and life in all its radiant beauty would again lie before her. Again she would live, again she would love, only this time it would be a better life, a deeper, purer love. Yet immediately afterwards she recollected that this was impossible, for she had been soiled and degraded by an ignoble, senseless amour. A gross word, which she scarcely knew and had never uttered, suddenly came into her mind. She applied it to herself. It was as if she had received a box on the ears. "Great heavens! Am I really a ...? Yes, yes, of course, I am!" "What did you say?" she murmured, ashamed of her own resonant voice. "Well, what is it to be?" asked Sanine, as he glanced at her pretty hair falling in disorder about her white neck flecked by sunlight breaking through the network of leaves. A sudden fear seized him that he would not succeed in persuading her, and that this young, beautiful woman, fitted to bestow such joy upon others, might vanish into the dark, senseless void. Lida was silent. She strove to repress her longing to live, which, despite her will, had mastered her whole trembling frame. After all that had occurred, it seemed to her shameful not only to live, but to wish to live. Yet her body, strong and full of vitality, rejected so distorted an idea as if it were poison. "Why this silence?" asked Sanine. "Because it is impossible.... It would be a vile thing to do!... I...." "Don't talk such nonsense!" retorted Sanine impatiently. Lida looked up at him again, and in her tearful eyes there was a glimmer of hope. Sanine broke off a twig, which he bit and then flung away. "A vile thing!" he went on, "A vile thing! My words amaze you. Yet why? The question is one that neither you nor I can ever rightly answer. Crime! What is a crime? If a mother's life is in danger when giving birth to a child, and that living child, to save its mother, is destroyed that is not a crime, but an unfortunate necessity! But to suppress something that does not yet exist, that is called a crime, a horrible deed. Yes, a horrible deed, even though the mother's life, and, what is more, her happiness, depends upon it! Why must it be so? Nobody knows, but everybody loudly maintains that view, crying, 'Bravo!'" Sanine laughed sarcastically. "Oh! you men, you men! Men create for themselves phantoms, shadows, illusions, and are the first to suffer by them. But they all exclaim, 'Oh! Man is a masterpiece, noblest of all; man is the crown, the King of creation;' but a king that has never yet reigned, a suffering king that quakes at his own shadow." For a moment, Sanine paused. "After all, that is not the main point. You say that it is a vile thing. I don't know; perhaps it is. If Novikoff were to hear of your trouble, it would grieve him terribly; in fact, he might shoot himself, but yet he would love you, just the same. In that case, the blame would be his. But if he were a really intelligent man, he would not attach the slightest importance to the fact that you had already (excuse the expression!) slept with somebody else. Neither your body nor your soul have suffered thereby. Good Lord! Why, he might marry a widow himself, for instance! Therefore it is not that which prevents him, but the confused notions with which his head is filled. And, as regards yourself, if it were only possible for human beings to love once in their lives, then, a second attempt to do so would certainly prove futile and unpleasant. But this is not so. To fall in love, or to be loved, is just as delightful and desirable. You will get to love Novikoff, and, if you don't, well, we'll travel together, my Lidotschka; one can live, can't one, anywhere, after all?" Lida sighed and strove to overcome her final scruples. "Perhaps ... everything will come right again," she murmured. "Novikoff... he's so good and kind ... nice-looking, too, isn't he? Yes ... no... I don't know what to say." "If you had drowned yourself, what then? The powers of good and evil would have neither gained nor lost thereby. Your corpse, bloated, disfigured, and covered with slime, would have been dragged from the river, and buried. That would have been all!" Lida had a lurid vision of greenish, turbid water with slimy, trailing weeds and gruesome bubbles floating round her. "No, no, never!" she thought, turning pale. "I would rather bear all the shame of it ... and Novikoff ... everything ... anything but that." "Ah! look how scared you are!" said Sanine, laughing. Lida smiled through her tears, and her very smile consoled her. "Whatever happens, I mean to live!" she said with passionate energy. "Good!" exclaimed Sanine, as he jumped up. "Nothing is more awful than the thought of death. But so long as you can bear the burden without losing perception of the sights and sounds of life, I say live! Am I not right? Now, give me your paw!" Lida held out her hand. The shy, feminine gesture betokened childish gratitude. "That's right ... What a pretty little hand you've got." Lida smiled and said nothing. But Sanine's words had not proved ineffectual. Hers was a vigorous, buoyant vitality; the crisis through which she had just passed had strained that vitality to the utmost. A little more pressure, and the string would have snapped. But the pressure was not applied, and her whole being vibrated once more with an impetuous, turbulent desire to live. She looked above, around her, in ecstasy, listening to the immense joy pulsating on every side; in the sunlight, in the green meadows, the shining stream, the calm, smiling face of her brother, and in herself. It was as if she now could see and hear all this for the first time. "To be alive!" cried a gladsome voice within her. "All right!" said Sanine. "I will help you in your trouble, and stand by you when you fight your battles. And now, as you're such a beauty, you must give me a kiss." Lida smiled; a smile mysterious as that of a wood-nymph. Sanine put his arms round her waist, and, as her warm supple form thrilled at his touch, his fond embrace became almost vehement. A strange, indefinable sense of joy overcame Lida, as she yearned for life ampler and more intense. It mattered not to her what she did. She slowly put both arms round her brother's neck and, with half-closed eyes, set her lips tight to give the kiss. She felt unspeakably happy beneath Sanine's burning caress, and in that moment cared not who it was that kissed her, just as a flower warmed by the sun never asks whence comes such warmth. "What is the matter with me?" she thought, pleasurably alarmed. "Ah! yes! I wanted to drown myself ... how silly! And for what? Oh! that's nice! Again! Again! Now, I'll kiss you! It's lovely! And I don't care what happens so long as I'm alive, alive!" "There, now, you see," said Sanine, releasing her. "All good things are just good, and one mustn't make them out to be anything else." Lida smiled absently, and slowly re-arranged her hair. Sanine handed her the parasol and glove. To find the other glove was missing at first surprised her, but instantly recollecting the reason, she felt greatly amused at the absurd importance which she had given to that trifling incident. "Ah! well, that's over!" she thought, and walked with her brother along the river-bank. Fiercely the sun's rays beat upon her round, ripe bosom. CHAPTER XX. Novikoff, when he opened the door himself to Sanine, looked far from pleased at the prospect of such a visit. Everything that reminded him of Lida and of his shattered dream of bliss caused him pain. Sanine noticed this, and came into the room smiling affably. All there was in disorder, as if scattered by a whirlwind. Scraps of paper, straw, and rubbish of all sorts covered the floor. On the bed and the chairs lay books, linen, surgical instruments and a portmanteau. "Going away?" asked Sanine, in surprise. "Where?" Novikoff avoided the other's glance and continued to overhaul the things, vexed at his own confusion. At last he said: "Yes, I've got to leave this place. I've had my official notice." Sanine looked at him and then at the portmanteau. After another glance his features relaxed in a broad smile. Novikoff was silent, oppressed by his sense of utter loneliness and his inconsolable grief. Lost in his thoughts, he proceeded to wrap up a pair of boots together with some glass tubes. "If you pack like that," said Sanine, "when you arrive you'll find yourself minus either tubes or boots." Novikoff's tear-stained eyes flashed back a reply. They said, "Ah! leave me alone! Surely you can see how sad I am!" Sanine understood, and was silent. The dreamy summer twilight-hour had come, and above the verdant garden the sky, clear as crystal, grew paler. At last Sanine spoke. "Instead of going the deuce knows where, I think it would be much more sensible if you were to marry Lida." Novikoff turned round trembling. "I must ask you to stop making such stupid jokes!" he said in a shrill, hard voice. It rang out through the dusk, and echoed among the dreaming garden-trees. "Why so furious?" asked Sanine. "Look here!" began Novikoff hoarsely. In his eyes there was such an expression of rage that Sanine scarcely recognized him. "Do you mean to say that it wouldn't be a lucky thing for you to marry Lida?" continued Sanine merrily. "Shut up!" cried the other, staggering forward, and brandishing an old boot over Sanine's head. "Now then! Gently! Are you mad?" said Sanine sharply, as he stepped backwards. Novikoff flung the boot away in disgust, breathing hard. "With that boot you were actually going to ..." Sanine stopped, and shook his head. He pitied his friend, though such behaviour seemed to him utterly ridiculous. "It's your fault," stammered Novikoff in confusion. And then, suddenly, he felt full of trust and sympathy for Sanine, strong and calm as he was. He himself resembled a little school-boy, eager to tell some one of his trouble. Tears filled his eyes. "If you only knew how sad at heart I am," he murmured, striving to conquer his emotion. "My dear fellow, I know all about it--everything," said Sanine kindly. "No! You can't know all!" said Novikoff, as he sat down beside the other. He thought that no one could possibly feel such sorrow as his. "Yes, yes, I do," replied Sanine, "I swear that I do; and if you'll promise not to attack me with your old boot, I will prove what I say. Promise?" "Yes, yes! Forgive me, Volodja!" said Novikoff, calling Sanine by his first name which he had never done before. This touched Sanine, and he felt the more anxious to help his friend. "Well, then, listen," he began, as he placed his hand in confidential fashion on the other's knee. "Let us be quite frank. You are going away, because Lida refused you, and because, at Sarudine's the other day, you had an idea that it was she who came to see him in private." Novikoff bent forward, too distressed to speak. It was as if Sanine had re-opened an agonizing wound. The latter, noticing Novikoff's agitation, thought Inwardly, "You good-natured old fool!" Then he continued: "As to the relations between Lida and Sarudine, I can affirm nothing positively, for I know nothing, but I don't believe that...." He did not finish the sentence when he saw how dark the other's face became. "Their intimacy," he went on, "is of such recent date that nothing serious can have happened, especially if one considers Lida's character. You, of course, know what she is." There rose up before Novikoff the image of Lida, as he had once known and loved her; of Lida, the proud, high-spirited girl, lustrous-eyed, and crowned with serene, consummate beauty as with a radiant aureole. He shut his eyes, and put faith in Sanine's words. "Well, and if they really did flirt a bit, that's over and ended now. After all, what is it to you if a girl like Lida, young and fancy-free, has had a little amusement of this sort? Without any great effort of memory I expect you could recall at least a dozen such flirtations of a far more dangerous kind, too." Novikoff glanced trustfully at Sanine, afraid to speak, lest the faint spark of hope within him should be extinguished. At last he stammered out: "You know, if I ..."; but he got no further. Words failed him, and tears choked his utterance. "Well, if you what?" asked Sanine loudly, and his eyes shone. "I can but tell you this, that there is not and there never has been anything between Lida and Sarudine." Novikoff looked at him in amazement. "I ... well ... I thought ..." he began, feeling, to his dismay, that he could no longer believe what Sanine said. "You thought a lot of nonsense!" replied Sanine sharply. "You ought to know Lida better than that. What sort of love can there be with all that hesitation and shilly-shallying?" Novikoff, overjoyed, grasped the other's hand. Then, suddenly Sanine's face wore a furious expression as he closely watched the effect of his words upon his companion. Novikoff showed obvious pleasure at the thought of the woman he desired being immaculate. Into those honest sorrowful eyes, there came a look of animal jealousy and concupiscence. "Oho!" exclaimed Sanine threateningly, as he got up. "Then what I have to tell you is this: Lida has not only fallen in love with Sarudine, but she has also had illicit relations with him, and is now _enceinte_." There was dead silence in the room. Novikoff smiled a strange, sickly smile and rubbed his hands. From his trembling lips there issued a faint cry. Sanine stood over him, looking straight into his eyes. The wrinkled corners of his mouth showed suppressed anger. "Well, why don't you speak?" he asked. Novikoff looked up for a moment, but instantly avoided the other's glance, his features being still distorted by a vacuous smile. "Lida has just gone through a terrible ordeal," said Sanine in a low voice, as if soliloquising. If I had not chanced to overtake her, she would not be living now, and what yesterday was a healthful, handsome girl would now be lying in the river-mud, a bloated corpse, devoured by crabs. The question is not one of her death--we must each of us die some day--yet how sad to think that with her all the brightness and joy created for others by her personality would also have perished. Of course, Lida is not the only one in all the world; but, my God! if there were no girlish loveliness left, it would be as sad and gloomy as the grave. "For my part, I am eager to commit murder when I see a poor girl brought to ruin in this senseless way. Personally, it is a matter of utter indifference to me whether you marry Lida or go to the devil, but I must tell you that you are an idiot. If you had got one sound idea in your head, would you worry yourself and others so much merely because a young woman, free to pick and choose, had become the mistress of a man who was unworthy of her, and by following her sexual impulse had achieved her own complete development? Nor are you the only idiot, let me tell you. There are millions of your sort who make life into a prison, without sunshine or warmth! How often have you given rein to your lust in company with some harlot, the sharer of your sordid debauch? In Lida's case it was passion, the poetry of youth, and strength, and beauty. By what right, then, do you shrink from her, you that call yourself an intelligent, sensible man? What has her past to do with you? Is she less beautiful? Or less fitted for loving, or for being loved? Is it that you yourself wanted to be the first to possess her? Now then, speak!" "You know very well that it is not that!" said Novikoff, as his lips trembled. "Ah! yes, but it is!" cried Sanine. "What else could it be, pray?" Novikoff was silent. All was darkness within his Soul, yet, as a distant ray of light through the gloom there came the thought of pardon and self-sacrifice. Sanine, watching him, seemed to read what was passing through his mind. "I see," he began, in a subdued tone, "that you Contemplate sacrificing yourself for her. 'I will descend to her level, and protect her from the mob,' and so on. That's what you are saying to your virtuous self, waxing big in your own eyes as a worm does in carrion. But it's all a sham; nothing else but a lie! You're not in the least capable of self- sacrifice. If, for instance, Lida had been disfigured by small-pox, perhaps you might have worked yourself up to such a deed of heroism. But after a couple of days you would have embittered her life, either spurning her or deserting her, or overwhelming her reproaches. At present your attitude towards yourself is one of adoration, as if you were an _ikon_. Yes, yes, your face is transfigured, and every one would say, 'Oh! look, there's a saint.' Yet you have lost nothing which you desired. Lida's limbs are the same as before; so are her passion and her splendid vitality. But of course, it is extremely convenient and also agreeable to provide oneself with enjoyment while piously imagining that one is doing a noble deed. I should rather say it was!" At these words, Novikoff's self-pity gave place to a nobler sentiment. "You take me to be worse than I am," he said reproachfully. "I am not so wanting in feeling as you think. I won't deny that I have certain prejudices, but I love Lida Petrovna, and if I were quite sure that she loved me, do you think that I should take a long while to make up my mind, because ..." His voice failed him at this last word. Sanine suddenly became quite calm. Crossing the room, he stood at the open window, lost in thought. "Just now she is very sad," he said, "and will hardly be thinking of love. If she loves you or not, how can I tell? But it seems to me that if you came to her as the second man who did not condemn her for her brief amour, well.... Anyway, there's no knowing what she'll say!" Novikoff sat there, as one in a dream. Sadness and joy produced within his heart a sense of happiness as gentle and elusive as the light in an evening sky. "Let us go to her," said Sanine. "Whatever happens, it will please her to see a human face amid so many false masks that hide grimacing brutes. You're a bit of a fool, my friend, but in your stupidity there is something which others haven't got. And to think that for ever so long the world founded its hopes and happiness upon such folly! Come, let us go!" Novikoff smiled timidly. "I am very willing to go to her. But will she care to see me?" "Don't think about that," said Sanine, as he placed both hands on the other's shoulders. "If you are minded to do what's right, then, do it, and the future will take care of itself." "All right; let us go," exclaimed Novikoff with decision. In the doorway he stopped and looking Sanine full in the face he said with unwonted emphasis: "Look here, if it is in my power, I will do my best to make her happy. This sounds commonplace, I know, but I can't express my feelings in any other way." "No matter, my friend," replied Sanine cordially, "I understand." CHAPTER XXI. The glow of summer lay on the town. Calm were the nights when the large, lustrous moon shone overhead and the air, heavy with odours from field and garden, pleasurably soothed the languid senses. In the daytime people worked, or were engaged in politics or art; in eating, drinking, bathing, conversing. Yet, when the heat grew less, and the bustle and turmoil had ceased, while on the dim horizon the moon's round mysterious disc rose slowly above meadow and field, shedding on roofs and gardens a strange, cold light, then folk began to breathe more freely, and to live anew, having cast off, as it were, an oppressive cloak. And, where youth predominated, life became ampler and more free. The gardens were filled with the melody of nightingales, the meadow-grasses quivered in response to the light touch of a maiden's gown, while shadows deepened, and in the warm dusk eyes grew brighter and voices more tender, for love was in the languid, fragrant air. Yourii Svarogitsch and Schafroff were both keenly interested in politics, and in a recently formed society for mutual education, Yourii read all the latest books, and believed that he had now found his vocation in life, and a way to end all his doubts. Yet, however much he read, and despite all his activities, life had no charm for him, being barren and dreary. Only when in robust health, and when the physical part of him was roused by the prospect of falling in love, did life seem really desirable. Formerly all pretty young women had interested him in equal measure, yet among the rest he now singled out one in whom the charms of all the others were united, standing apart in her loveliness as a young birch tree stands in springtime on the border of a wood. She was tall and shapely, her head was gracefully poised on her white, smooth shoulders, and her voice, in speech sonorous, was in singing sweet. Although her own talents for music and poetry were eminently pleasing to her, it was in physical effort that her intense vitality found its fullest expression. She longed to crush something against her bosom, to stamp her foot on the ground, to laugh and sing, and to contemplate good-looking young men. There were times when, in the blaze of noon or in the pale moonlight, she felt as if she must suddenly take off all clothing, rush across the grass, and plunge into the river to seek some one that with tender accents she longed to allure. Her presence troubled Yourii. In her company he became more eloquent, his pulses beat faster, and his brain was more alert. All day long his thoughts were of her, and in the evening it was she that he sought, though he never admitted to himself that he did so. He was for ever analysing his feelings, each sentiment withering as a blossom in the frost. Whenever he asked himself what it was that attracted him to Sina Karsavina, the answer was always "the sexual instinct, and nothing else." Without knowing why, this explanation provoked intense self- contempt. Yet a tacit understanding had been established between them and, like two mirrors, the emotions of the one were reflected in the other. Sina Karsavina never troubled to analyse her sentiments which, if they caused her slight apprehension, yet pleased her vastly. She jealously hid them from others, being determined to keep them entirely to herself. It distressed her much that she could not discover what was really at work in the handsome young fellow's heart. At times it seemed to her that there was nothing between them, and then she grieved as if for the loss of something precious. Nevertheless she was not averse to receiving the attentions of other men, and her belief that Yourii loved her gave her the elated manner of a bride-elect, making her doubly attractive to other admirers. She was powerfully fascinated by the presence of Sanine, whose broad shoulders, calm eyes, and deliberate manner won her regard. When Sina became aware of his effect upon her, she accused herself of want of self-control if not of immodesty; nevertheless she always continued to observe him with great interest. On the very evening that Lida had undergone such a terrible ordeal, Yourii and Sina met at the library. They merely exchanged greetings, and went about their business, she to choose books, and he to look at the latest Petersburg newspapers. They happened, however, to leave the building together and walked along the lonely, moonlit streets side by side. All was silent as the grave, and one could only hear at intervals the watchman's rattle, and the distant bark of a dog. On reaching the boulevard they were aware of a merry party sitting under the tress. They heard laughter; and the gleam of a lighted cigarette revealed for an instant a fair moustache. Just as they passed a man's voice sang: _The heart affair lady Is wayward as the wind across the wheat_... When they got within a short distance of Sina's home they sat down on a bench where it was very dark. In front of them lay the broad street, all white in the moonlight, and the church topped by a cross that gleamed as a star above the black linden trees. "Look! How pretty that is!" exclaimed Sina, as she pointed to the church. Yourii glanced admiringly at her white shoulder which, in the costume of Little Russia that she wore, was exposed to view. He longed to clasp her in his arms and kiss her full red lips. It seemed as if he must do so, and as if she expected and desired this. But he let the propitious moment pass, laughing gently, almost mockingly, to himself. "Why do you laugh?" "Oh! I don't know!--nothing!" replied Yourii nervously, trying to appear unmoved. They were both silent as they listened to faint sounds that came to them through the darkness. "Have you ever been in love?" asked Sina, suddenly. "Yes," said Yourii slowly. 'Suppose I tell her?' he thought. Then, aloud, "I am in love now." "With whom?" she asked, fearing to hear the answer, while yet certain that she knew it. "With you, of course," replied Yourii, vainly assuming playful tone as he leant forward and gazed into her eyes, that shone strangely in the gloom. They expressed surprise and expectancy. Yourii longed to embrace her, yet again his courage failed him, and he pretended to stifle a yawn. "He's only in fun!" thought Sina, growing suddenly cool. She felt hurt at such hesitation on Yourii's part. To keep back her tears, she clenched her teeth, and in an altered tone exclaimed "Nonsense!" as she quickly got up. "I am speaking quite seriously," began Yourii, with unnatural earnestness. "I love you, believe me, I do, passionately!" Sina took up her books without saying a word. "Why, why does he talk like this?" she thought to herself. "I've let him see that I care, and now he despises me." Yourii bent down to pick up a book that had fallen. "It is time to go home," she said coldly. Yourii felt grieved that she wanted to go just at that moment, but he thought at the same time that he had played his part quite successfully, and without in the least appearing commonplace. Then he said, impressively: "Au revoir!" She held out her hand. He swiftly bent over it and kissed it. Sina started back, uttering a faint cry: "What are you doing?" Though his lips had only just touched her soft little hand, his emotion was so great that he could only smile feebly as she hurried away, and soon he heard the click of her garden gate. As he walked homewards his face wore the same silly smile, while he breathed the pure night air, and felt strong, and glad of heart. CHAPTER XXII. On reaching his room, narrow and stuffy as a prison-cell, Yourii found life as dreary as ever, and his little love-episode seemed to him thoroughly commonplace. "I stole a kiss from her! What bliss! How heroic of me! How exquisitely romantic! In the moonlight the hero beguiles the fair maid with burning words and kisses! Bah! what rubbish! In such a cursed little hole as this one insensibly becomes a shallow fool." When he lived in a city, Yourii imagined that the country was the real place for him where he could associate with peasants and share in their rustic toil beneath a burning sun. Now that he had the chance to do this, village life seemed insufferable to him, and he longed for the stimulus of a town where alone his energies could have scope. "The stir and bustle of a city! The thrill of passionate eloquence!" so he rapturously phrased it to himself; yet he soon checked such boyish enthusiasm. "After all, what does it mean? What are politics and science? Great as ideals in the distance, yes! But in the life of each individual they're only a trade, like anything else! Strife! Titanic efforts! The conditions of modern existence make all that impossible. I suffer, I strive, I surmount obstacles! Well, what then? Where's the end of it? Not in my lifetime, at any rate! Prometheus wished to give fire to mankind, and he did so. That was a triumph, if you like! But what about us? The most we do is to throw faggots on a fire that we have never kindled, and which by us will never be put out." It suddenly struck him that if things were wrong it was because he, Yourii, was not a Prometheus. Such a thought, in itself most distressing, yet gave him another opportunity for morbid self-torture. "What sort of a Prometheus am I? Always looking at everything from a personal, egotistic point of view. It is I, always I; always for myself. I am every bit as weak and insignificant as the other people that I heartily Despise." This comparison was so displeasing to him that his thoughts became confused, and for a while he sat brooding over the subject, endeavouring to find a justification of some kind. "No, I am not like the others," he said to himself, feeling, in a sense, relieved, "because I think about these things. Fellows like Riasantzeff and Novikoff and Sanine would never dream of doing so. They have not the remotest intention of criticising themselves, being perfectly happy and self-satisfied, like Zarathustra's triumphant pigs. The whole of life is summed up in their own infinitesimal _ego_; and by their spirit of shallowness it is that I am infected. Ah, well! when you are with wolves you've got to howl. That is only natural." Yourii began to walk up and down the room, and, as often happens, his change of position brought with it a change in his train of thought. "Very well. That's so. All the same, a good many things have to be considered. For instance, what is my position with regard to Sina Karsavina? Whether I love her or not it doesn't much matter. The question is, what will come of it all? Suppose I marry her, or become closely attached to her. Will that make me happy? To betray her would be a crime, and if I love her ... Well, then, I can ... In all probability she would have children." He blushed at the thought. "There's nothing wrong about that, only it would be a tie, and I should lose my freedom. A family man! Domestic bliss! No, that's not in my line." "One ... two ... three," he counted, as he tried each time to step across two boards and set his foot on the third one. "If I could be sure that she would not have children, or that I should get so fond of them that my whole life would be devoted to them! No; how terribly commonplace! Riasantzeff would be fond of his children, too. What difference would there then be between us? A life of self-sacrifice! That is the real life! Yes, but of sacrifice for whom? And in what way? No matter what road I choose nor at what goal I aim, show me the pure and perfect ideal for which it were worth while to die! No, it is not that I am weak; it is because life itself is not worthy of sacrifice nor of enthusiasm. Consequently there is no sense in living at all." Never before had this conclusion seemed so absolutely convincing to him. On his table lay a revolver, and each time he passed it, while walking up and down, its polished steel caught his eye. He took it up and examined it carefully. It was loaded. He placed the barrel against his temple. "There! Like that!" he thought. "Bang! And it's all over. Is it a wise or a stupid thing to shoot oneself? Is suicide a cowardly act? Then I suppose that I am a coward!" The contact of cold steel on his heated brow was at once pleasant and alarming. "What about Sina?" he asked himself. "Ah! well, I shall never get her, and so I leave to some one else this enjoyment." The thought of Sina awoke tender memories, which he strove to repress as sentimental folly. "Why should I not do it?" His heart seemed to stop beating. Then once more, and deliberately this time, he put the revolver to his brow and pulled the trigger, His blood ran cold; there was a buzzing in his ears and the room seemed to whirl round. The weapon did not go off; only the click of the trigger could be heard. Half fainting, his hand dropped to his side. Every fibre within him quivered, his head swam, his lips were parched, and his hand trembled so much that when he laid down the revolver it rattled against the table. "A fine fellow I am!" he thought as, recovering himself, he went to the glass to see what he looked like. "Then I'm a coward, am I?" "No," he thought proudly, "I am not! I did it right enough. How could I help it if the thing didn't go off?" His own vision looked out at him from the mirror; rather a solemn, grave one, he thought. Trying to persuade himself that he attached no importance to what he had just done, he put out his tongue and moved away from the glass. "Fate would not have it so," he said aloud, and the sound of the words seemed to cheer him. "I wonder if anyone saw me?" he thought, as he looked round in alarm. Yet all was still, and nothing could be heard moving behind the closed door. To him it was as if nothing in the world existed and suffered in this terrible solitude but himself. He put out the lamp, and to his amazement perceived through a chink in the shutter the first red rays of dawn. Then he lay down to sleep, and in dream was aware of something gigantic that bent over him, exhaling fiery breath. CHAPTER XXIII. Gently, caressingly, the dusk, fragrant with the scent of blossoms, descended. Sanine sat at a table near the window, striving to read in the waning light a favourite tale of his. It described the lonely, tragic death of an old bishop, who, clad in his sacerdotal vestments and holding a jewelled cross, expired amid the odour of incense. In the room the temperature was as cool as that outside, for the soft evening breeze played round Sanine's powerful frame, filling his lungs, and lightly caressing his hair. Absorbed in his book, he read on, while his lips moved from time to time, and he seemed like a big boy devouring some story of adventures among Indians. Yet, the more he read, the sadder became his thoughts. How much there was in this world that was senseless and absurd! How dense and uncivilized men were, and how far ahead of them in ideas he was! The door opened and some one entered. Sanine looked up. "Aha!" he exclaimed, as he shut the book, "what's the news?" Novikoff smiled sadly, as he took the other's hand. "Oh! nothing," he said, as he approached the window, "It's all just the same as ever it was." From where he sat Sanine could only see Novikoff's tall figure silhouetted against the evening sky, and for a long while he gazed at him without speaking. When Sanine first took his friend to see Lida, who now no longer resembled the proud, high-spirited girl of heretofore, neither she nor Novikoff said a word to each other about all that lay nearest to their hearts. He knew that, after having spoken, they would be unhappy, yet doubly so if they kept silence. What to him was plain and easy they could only accomplish, he felt sure, after much suffering. "Be it so," thought he, "for suffering purifies and ennobles." Now, however, the propitious moment for them had come. Novikoff stood at the window, silently watching the sunset. His mood was a strange one, begotten of grief for what was lost, and of longing for joy that was near. In this soft twilight he pictured to himself Lida, sad, and covered with shame. If he had but the courage to do it, this very moment he would kneel before her, with kisses warm her cold little hands, and by his great, all-forgiving love rouse her to a new life. Yet the power to go to her failed him. Of this Sanine was conscious. He rose slowly, and said, "Lida is in the garden. Shall we go to her?" Novikoff's heart beat faster. Within it, joy and grief seemed strangely blended. His expression changed Somewhat, and he nervously fingered his moustache. "Well, what do you say? Shall we go?" repeated Sanine calmly, as if he had decided to do something important. Novikoff felt that Sanine knew all that was troubling him, and, though in a measure comforted, he Was yet childishly abashed. "Come along!" said Sanine gently, as taking hold of Novikoff's shoulders he pushed him towards the door. "Yes ... I ..." murmured the latter. A sudden impulse to embrace Sanine almost overcame him, but he dared not and could but glance at him with tearful eyes. It was dark in the warm, fragrant garden, and the trunks of the trees formed Gothic arches against the pale green of the sky. A faint mist hovered above the parched surface of the lawn. It was as if an unseen presence wandered along the silent walks and amid the motionless trees, at whose approach the slumbering leaves and blossoms softly trembled. The sunset still flamed in the west behind the river which flowed in shining curves through the dark meadows. At the edge of the stream sat Lida. Her graceful figure bending forward above the water seemed like that of some mournful spirit in the dusk. The sense of confidence inspired by the voice of her brother forsook her as quickly as it had come, and once more shame and fear overwhelmed her. She was obsessed by the thought that she had no right to happiness, nor yet to live. She spent whole days in the garden, book in hand, unable to look her mother in the face. A thousand times she said to herself that her mother's anguish would be as nothing to what she herself was now suffering, yet whenever she approached her parent her voice faltered, and in her eyes there was a guilty look. Her blushes and strange confusion of manner at last aroused her mother's suspicion, to avoid whose searching glances and anxious questionings Lida preferred to spend her days in solitude. Thus, on this evening she was seated by the river, watching the sunset and brooding over her grief. Life, as it seemed to her, was still incomprehensible. Her view of it was blurred as by some hideous phantom. A series of books which she had read had served to give her greater freedom of thought. As she believed, her conduct was not only natural but almost worthy of praise. She had brought harm to no one thereby, only providing herself and another with sensual enjoyment. Without such enjoyment there would be no youth, and life itself would be barren and desolate as a leafless tree in autumn. The thought that her union with a man had not been sanctioned by the church seemed to her ridiculous. By the free mind of a man such claims had long been swept aside. She ought really to find joy in this new life, just as a flower on some bright morning rejoices at the touch of the pollen borne to it on the breeze. Yet she felt unutterably degraded, and baser than the basest. All such grand, noble ideas and eternal verities melted like wax at the thought of her day of infamy that was at hand. And instead of trampling underfoot the folk that she despised, her one thought was how best she might avoid or deceive them. While concealing her grief from others, Lida felt herself attracted to Novikoff as a flower to the sunlight. The suggestion that he was to save her seemed base, almost criminal. It galled her to think that she should depend upon his affection and forgiveness, yet stronger far than pride was the passionate longing to live. Her attitude towards human stupidity was one of fear rather than disdain; she could not look Novikoff in the face, but trembled before him, like a slave. Her plight was pitiable as that of a helpless bird whose wings have been clipped, and that can never fly again. At times, when her suffering seemed intolerable, she thought with naïve astonishment of her brother. She knew that, for him, nothing was sacred, that he looked at her, his sister, with the eyes of a male, and that he was selfish and immoral. Nevertheless he was the only man in whose presence she felt herself absolutely free, and with whom she could openly discuss the most intimate secrets of her life. She had been seduced. Well, what of that? She had had an intrigue. Very good. It was at her own wish. People would despise and humiliate her; what did it matter? Before her lay life, and sunshine, and the wide world; and, as for men, there were plenty to be had. Her mother would grieve. Well, that was her own affair. Lida had never known what her mother's youth had been, and after her death there would be no further supervision. They had met by chance on life's road, and had gone part of the way together. Was that any reason why they should mutually oppose each other? Lida saw plainly that she would never have the same freedom which her brother possessed. That she had ever thought so was due to the influence of this calm, strong man whom she affectionately admired. Strange thoughts came to her, thoughts of an illicit nature. "If he were not my brother, but a stranger!..." she said to herself, as she hastily strove to suppress the shameful and yet alluring suggestion. Then she remembered Novikoff and like a humble slave longed for his pardon and his love. She heard steps and looked round. Novikoff and Sanine came to her silently across the grass. She could not discern their faces in the dusk, yet she felt that the dreaded moment was at hand. She turned very pale, and it seemed as if life was about to end. "There!" said Sanine, "I have brought Novikoff to you. He will tell you himself all that he has to tell. Stay here quietly, while I will go and get some tea." Turning on his heel, he walked swiftly away, and for a moment they watched his white shirt as he disappeared in the gloom. So great was the silence that they could hardly believe that he had gone farther than the shadow of the surrounding trees. "Lidia Petrovna," said Novikoff gently, in a voice so sad and touching that it went to her heart. "Poor fellow," she thought, "how good he is." "I know everything, Lidia Petrovna," continued Novikoff, "but I love you just as much as ever. Perhaps some day you will learn to love me. Tell me, will you be my wife?" "I had better not say too much about _that_," he thought, "she must never know what a sacrifice I am making for her." Lida was silent. In such stillness one could hear the rippling of the stream. "We are both unhappy," said Novikoff, conscious that these words came from the depth of his heart. "Together perhaps we may find life easier." Lida's eyes were filled with tears of gratitude as she turned towards him and murmured, "Perhaps." Yet her eyes said, God knows I will be a good wife to you, and love and respect you. Novikoff read their message. He knelt down impetuously, and seizing her hand, kissed it passionately. Roused by such emotion, Lida forgot her shame. "That's over!" she thought, "and I shall be happy again! Dear, good fellow!" Weeping for joy, she gave him both her hands, and bending over his head she kissed his soft, silky hair which she had always admired. A vision rose before her of Sarudine, but it instantly vanished. When Sanine returned, having given them enough time, as he thought, for a mutual explanation, he found them seated, hand in hand, engaged in quiet talk. "Aha! I see how it is!" said Sanine gravely. "Thank God, and be happy." He was about to say something else, but sneezed loudly instead. "It's damp out here. Mind you don't catch cold," he added, rubbing his eyes. Lida laughed. The echo of her voice across the river Hounded charming. "I must go," said Sanine, after a pause. "Where are you going?" asked Novikoff. "Svarogitsch and that officer who admires Tolstoi, what's his name? a lanky German fellow, have called for me." "You mean Von Deitz," said Lida, laughing. "That's the man. They wanted us all to come with them to a meeting, but I said that you were not at home." "Why did you do that?" asked Lida, still laughing; "we might have gone, too." "No, you stop here," replied Sanine. "If I had anybody to keep me company, I should do the same." With that he left them. Night came on apace, and the first trembling star were mirrored in the swiftly flowing stream. CHAPTER XXIV. The evening was dark and sultry. Above the trees clouds chased each other across the sky, hurrying onward as to some mysterious goal. In pale green spaces overhead faint stars glimmered and then vanished. Above, all was commotion, while the earth seemed waiting, as in breathless suspense. Amid this silence, human voices in dispute sounded harsh and shrill. "Anyhow," exclaimed Von Deitz, blundering along in unwieldy fashion, "Christianity has enriched mankind with an imperishable boon, being the only system of morals that is complete and comprehensible." "Quite so," replied Yourii, who walked behind the last speaker tossing his head defiantly, and glaring at the officer's back, "but in its conflict with the bestial instincts of mankind Christianity has proved itself to be as impotent as all the other religions." "How do you mean, 'proved itself to be'?" exclaimed Von Deitz angrily. "To Christianity belongs the future, and to suggest that it is obsolete..." "There is no future for Christianity," broke in Yourii vehemently. "If at the zenith of its development Christianity could not triumph, but became the tool of a shameless gang of impostors, it would be nothing short of absurd to expect a miracle nowadays, when even the word Christianity sounds grotesque. History is inexorable; what has once disappeared from the scene can never return." "Do you mean to say that Christianity has disappeared from the scene?" shrieked Von Deitz. "Certainly, I do," continued Yourii obstinately. "You seem as surprised as if such an idea were utterly impossible. Just as the law of Moses has passed away, just as Buddha and the gods of Greece are dead, so, too, Christ is dead. It is but the law of evolution. Why should you be so amazed? You don't believe in the divinity of his doctrine, do you?" "No, of course not," retorted Von Deitz, less irritated at the question than at Yourii's offensive tone. "Then how can you maintain that a man is able to create eternal laws?" "Idiot!" thought Yourii, agreeably convinced that the other was infinitely less intelligent than he, and would never be able to comprehend what was as plain and clear as noonday. "Supposing it were so," rejoined Von Deitz, nettled, in his turn. "The future will nevertheless have Christianity as its basis. It has not perished, but, like seed in the soil ..." "I was not talking about that," said Yourii, confused somewhat, and thus the more vexed, "what I meant to say ..." "No, excuse me, but that's what you said...." "If I said no, then I meant no! How absurd you are!" interrupted Yourii, rendered more furious by the thought that this stupid Von Deitz should for a moment presume to think himself the cleverer. "I meant to say ..." "That may be. I am sorry if I misunderstood you." Von Deitz shrugged his narrow shoulders, with an air of condescension, as much as to say that he had got the best of the argument. This was not lost upon Yourii, whose fury almost choked him. "I do not deny that Christianity has played an enormous part ..." "Ah! now you contradict yourself," exclaimed Von Deitz, more triumphant than ever, being intensely pleased to feel how incomparably superior he was to Yourii, who obviously had not the remotest conception of what was so neatly and definitely set out in his own brain. "To _you_ it may seem that I am contradicting myself," said Yourii bitterly, "but, as a matter of fact, my Contention is a perfectly logical one, and it is not my fault if you don't wish to understand me. I said before, and I say again, that Christianity is played out, and it is vain to look to it for salvation." Yes, yes; but do you mean to deny the salutary influence of Christianity, that is to say, as the basis of social order? ..." "No, I don't deny that." "But I do," interposed Sanine, who till now had walked behind them in silence. His voice sounded calm and pleasant, in strange contrast to the harsh accent of the disputants. Yourii was silent. This good-tempered, mocking tone of voice annoyed him, yet he had no answer ready. He was not fond of arguing with Sanine, for his usual vocabulary proved useless in such an encounter. Every time it seemed as if he were trying to break down a wall while standing on smooth ice. Von Deitz, however, stumbling along and rattling his spurs, exclaimed irritably: "May I ask why?" "Because I do," replied Sanine coolly. "Because you do! If one asserts a thing, one ought to prove it." "Why must I prove it? There is no need to prove anything. It is my own personal conviction, but I have not the slightest wish to convince you. Besides, it would be useless." "According to your line of reasoning," observed Yourii cautiously, "one had better make a bonfire of all literature." "Oh no I Why do that?" replied Sanine. "Literature is a very great, and a very interesting thing. Real literature, such as I mean, is not polemical after the manner of some prig who, having nothing to do, endeavours to convince everybody that he is extremely intelligent. Literature reconstructs life, and penetrates even to the very life- blood of humanity, from generation to generation. To destroy literature would be to take away all colour from life and make it insipid." Von Deitz stopped short, letting Yourii pass him, and then he asked Sanine: "Oh! pray tell me more I What you were saying just now interests me immensely." Sanine laughed. "What I said was simple enough. I can explain my point at greater length, if you wish. In my opinion Christianity has played a sorry part in the life of humanity. At the very moment when human beings felt that their lot was unbearable, and when the down-trodden and oppressed, coming to their senses, had determined to upset the monstrously unjust order of things, and to destroy all human parasites--then, I say, Christianity made its appearance, gentle, humble, and promising much. It condemned strife, held out visions of eternal bliss, lulled mankind to sweet slumber, and preached a religion of non-resistance to ill- treatment; in short, it acted as a safety-valve for all this pent-up wrath. Those of powerful character, nurtured amid a spirit of revolt, and longing to shake off the yoke of centuries, lost all their fire. Like imbeciles, they walked into the arena and, with courage worthy of a better aim, courted destruction. Naturally, their enemies wished for nothing better. And now it will need centuries of infamous oppression before the flame of revolt shall again be lighted. Christianity has clothed human individuality, too obstinate ever to accept slavery, with a garb of penitence, hiding under it all the colours of liberty. It deceived the strong who to-day could have captured fortune and happiness, transferring life's centre of gravity to the future, to a dreamland that does not exist, and that none of them will ever see. And thus all the charm of life vanished; bravery, passion, beauty, all were dead; duty alone remained, and the dream of a future golden age--golden maybe, for others, coming after. Yes, Christianity has played a sorry part; and the name of Christ ..." "Well! I never!" broke in Von Deitz, as he stopped short, waving his long arms in the dusk. "That's really a bit too much!" "Yet, have you never thought what a hideous era of bloodshed would have supervened if Christianity had Dot averted it?" asked Yourii nervously. "Ha! ha!" replied Sanine, with a disdainful gesture, "at first, under the cloak of Christianity, the arena was drenched with the blood of the martyrs, and then, later, people were massacred and shut up in prisons and mad-houses. And now, every day, more blood is spilt than ever could be shed by a universal revolution. The worst of it all is that each betterment in the life of humanity has always been achieved by bloodshed, anarchy and revolt, though men always affect to make humanitarianism and love of one's neighbour the basis of their lives and actions. The whole thing results in a stupid tragedy; false, hypocritical, neither flesh nor fowl. For my part, I should prefer an immediate world-catastrophe to a dull, vegetable-existence lasting probably another two thousand years." Yourii was silent. Strange to say, his thoughts were not fixed upon the speaker's words, but upon the speaker's personality. The latter's absolute assurance he considered offensive, in fact insupportable. "Would you, please, tell me," he began, irresistibly impelled to wound Sanine, "why you always talk as if you were teaching little children?" Von Deitz, feeling uneasy at this speech, uttered something conciliatory, and rattled his spurs. "What do you mean by that?" asked Sanine sharply, "why are you so angry?" Yourii felt that his speech was discourteous, and that he ought not to go any farther, yet his wounded self-respect drove him to add: "Such a tone is really most unpleasant." "It is my usual tone," replied Sanine, partly annoyed, and partly anxious to appease the other. "Well, it is not always a suitable one," continued Yourii, raising his voice, "I really fail to see what gives you such assurance." "Probably the consciousness of being more intelligent than you are," replied Sanine, now quite calm. Yourii stood still, trembling from head to foot. "Look here!" he exclaimed hoarsely. "Don't get angry!" interposed Sanine. "I had no wish to offend you, and only expressed my candid opinion. It is the same opinion that you have of me, and that Von Deitz has of both of us, and so on. It is only natural." Sanine spoke in such a frank, friendly way that to show further displeasure would have been absurd. Yourii was silent, and Von Deitz, being still concerned on his behalf, again rattled his spurs and breathed hard. "At any rate I don't tell you my opinion to your face," murmured Yourii. "No; and that is where you are wrong. I was listening to your discussion just now, and the offensive spirit prompted every word you said. It is merely a question of form. I say what I think, but you don't say what you think; and that is not in the least interesting. If we were all more sincere, it would be far more amusing for everybody." Von Deitz laughed loudly. "What an original idea!" he exclaimed. Yourii did not reply. His anger had subsided, and he felt almost pleased, though it irked him to think that he had got the worst of it, and would not admit this. "Such a state of things might be somewhat too primitive," added Von Deitz sententiously. "Then, you had rather that it were complicated and obscure?" asked Sanine. Von Deitz shrugged his shoulders, lost in thought. CHAPTER XXV. Leaving the boulevard behind them, they passed along the dreary streets lying outside the town, though they were better lighted than the boulevard. The wood-pavement stood out clearly against the black ground, and above loomed the pale cloud-covered heaven, where here and there stars gleamed. "Here we are," said Von Deitz as he opened a low door and disappeared through it. Immediately afterwards they heard the hoarse bark of a dog, and a voice exclaiming, "Lie down, Sultan." Before them lay a large empty courtyard at the farther side of which they discerned a black mass. It was a steam mill, and its narrow chimney pointed sadly to the sky. Round about it were dark sheds, but no trees, except in a small garden in front of the adjoining house. Through an open window a ray of light touched their green leaves. "A dismal kind of place," said Sanine. "I suppose the mill has been here a long while?" asked Yourii. "Oh! yes, for ever so long!" replied Von Deitz who, as he passed, looked through the lighted window, and in a tone of satisfaction said, "Oho! Quite a lot of people, already." Yourii and Sanine also looked in at the window and saw heads moving in a dim cloud of blue smoke. A broad-shouldered man with curly hair leant over the sill and called out, "Who's there?" "Friends!" replied Yourii. As they went up the steps they pushed against some one who shocks hands with them in friendly fashion. "I was afraid that you wouldn't come!" said a cheery voice in a strong Jewish accent. "Soloveitchik--Sanine," said Von Deitz, introducing the two, and grasping the former's cold, trembling hand. Soloveitchik laughed nervously. "So pleased to meet you!" he said. "I have heard so much about you, and, you know--" He stumbled backwards still holding Sanine's hand. In doing so he fell Against Yourii, and trod on Von Deitz's foot. "I beg your pardon, Jakof Adolfovitch!" he exclaimed, as he proceeded to shake Von Deitz's hand with great energy. Thus it was some time before in the darkness they could find the door. In the ante-room, on tows of nails put up specially for this evening by orderly Soloveitchik, hung hats and caps, while close to the window were dark green bottles containing beer. Even the ante-room was filled with smoke. In the light Soloveitchik appeared to be a young dark-eyed Jew with curly hair, small features, and bad teeth which, as he was continually smiling, were always displayed. The newcomers were greeted with a noisy chorus of welcome. Yourii saw Sina Karsavina sitting on the window-sill, and instantly everything seemed to him bright and joyous, as if the meeting were not in a stuffy room full of smoke, but at a festival amid fair green meadows in spring. Sina, slightly confused, smiled at him pleasantly. "Well, sirs, I think we are all here, now," exclaimed Soloveitchik, trying to speak in a loud, cheery way with his feeble, unsteady voice, and gesticulating in ludicrous fashion. "I beg your pardon, Yourii Nicolaijevitch; I seem to be always pushing against you," he said, laughing, as he lurched forward in an endeavour to be polite. Yourii good-humouredly squeezed his arm. "That's all right," he said. "We're not all here, but deuce take the others!" cried a burly, good- looking student. His loud tradesman's voice made one feel that he was used to ordering others about. Soloveitchik sprang forward to the table and rang a little bell. He smiled once more, and this time for sheer satisfaction at having thought of using a bell. "Oh I none of that!" growled the student. "You've always got some silly nonsense of that sort. It's not necessary in the least." "Well ... I thought ... that...." stammered Soloveitchik, as, looking embarrassed, he put the bell in his pocket. "I think that the table should be placed in the middle of the room," said the student. "Yes, yes, I am going to move it directly!" replied Soloveitchik, as he hurriedly caught hold of the edge of the table. "Mind the lamp!" cried Dubova. "That's not the way to move it!" exclaimed the student, slapping his knee. "Let me help you," said Sanine. "Thank you! Please!" replied Soloveitchik eagerly. Sanine set the table in the middle of the room, and as he did so, the eyes of all were fixed on his strong back and muscular shoulders which showed through his thin shirt. "Now, Goschienko, as the initiator of this meeting, it is for you to make the opening speech," said the pale-faced Dubova, and from the expression in her eyes it was hard to say if she were in earnest, or only laughing at the student. "Ladies and gentlemen," began Goschienko, raising his voice, "everybody knows why we have met here to-night, and so we can dispense with any introductory speech." "As a matter of fact," said Sanine, "I don't know why I came here, but," he added, laughing, "it may have been because I was told that there would be some beer." Goschienko glanced contemptuously at him over the lamp, and continued: "Our association is formed for the purpose of self-education by means of mutual readings, and debates, and independent discussions--" "Mutual readings? I don't understand," interrupted Dubova in a tone of voice that might have been thought ironical. Goschienko blushed slightly. "I meant to say readings in which all take part. Thus, the aim of our association is for the development of individual opinion which shall lead to the formation in town of a league in sympathy with the social democratic party...." "Aha!" drawled Ivanoff, as he scratched the back of his head. "But with that we shall deal later on. At the commencement we shall not set ourselves to solve such great--" "Or small ..." prompted Dubova. "Problems," continued Goschienko, affecting not to hear. "We shall begin by making out a programme of such works as we intend to read, and I propose to devote the present evening to this purpose." "Soloveitchik, are your workmen coming?" asked Dubova. "Yes, of course they are!" replied Soloveitchik, jumping up as if he had been stung. "We have already sent to fetch them." "Soloveitchik, don't shout like that!" exclaimed Goschienko. "Here they are!" said Schafroff, who was listening to Goschienko's words with almost reverent attention. Outside, the gate creaked, and again the dog's gruff bark was heard. "They've come!" cried Soloveitchik as he rushed out of the room. "Lie down, Sultan!" he shouted from the house-door. There was a sound of heavy footseps of coughing, and of men's voices. Then a young student from the Polytechnic School entered, very like Goschienko, except that he was dark and plain. With him, looking awkward and shy, came two workmen, with grimy hands, and wearing short jackets over their dirty red shirts. One of them was very tall and gaunt, whose clean-shaven, sallow face bore the mark of years of semi- starvation, perpetual care and suppressed hatred. The other had the appearance of an athlete, being broad-shouldered and comely, with curly hair. He looked about him as a young peasant might do when first coming to a town. Pushing past them, Soloveitchik began solemnly, "Gentlemen, these are--" "Oh! that'll do!" cried Goschienko, interrupting him, as usual. "Good evening, comrades." "Pistzoff and Koudriavji," said the Polytechnic student. The men strode cautiously into the room, stiffly grasping the hands held out to give them a singularly courteous welcome. Pistzoff smiled confusedly, and Koudriavji moved his long neck about as if the collar of his shirt were throttling him. Then they sat down by the window, near Sina. "Why hasn't Nicolaieff come?" asked Goschienko sharply. "Nicolaieff was not able to come," replied Pistzoff. "Nicolaieff is blind drunk," added Koudriavji in a dry voice. "Oh! I see," said Goschienko, as he shook his head. This movement on his part, which seemed to express compassion, exasperated Yourii, who saw in the big student a personal enemy. "He chose the better part," observed Ivanoff. Again the dog barked in the courtyard. "Some one else is coming," said Dubova. "Probably, the police," remarked Goschienko with feigned indifference. "I am sure that you would not mind if it were the police," cried Dubova. Sanine looked at her intelligent eyes, and the plait of fair hair falling over her shoulder, which almost made her face attractive. "A smart girl, that!" he thought. Soloveitchik jumped up as if to run out, but, recollecting himself, pretended to take a cigarette from the table. Goschienko noticed this, and, without replying to Dubova, said: "How fidgety you are, Soloveitchik!" Soloveitchik turned crimson and blinked his eyes ruefully. He felt vaguely conscious that his zeal did not deserve to be so severely rebuked. Then Novikoff noisily entered. "Here I am!" he exclaimed, with a cheery smile. "So I see," replied Sanine. Novikoff shook the other's hand and whispered hurriedly, as if by way of excuse, "Lidia Petrovna has got visitors." "Oh! yes." "Have we only come here to talk?" asked the Polytechnic student with some irritation. "Do let us make a start." "Then you have not begun yet?" said Novikoff, evidently pleased. He shook hands with the two workmen, who hastily rose from their seats. It was embarrassing to meet the doctor as a fellow-comrade, when at the hospital he was wont to treat them as his inferiors. Goschienko, looking rather annoyed, then began. "Ladies and gentlemen, we are naturally all desirous to widen our outlook, and to broaden our views of life; and, believing that the best method of self-culture and of self-development lies in a systematic course of reading and an interchange of opinions regarding the books read, we have decided to start this little club...." "That's right," sighed Pistzoff approvingly, as he looked round at the company with his bright, dark eyes. "The question now arises: What books ought we to read? Possibly some one here present could make a suggestion regarding the programme that should be adopted?" Schafroff put on his glasses and slowly stood up. In his hand he held a small note-book. "I think," he began in his dry, uninteresting voice, "I think that our programme should be divided into two parts. For the purpose of intellectual development two elements are undoubtedly necessary: the study of life from Its earliest stages, and the study of life as it actually is." "Schafroff's getting quite eloquent," cried Dubova. "Knowledge of the former can be gained by reading standard books of historical and scientific value, and knowledge of the latter, by _belles lettres_, which bring us face to face with life." "If you go on talking to us like this, we shall soon fall fast asleep." Dubova could not resist making this remark, and in her eyes there was a roguish twinkle. "I am trying to speak in such a way as to be understood by all," replied Schafroff gently. "Very well! Speak as best you can!" said Dubova with a gesture expressing her resignation. Sina Karsavina laughed at Schafroff, too, in her pretty way, tossing back her head and showing her white, shapely throat. Hers was a rich, musical laugh. "I have drawn up a programme--but perhaps it would bore you if I read it out?" said Schafroff, with a furtive glance at Dubova. "I propose to begin with 'The Origin of the Family' side by side with Darwin's works, and, in literature, we could take Tolstoi." "Of course, Tolstoi!" said Von Deitz, looking extremely pleased with himself as he proceeded to light a cigarette. Schafroff paused until the cigarette was lighted, and then continued his list: "Tchekhof, Ibsen, Knut Hamsun--" "But we've read them all!" exclaimed Sina Karsavina. Her delightful voice thrilled Yourii, and he said: "Of course! Schafroff forgets that this is not a Sunday school. What a strange jumble, too! Tolstoi and Knut Hamsun--" Schafroff blandly adduced certain arguments in support of his programme, yet in so diffuse a way that no one could understand him. "No," said Yourii with emphasis, delighted to observe Sina Karsavina looking at him, "No, I don't agree with you." He then proceeded to expound his own views on the subject, and the more he spoke, the more he strove to win Sina's approval, mercilessly attacking Schafroff's scheme, and even those points with which he himself was in sympathy. The burly Goschienko now gave his views on the subject. He considered himself the cleverest, most eloquent and most cultured of them all; moreover in a little club like this, which he had organized, he expected to play first fiddle. Yourii's success annoyed him, and he felt bound to go against him. Being ignorant of Svarogitsch's opinions, he could not oppose them _en bloc_, but only fixed upon certain weak points in his argument with which he stubbornly disagreed. Thereupon a lengthy and apparently interminable discussion ensued. The Polytechnic student, Ivanoff, and Novikoff all began to argue at once, and through clouds of tobacco-smoke hot, angry faces could be seen, while words and phrases were hopelessly blent in a bewildering chaos devoid at last of all meaning. Dubova gazed at the lamp, listening and dreaming. Sina Karsavina paid no attention, but opened the window facing the garden, and, folding her arms, leaned over the sill and looked out at the night. At first she could distinguish nothing, but gradually out of the gloom the dark trees emerged, and she saw the light on the garden-fence and the grass. A soft, refreshing breeze fanned her shoulders and lightly touched her hair. Looking upwards, Sina could watch the swift procession of the clouds. She thought of Yourii and of her love. Her mood, if pleasurably pensive, was yet a little sad. It was so good to rest there, exposed to the cool night wind, and listen with all her heart to the voice of one man which to her ears sounded clearer and more masterful than the rest. Meanwhile the din grew greater, and it was evident that each person thought himself more cultivated and intelligent than his neighbours and was striving to convert them. Matters at last became so unpleasant that the most peaceable among them lost their tempers. "If you judge like that," shouted Yourii, his eyes flashing, for he was anxious not to yield in the presence of Sina, though she could only hear his voice, "then we must go back to the origin of all ideas...." "What ought we, then, in your opinion to read?" said the hostile Goschienko. "What you ought to read? Why, Confucius, the Gospels, Ecclesiastes ..." "The Psalms and the Apocrypha," was the Polytechnic student's mocking interruption. Goschienko laughed maliciously, oblivious of the fact himself had never read one of these works. "Of what good would that be?" asked Schafroff in a tone of disappointment. "It's like they do in church!" tittered Pistzoff. Yourii's face flushed. "I am not joking. If you wish to be logical, then ..." "Ah! but what did you say to me just now about Christ?" cried Von Deitz exultantly. "What did I say?...If one wishes to study life, and to form some definite conception of the mutual relationship of man to man, surely the best way is to get a thorough knowledge of the Titanic work of those who, representing the best models of humanity, devoted their lives to the solution of the simplest and most complex problems with regard to human relationships." "There I don't agree with you," retorted Goschienko. "But I do," cried Novikoff hotly. Once more all was confusion and senseless uproar, during which it was impossible to hear either the beginning or the end of any utterance. Reduced to silence by this war of words, Soloveitchik sat in a corner and listened. At first the expression on his face was one of intense, almost childish interest, but after a while his doubt and distress were shown by lines at the corners of his mouth and of his eyes. Sanine drank, smoked, and said nothing. He looked thoroughly bored, and when amid the general clamour some of the voices became unduly violent, he got up, and extinguishing his cigarette, said: "I say, do you know, this is getting uncommonly boring!" "Yes, indeed!" cried Dubova. "Sheer vanity and vexation of spirit!" said Ivanoff, who had been waiting for a fitting moment to drag in this favourite phrase of his. "In what way?" asked the Polytechnic student, angrily. Sanine took no notice of him, but, turning to Yourii, said: "Do you really believe that you can get a conception of life from any book?" "Most certainly I do," replied Yourii, in a tone of surprise. "Then you are wrong," said Sanine. "If this were really so, one could mould the whole of humanity according to one type by giving people works to read of one tendency. A conception of life is only obtained from life itself, in its entirety, of which literature and human thought are but an infinitesimal part. No theory of life can help one to such a conception, for this depends upon the mood or frame of mind of each individual, which is consequently apt to vary so long as man lives. Thus, it is impossible to form such a hard and fast conception of life as you seem anxious to ..." "How do you mean--'impossible'?" cried Yourii angrily. Sanine again looked bored, as he answered: "Of course it's impossible. If a conception of life were the outcome of a complete, definite theory, then the progress of human thought would soon be arrested; in fact it would cease. But such a thing is inadmissible. Every moment of life speaks its new word, its new message to us, and, to this we must listen and understand it, without first of all fixing limits for ourselves. After all, what's the good of discussing it? Think what you like. I would merely ask why you, who have read hundreds of books from Ecclesiastes to Marx, have not yet been able to form any definite conception of life?" "Why do you suppose that I have not?" asked Yourii, and his dark eyes flashed menacingly. "Perhaps my conception of life may be a wrong one, but I have it." "Very well, then," said Sanine, "why seek to acquire another?" Pistzoff tittered. "Hush!" cried Koudriavji contemptuously, as his neck twitched. "How clever he is!" thought Sina Karsavina, full of naïve admiration for Sanine. She looked at him, and then at Svarogitsch, feeling almost bashful, and yet strangely glad. It was as if the two disputants were arguing as to who should possess her. "Thus, it follows," continued Sanine, "that you do not need what you are vainly seeking. To me it is evident that every person here to-night is endeavouring to force the others to accept his views, being himself mortally afraid lest others should persuade him to think as they do. Well, to be quite frank, that is boring." "One moment! Allow me!" exclaimed Goschienko. "Oh I that will do!" said Sanine, with a gesture of annoyance. "I expect that you have a most wonderful conception of life, and have read heaps of books. One can see that directly. Yet you lose your temper because everybody doesn't agree with you; and, what is more, you behave rudely to Soloveitchik, who has certainly never done you any harm." Goschienko was silent, looking utterly amazed, as if Sanine had said something most extraordinary. "Yourii Nicolaijevitch," said Sanine cheerily, "you must not be angry with me because I spoke somewhat bluntly just now. I can see that in your soul discord reigns." "Discord?" exclaimed Yourii, reddening. He did not know whether he ought to be angry or riot. Just as it had done during their walk to the meeting, Sanine's calm, friendly voice pleasantly impressed him. "Ah! you know yourself that it is so!" replied Sanine, with a smile. "But it won't do to pay any attention to such childish nonsense. Life's really too short." "Look here," shouted Goschienko, purple with rage, "You take far too much upon yourself!" "Not more than you do." "How's that?" "Think it out for yourself," said Sanine. "What you say and do is far ruder and more unamiable than anything that I say." "I don't understand you!" "That's not my fault." "What?" To this Sanine made no reply, but taking up his cap, said: "I'm off. It is getting a bit too dull for me." "You're right! And there's no more beer!" added Ivanoff, as he moved towards the ante-room. "We shan't get along like this; that's very clear," said Dubova. "Walk back with me, Yourii Nicolaijevitch," cried Sina. Then, turning to Sanine, she said "Au revoir!" For a moment their eyes met. Sina felt pleasurably alarmed. "Alas!" cried Dubova, as she went out, "our little club has collapsed before it has even been properly started." "But why is that?" said a mournful voice, as Soloveitchik, who was getting in every one's way, stumbled forward. Until this moment his existence had been ignored, and many were struck by the forlorn expression of his countenance. "I say, Soloveitchik," said Sanine pensively, "one day I must come and see you, and we'll have a chat," "By all means! Pray do so!" said Soloveitchik, bowing effusively. On coming out of the lighted room, the darkness seemed so intense that nobody was able to see anybody else, and only voices were recognizable. The two workmen kept aloof from the others, and, when they were at some distance, Pistzoff laughed and said: "It's always like that, with them. They meet together, and are going to do such wonders, and then each wants to have it his own way. That big chap was the only one I liked." "A lot you understand when clever folk of that sort talk together!" replied Koudriavji testily, twisting his neck about as if he were being throttled. Pistzoff whistled mockingly in lieu of answer. CHAPTER XXVI. Soloveitchik stood at the door for some time, looking up to the starless sky and rubbing his thin fingers. The wind whistled round the gloomy tin-roofed sheds, bending the tree- tops that were huddled together like a troop of ghosts. Overhead, as if driven by some resistless force, the clouds raced onward, ever onward. They formed black masses against the horizon, some being piled up to insuperable heights. It was as though, far away in the distance, they were awaited by countless armies that, with sable banners all unfurled, had gone forth in their dreadful might to some wild conflict of the elements. From time to time the restless wind seemed to bring with it the clamour of the distant fray. With childish awe Soloveitchik gazed upwards. Never before had he felt how small he was, how puny, how almost infinitesimal when confronted with this tremendous chaos. "My God! My God!" he sighed. In the presence of the sky and the night he was not the same man as when among his fellows. There was not a trace of that restless, awkward manner, now; the unsightly teeth were concealed by the sensitive lips of a youthful Jew in whose dark eyes the expression was grave and sad. He went slowly indoors, extinguished an unnecessary lamp, and clumsily set the table and the chairs in their places again. The room was still full of tobacco-smoke, and the floor was covered with cigarette ends and matches. Soloveitchik at once fetched a broom and began to sweep out the rooms, for he took a pride in keeping his little home clean and neat. Then he got a bucket of water from a cupboard, and broke bread into it. Carrying this in one hand, the other being outstretched to maintain his balance, he walked across the yard, taking short steps. In order to see better, he had placed a lamp close to the window, yet it was so dark in the yard that Soloveitchik felt relieved when he reached the dog's kennel. Sultan's shaggy form, invisible in the gloom, advanced to meet him, and a chain rattled ominously. "Ah! Sultan! Kusch! Kusch!" exclaimed Soloveitchik, in order to give himself courage. In the darkness, Sultan thrust his cold, moist nose into his master's hand. "There you are!" said Soloveitchik, as he set down the bucket. Sultan sniffed, and began to eat voraciously, while his master stood beside him and gazed mournfully at the surrounding gloom. "Ah! what can I do?" he thought. "How can I force people to alter their opinions? I myself expected to be told how to live, and how to think. God has not given me the voice of a prophet, so, in what way can I help?" Sultan gave a grunt of satisfaction. "Eat away, old boy, eat away!" said Soloveitchik. "I would let you loose for a little run, but I haven't got the key, and I'm so tired." Then to himself, "What clever, well-informed people those are! They know such a lot; good Christians, very likely; and here am I.... Ah! well, perhaps it's my own fault. I should have liked to say a word to them, but I didn't know how to do it." From the distance, beyond the town, there came the sound of a long, plaintive whistle. Sultan raised his head, and listened. Large drops fell from his muzzle into the pail. "Eat away," said Soloveitchik, "That's the train!" Sultan heaved a sigh. "I wonder if men will ever live like that! Perhaps they can't," said Soloveitchik aloud, as he shrugged his shoulders, despairingly. There, in the darkness he imagined that he could see a multitude of men, vast, unending as eternity, sinking ever deeper in the gloom; a succession of centuries without beginning and without end; an unbroken chain of wanton suffering for which remedy there was none; and, on high, where God dwelt, silence, eternal silence. Sultan knocked against the pail, and upset it. Then, as he wagged his tail, the chain rattled slightly. "Gobbled it all up, eh?" Soloveitchik patted the dog's shaggy coat and felt its warm body writhe in joyous response to his touch. Then he went back to the house. He could hear Sultan's chain rattle, and the yard seemed less gloomy than before, while blacker and more sinister was the mill with its tall chimney and narrow sheds that looked like coffins. From the window a broad ray of light fell across the garden, illuminating in mystic fashion the frail little flowers that shrank beneath the turbulent heaven with its countless banners, black and ominous, unfolded to the night. Overcome by grief, unnerved by a sense of solitude and of some irreparable loss, Soloveitchik went back into his room, sat down at the table, and wept. CHAPTER XXVII. Volochine owned immense works in St. Petersburg upon which the existence of thousands of his _employés_ depended. At the present time, while a strike was in progress, be had turned his back upon the crowd of hungry, dirty malcontents, and was enjoying a trip in the provinces. Libertine as he was, he thought of nothing but women, and in young, fresh, provincial women he displayed an intense, in fact, an absorbing interest. He pictured them as delightfully shy and timid, yet sturdy as a woodland mushroom, and their provocative perfume of youth and purity he scented from afar. Volochine had clothed his puny little body in virgin white, after sprinkling himself from head to foot with various essences; and, although he did not exactly approve of Sarudine's society, he hailed a _droschky_ and hastened to the latter's rooms. Sarudine was sitting at the window, drinking cold tea. "What a lovely evening!" he kept saying to himself, as he looked out on the garden. But his thoughts were elsewhere. He felt ashamed and afraid. He was afraid of Lida. Since their interview, he had not set eyes on her. To him she seemed another Lida now, unlike the one that had surrendered to his passion. "Anyhow," he thought, "the matter is not at an end yet. The child must be got rid of ... or shall I treat the whole thing as a joke? I wonder what she is doing now?" He seemed to see before him Lida's handsome, inscrutable eyes, and her lips tightly compressed, vindictive, menacing. "She may be going to pay me out? A girl of that sort isn't one to be trifled with. At all costs I shall have to ..." The prospect of a huge scandal vaguely suggested itself, striking terror to his craven heart. "After all," he thought, "what could she possibly do?" Then suddenly it all seemed quite clear and simple. "Perhaps she'll drown herself? Let her go to the deuce! I didn't force her to do it! They'll say that she was my mistress--well, what of that? It only proves that I am a good- looking fellow. I never said that I would marry her. Upon my word, it's too silly!" Sarudine shrugged his shoulders, yet the sense of oppression was not lessened. "People will talk, I expect, and I shan't be able to show myself," he thought, while his hand trembled slightly as he held the glass of cold, over-sweetened tea to his lips. He was as smart and well-groomed and scented as ever, yet it seemed as if, on his face, his white jacket, and his hands, and even on his heart, there was a foul stain which became even greater. "Bah! After a while it will all blow over. And it's not the first time, either!" Thus he sought to soothe his conscience, but an inward voice refused to accept such consolation. Volochine entered gingerly, his boots creaking loudly, and his discoloured teeth revealed by a condescending smile. The room was instantly filled with an odour of musk and of tobacco, quite overpowering the fresh scents of the garden. "Ah! how do you do, Pavel Lvovitsch!" cried Sarudine as he hastily rose. Volochine shook hands, sat down by the window and proceeded to light a cigar. He looked so elegant and self-possessed, that Sarudine felt somewhat envious, and endeavoured to assume an equally careless demeanour; but ever since Lida had flung the word "brute" in his face, he had felt ill at ease, as if every one had heard the insult and was secretly mocking him. Volochine smiled, and chatted about various trifling matters. Yet he found it difficult to keep up such superficial conversation. "Woman" was the theme that he longed to approach, and it underlay all his stale jokes and stories of the strike at his St. Petersburg factory. As he lighted another cigar he took the opportunity of looking hard at Sarudine. Their eyes met, and they instantly understood each other. Volochine adjusted his _pince-nez_ and smiled a smile that found its reflection In Sarudine's face which suddenly acquired a look of lust. "I don't expect you waste much of your time, do you?" said Volochine, with a knowing wink. "Oh! as for that, well, what else is there to do?" replied Sarudine, shrugging his shoulders slightly. Then they both laughed, and for a while were silent. Volochine was eager to have details of the other's conquests. A little vein just below his left knee throbbed convulsively. Sarudine, however, was not thinking of such piquant details, but of the distressing events of the last few days. He turned towards the garden and drummed with his fingers on the window-sill. Yet Volochine was evidently waiting, and Sarudine felt that he must keep to the desired theme of conversation. "Of course, I know," he began, with an exaggerated air of nonchalance, "I know that to you men-about-town these country wenches are extraordinarily attractive. But you're wrong. They're fresh and plump, it's true, but they've no _chic_; they don't know how to make love artistically." In a moment Volochine was all animation. His eyes sparkled, and there was a change in the tone of his voice. "No, that's quite true. But after a while all that sort of thing is apt to become boring. Our Petersburg women are not well made. You know what I mean? They're just bundles of nerves; they've no limbs on them. Now here ..." "Yes, you're right," said Sarudine, growing interested in his turn, as he twirled his moustache complacently. "Take off her corset, and the smartest Petersburg woman becomes--Oh! by the way, have you heard the latest?" said Volochine, interrupting himself. "No, I dare say not," replied Sarudine, leaning forward, eagerly. "Well," said the other, "it's an awfully good story about a Parisian _cocotte_." Then, with much wealth of detail, Volochine proceeded to relate a spicy anecdote that pleased his companion vastly. "Yes," said Volochine in conclusion, as he rolled his eyes, "shape's everything in a woman. If she hasn't got that, well, for me she simply doesn't exist." Sarudine thought of Lida's beauty, and he shrank from discussing it with Volochine. However, after a pause, he observed with much affectation: "Every one to his taste. What I like most in a woman; is the back; that sinuous line, don't you know...." "Yes," drawled Volochine nervously. "Some women, especially very young ones, have got ..." The orderly now entered treading clumsily in his heavy boots. He had come to light the lamp, and during the process of striking matches and jingling the glass shade, Sarudine and Volochine were silent. As the flame of the lamp rose, only their glittering eyes and the glowing cigarette-ends could be seen. When the soldier had gone out, they returned to their subject, the word "Woman" forming the theme of talk that became at times grotesque in its obscenity. Sarudine's instinctive longing to boast, and to eclipse Volochine led him at last to speak of the splendid woman who had yielded to his charms, and gradually to reveal his own secret lasciviousness. Before the eyes of Volochine, Lida was exhibited as in a state of nudity, her physical attributes and her passion all being displayed as though she were some animal for sale at a fair. By their filthy thoughts she was touched and polluted and held up to ridicule. Their love of woman knew no gratitude for the enjoyment given to them; they merely strove to humiliate and insult the sex, to inflict upon it indescribable pain. The smoke-laden atmosphere of the room had become stifling. Their bodies at fever heat, exhaled an unwholesome odour, as their eyes gleamed and their voices sounded shrill and rabid as those of wild beasts. Beyond the window lay the calm, clear moonlit night. Bur for them the world with all its wealth of colour and sound had vanished; all that their eyes beheld was a vision of woman in her nude loveliness. Soon their imagination became so heated that they felt a burning desire to see Lida, whom now they had dubbed Lidka, by way of being familiar. Sarudine had the horses harnessed, and they drove to a house situated on the outskirts of the town. CHAPTER XXVIII. A letter sent by Sarudine to Lida on the day following their interview fell by chance into Maria Ivanovna's hands. It contained a request for the permission to see her, and awkwardly suggested that sundry matters might be satisfactorily arranged. Its pages cast, so Maria Ivanovna thought, an ugly, shameful shadow upon the pure image of her daughter. In her first perplexity and distress, she remembered her own youth with its love, its deceptions, and the grievous episodes of her married life. A long chain of suffering forged by a life based on rigid laws of morality dragged its slow length along, even to the confines of old age. It was like a grey band, marred in places by monotonous days of care and disappointment. Yet the thought that her daughter had broken through the solid wall surrounding this grey, dusty life, and had plunged into the lurid whirlpool where joy and sorrow and death were mingled, filled the old woman with horror and rage. "Vile, wicked girl!" she thought, as despairingly she let her hands fall into her lap. Suddenly it consoled her to imagine that possibly things had not gone too far, and her face assumed a dull, almost a cunning expression. She read and re-read the letter, yet could gather nothing from its frigid, affected style. Feeling how helpless she was, the old woman wept bitterly; and then, having set her cap straight, she asked the maid-servant: "Dounika, is Vladimir Petrovitch at home?" "What?" shouted Dounika. "Fool! I asked if the young gentleman was at home." "He's just gone into the study. He's writing a letter!" replied Dounika, looking radiant, as if this letter were the reason for unusual rejoicing. Maria Ivanovna looked hard at the girl, and an evil light flashed from her faded eyes. "Toad! if you dare to fetch and carry letters again, I'll give you a lesson that you'll never forget." Sanine was seated at the table, writing. His mother was so little used to seeing him write, that, in spite of her grief, she was interested. "What's that you're writing?" "A letter," replied Sanine, looking up, gaily. "To whom?" "Oh! to a journalist I know. I think of joining the staff of his paper." "So you write for the papers?" Sanine smiled. "I do everything." "But why do you want to go there?" "Because I'm tired of living here with you, mother," said Sanine frankly. Maria Ivanovna felt somewhat hurt. "Thank you," she said. Sanine looked attentively at her, and felt inclined to tell her not to be so silly as to imagine that a man, especially one who had no employment, could care to remain always in the same place. But it irked him to have to say such a thing; and he was silent. Maria Ivanovna took out her pocket-handkerchief and crumpled it nervously in her fingers. If it had not been for Sarudine's letter and her consequent distress and anxiety, she would have bitterly resented her son's rudeness. But, as it was, she merely said: "Ah! yes, the one slinks out of the house like a wolf, and the other..." A gesture of resignation completed the sentence. Sanine looked up quickly, and put down his pen. "What do you know about it?" he asked. Suddenly Maria Ivanovna felt ashamed that she had read the letter to Lida. Turning very red, she replied unsteadily, but with some irritation: "Thank God, I am not blind! I can see." "See? You can see nothing," said Sanine, after a moment's reflection, "and, to prove it allow me to congratulate you on the engagement of your daughter. She was going to tell you herself, but, after all, it comes to the same thing." "What!" exclaimed Maria Ivanovna, drawing herself up. "Lida is going to be married!" "To whom?" "To Novikoff, of course." "Yes, but what about Sarudine?" "Oh! he can go to the devil!" exclaimed Sanine angrily. "What's that to do with you? Why meddle with other people's affairs?" "Yes, but I don't quite understand, Volodja!" said his mother, bewildered, while yet in her heart she could hear the joyous refrain, "Lida's going to be married, going to be married!" Sanine shrugged his shoulders. "What is that you don't understand? She was in love with one man, and now she's in love with another; and to-morrow she'll be in love with a third. Well, God bless her!" "What's that you say?" cried Maria Ivanovna indignantly. Sanine leant against the table and folded his arms. "In the course of your life did you yourself only love one man?" he asked angrily. Maria Ivanovna rose. Her wrinkled face wore a look of chilling pride. "One shouldn't speak to one's mother like that," she said sharply. "Who?" "How do you mean, who?" "Who shouldn't speak?" said Sanine, as he looked at her from head to foot. For the first time he noticed how dull and vacant was the expression in her eyes, and how absurdly her cap was placed upon her head, like a cock's comb. "Nobody ought to speak to me like that!" she said huskily. "Anyhow, I've done so!" replied Sanine, recovering his good temper, and resuming his pen. "You've had your share of life," he said, "and you've up right to prevent Lida from having hers." Maria Ivanovna said nothing, but stared in amazement at her son, while her cap looked droller than ever. She hastily checked all memories of her past youth with its joyous nights of love, fixing upon this one question in her mind. "How dare he speak thus to his mother?" Yet before she could come to any decision, Sanine turned round, and taking her hand said kindly: "Don't let that worry you, but, you must keep Sarudine out of the house, for the fellow's quite capable of playing us a dirty trick." Maria Ivanovna was at once appeased. "God bless you, my boy," she said. "I am very glad, for I have always liked Sacha Novikoff. Of course, we can't receive Sarudine; it wouldn't do, because of Sacha." "No, just that! Because of Sacha," said Sanine with a humorous look in his eyes. "And where is Lida?" asked his mother. "In her room." "And Sacha?" She pronounced the pet name lovingly. "I really don't know. He went to ..." At that moment Dounika appeared in the doorway, and said: "Victor Sergejevitsch is here, and another gentleman." "Turn them out of the house," said Sanine. Dounika smiled sheepishly. "Oh! Sir, I can't do that, can I?" "Of course you can! What business brings them here?" Dounika hid her face, and went out. Drawing herself up to her full height, Maria Ivanovna seemed almost younger, though her eyes looked malevolent. With astonishing ease her point of view had undergone a complete change, as if by playing a trump card she had suddenly scored. Kindly as her feelings for Sarudine had been while she hoped to have him as a son-in-law, they swiftly cooled when she realized that another was to marry Lida, and that Sarudine had only made love to her. As his mother turned to go, Sanine, who noticed her stony profile and forbidding expression, said to himself, "There's an old hen for you!" Folding up his letter he followed her out, curious to see what turn matters would take. With exaggerated politeness Sarudine and Volochine rose to salute the old lady, yet the former showed none of his wonted ease of manner when at the Sanines'. Volochine indeed felt slightly uncomfortable, because he had come expressly to see Lida, and was obliged to conceal his intention. Despite his simulated ease, Sarudine looked obviously anxious. He felt that he ought not to have come. He dreaded meeting Lida, yet he could on no account let Volochine see this, to whom he wished to pose as a gay Lothario. "Dear Maria Ivanovna," began Sarudine, smiling affectedly, "allow me to introduce to you my good friend, Paul Lvovitch Volochine." "Charmed!" said Maria Ivanovna, with frigid politeness, and Sarudine observed the hostile look in her eyes, which somewhat unnerved him. "We ought not to have come," he thought, at last aware of the fact, which in Volochine's society he had forgotten. Lida might come in at any moment, Lida, the mother of his child; what should he say to her? How should he look her in the face? Perhaps her mother knew all? He fidgeted nervously on his chair; lit a cigarette, shrugged his shoulders, moved his legs, and looked about him right and left. "Are you making a long stay?" asked Maria Ivanovna of Volochine, in a cold, formal voice. "Oh! no," he replied, as he stared complacently at this provincial person, thrusting his cigar into the corner of his mouth so that the smoke rose right into her face. "It must be rather dull for you, here, after Petersburg." "On the contrary, I think it is delightful. There is something so patriarchal about this little town." "You ought to visit the environs, which are charming for excursions and picnics. There's boating and bathing, too." "Of course, madam, of course!" drawled Volochine, who was already somewhat bored. The conversation languished, and they all seemed to be wearing smiling masks behind which lurked hostile eyes. Volochine winked at Sarudine in the most unmistakable manner; and this was not lost upon Sanine, who from his corner was watching them closely. The thought that Volochine would no longer regard him as a smart, dashing, dare-devil sort of fellow gave Sarudine some of his old assurance. "And where is Lidia Petrovna?" he asked carelessly. Maria Ivanovna looked at him in surprise and anger. Her eyes seemed to say: "What is that to you, since you are not going to marry her?" "I don't know. Probably in her room," she coldly replied. Volochine shot another glance at his companion. "Can't you manage to make Lida come down quickly?" it said. "This old woman's becoming a bore." Sarudine opened his mouth and feebly twisted his moustache. "I have heard so many flattering things about your daughter," began Volochine, smiling, and rubbing his hands, as he bent forward to Maria Ivanovna, "that I hope to have the honour of being introduced to her." Maria Ivanovna wondered what this insolent little _roué_ could have heard about her own pure Lida, her darling child, and again she had a terrible presentiment of the latter's downfall. It utterly unnerved her, and for the moment her eyes had a softer, more human expression. "If they are not turned out of the house," thought Sanine, at this juncture, "they will only cause further distress to Lida and Novikoff." "I hear that you are going away?" he suddenly said, looking pensively at the floor. Sarudine wondered that so simple an expedient had occurred to him before. "That's it! A good idea. Two months' leave!" he thought, before hastily replying. "Yes, I was thinking of doing so. One wants a change you know. By stopping too long in one place, you are apt to get rusty." Sanine laughed outright. The whole conversation, not one word of which expressed their real thoughts and feelings, all this deceit, which deceived nobody, amused him immensely; and with a sudden sense of gaiety and freedom he got up, and said: "Well, I should think that the sooner you went, the better!" In a moment as if from each a stiff, heavy garb had fallen off, the other three persons became changed. Maria Ivanovna looked pale and shrunken, Volochine's eyes expressed animal fear, and Sarudine slowly and irresolutely rose. "What do you mean?" he asked in a hoarse voice. Volochine tittered, and looked about nervously for his hat. Sanine did not reply to the question, but maliciously handed Volochine the hat. From the latter's open mouth a stifled sound escaped like a plaintive squeak. "What do you mean by that?" cried Sarudine angrily, aware that he was losing his temper. "A scandal!" he thought to himself. "I mean what I say," replied Sanine. "Your presence here is utterly unnecessary, and we shall all be delighted to see the last of you." Sarudine took a step forward. He looked extremely uncomfortable, and his white teeth gleamed threateningly, like those of a wild beast. "Aha! That's it, is it?" he muttered, breathing hard. "Get out!" said Sanine contemptuously, yet in so terrible a tone that Sarudine glared, and voluntarily drew back. "I don't know what the deuce it all means!" said Volochine, under his breath, as with shoulders raised he hurried to the door. But there, in the door-way, stood Lida. She was dressed in a style quite different from her usual one. Instead of a fashionable coiffure, she wore her hair in a thick plait hanging down her back. Instead of an elegant costume she was wearing a loose gown of diaphanous texture, the simplicity of which alluringly heightened the beauty of her form. As she smiled, her likeness to Sanine became more remarkable, and, in her sweet, girlish voice she said calmly: "Here I am. Why are you hurrying away? Victor Sergejevitsch, do put down your cap!" Sanine was silent, and looked at his sister in amazement. "Whatever does she mean?" he thought to himself. As soon as she appeared, a mysterious influence, at once irresistible and tender, seemed to make itself felt. Like a lion-tamer in a cage filled with wild beasts, Lida stood there, and the men at once became gentle and submissive. "Well, do you know, Lidia Petrovna ..." stammered Sarudine. At the sound of his voice, Lida's face assumed a plaintive, helpless expression, and as she glanced swiftly at him there was great grief at her heart not unmixed with tenderness and hope. Yet in a moment such feelings were effaced by a fierce desire to show Sarudine how much he had lost in losing her; to let him see that she was still beautiful, in spite of all the sorrow and shame that he had caused her to endure. "I don't want to know anything," she replied in an imperious, almost a stagy voice, as for a moment she closed her eyes. Upon Volochine, her appearance produced an extraordinary effect, as his sharp little tongue darted out from his dry lips, and his eyes grew smaller and his whole frame vibrated from sheer physical excitement. "You haven't introduced us," said Lida, looking round at Sarudine. "Volochine ... Pavel Lvovitsch ..." stammered the officer. "And this beauty," he said to himself, "was my mistress." He felt honestly pleased to think this, at the same time being anxious to show off before Volochine, while yet bitterly conscious of an irrevocable loss. Lida languidly addressed her mother. "There is some one who wants to speak to you," she said. "Oh! I can't go now," replied Maria Ivanovna. "But they are waiting," persisted Lida, almost hysterically. Maria Ivanovna got up quickly. Sanine watched Lida, and his nostrils were dilated. "Won't you come into the garden? It's so hot in here," said Lida, and without looking round to see if they were coming, she walked out through the veranda. As if hypnotized, the men followed her, bound, seemingly, with the tresses of her hair, so that she could draw them whither she wished. Volochine walked first, ensnared by her beauty, and apparently oblivious of aught else. Lida sat down in the rocking-chair under the linden-tree and stretched out her pretty little feet clad in black open-work stockings and tan shoes. It was as if she had two natures; the one overwhelmed with modesty and shame, the other, full of self-conscious coquetry. The first nature prompted her to look with disgust upon men, and life, and herself. "Well, Pavel Lvovitsch," she asked, as her eyelids drooped, "What impression has our poor little out-of-the-way town made upon you?" "The impression which probably he experiences who in the depth of the forest suddenly beholds a radiant flower," replied Volochine, rubbing his hands. Then began talk which was thoroughly vapid and insincere, the spoken being false, and the unspoken, true. Sanine sat silently listening to this mute but sincere conversation, as expressed by faces, hands, feet and tremulous accents. Lida was unhappy, Volochine longed for all her beauty, while Sarudine loathed Lida, Sanine, Volochine, and the world generally. He wanted to go, yet he could not make a move. He was for doing something outrageous, yet he could only smoke cigarette after cigarette, while dominated by the desire to proclaim Lida his mistress to all present. "And how do you like being here? Are you not sorry to have left Petersburg behind you?" asked Lida, suffering meanwhile intense torture, and wondering why she did not get up and go. "_Mais au contraire_!" lisped Volochine, as he waved his hand in a finicking fashion and gazed ardently at Lida. "Come! come! no pretty speeches!" said Lida, coquettishly, while to Sarudine her whole being seemed to say: "You think that I am wretched, don't you? and utterly crushed? But I am nothing of the kind, my friend. Look at me!" "Oh, Lidia Petrovna!" said Sarudine, "you surely don't call that a pretty speech!" "I beg your pardon?" asked Lida drily, as if she had not heard, and then, in a different tone, she again addressed Volochine. "Do tell me something about life in Petersburg. Here, we don't live, we only vegetate." Sarudine saw that Volochine was smiling to himself, as if he did not believe that the former had ever been on intimate terms with Lida. "Ah! Ah! Ah! Very good!" he said to himself, as he bit his lip viciously. "Oh! our famous Petersburg life!" Volochine, who chattered with ease, looked like a silly little monkey babbling of things that it did not comprehend. "Who knows?" he thought to himself, his gaze riveted on Lida's beautiful form. "I assure you on my word of honour that our life is extremely dull and colourless. Until to-day I thought that life, generally, was always dull, whether in the town or in the country." "Not really!" exclaimed Lida, as she half closed her eyes. "What makes life worth living is ... a beautiful woman! And the women in big towns! If you could only see what they were like! Do you know, I feel convinced that if the world is ever saved it will be by beauty." This last phrase Volochine unexpectedly added, believing it to be most apt and illuminating. The expression of his face was one of stupidity and greed, as he kept reverting to his pet theme, Woman. Sarudine alternately flushed and pale with jealousy, found it impossible to remain in one place, but walked restlessly up and down the path. "Our women are all alike ... stereotyped and made-up. To find one whose beauty is worthy of adoration, it is to the provinces that one must go, where the soil, untilled as yet, produces the most splendid flowers." Sanine scratched the nape of his neck, and crossed his legs. "Ah! of what good is it if they bloom here, since there is no one worthy to pluck them?" replied Lida. "Aha!" thought Sanine, suddenly becoming interested, "so that's what she's driving at!" This word-play, where sentiment and grossness were so obviously involved, he found extremely diverting. "Is it possible?" "Why, of course! I mean what I say, who is it that plucks our unfortunate blossoms? What men are those whom we set up as heroes?" rejoined Lida bitterly. "Aren't you rather too hard upon us?" asked Sarudine. "No, Lidia Petrovna is right!" exclaimed Volochine, but, glancing at Sarudine, his eloquence suddenly subsided. Lida laughed outright. Filled with shame and grief and revenge, her burning eyes were set on her seducer, and seemed to pierce him through and through. Volochine again began to babble, while Lida interrupted him with laughter that concealed her tears. "I think that we ought to be going," said Sarudine, at last, who felt that the situation was becoming intolerable. He could not tell why, but everything, Lida's laughter, her scornful eyes and trembling hands were all to him as so many secret boxes on the ear. His growing hatred of her, and his jealousy of Volochine as well as the consciousness of all that he had lost, served to exhaust him utterly. "Already?" asked Lida. Volochine smiled sweetly, licking his lips with the tip of his tongue. "It can't be helped! Victor Sergejevitsch apparently is not quite himself," he said in a mocking tone, proud of his conquest. So they took their leave; and, as Sarudine bent over Lida's hand, he whispered: "This is good-bye!" Never had he hated Lida as much as at this moment. In Lida's heart there arose a vague, fleeting desire to bid tender farewell to all those bygone hours of love which had once been theirs. But this feeling she swiftly repressed, as she said in a loud, harsh voice: "Good-bye! _Bon voyage_! Don't forget us, Pavel Lvovitsch!" As they were going, Volochine's remark could be distinctly heard. "How charming she is! She intoxicates one, like champagne!" When they had gone, Lida sat down again in the rocking-chair. Her position was a different one, now, for she bent forward, trembling all over, and her silent tears fell fast. "Come, come! What's the matter?" said Sanine, as he took hold of her hand. "Oh! don't! What an awful thing life is!" she exclaimed, as her head sank lower, and she covered her face with her hands, while the soft plait of hair, slipping over her shoulder, hung down in front. "For shame!" said Sanine. "What's the use of crying about such trifles?" "Are there really no other ... better men, then?" murmured Lida. Sanine smiled. "No, certainly not. Man is vile by nature. Expect nothing good from him.... And then the harm that he does to you will not make you grieve." Lida looked up at him with beautiful tear-stained eyes. "Do you expect nothing good from your fellow-men, either?" "Of course not," replied Sanine, "I live alone." CHAPTER XXIX. On the following day Dounika, bare-headed and barefooted, came running to Sanine who was gardening. "Vladimir Petrovitch," she exclaimed, and her silly face had a scared look, "the officers have come, and they wish to speak to you." She repeated the words like a lesson that she had learnt by heart. Sanine was not surprised. He had been expecting a challenge from Sarudine. "Are they very anxious to see me?" he asked in a jocular tone. Dounika, however, must have had an inkling of something dreadful, for instead of hiding her face she gazed at Sanine in sympathetic bewilderment. Sanine propped his spade against a tree, tightened his belt and walked towards the house with his usual jaunty step. 'What fools they are! What absolute idiots!' he said to himself, as he thought of Sarudine and his seconds. By this no insult was intended; it was just the sincere expression of his own opinion. Passing through the house, he saw Lida coming out of her room. She stood on the threshold; her face white as a shroud, and her eyes, anxious and distressful. Her lips moved, yet no sound escaped from them. At that moment she felt that she was the guiltiest, most miserable woman in all the world. In an arm-chair in the morning-room sat Maria Ivanovna, looking utterly helpless and panic-stricken. Her cap that resembled a cock's comb was poised sideways on her head, and she gazed in terror at Sanine, unable to utter a word. He smiled at her and was inclined to stop for a moment, yet he preferred to proceed. Tanaroff and Von Deitz were sitting in the drawing-room bolt upright, with their heads close together, as if in their white tunics and tight riding-breeches they felt extremely uncomfortable. As Sanine entered they both rose slowly and with some hesitation, apparently uncertain how to behave. "Good day, gentlemen," said Sanine in a loud voice, as he held out his hand. Von Deitz hesitated, but Tanaroff bowed in such an exaggerated way that for an instant Sanine caught sight of the closely cropped hair at the back of his neck. "How can I be of service to you?" continued Sanine, who had noticed Tanaroff's excessive politeness, and was surprised at the assurance with which he played his part in this absurd comedy. Von Deitz drew himself up and sought to give an expression of _hauteur_ to his horse-like countenance; unsuccessfully, however, owing to his confusion. Strange to say, it was Tanaroff, usually so stupid and shy, who addressed Sanine in firm, decisive fashion. "Our friend, Victor Sergejevitsch Sarudine has done us the honour of asking us to represent him in a certain matter which concerns you and himself." The sentence was delivered with automatic precision. "Oho!" said Sanine with comic gravity, as he opened his mouth wide. "Yes, sir," continued Tanaroff, frowning slightly. "He considers that your behaviour towards him was not--er--quite ..." "Yes, yes, I understand," interrupted Sanine, losing patience. "I very nearly kicked him out of the house, so that 'not--er--quite' is hardly the right way of putting it." The speech was lost upon Tanaroff, who went on: "Well, sir, he insists on your taking back your words." "Yes, yes," chimed in the lanky Von Deitz, who kept shifting the position of his feet, like a stork. Sanine smiled. "Take them back? How can I do that? 'As uncaged bird is spoken word!'" Too perplexed to reply, Tanaroff looked Sanine full in the face. "What evil eyes he has!" thought the latter. "This is no joking matter," began Tanaroff, looking flushed and angry. "Are you prepared to retract your words, or are you not?" Sanine at first was silent. "What an utter idiot!" he thought, as he took a chair and sat down. "Possibly I might be willing to retract my words in order to please and pacify Sarudine," he began, speaking seriously, "the more so as I attach not the slightest importance to them. But, in the first place, Sarudine, being a fool, would not understand my motive, and, instead of holding his tongue, would brag about it. In the second place, I thoroughly dislike Sarudine, so that, under these circumstances, I don't see that there is any sense in my retractation." "Very well, then..." hissed Tanaroff through his teeth. Von Deitz stared in amazement, and his long face turned yellow. "In that case..." began Tanaroff, in a louder and would-be threatening tone. Sanine felt fresh hatred for the fellow as he looked at his narrow forehead and his tight breeches. "Yes, yes, I know all about it," he interrupted. "But one thing, let me tell you; I don't intend to fight Sarudine." Von Deitz turned round sharply. Tanaroff drew himself up, and said in a tone of contempt. "Why not, pray?" Sanine burst out laughing. His hatred had vanished as swiftly as it had come. "Well, this is why. First of all, I have no wish to kill Sarudine, and secondly, I have even less desire to be killed myself." "But ..." began Tanaroff scornfully. "I won't, and there's an end of it!" said Sanine, as he rose. "Why, indeed? I don't feel inclined to give you any explanation. That were too much to expect, really!" Tanaroff's profound contempt for the man who refused to fight a duel was blended with the implicit belief that only an officer could possibly possess the pluck and the fine sense of honour necessary to do such a thing. That is why Sanine's refusal did not surprise him in the least; in fact, he was secretly pleased. "That is your affair," he said, in an unmistakably contemptuous tone, "but I must warn you that ..." Sanine laughed. "Yes, yes, I know, but I advise Sarudine not to ..." "Not to--what?" asked Tanaroff, as he picked up his cap from the window-sill. "I advise him not to touch me, or else I'll give him such a thrashing that ..." "Look here!" cried Von Deitz, in a fury. "I'm not going to stand this... You ... you are simply laughing at us. Don't you understand that to refuse to accept a challenge is ... is ..." He was as red as a lobster, his eyes were starting from his head, and there was foam on his lips. Sanine looked curiously at his mouth, and said: "And this is the man whose calls himself a disciple of Tolstoi!" Von Deitz winced, and tossed his head. "I must beg of you," he spluttered, ashamed all the while at thus addressing a man with whom till now he had been on friendly terms. "I must beg of you not to mention that. It has nothing whatever to do with this matter." "Hasn't it! though?" replied Sanine. "It has a great deal to do with it." "Yes, but I must ask you," croaked Von Deitz, becoming hysterical. "Really, this is too much! In short ..." "Oh! That'll do!" replied Sanine, drawing back in disgust from Von Deitz, from whose mouth saliva spurted. "Think what you like; I don't care. And tell Sarudine that he is an ass!" "You've no right, sir, I say, you've no right," shouted Von Deitz. "Very good, very good," said Tanaroff, quite satisfied "Let us go." "No!" cried the other, plaintively, as he waved his lanky arms. "How dare he? ... what business I ... It's simply ..." Sanine looked at him, and, making a contemptuous gesture, walked out of the room. "We will deliver your message to our brother-officer," said Tanaroff, calling after him. "As you please," said Sanine, without looking round. He could hear Tanaroff trying to pacify the enraged Von Deitz, and thought to himself, "As a rule the fellow's an utter fool, but put him on his hobby-horse, and he becomes quite sensible." "The matter cannot be allowed to rest thus!" cried the implacable Von Deitz, as they went out. From the door of her room, Lida gently called "Volodja!" Sanine stood still. "What is it?" "Come here; I want to speak to you." Sanine entered Lida's little room where, owing to the trees in front of the window, soft green twilight reigned. There was a feminine odour of perfume and powder. "How nice it is in here," said Sanine, with a sigh of relief. Lida stood facing the window, and green reflected lights from the garden flickered round her cheeks and shoulders. "What do you want with me?" he asked kindly. Lida was silent, and she breathed heavily. "Why, what is the matter?" "Are you--not going to fight a duel?" she asked hoarsely, without looking round. "No." Lida was silent. "Well, what of that?" said Sanine. Lida's chin trembled. She turned sharply round and murmured quickly: "I can't understand that, I can't..." "Oh!" exclaimed Sanine, frowning. "Well, I'm very sorry for you." Human stupidity and malice surrounded him on all sides. To find such qualities alike in bad folk and good folk, in handsome people as in ugly, proved utterly disheartening. He turned on his heels and went out. Lida watched him go, and then, holding her head with both hands, she flung herself upon the bed. The long black plait lay at full length along the white coverlet. At this moment Lida, strong, supple and beautiful in spite of her despair, looked younger, more full of life than ever. Through the window came warmth and radiance from the garden, and the room was bright and pleasant. Yet of all this Lida saw nothing. CHAPTER XXX. It was one of those strangely beautiful evenings in late summer that descend upon earth from the majestic azure vaults of heaven. The sun had set, but the light was still distinct, and the air pure and clear. There was a heavy dew, and the dust which had slowly risen formed long gauze-like strips of cloud against the sky. The atmosphere was sultry and yet fresh. Sounds floated hither and thither, as if borne on rapid wings. Sanine, hatless, and wearing his blue shirt that at the shoulders was slightly faded, sauntered along the dusty road and turned down the little grass-grown side-street leading to Ivanoff's lodging. At the window, making cigarettes, sat Ivanoff, broad-shouldered and sedate, with his long, straw-coloured hair carefully brushed back. Humid airs floated towards him from the garden where grass and foliage gained new lustre in the evening dew. The strong odour of tobacco was an inducement to sneeze. "Good evening," said Sanine, leaning on the windowsill. "Good evening." "To-day I have been challenged to fight a duel," said Sanine. "What fun!" replied Ivanoff carelessly. "With whom, and why?" "With Sarudine. I turned him out of the house, and he considers himself insulted." "Oho! Then you'll have to meet him," said Ivanoff. "I'll be your second, and you shall shoot his nose off." "Why? The nose is a noble part of one's physiognomy. I am not going to fight," rejoined Sanine, laughing. Ivanoff nodded. "A good thing, too. Duelling is quite unnecessary." "My sister Lida doesn't think so," said Sanine. "Because she's a goose," replied Ivanoff. "What a lot of tomfoolery people choose to believe, don't they?" So saying, he finished making the last cigarette, which he lighted, putting the others in his leather cigarette-case. Then he blew away the tobacco left on the window-sill, and, vaulting over it, joined Sanine. "What shall we do this evening?" he asked. "Let us go and see Soloveitchik," suggested Sanine. "Oh! no!" "Why not?" "I don't like him. He is such a worm." Sanine shrugged his shoulders. "Not worse than others. Come along." "All right," said Ivanoff, who always agreed to anything that Sanine proposed. So they both went along the street together. Soloveitchik, however, was not at home. The door was shut, and the courtyard dreary and deserted. Only Sultan rattled his chain and barked at these strangers who had invaded his yard. "What a ghastly place!" exclaimed Ivanoff. "Let us go to the boulevard." They turned back, shutting the gate after them. Sultan barked two or three times and then sat in front of his kennel, sadly gazing at the desolate yard, the silent mill and the little white footpaths across the dusty turf. In the public garden the band was playing, as usual, and there was a pleasant breeze on the boulevard, where promenaders abounded. Lit up by bright feminine toilettes, the dark throng moved now in the direction of the shady gardens, and now towards the main entrance of massive stone. On entering the garden arm-in-arm, Sanine and Ivanoff instantly encountered Soloveitchik who was walking pensively along, his hands behind his back, and his eyes on the ground. "We have just been to your place," said Sanine. Soloveitchik blushed and smiled, as he timidly replied: "Oh! I beg your pardon! I am so sorry, but I never thought that you were coming, or else I would have stayed at home. I am just out for a little walk." His wistful eyes shone. "Come along with us," said Sanine, kindly, as he took hold of his arm. Soloveitchik, apparently delighted, accepted the proffered arm, thrust his cap on the back of his head, and walked along as if, instead of Sanine's arm, it was something precious that he was holding. His mouth seemed to reach from ear to ear. Purple-faced, and with distended cheeks, the members of the regimental band flung out their deafening, brazen notes upon the air, stimulated in their efforts by a smartly-dressed bandmaster who looked like a pert little sparrow, and who zealously flourished his _bâton_. Grouped round the band-stand were clerks, shopmen, schoolboys in Hessian boots, and little girls wearing brightly-coloured handkerchiefs round their heads. In the main walks and side-walks, as if engaged in an endless quadrille, there moved a vivacious throng, composed of officers, students, and ladies. They soon met Dubova, Schafroff, and Yourii Svarogitsch, and exchanged smiles as they passed. Then, after they had strolled through the entire garden, they again met, Sina Karsavina being now one of the party, looking charmingly graceful in her light summer dress. "Why are you walking by yourselves, like that?" if asked Dubova. "Come; and join us." "Let us go down one of the side-walks," suggested Schafroff. "Here, it's so terribly crowded." Laughing and chatting, the young people accordingly turned aside into a more shady, quieter avenue. As they reached the end of it and were about to turn, Sarudine, Tanaroff and Volochine suddenly came round the corner. Sanine saw at once that Sarudine had not expected to meet him here, and that he was considerably disconcerted. His handsome face grew dark, and he drew himself up to his full height. Tanaroff laughed contemptuously. "That little jackanapes is still here," said Ivanoff, as be stared at Volochine. The latter had not noticed them, being so much interested in Sina, who walked first, that he turned round in passing to look at her. "So he is!" said Sanine, laughing. Sarudine thought that this laughter was meant for him, and he winced, as if struck by a whip. Flushed with anger, and impelled as by some irresistible force, he left his companions, and rapidly approached Sanine. "What is it?" said the latter, suddenly becoming serious, while his eyes were fixed on the little riding-whip in Sarudine's trembling hand. "You fool!" he thought to himself, as much in pity as in anger. "I should like a word with you," began Sarudine, hoarsely. "Did you receive my challenge?" "Yes," replied Sanine, intently watching every movement of the officer's hands. "And you have decided to refuse ... er ... to act as any decent man is bound to act under the circumstances?" asked Sarudine. His voice was muffled, though loud in tone. To himself it seemed a strange one, as uncanny as the cold handle of the whip in his moist fingers. But he had not the strength to turn aside from the path that lay before him. Suddenly in the garden there seemed to be no air whatever. All the others stood still, perplexed, and expectant. "Oh! what the deuce--" began Ivanoff, endeavouring to interpose. "Of course I refuse," said Sanine in a strangely calm voice, looking the other straight in the eyes. Sarudine breathed hard, as if he were lifting a heavy weight. "Once more I ask you--do you refuse?" His voice had a hard, metallic ring. Soloveitchik turned very pale. "Oh, dear! Oh! dear! He's going to hit him!" he thought. "What ... what is the matter?" he stammered, as he endeavoured to protect Sanine. Scarcely noticing him, Sarudine roughly pushed him aside. He saw nothing else in front of him but Sanine's cold, calm eyes. "I have already told you so," said Sanine, in the same tone. To Sarudine everything seemed whirling round. He heard behind him hasty footsteps, and the startled cry of a woman. With a sense of despair such as one who falls headlong into a chasm might feel, he clumsily and threateningly flourished the whip. At that same moment Sanine, using all his strength, struck him full in the face with his clenched fist. "Good!" exclaimed Ivanoff involuntarily. Sarudine's head hung limply on one side. Something hot that stabbed his brain and eyes like sharp needles flooded his mouth and nose. "Ah!" he groaned, and sank helplessly forward on his hands, dropping the whip, while his cap fell off. He saw nothing, he heard nothing, being only conscious of the horrible disgrace, and of a dull burning pain in his eye. "Oh! God!" screamed Sina Karsavina, holding her head with both hands, and shutting her eyes tightly. Horrified and disgusted at the sight of Sarudine crouching there on all fours, Yourii, followed by Schafroff, rushed at Sanine. Volochine, losing his _pince-nez_ as he Stumbled over a bush, ran away as fast as he could across the damp grass, so that his spotless trousers instantly became black up to the knees. Tanaroff ground his teeth with fury, and also dashed forward, but Ivanoff caught him by the shoulders and pulled him back. "That's all right!" said Sanine scornfully. "Let him come." He stood with legs apart, breathing hard, and big drops of sweat were on his brow. Sarudine slowly staggered to his feet. Faint, incoherent words escaped from his quivering, swollen lips, vague words of menace that to Sanine sounded singularly ridiculous. The whole left side of Sarudine's face had instantly became swollen. His eye was no longer visible; blood was flowing from his nose and mouth, his lips twitched, and his whole body shook as if in the grip of a fever. Of the smart, handsome officer nothing remained. That awful blow had robbed him of all that was human; it had left only something piteous, terrifying, disfigured. He made no attempt to go away nor to defend himself. His teeth rattled, and, while he spat blood, he mechanically brushed the sand from his knees. Then, reeling forward, he fell down again. "Oh! how horrible! How horrible!" exclaimed Sina Karsavina, hurrying away from the spot. "Come along!" said Sanine to Ivanoff, looking upwards to avoid so revolting a sight. "Come along, Soloveitchik." But Soloveitchik did not stir. Wide-eyed he stared at Sarudine, at the blood, and the dirty sand on the snow-white tunic, trembling all the while, as his lips moved feebly. Ivanoff angrily pulled him along, but Soloveitchik shook him off with surprising vehemence, and he then clung to the trunk of a tree, as if he wished to resist being dragged away by main force. "Oh! why, why, did you do that?" he whimpered. "What a blackguardly thing to do!" shouted Yourii in Sanine's face. "Yes, blackguardly!" rejoined Sanine, with a scornful smile. "Would it have been better, do you suppose, to have let him hit me?" Then, with a careless gesture, he walked rapidly along the avenue. Ivanoff looked at Yourii in disdain, lit a cigarette, and slowly followed Sanine. Even his broad back and smooth hair told one plainly how little such a scene as this affected him. "How stupid and brutal man can be!" he murmured to himself. Sanine glanced round once, and then walked faster. "Just like brutes," said Yourii, as he went away. He looked back, and the garden which he had always thought beautiful, and dim, and mysterious, seemed now, after what had happened, to have been shut off from the rest of the world, a sombre, dreary place. Schafroff breathed hard, and looked nervously over his spectacles in all directions, as if he thought that at any moment, something equally dreadful might again occur. CHAPTER XXXI. In a moment Sarudine's life had undergone a complete change. Careless, easy, and gay as it had been before, so now it seemed to him distorted, dire, and unendurable. The laughing mask had fallen; the hideous face of a monster was revealed. Tanaroff had taken him home in a _droschky_. On the way he exaggerated his pain and weakness so as not to have to open his eyes. In this way he thought that he would avoid the shame levelled at him by thousands of eyes so soon as they encountered his. The slim, blue back of the _droschky_ driver, the passers-by, malicious, inquisitive faces at windows, even Tanaroff's arm round his waist were all, as he imagined, silent expressions of undisguised contempt. So intensely painful did this sensation become, that at last Sarudine almost fainted. He felt as if he were losing his reason, and he longed to die. His brain refused to recognize what had happened. He kept thinking that there was a mistake, some misunderstanding, and that his plight was not as desperate and deplorable as he imagined. Yet the actual fact remained, and ever darker grew his despair. Sarudine felt that he was being supported, that he was in pain, and that his hands were blood-stained and dirty. It really surprised him to know that he was still conscious of it all. At times, when the vehicle turned a sharp corner, and swayed to one side, he partially opened his eyes, and perceived, as if through tears, familiar streets, and houses, and people, and the church. Nothing had become changed, yet all seemed hostile, strange, and infinitely remote. Passers-by stopped and stared. Sarudine instantly shut his eyes in shame and despair. The drive seemed endless. "Faster! faster!" he thought anxiously. Then, however, he pictured to himself the faces of his man-servant, of his landlady, and of the neighbours, which made him wish that the journey might never end. Just to drive on, drive on, anywhere, like that, with eyes closed! Tanaroff was horribly ashamed of this procession. Very red and confused, he looked straight in front of him, and strove to give onlookers the impression that he had nothing whatever to do with the affair. At first he professed to sympathize with Sarudine, but soon relapsed into silence, occasionally through his clenched teeth urging the coachman to drive quicker. From this, as also from the irresolute support of his arm, which at times almost pushed him away, Sarudine knew exactly what Tanaroff felt. It was this knowledge that a man whom he held to be so absolutely his inferior should feel ashamed of him, which convinced Sarudine that all was now at an end. He could not cross the courtyard without assistance. Tanaroff and the scared, trembling orderly almost had to carry him. If there were other onlookers, Sarudine did not see them. They made up a bed for him on the sofa and stood there, helpless and irresolute. This irritated him intensely. At last, recovering himself, the servant fetched some hot water and a towel, and carefully washed the blood from Sarudine's face and hands. His master avoided his glance, but in the soldier's eyes there was nothing malicious or scornful; only such fear and pity as some kind-hearted old nurse might feel. "Oh! however did this happen, your Excellency? Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What have they been doing to him?" he murmured. "It's no business of yours!" hissed Tanaroff angrily; glancing round immediately afterwards, in confusion. He went to the window and mechanically took out a cigarette, but uncertain if, while Sarudine lay there, he ought to smoke, he hurriedly thrust his cigarette-case into his pocket. "Shall I fetch the doctor?" asked the orderly, standing at attention, and unabashed by the rude answer that he had received. Tanaroff stretched out his fingers irresolutely. "I don't know," he said in an altered voice, as he again looked round. Sarudine had heard these words, and was horrified to think that the doctor would see his battered face. "I don't want anybody," he murmured feebly, trying to persuade himself and the others that he was going to die. Cleansed now from blood and dirt, his face was no longer horrible to behold, but called rather for compassion. From mere animal curiosity Tanaroff hastily glanced at him, and then, in a moment, looked elsewhere. Almost imperceptible as this movement had been, Sarudine noticed it with unutterable anguish and despair. He shut his eyes tighter, and exclaimed, in a broken, tearful voice: "Leave me! Leave me! Oh! Oh!" Tanaroff glanced again at him. Suddenly a feeling of irritation and contempt possessed him. "He's actually going to cry now!" he thought, with a certain malicious satisfaction. Sarudine's eyes were closed, and he lay quite still. Tanaroff drummed lightly on the window-sill with his fingers, twirled his moustache, looked round first, and then, out of the window, feeling selfishly eager to get away. "I can't very well, just yet," he thought. "What a damned bore! Better wait until he goes to sleep." Another quarter of an hour passed, and Sarudine appeared to be restless. To Tanaroff such suspense was intolerable. At last the sufferer lay motionless. "Aha! he's asleep," thought Tanaroff, inwardly pleased. "Yes, I'm sure that he is." He moved cautiously across the room so that the jingling of his spurs was scarcely audible. Suddenly Sarudine opened his eyes. Tanaroff stood still, but Sarudine had already guessed his intention, and the former knew that he had been detected in the act. Now something strange occurred. Sarudine shut his eyes and pretended to be asleep. Tanaroff tried to persuade himself that this was the case, while yet perfectly well aware that each was watching the other; and so, in an awkward, stooping posture, he crept out of the room on tiptoe, feeling like a convicted traitor. The door closed gently behind him. In such wise were the bonds of friendship that had bound these two men together broken once and for all. They both felt that a gulf now lay between them that could never be bridged; in this world henceforth they could be nothing to each other. In the outer room Tanaroff breathed more freely. He had no regret that all was at end between himself and the man with whom for many years his life had been spent. "Look here!" said he to the servant as if, for form's sake, it behoved him to speak, "I am now going. If anything should happen--well ... you understand ..." "Very good, sir," replied the soldier, looking scared. "So now you know.... And see that the bandage is frequently changed." He hurried down the steps, and, after closing the garden-gate, he drew a deep breath when he saw before him the broad, silent street. It was now nearly dark, and Tanaroff was glad that no one could notice his flushed face. "I may even be mixed up in this horrid affair myself," he thought, and his heart sank as he approached the boulevard. "After all, what have I got to do with it?" Thus he sought to pacify himself, endeavouring to forget how Ivanoff had flung him aside with such force that he almost fell down. "Deuce take it! What a nasty business! It's all that fool of a Sarudine! Why did he ever associate with such _canaille_?" The more he brooded over the whole unpleasantness of this incident, the more his commonplace figure, as he strutted along in his tightly- fitting breeches, smart boots, and white tunic, assumed a threatening aspect. In every passer-by he was ready to detect ridicule and scorn; indeed, at the slightest provocation he would have wildly drawn his sword. However, he met but few folk that, like furtive shadows, passed swiftly along the outskirts of the darkening boulevard. On reaching home he became somewhat calmer, and then he thought again of what Ivanoff had done. "Why didn't I hit him? I ought to have given him one in the jaw. I might have used my sword. I had my revolver, too, in my pocket. I ought to have shot him like a dog. How came I to forget the revolver? Well, after all, perhaps it's just as well that I didn't. Suppose I had killed him? It would have been a matter for the police. One of those other fellows might have had a revolver, too! A pretty state of things, eh? At all events, nobody knows that I had a weapon on me, and by degrees, the whole thing will blow over." Tanaroff looked cautiously round before he drew out his revolver and placed it in the table drawer. "I shall have to go to the colonel at once, and explain to him that I had nothing whatever to do with the matter," he thought, as he locked the drawer. Then an irresistible impulse seized him to go to the officer's mess, and, as an eye-witness, describe exactly what took place. The officers had already heard about the affair in the public gardens, and they hurried back to the brilliantly lighted mess-rooms to give vent in heated language to their indignation. They were really rather pleased at Sarudine's discomfiture, since often enough his smartness and elegance in dress and demeanour had served to put them in the shade. Tanaroff was hailed with undisguised curiosity. He felt that he was the hero of the hour as he began to give a detailed account of the whole incident. In his narrow black eyes there was a look of hatred for the friend who had always been his superior. He thought of the money incident, and of Sarudine's condescending attitude towards him, and he revenged himself for past slights by a minute description of his comrade's defeat. Meanwhile, forsaken and alone, Sarudine lay there upon his couch. His soldier-servant, who had learnt the whole truth elsewhere, moved noiselessly about, looking sad and anxious as before. He set the tea- things ready, fetched some wine, and drove the dog out of the room as it leaped about for joy at the sight of its master. After a while the man came back on tiptoe. "Your Excellency had better have a little wine," he whispered. "Eh? What?" exclaimed Sarudine, opening his eyes and shutting them again instantly. In a tone which he thought severe, but which was really piteous, he could just move his swollen lips sufficiently to say: "Bring me the looking-glass." The servant sighed, brought the mirror, and held a candle close to it. "Why does he want to look at himself?" he thought. When Sarudine looked in the glass he uttered an involuntary cry. In the dark mirror a terribly disfigured face confronted him. One side of it was black and blue, his eye was swollen, and his moustache stuck out like bristles on his puffy check. "Here! Take it away!" murmured Sarudine, and he sobbed hysterically. "Some water!" "Your Excellency mustn't take it so to heart. You'll soon be all right again," said the kindly soldier, as he proffered water in a sticky glass which smelt of tea. Sarudine could not drink; his teeth rattled helplessly against the rim of the glass, and the water was spilt over his coat. "Go away!" he feebly moaned. His servant, so he thought, was the only man in the world who sympathized with him, yet that kindlier feeling towards him was speedily extinguished by the intolerable consciousness that his serving-man had cause to pity him. Almost in tears, the soldier blinked his eyes and, going out, sat down on the steps leading to the garden. Fawning upon him, the dog thrust its pretty nose against his knee and looked up at him gravely with dark, questioning eyes. He gently stroked its soft, wavy coat. Overhead shone the silent stars. A sense of fear came over him, as the presage of some great, inevitable mischance. "Life's a sad thing!" he thought bitterly, remembering for a moment his own native village. Sarudine turned hastily over on the sofa and lay motionless, without noticing that the compress, now grown warm, had slipped off his face. "Now all is at an end!" he murmured hysterically, "What is at an end? Everything! My whole life--done for! Why? Because I've been insulted-- struck like a dog! My face struck with the fist! I can never remain in the regiment, never!" He could clearly see himself there, in the avenue, hobbling on all fours, cowed and ridiculous, as he uttered feeble, senseless threats. Again and again he mentally rehearsed that awful incident with ever increasing torture, and, as if illuminated, all the details stood out vividly before his eyes. That which most irritated him was his recollection of Sina Karsavina's white dress, of which he caught a glimpse at the very moment when he was vowing futile vengeance. "Who was it that lifted me up?" He tried to turn his thoughts into another channel. "Was it Tanaroff? Or that Jew boy who was with them! It must have been Tanaroff. Anyhow, it doesn't matter in the least. What matters is that my whole life is ruined, and that I shall have to leave the regiment. And the duel? What about that? He won't fight. I shall have to leave the regiment." Sarudine recollected how a regimental committee had forced two brother- officers, married men, to resign because they had refused to fight a duel. "I shall be asked to resign in the same way. Quite civilly, without shaking hands ... the very fellows that.... Nobody will feel flattered now to be seen walking arm-in-arm with me in the boulevard, or envy me, or imitate my manner. But, after all, that's nothing. It's the shame, the dishonour of it. Why? Because I was struck in the face? It has happened to me before when I was a cadet. That big fellow, Schwartz, gave me a hiding, and knocked out one of my teeth. Nobody thought anything about it, but we shook hands afterwards, and became the best of friends. Nobody despised me then. Why should it be different now? Surely it is just the same thing! On that occasion, too, blood was spilt, and I fell down. So that ..." To these despairing questions Sarudine could find no answer. "If he had accepted my challenge and had shot me in the face, that would have been worse, and much more painful. Yet no one would have despised me in that case; on the contrary, I should have had sympathy and admiration. Thus there is a difference between a bullet and the fist. What difference is there, and why should there be any?" His thoughts came swiftly, incoherently, yet his suffering, and irreparable misfortune would seem to have roused something new and latent within him of which in his careless years of selfish enjoyment he had never been conscious. "Von Deitz, for instance, was always saying, 'If one smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the left.' But how did he come back that day from Sanine's? Shouting angrily, and waving his arms because the fellow wouldn't accept my challenge! The others are really to blame for my wanting to hit him with the riding-whip. My mistake was that I didn't do it in time. The whole thing's absurdly unjust. However, there it is; the disgrace remains; and I shall have to leave the regiment." With both hands pressed to his aching brow, Sarudine tossed from side to side, for the pain in his eye was excruciating. Then, in a fit of fury, he muttered: "Get a revolver, rush at him, and put a couple of bullets through his head ... and then, as he lies there, stamp on his face, on his eyes, on his teeth!..." The compress fell to the floor with a dull thud. Sarudine, startled, opened his eyes and, in the dimly-lighted room, saw a basin with water, a towel, and the dark window, that like an awful eye, stared at him mysteriously. "No, no, there's no help for it now," he thought, in dull despair. "They all saw it; saw how I was struck in the face, and how I crawled along on all fours. Oh! the shame of it! Struck like that, in the face! No, it's too much! I shall never be free or happy again!" And again through his mind there flashed a new, keen thought. "After all, have I ever been free? No. That's just why I've come to grief now, because my life has never been free; because I've never lived it in my own way. Of my own free will should I ever have wanted to fight a duel, or to hit him with the whip? Nobody would have struck me, and everything would have been all right. Who first imagined, and when, that an insult could only be wiped out with blood? Not I, certainly. Well, I've wiped it out, or rather, it's been wiped out with my blood, hasn't it? I don't know what it all means, but I know this, that I shall have to leave the regiment!" His thoughts would fain have taken another direction, yet, like birds with clipped wings, they always fell back again, back to the one central fact that he had been grossly insulted, and would be obliged to leave the regiment. He remembered having once seen a fly that had fallen into syrup crawling over the floor, dragging its sticky legs and wings along with the utmost difficulty. It was plain that the wretched insect must die, though it still struggled, and made frantic efforts to regain its feet. At the time he had turned away from it in disgust, and now he saw it again, as in a feverish dream. Then he suddenly thought of a fight that he had once witnessed between two peasants, when one, with a terrific blow in the face, felled the other, an elderly, grey-haired man. He got up, wiped his bloody nose on his sleeve, exclaiming with emphasis, "What a fool!" "Yes, I remember seeing that," thought Sarudine, "and then they had drinks together at the 'Crown.'" The night drew near to its end. In silence so strange, so oppressive, it seemed as if Sarudine were the one living, suffering soul left on earth. On the table the guttering candle was still burning with a faint, steady, flame. Lost in the gloom of his disordered thoughts Sarudine stared at it with glittering, feverish eyes. Amid the wild chaos of impressions and recollections there was one thing which stood out clearly from all others. It was the sense of his utter solitude that stabbed his heart like a dagger. Millions of men at that moment were merrily enjoying life, laughing and joking; some, it might be, were even talking about him. But he, only he, was alone. Vainly he sought to recall familiar faces. Yet pale, and strange, and cold, they appeared to him, and their eyes had a look of curiosity and malevolent glee. Then, in his dejection, he thought of Lida. He pictured her as he had seen her last; her large, sad eyes; the thin blouse that lightly veiled her soft bosom; her hair in a single loose plait. In her face Sarudine saw neither malice nor contempt. Those dark eyes gazed at him in sorrowful reproach. He remembered how he had repulsed her at the moment of her supreme distress. The sense of having lost her wounded him like a knife. "She suffered then far more than I do now.... I thrust her from me.... I almost wanted her to drown herself; wanted her to die." As to a last anchor that should save him, his whole soul turned to her. He yearned for her caresses, her sympathy. For an instant it seemed to him as if all his actual sufferings would efface the past; yet he knew, alas! that Lida would never, never come back to him, and that all was at an end. Before him lay nothing but the blank, abysmal void! Raising his arm, Sarudine pressed his hand against his brow. He lay there, motionless, with eyes closed and teeth clenched, striving to see nothing, to hear nothing, to feel nothing. But after a little while his hand dropped, and he sat up. His head ached terribly, his tongue seemed on fire, and he trembled from head to foot. Then he rose and staggered to the table. "I have lost everything; my life, Lida, everything!" It flashed across him that this life of his, after all, had not been either good, or glad, or sane, but foolish, perverted and base. Sarudine, the handsome Sarudine, entitled to all that was best and most enjoyable in life, no longer existed. There was only a feeble, emasculated body left to bear all this pain and dishonour. "To live on is impossible," he thought, "for that would mean the entire effacement of the past. I should have to begin a new life, to become quite a different man, and that I cannot do!" His head fell forward on the table, and in the weird, flickering candlelight he lay there, motionless. CHAPTER XXXII. On that same evening Sanine went to see Soloveitchik. The little Jew was sitting alone on the steps of his house, gazing at the bare, deserted space in front of it where several disused pathways crossed the withered grass. Depressing indeed was the sight of the vacant sheds, with their huge, rusty locks, and of the black windows of the mill. The whole scene spoke mournfully of life and activity that long had ceased. Sanine instantly noticed the changed expression of Soloveitchik's face. He no longer smiled, but seemed anxious and worried. His dark eyes had a questioning look. "Ah! good evening," he said, as in apathetic fashion he took the other's hand. Then he continued gazing at the calm evening sky, against which the black roofs of the sheds stood out in ever sharper relief. Sanine sat down on the opposite side of the steps, lighted a cigarette, and silently watched Soloveitchik, whose strange demeanour interested him. "What do you do with yourself here?" he asked, after a while. Languidly the other turned to him his large, sad eyes. "I just live here, that's all. When the mill was at work, I used to be in the office. But now it's closed, and everybody's gone away except myself." "Don't you find it lonely, to be all by yourself, like this?" Soloveitchik was silent. Then, shrugging his shoulders, he said: "It's all the same to me." They remained silent. There was no sound but the rattling of the dog's chain. "It's not the place that's lonely," exclaimed Soloveitchik with sudden vehemence. "But it's here I feel it, and here," He touched his forehead and his breast. "What's the matter with you?" asked Sanine calmly. "Look here," continued Soloveitchik, becoming more excited, "you struck a man to-day, and smashed his face in. Perhaps you have ruined his whole life. Pray don't be offended at my speaking to you like this. I have thought a great deal about it all, sitting here, as you see, and wondering, wondering. Now, if I ask you something, will you answer me?" For a moment his features were contorted by his usual set smile. "Ask me whatever you like," replied Sanine, kindly. "You're afraid of offending me, eh? That won't offend me, I assure you. What's done is done; and, if I thought that I had done wrong, I should be the first to say so." "I wanted to ask you this," said Soloveitchik, quivering with excitement. "Do you realize that perhaps you might have killed that man?" "There's not much doubt about that," replied Sanine. "It would have been difficult for a man like Sarudine to get out of the mess unless he killed me, or I killed him. But, as regards killing me, he missed the psychological moment, so to speak; and at present he's not in a fit condition to do me harm. Later on he won't have the pluck. He's played his part." "And you calmly tell me all this?" "What do you mean by 'calmly?'" asked Sanine. "I couldn't look on calmly and see a chicken killed, much less a man. It was painful to me to hit him. To be conscious of one's own strength is pleasant, of course, but it was nevertheless a horrible experience--horrible, because such an act in itself was brutal. Yet my conscience is calm. I was but the instrument of fate. Sarudine has come to grief because the whole bent of his life was bound to bring about a catastrophe; and the marvel is that others of his sort do not share his fate. These are the men who learn to kill their fellow-creatures and to pamper their own bodies, not knowing why or wherefore. They are lunatics, idiots! Let them loose, and they would cut their own throats and those of other folk as well. Am I to blame because I protected myself from a madman of this type?" "Yes, but you have killed him," was Soloveitchik's obstinate reply. "In that case you had better appeal to the good God who made us meet." "You could have stopped him by seizing hold of his hands." Sanine raised his head. "In a moment like that one doesn't reflect. And how would that have helped matters? His code of honour demanded revenge at any price. I could not have held his hands for ever. It would only have been an additional insult, nothing more." Soloveitchik limply waved his hand, and did not reply. Imperceptibly the darkness closed round them. The fires of sunset paled, and beneath the deserted sheds the shadows grew deeper, as if in these lonely places mysterious, dreadful beings were about to take up their abode during the night. Their noiseless footsteps may have made Sultan uneasy, for he suddenly crept out of his kennel and sat in front of it, rattling his chain. "Perhaps you're right," observed Soloveitchik sadly, "but was it absolutely necessary? Would it not have been better if you had borne the blow?" "Better?" said Sanine. "A blow's always a painful thing. And why? For what reason?" "Oh! do, please, hear me out," interrupted Soloveitchik, with a pleading gesture. "It might have been better--" "For Sarudine, certainly," "No, for you, too; for you, too." "Oh! Soloveitchik," replied Sanine, with a touch of annoyance, "a truce to that silly old notion about moral victory; and a false notion, too. Moral victory does not consist in offering one's cheek to the smiter, but in being right before one's own conscience. How this is achieved is a matter of chance, of circumstances. There is nothing so horrible as slavery. Yet most horrible of all is it when a man whose inmost soul rebels against coercion and force yet submits thereto in the name of some power that is mightier than he." Soloveitchik clasped his head with both hands, as one distraught. "I've not got the brains to understand it all," he said plaintively. "And I don't in the least know how I ought to live." "Why should you know? Live as the bird flies. If it wants to move its right wing, it moves it. If it wants to fly round a tree, it does so." "Yes, a bird may do that, but I'm not a bird; I'm a man," said Soloveitchik with naive earnestness. Sanine laughed outright, and for a moment the merry sound echoed through the gloomy courtyard. Soloveitchik shook his head. "No," he murmured sadly, "all that's only talk. You can't tell me how I ought to live. Nobody can tell me that." "That's very true. Nobody can tell you that. The art of living implies a talent; and he who does not possess that talent perishes or makes shipwreck of his life." "How calmly you say that! As if you knew everything! Pray don't be offended, but have you always been like that--always so calm?" asked Soloveitchik, keenly interested. "Oh! no; though certainly my temperament has usually been calm enough, but there were times when I was harassed by doubts of all kinds. At one time, indeed, I dreamed that the ideal life for me was the Christian life." Sanine paused, and Soloveitchik leaned forward eagerly as if to hear something of the utmost importance. "At that time I had a comrade, a student of mathematics, Ivan Lande by name. He was a wonderful man, of indomitable moral force; a Christian, not from conviction, but by nature. In his life all Christianity was mirrored. If struck, he did not strike back; he treated every man as his brother, and in woman he did not recognize the sexual attraction. Do you remember Semenoff?" Soloveitchik nodded, as with childish pleasure. "Well, at that time Semenoff was very ill. He was living in the Crimea, where he gave lessons. There, solitude and the presentiment of his approaching death drove him to despair. Lande heard of this, and determined to go thither and save this lost soul. He had no money, and no one was willing to lend any to a reputed madman. So he went on foot, and, after walking over a thousand versts, died on the way, and thus sacrificed his life for others." "And you, oh! do tell me," cried Soloveitchik with flashing eyes, "do you recognize the greatness of such a man?" "He was much talked about at the time," replied Sanine thoughtfully. "Some did not look upon him as a Christian, and for that reason condemned him. Others said that he was mad and not devoid of self- conceit, while some denied that he had any moral force; and, since he would not fight, they declared that he was neither prophet nor conqueror. I judge him otherwise. At that time he influenced me to the point of folly. One day a student boxed my ears, and I became almost mad with rage. But Lande stood there, and I just looked at him and-- Well, I don't know how it was, but I got up without speaking, and walked out of the room. First of all I felt intensely proud of what I had done, and secondly I hated the student from the bottom of my heart. Not because he had struck me, but because to him my conduct must have been supremely gratifying. By degrees the falseness of my position became clear to me, and this set me thinking. For a couple of weeks I was like one demented, and after that I ceased to feel proud of my false moral victory. At the first ironical remark on the part of my adversary I thrashed him until he became unconscious. This brought about an estrangement between Lande and myself. When I came to examine his life impartially, I found it astonishingly poor and miserable." "Oh! how can you say that?" cried Soloveitchik. "How was it possible for you to estimate the wealth of his spiritual emotions?" "Such emotions were very monotonous. His life's happiness consisted in the acceptance of every misfortune without a murmur, and its wealth, in the total renunciation of life's joys and material benefits. He was a beggar by choice, a fantastic personage whose life was sacrificed to an idea of which he himself had no clear conception." Soloveitchik wrung his hands. "Oh! you cannot imagine how it distresses me to hear this!" he exclaimed. "Really, Soloveitchik, you're quite hysterical," said Sanine, in surprise. "I have not told you anything extraordinary. Possibly the subject is, to you, a painful one?" "Oh! most painful. I am always thinking, thinking, till my head seems as if it would burst. Was all that really an error, nothing more? I grope about, as in a dark room, and there is no one to tell me what I ought to do. Why do we live? Tell me that." "Why? That nobody knows." "And should we not live for the future, so that later on, at least, mankind may have a golden age?" "There will never be a golden age. If the world and mankind could become better all in a moment, then, perhaps, a golden age would be possible. But that cannot be. Progress towards improvement is slow, and man can only see the step in front of him, and that immediately behind him. You and I have not lived the life of a Roman slave, nor that of some savage of the Stone Age, and therefore we cannot appreciate the boon of our civilization. Thus, if there should ever be a golden age, the men of that period will not perceive any difference between their lives and those of their ancestors. Man moves along an endless road, and to wish to level the road to happiness would be like adding new units to a number that is infinite." "Then you believe that it all means nothing--that all is of no avail?" "Yes, that is what I think." "But what about your friend Lande? You yourself were--" "I loved Lande," said Sanine gravely, "not because he was a Christian, but because he was sincere, and never swerved from his path, being undaunted by obstacles either ridiculous or formidable. It was as a personality that I prized Lande. When he died, his worth ceased to exist." "And don't you think that such men have an ennobling influence upon life? Might not such men have followers or disciples?" "Why should life be ennobled? Tell me that, first of all. And, secondly, one doesn't want disciples. Men like Lande are born so. Christ was splendid; Christians, however, are but a sorry crew. The idea of his doctrine was a beautiful one, but they have made of it a lifeless dogma." Tired with talking, Sanine said no more. Soloveitchik remained silent also. There was great stillness around them, while overhead the stars seemed to maintain a conversation wordless and unending. Then Soloveitchik suddenly whispered something that sounded so weird that Sanine, shuddering, exclaimed: "What's that you said?" "Tell me," muttered Soloveitchik, "tell me what you think. Suppose a man can't see his way clear, but is always thinking and worrying, as everything only perplexes and terrifies him--tell me, wouldn't it be better for him to die?" "Well," replied Sanine, who clearly read the other's thoughts, "perhaps death in that case would be better. Thinking and worrying are of no avail. He only ought to live who finds joy in living; but for him who suffers, death is best." "That is what I thought, too," exclaimed Soloveitchik, and he excitedly grasped Sanine's hand. His face looked ghastly in the gloom; his eyes were like two black holes. "You are a dead man," said Sanine with inward apprehension, as he rose to go; "and for a dead man the best place is the grave. Good-bye." Soloveitchik apparently did not hear him, but sat there motionless. Sanine waited for a while and then slowly walked away. At the gate he stopped to listen, but could hear nothing. Soloveitchik's figure looked blurred and indistinct in the darkness. Sanine, as if in response to a strange presentiment, said to himself: "After all, it comes to the same thing whether he lives on like this or dies. If it's not to-day, then it will be to-morrow." He turned sharply round; the gate creaked on its hinges, and he found himself in the street. On reaching the boulevard he heard, at a distance, some one running along and sobbing as if in great distress. Sanine stood still. Out of the gloom a figure emerged, and rapidly approached him. Again Sanine felt a sinister presentiment. "What's the matter?" he called out. The figure stopped for a moment, and Sanine was confronted by a soldier whose dull face showed great distress. "What has happened?" exclaimed Sanine. The soldier murmured something and ran on, wailing as he went. As a phantom he vanished in the night. "That was Sarudine's servant," thought Sanine, and then it flashed across him: "Sarudine has shot himself!" For a moment he peered into the darkness, and his brow grew cold. Between the dread mystery of night and the soul of this stalwart man a conflict, brief yet terrible, was in progress. The town was asleep; the glimmering roadways lay bare and white beneath the sombre trees; the windows were like dull, watchful eyes glaring at the gloom. Sanine tossed his head and smiled, as he looked calmly in front of him. "I am not guilty," he said aloud. "One more or less--" Erect and resolute, he strode onward, an imposing spectre in the silent night. CHAPTER XXXIII. The news that two persons had committed suicide on the same night spread rapidly through the little town. It was Ivanoff who told Yourii. The latter had just come back from a lesson, and was at work upon a portrait of Lialia. She posed for him in a light-coloured blouse, open at the neck, and her pretty shell-pink arms showed through the semi- transparent stuff. The room was filled with sunlight which lit up her golden hair, and heightened the charm of her girlish grace. "Good day," said Ivanoff, as, entering, he flung his hat on to a chair. "Ah! it's you. Well, what's the news?" asked Yourii, smiling. He was in a contented, happy mood, for at last he had got some teaching which made him less dependent upon his father, and the society of his bright, charming sister served to cheer him, also. "Oh! lots of news," said Ivanoff, with a vague look in his eyes. "One man has hanged himself, and another has blown his brains out, and the devil's got hold of a third." "What on earth do you mean?" exclaimed Yourii. "The third catastrophe is my own invention, just to heighten the effect; but as regards the other two, the news is correct. Sarudine shot himself last night, and I have just heard that Soloveitchik has committed suicide by hanging." "Impossible!" cried Lialia, jumping up. Her eyes expressed horror and intense curiosity. Yourii hurriedly laid aside his palette, and approached Ivanoff. "You're not joking?" "No, indeed." As usual, he put on an air of philosophic indifference, yet evidently he was much shocked at what had happened. "Why did he shoot himself? Because Sanine struck him?" "Does Sanine know?" asked Lialia anxiously. "Yes. Sanine heard about it last night," replied Ivanoff. "And what does he say?" exclaimed Yourii. Ivanoff shrugged his shoulders. He was in no mood to discuss Sanine with Yourii, and he answered, not without irritation. "Nothing. What has it to do with him?" "Anyhow, he was the cause of it," said Lialia. "Yes, but what business had that fool to attack him? It is not Sanine's fault. The whole affair is deplorable, but it is entirely due to Sarudine's stupidity." "Oh! I think that the real reason lies deeper," said Yourii sadly. "Sarudine lived in a certain set that..." Ivanoff shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, and the very fact that he lived in, and was influenced by, such an idiotic set is only proof positive that he was a fool." Yourii rubbed his hands and said nothing. It pained him to hear the dead man spoken of thus. "Well I can understand why Sarudine did it," said Lialia, "but Soloveitchik? I never would have thought it possible! What was the reason?" "God knows!" replied Ivanoff. "He was always a bit queer." At that moment Riasantzeff drove up, and meeting Sina Karsavina on the doorstep, they came upstairs together. Her voice, high-pitched and anxious, could be heard, and also his jovial, bantering tones that talk with pretty girls always evoked. "Anatole Pavlovitch has just come from there," said Sina excitedly. Riasantzeff followed her, laughing as usual, and endeavouring to light a cigarette as he entered. "A nice state of things!" he said gaily. "If this goes on we soon shan't have any young people left." Sina sat down without speaking. Her pretty face looked sad and dejected. "Now then, tell us all about it," said Ivanoff. "As I came out of the club last night," began Riasantzeff, "a soldier rushed up to me and stammered out, 'His Excellency's shot himself!' I jumped into a _droschky_ and got there as fast as I could. I found nearly the whole regiment at the house. Sarudine was lying on the bed, and his tunic was unbuttoned." "And where did he shoot himself?" asked Lialia, clinging to her lover's arm. "In the temple. The bullet went right through his head and hit the ceiling." "Was it a Browning?" Yourii asked this. "Yes. It was an awful sight. The wall was splashed with blood and brains, and his face was utterly disfigured. Sanine must have given him a teaser." He laughed. "A tough customer is that lad!" Ivanoff nodded approvingly. "He's strong enough, I warrant you." "Coarse brute!" said Yourii, in disgust. Sina glanced timidly at him. "In my opinion it was not his fault," she said. "He couldn't possibly wait until..." "Yes, yes," replied Riasantzeff, "but to hit a fellow like that! Sarudine had challenged him." "There you go!" exclaimed Ivanoff irritably, as he shrugged his shoulders. "If you come to think of it, duelling is absurd!" said Yourii. "Of course it is!" chimed in Sina. To his surprise, Yourii noticed that Sina seemed pleased to take Sanine's part. "At any rate, it's...." The right phrase failed him wherewith to disparage Sanine. "A brutal thing," suggested Riasantzeff. Though Yourii thought Riasantzeff was little better than a brute to himself, he was glad to hear the latter abuse Sanine to Sina when she defended him. However, as she noticed Yourii's look of annoyance, she said no more. Secretly, she was much pleased by Sanine's strength and pluck, and was quite unwilling to accept Riasantzeff's denouncement of duelling as just. Like Yourii, she did not consider that he was qualified to lay down the law like that. "Wonderfully civilized, certainly," sneered Ivanoff, "to shoot a man's nose off, or run him through the body." "Is a blow in the face any better?" "I certainly think that it is. What harm can a fist do? A bruise is soon healed. You won't find that a blow with the fist ever hurt anybody much." "That's not the point." "Then, what is, pray?" said Ivanoff, his thin lips curled with scorn. "I don't believe in fighting at all, myself, but, if it must be, then one ought to draw the line at severe bodily injuries. That's quite clear." "He almost knocked the other's eye out. I suppose you don't call that severe bodily injury?" retorted Riasantzeff sarcastically. "Well, of course, to lose an eye is a bad job, but it's not the same as getting a bullet through your body. The loss of an eye is not a fatal injury." "But Sarudine is dead?" "Ah! that's because he wished to die." Yourii nervously plucked at his moustache. "I must frankly confess," he said, quite pleased at his own sincerity, "that personally, I have not made up my mind as regards this question. I cannot say how I should have behaved in Sanine's place. Of course, duelling's stupid, and to fight with fists is not much better." "But what is a man to do if he's compelled to fight?" said Sina. Yourii shrugged his shoulders. "It's for Soloveitchik that we ought to be sorry," said Riasantzeff, after a pause. The words contrasted strangely with his cheerful countenance. Then all at once, they remembered that not one of them had asked about Soloveitchik. "Where did he hang himself? Do you know?" "In the shed next to the dog's kennel. He let the dog loose, and then hanged himself." Sina and Yourii simultaneously seemed to hear a shrill voice exclaim: "Lie down, Sultan!" "Yes, and he left a note behind," continued Riasantzeff, unable to conceal the merry twinkle in his eyes. "I made a copy of it. In a way, it's really a human document." Taking out his pocket-book he read as follows: "Why should I live, since I do not know how I ought to live? Men such as I cannot make their fellow-creatures happy." He stopped suddenly, as if somewhat embarrassed. Dead silence ensued. A sad spirit seemed to pass noiselessly through the room. Tears rose to Sina's eyes, and Lialia's face grew red with emotion. Yourii smiled mournfully as he turned towards the window. "That's all," said Riasantzeff meditatively. "What more would you have?" asked Sina with quivering lips. Ivanoff rose and reached across for the matches that were on the table. "It's nothing more than tomfoolery," he muttered. "For shame!" was Sina's indignant protest. Yourii glanced in disgust at Ivanoff's long, smooth hair and turned away. "To take the case of Soloveitchik," resumed Riasantzeff, and again his eyes twinkled. "I always thought him a nincompoop--a silly Jew boy. And now, see what he has shown himself to be! There is no love more sublime than the love which bids one sacrifice one's life for humanity." "But he didn't sacrifice his life for humanity," replied Ivanoff, as he looked askance at Riasantzeff's portly face and figure, and observed how tightly his waistcoat fitted him. "Yes, but it's the same thing, for if ..." "It's not the same thing at all," was Ivanoff's stubborn retort, and his eyes flashed angrily. "It's the act of an idiot, that's what it is!" His strange hatred of Soloveitchik made a most unpleasant impression upon the others. Sina Karsavina, as she got up to go, whispered to Yourii, "I am going. He is simply detestable." Yourii nodded. "Utterly brutal," he murmured. Immediately after Sina's departure, Lialia and Riasantzeff went out. Ivanoff sat pensively smoking his cigarette for a while, as he stared sulkily at a corner of the room. Then he also departed. In the street as he walked along, swinging his arms in the usual way, he thought to himself, in his wrath: "These fools imagine that I am not capable of understanding what _they_ understand! I like that! I know exactly what they think and feel, better than they do themselves. I also know that there is no love more sublime than the love which bids a man lay down his life for others. But for a man to go and hang himself simply because he is of no good to anybody--that's absolute nonsense!" CHAPTER XXXIV. When to the sound of martial music Sarudine's remains were borne to the churchyard, Yourii from his window watched the sad, imposing procession. He saw the horses draped in black, and the deceased officer's cap that lay on the coffin-lid. There were flowers in profusion, and many female mourners, Yourii was deeply grieved at the sight. That evening he walked for a long while with Sina Karsavina; yet her beautiful eyes and gentle caressing manner did not enable him to shake off his depression. "How awful it is to think," he said, his eyes fixed on the ground, "to think that Sarudine no longer exists. A handsome, merry, careless young officer like that! One would have thought that he would live for ever, and that the horrible things of life, such as pain and doubt and suffering, were unknown to him, would never touch him. Yet one fine day this very man is swept away like dust, after passing through a terrible ordeal known to none but himself. Now he's gone, and will never, never return. All that's left of him is the cap on the coffin-lid." Yourii was silent, and he still gazed at the ground. Swaying slightly as she walked beside him, Sina listened attentively, while with her pretty, dimpled hands she kept twisting the lace of her parasol. She was not thinking about Sarudine. It was a keen pleasure for her to be near Yourii, yet unconsciously she shared his melancholy mood, and her face assumed a mournful expression. "Yes! wasn't it sad? That music, too!" "I don't blame Sanine," said Yourii with emphasis. "He could not have acted otherwise. The horrible part of it all is that the paths of these two men crossed, so that one or the other was obliged to give way. It is also horrible that the victor does not realize that his triumph is an appalling one. He calmly sweeps a man off the face of the earth, and yet is in the right." "Yes, he's in the right, and--" exclaimed Sina, who had not heard all that Yourii had said. Her bosom heaved with excitement. "But I call it horrible!" cried Yourii, hastily interrupting her, as he glanced at her shapely form and eager face. "Why is it so?" asked Sina in a timid voice. She blushed suddenly, and her eyes lost their brightness. "Anyone else would have felt remorse, or have suffered some kind of spiritual anguish," said Yourii. "But he showed not the slightest sign of it. 'I'm very sorry,' says he, 'but it's not my fault.' Fault, indeed! As if the question were one of fault or of blame!" "Then of what is it?" asked Sina. Her voice faltered, and she looked downwards, fearing to offend her companion. "That I don't know; but a man has no right to behave like a brute," was the indignant rejoinder. For some time they walked along without speaking. Sina was grieved at what seemed their momentary estrangement, at this breaking of their spiritual bond which to her was so sweet, while Yourii felt that he had not expressed himself clearly, and this wounded his self-respect. Soon afterwards they parted, she being sad and somewhat hurt. Yourii noticed her dejection, and was morbidly pleased thereat, as if he had revenged himself on some one he loved for a gross personal insult. At home his ill-humour was increased. During dinner Lialia repeated what Riasantzeff had told her about Soloveitchik. As the men were removing the corpse, several urchins had called out: "Ikey's hanged himself! Ikey's hanged himself!" Nicolai Yegorovitch laughed loudly, and made her say: "Ikey's hanged himself," over and over again. Yourii shut himself up in his room, and, while correcting his pupil's exercises, he thought: "How much of the brute there is in every man! For such dull-witted beasts is it worth while to suffer and to die?" Then, ashamed of his intolerance, he said to himself. "They are not to blame. They don't know what they are doing. Well, whether they know or not, they're brutes, and nothing else!" His thoughts reverted to Soloveitchik. "How lonely is each of us in this world! There was poor Soloveitchik, great of heart, living in our midst ready to make any sacrifice, and to suffer for others. Yet nobody, any more than I did, noticed him or appreciated him. In fact, we despised him. That was because he could not express himself, and his anxiety to please only had an irritating effect, though, in reality he was striving to get into closer touch with all of us, and to be helpful and kind. He was a saint, and we looked upon him as a fool!" So keen was his sense of remorse that he left his work, and restlessly paced the room. At last he sat down at the table, and, opening the Bible, read as follows: "As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more." "He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more." "How true that is! How terrible and inevitable!" he thought. "Here I sit, alive, thirsting for life and joy, and read my death- warrant. Yet I cannot even protest against it!" As in a frenzy of despair, he clasped his forehead and with ineffectual fury appealed to some Power invisible and supreme. "What has man done to thee that thou shouldst mock him thus? If thou dost exist, why dost thou hide thyself from him? Why hast thou made me thus, that even though I would believe in thee I yet have no belief in my own faith? And, if thou shouldst answer me, how can I tell if it is thou or I myself that makes reply? If I am right in wishing to live, why dost thou rob me of this right which thou thyself gavest to me? If thou hast need of our sufferings, well, these let us bear for love of thee. Yet we know not even if a tree be not of greater worth than a man." "For a tree there is always hope. Even when felled it can put forth fresh shoots, and regain new verdure and new life. But man dies, and vanishes for ever. I lie down never to rise again. If I knew for certain that after milliards of years I should come to life again, patient and uncomplaining I would wait through all those centuries in outer darkness." Once more he read from the book: "What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?" "One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth for ever." "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down and hasteth to his place where he arose." "The wind goeth toward the south and turneth about unto the north: it whirleth about continually; and the wind returneth again according to his circuits." "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; there is nothing new under the sun." "There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after." "I, the Preacher, was King over Israel in Jerusalem." "I, the Preacher, was King!" He shouted out these last words, as in vehement anger and despair, and then looked round in alarm, fearing lest some one should have heard him. Then he took a sheet of paper and began to write." "I here begin this document which will end with my decease." "Bah! how absurd it sounds!" he exclaimed as he pushed the paper from him with such violence that it fell to the floor." "But that miserable little fellow, Soloveitchik, didn't think it absurd that he could not understand the meaning of life!" Yourii failed to perceive that he was taking as his model a man whom he had described as a miserable little fellow. "Anyhow, sooner or later, my end will be like that. There is no other way out. Why is there not? Because..." Yourii paused. He believed that he had got an exact reply to this question, yet the words he wanted could not be found. His brain was over-wrought, and his thoughts confused. "It's rubbish, all rubbish!" he exclaimed bitterly. The lamp burned low, and its faint light illumined Yourii's bowed head, as he leant across the table. "Why didn't I die when I was a boy and had inflammation of the lungs? I should now be happy, and at rest." He shivered at the thought. "In that case I should not have seen or known all that now I know. That would have been just as dreadful." Yourii tossed back his head, and rose. "It's enough to drive one mad!" He went to the window and tried to open it, but the shutters were firmly fastened from the outside. By using a pencil, Yourii was able at last to unhook them, and with a creaking sound they swung back, admitting the cool, pure night air, Yourii looked up at the heavens and saw the roseate light of the dawn. The morning was bright and clear. The seven stars of the Great Bear shone faintly, while large and lustrous in the crimson east flamed the morning star. A fresh breeze stirred the leaves, and dispersed the grey mists that floated above the lawn and veiled the smooth surface of the stream beside whose margin water-lilies and myosotis and white clover grew in abundance. The sky was flecked with little pink clouds, while here and there a last star trembled in the blue. All was so beautiful, so calm, as if the awestruck earth awaited the splendid approach of dawn. Yourii at last went back to bed, but the garish daylight prevented him from getting sleep, as he lay there with aching brow and jaded eyes. CHAPTER XXXV. Early that morning, soon after sunrise, Ivanoff and Sanine walked forth from the town. The dew sparkled in the sunlight, and the damp grass seen in shadow appeared grey. Along the side of the road flanked by gnarled willows, pilgrims were slowly wending their way to the monastery. The red and white kerchiefs covering their heads and their bright-hued coats and shirts gave colour and picturesqueness to the scene. The monastery bells rang out in the cool morning air, and the sound floated across the steppe, away to the dreaming woods in the dim blue distance. A _troika_ came jingling along the highroad, and the rough voices of the pilgrims as they talked could be distinctly heard. "We've come out a little too early," said Ivanoff. Sanine looked round about him, contented and happy. "Well, let us wait a while," he replied. They sat down on the sand, close to the hedge, and lit their cigarettes. Peasants walking along behind their carts turned to look at them, and market-women and girls as they rattled past in rickety traps pointed at the wayfarers amid bursts of merry, mocking laughter. Ivanoff took not the slightest notice of them, but Sanine smiled and nodded in response. At last there appeared on the steps of a little white house with a bright green roof the proprietor of the "Crown" tavern, a tall man in his shirt-sleeves who noisily unlocked the door, while yawning incessantly. A woman wearing a red kerchief on her head slipped in after him. "The very thing!" cried Ivanoff. "Let's go there." So they went to the little inn and bought vodka and fresh gherkins from the woman with the red kerchief. "Aha! you seem to be pretty flush of money, my friend," said Ivanoff, as Sanine produced his purse. "I've had an advance," replied the latter, smiling. "Much to my mother's annoyance, I have accepted the secretaryship of an assurance agency. In this way I was able to get a little cash as well as maternal contempt." When they regained the high-road, Ivanoff exclaimed: "Oh! I feel ever so much better now!" "So do I. Suppose we take off our boots?" "All right." Having taken off their boots and socks, they walked barefoot through the warm, moist sand, which was a delightful experience after trudging along in heavy boots. "Jolly, isn't it?" said Sanine, as he drew a deep breath. The sun's rays had now become far hotter. The town lay well in their rear as the two wayfarers plodded bravely on towards the blue, nebulous horizon. Swallows sat in rows on the telegraph-wires. A passenger-train with its blue, yellow and green carriages rolled past on the adjacent line, and the faces of drowsy travellers could be seen at the windows. Two saucy-looking girls in white hats stood on the platform at the end of the train and watched the two bare-footed men with astonishment. Sanine laughed at them, and executed a wild impromptu dance. Before them lay a meadow where walking barefoot in the long lush grass was an agreeable relief. "How delightful!" cried Ivanoff. "Life's worth living to-day," rejoined his companion. Ivanoff glanced at Sanine; he thought those words must surely remind him of Sarudine and the recent tragedy. Yet seemingly it was far from Sanine's thoughts, which surprised Ivanoff somewhat, yet did not displease him. After crossing the meadow, they again got on to the main road which was thronged as before with peasants in their carts, and giggling girls. Then they came to trees, and reeds, and glittering water, while above them, at no great distance on the hill-side, stood the monastery, topped by a cross that shone like some golden star. Painted rowing-boats lined the shore, where peasants in bright-coloured shirts and vests lounged. After much haggling and good-humoured banter, Sanine hired one of the little boats. Ivanoff was a deft and powerful oarsman, and the boat shot forward across the water like a living thing. Sometimes the oars touched reeds or low-hanging branches which for a long while after such contact trembled above the deep, dark stream. Sanine steered with so much erratic energy that the water foamed and gurgled round the rudder. They reached a narrow backwater where it was shady and cool. So transparent was the stream that one could see the bottom covered with yellow pebbles, where shoals of little pink fish darted backwards and forwards. "Here's a good place to land," said Ivanoff, and his voice sounded cheery beneath the dark branches of the overhanging trees. As the boat with a grating sound touched the bank, he sprang lightly ashore. Sanine, laughing, did likewise. "You won't find a better," he cried, plunging knee-deep through the long grasses. "Anywhere's good in the sun, I say," replied Ivanoff, as from the boat he fetched the vodka, the bread, the cucumbers, and a little packet of _hors d'oeuvres._ All these he placed on a mossy slope in the shade of the trees, and here he lay down at full length. "Lucullus dines with Lucullus," he said. "Lucky man!" replied Sanine. "Not entirely," added Ivanoff, with a droll expression of discontent, "for he's forgotten the glasses." "Never mind! We can manage, somehow." Full of the sheer joy of living in this warm sunlight and green shade, Sanine climbed up a tree and began cutting off a bough with his knife, while Ivanoff watched him as the little white chips kept falling on to the turf below. At last the bough fell, too, when Sanine climbed down, and began to scoop it out, leaving the bark intact. In a short time he had made a pretty little drinking-cup. "Let's have a dip afterwards, shall we?" said Ivanoff, who was watching Sanine's craftsmanship with interest. "Not a bad idea," replied Sanine, as he tossed the newly-made cup into the air and caught it. Then they sat down on the grass and did ample justice to their appetising little meal. "I can't wait any longer. I'm going to bathe." So saying, Ivanoff hastily stripped, and, as he could not swim, he plunged into shallow water where the even sandy bottom was clearly visible. "It's lovely!" he cried, jumping about, and splashing wildly. Sanine watched him and then in leisurely fashion he also undressed, and took a header into the deeper part of the stream. "You'll be drowned," cried Ivanoff, "No fear!" was the laughing rejoinder, when Sanine, gasping, had risen to the surface. The sound of their merry voices rang out across the river, and the green pasture-land. After a time they left the cool water, and lying down, naked in the grass, rolled over and over in it. "Jolly, isn't it?" said Ivanoff, as he turned to the sun his broad back on which little drops of water glistened. "Here let us build tabernacles!" "Deuce take your tabernacles," cried Sanine merrily; "No tabernacles for me!" "Hurrah!" shouted Ivanoff, as he began dancing a wild, barbaric dance. Sanine burst out laughing, and leaped about in the same way. Their nude bodies gleamed in the sun, every muscle showing beneath the tense skin. "Ouf!" gasped Ivanoff. Sanine went on dancing by himself, and finished up by turning a somersault, head foremost. "Come along, or I shall drink up all the vodka," cried his companion. Having dressed, they ate the remainder of their provisions, while Ivanoff sighed ruefully for a draught of ice-cold beer. "Let's go, shall we?" he said. "Right!" They raced at full speed to the river-bank, jumped into their boat, and pushed off. "Doesn't the sun sting!" said Sanine, who was lying at full length in the bottom of the boat. "That means rain," replied Ivanoff. "Get up and steer, for God's sake!" "You can manage quite well by yourself," was the reply. Ivanoff struck the water with his oars, so that Sanine got thoroughly splashed. "Thank you," said the latter, coolly. As they passed a green spot they heard laughter and the sound of merry girlish voices. It being a holiday, townsfolk had come thither to enjoy themselves. "Girls bathing," said Ivanoff. "Let's go and look at them," suggested Sanine. "They would see us." "No they wouldn't. We could land here, and go through the reeds." "Leave them alone," said Ivanoff, blushing slightly. "Come on." "No, I don't like to...." "Don't like to?" "Well, but ... they're girls ... young ladies ... I don't think it's quite proper." "You're a silly fool!" laughed Sanine, "Do you mean to say that you wouldn't like to see them?" "Perhaps I should, but ..." "Very well, then, let's go. No mock modesty! What man wouldn't do the same, if he had the chance?" "Yes, but if you reason like that, you ought to watch them openly. Why hide yourself?" "Because it's so much more exciting," said Sanine gaily. "I dare say, but I advise you not to--" "For chastity's sake, I suppose?" "If you like." "But chastity is the very thing that we don't possess!" "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out!" said Ivanoff. "Oh! please don't talk nonsense, like Yourii Svarogitsch! God didn't give us eyes that we might pluck out." Ivanoff smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. "Look here, my boy," said Sanine, steering towards the bank, "if the sight of girls bathing were to rouse in you no carnal desire, then you would have a right to be called chaste. Indeed, though I should be the last to imitate it, such chastity on your part would win my admiration. But, having these natural desires, if you attempt to suppress them, then I say that your so-called chastity is all humbug." "That's right enough, but, if no check were placed upon desires, great harm might result." "What harm, pray? Sensuality, I grant you, sometimes has evil results, but it's not the fault of sensuality." "Perhaps not, but...." "Very well, then, are you coming?" "Yes, but I'm--" "A fool, that's what you are! Gently! Don't make such a noise," said Sanine, as they crept along through the fragrant grass and rustling reeds. "Look there!" whispered Ivanoff, excitedly. From the smart frocks, hats and petticoats lying on the grass, it was evident that the party of bathers had come out from the town. Some were merrily splashing about in the water which dripped in silver beads from their round, soft limbs. One stood on the bank, erect and lithe, and the sunlight enhanced the plastic beauty of her form that quivered as she laughed. "Oh! I say!" exclaimed Sanine, fascinated by the sight. Ivanoff started backwards as in alarm. "What's the matter?" "Hush! It's Sina Karsavina!" "So it is!" said Sanine aloud. "I didn't recognize her. How charming she looks!" "Yes, doesn't she?" said the other, chuckling. At that moment laughter and loud cries told them that they had been overheard. Karsavina, startled, leaped into the clear water from which alone her rosy face and shining eyes emerged. Sanine and Ivanoff fled precipitately, stumbling back through the tall rushes to their boat. "Oh! how good it is to be alive!" said Sanine, stretching himself. _Down the river, floating onward, Ever onward, to the sea_. So he sang in his clear, resonant voice, while behind the trees the sound of girlish laughter could still be heard. Ivanoff looked at the sky. "It's going to rain," he said. The trees had become darker, and a deep shadow passed swiftly across the meadow. "We shall have to run for it!" "Where? There's no escape, now," cried Sanine cheerfully. Overhead a leaden-hued cloud floated nearer and nearer. There was no wind; the stillness and gloom had increased. "We shall get soaked to the skin," said Ivanoff, "so do give me a cigarette, to console me." Faintly the little yellow flame of the match flickered in the gloom. A sudden gust of wind swept it away. One big drop of rain splashed the boat, and another fell on to Sanine's brow. Then came the downpour. Pattering on the leaves, the rain hissed as it touched the surface of the water. All in a moment from the dark heaven it fell in torrents, and only the rush and the splash of it could be heard. "Nice, isn't it?" said Sanine, moving his shoulders to which his wet shirt was sticking. "Not so bad," replied Ivanoff, who had crouched at the bottom of the boat. Very soon the rain ceased, though the clouds had not dispersed, but were massed behind the woods where flashes of lighting could be seen at intervals. "We ought to be getting back," said Ivanoff. "All right. I'm ready." They rowed out into the current. Black, heavy clouds hung overhead, and the flashes of lightning became incessant; white scimitars that smote the sullen sky. Though now it did not rain, a feeling of thunder was in the air. Birds with wet and ruffled plumage skimmed the surface of the river, while the trees loomed darkly against the blue-grey heavens. "Ho! ho!" cried Ivanoff. When they had landed and were plodding through the wet sand, the gloom became more intense. "We're in for it, now." Nearer, ever nearer to earth the huge cloud approached, like some dreadful grey-bellied monster. There was a sudden gust of wind, and leaves and dust were whirled round and round. Then, a deafening crash, as if the heavens were cleft asunder, when the lightning blazed and the thunder broke. "Oho--ho--ho!" shouted Sanine, trying to outvie the clamour of the storm. But his voice, even to himself, was inaudible. When they reached the fields, it was quite dark. Their pathway was lit by vivid flashes, and the thunder never ceased. "Oh! Ha! Ho!" shouted Sanine. "What's that?" cried Ivanoff. At that moment a vivid flash revealed to him Sanine's radiant face, the only answer to his question. Then, a second flash showed Sanine, with arms outstretched, gleefully apostrophizing the tempest. CHAPTER XXXVI. The sun shone as brightly as in spring, yet in the calm, clear air the touch of autumn could be felt. Here and there the trees showed brown and yellow leaves in which the wistful voice of a bird occasionally broke the silence, while large insects buzzed lazily above their ruined kingdom of faded grasses and withered flowers where luxuriant weeds now waxed apace. Yourii sauntered through the garden. Lost in his thoughts, he gazed at the sky, at the green and yellow leaves, and the shining water, as if he were looking on them all for the last time, and must fix them in his memory so as never to forget them. He felt vague sorrow at his heart, for it seemed as though with every moment something precious was passing away from him that could never be recalled; his youth that had brought him no joy; his place as an active sharer in the great and useful work upon which all his energies had once been concentrated. Yet why he should have thus lost ground he could not tell. He was firmly convinced that he possessed latent powers that should revolutionize the world, and a mind far broader in its outlook than that of anyone else; but he could not explain why he had this conviction, and he would have been ashamed to admit the fact even to his most intimate friend. "Ah! well," he thought, gazing at the red and yellow reflections of the foliage in the stream, "perhaps what I do is the wisest and the best. Death ends it all, however one may have lived or tried to live. Oh! there comes Lialia," he murmured, as he saw his sister approaching. "Happy Lialia! She lives like a butterfly, from day to day, wanting nothing, and troubled by nothing. Oh! if I could live as she does." Yet this was only just a passing thought, for in reality he would on no account have wished to exchange his own spiritual tortures for the feather-brain existence of a Lialia. "Yourii! Yourii!" she exclaimed in a shrill voice though she was not more than three paces distant from him. Laughing roguishly, she handed him a little rose-coloured missive. Yourii suspected something. "From whom?" he asked, sharply, "From Sinotschka Karsavina," said Lialia, shaking her finger at him, significantly. Yourii blushed deeply. To receive through his sister a little pink, scented letter like this seemed utterly silly; in fact ridiculous. It positively annoyed him. Lialia, as she walked beside him, prattled in sentimental fashion about his attachment to Sina, just as sisters will, who are intensely interested in their brothers' love-affairs. She said how fond she was of Sina, and how delighted she would be if they made a match of it, and got married. At the luckless word "married," Yourii's face grew redder still, and in his eyes there was a malevolent look. He saw before him an entire romance of the usual provincial type; rose-pink _billets-doux_, sisters as confidantes, orthodox matrimony, with its inevitable commonplace sequel, home, wife, and babies--the one thing on earth that he dreaded most. "Oh! Enough of all that twaddle, please!" he said in so sharp a tone that Lialia was amazed. "Don't make such a fuss!" she exclaimed, pettishly. "If you _are_ in love, what does it matter? I can't think why you always pose as such an extraordinary hero." This last sentence had a touch of feminine spite in it, and the shaft struck home. Then, with a graceful movement of her dress which disclosed her dainty open-work stockings, she turned abruptly on her heel like some petulant princess, and went indoors. Yourii watched her, with anger in his dark eyes, as he tore open the envelope. YOURII NICOLAIJEVITCH: "If you have time, and the wish to do so, will you come to the monastery to-day? I shall be there with my aunt. She is preparing for the Communion, and will be in church the whole time. It will be dreadfully dull for me and I want to talk to you about lots of things. Do come. Perhaps I ought not to have written to you, but, anyhow, I shall expect you." In a moment all that had occupied his thoughts vanished, as with a thrill of pleasure almost physical he read and read the letter. This pure, charming girl in one short phrase had thus in naïve, trusting fashion revealed to him the secret of her love. It was as though she had come to him, helpless and pained, unable to resist the love that made her give herself up to him, yet not knowing what might befall. So near to him now seemed the goal, that Yourii trembled at the thought of possession. He strove to smile ironically, but the effort failed. His whole being was filled with joy, and such was his exhilaration that, like a bird, he felt ready to soar above the tree-tops, away, afar, into the blue, sunlit air. Towards evening he hired a _droschky_ and drove towards the monastery, smiling on the world timidly, almost in confusion. On reaching the landing-stage he took a boat, and was rowed by a stalwart peasant to the hill. It was not until the boat got clear of the reeds into the broad, open stream that he became conscious that his happiness was entirely due to the little rose-coloured letter. "After all, it's simple enough," he said to himself, by way of explanation. "She has always lived in that sort of world. It's just a provincial romance. Well, what if it is?" The water rippled gently on each side of the boat that brought him nearer and nearer to the green hill. On reaching the shore, Yourii in his excitement gave the boatman half a rouble and began to climb the slopes. Signs of approaching dusk were already perceptible. Long shadows lay at the foot of the hill, and heavy mists rose from the earth, hiding the yellow tint of the foliage, so that the forest looked as green and dense as in summer. The court-yard of the monastery was silent and solemn as the interior of a church. The grave, tall poplars looked as if they were praying, and like shadows the dark forms of monks moved hither and thither. At the church-porch lamps glimmered, and in the air there was a faint odour either of incense or of faded poplar-leaves. "Hullo, Svarogitsch!" shouted some one behind him. Yourii turned round, and saw Schafroff, Sanine, Ivanoff and Peter Ilitch, who came across the court-yard, talking loudly and merrily. The monks glanced apprehensively in their direction and even the poplars seemed to lose something of their devotional calm. "We've all come here, too," said Schafroff, approaching Yourii whom he revered. "So I see," muttered Yourii irritably. "You'll join our party, won't you?" asked Schafroff as he came nearer. "No, thank you, I am engaged," said Yourii, with some impatience. "Oh! that's all right! You'll come along with us, I know," exclaimed Ivanoff, as he good-humouredly caught hold of his arm. Yourii endeavoured to free himself, and for a while a droll struggle took place. "No, no, damn it all, I can't!" cried Yourii, almost angry now. "Perhaps I'll join you later." Such rough pleasantry on Ivanoff's part was not at all to his liking. "All right," said Ivanoff, as he released him, not noticing his irritation. "We will wait for you, so mind you come." "Very well." Thus, laughing and gesticulating, they departed. The court-yard became silent and solemn as before. Yourii took off his cap, and in a mood half-mocking, half shy, he entered the church. He at once perceived Sina, close to one of the dark pillars. In her grey jacket and round straw-hat she looked like a school-girl. His heart beat faster. She seemed so sweet, so charming, with her black hair in a neat coil at the back of her pretty white neck. It was this _air de pensioner_ while being a tall, well-grown, shapely young woman, that to him was so intensely alluring. Conscious of his gaze, she looked round, and in her dark eyes there was an expression of shy pleasure. "How do you do?" said Yourii, speaking in a low voice that yet was not low enough. He was not sure if he ought to shake hands in a church. Several members of the congregation looked round, and their swart, parchment-like faces made him feel more uncomfortable. He actually blushed, but Sina, seeing his confusion, smiled at him, as a mother might, with love in her eyes, and Yourii stood there, blissful and obedient. Sina gave no further glances, but kept crossing herself with great zeal. Yet Yourii knew that she was only thinking of him, and it was this consciousness that established a secret bond between them. The blood throbbed in his veins, and all seemed full of mystery and wonder. The dark interior of the church, the chanting, the dim lights, the sighs of worshippers, the echoing of feet of those who entered or went out--of all this Yourii took careful note, as in such solemn silence he could plainly hear the beating of his heart. He stood there, motionless, his eyes fixed on Sina's white neck and graceful figure, feeling a joy that bordered on emotion. He wanted to show every one that, although faith he had none in prayers, or chants, or lights, he yet was not opposed to them. This led him to contrast his present happy frame of mind with the distressful thoughts of the morning. "So that one really can be happy, eh?" he asked himself, answering the question at once. "Of course one can. All my thoughts regarding death and the aimlessness of life are correct and logical, yet in spite of it all, a man can sometimes be happy. If I am happy, it is all due to this beautiful creature that only a short time ago I had never seen." Suddenly the droll thought came to him that, long ago, as little children, perhaps they had met and parted, never dreaming that some day they would fall violently in love with each other, and that she would give herself to him in all her ripe, radiant nudity. It was this last thought that brought a flush to his cheeks and for a while he felt afraid to look at her. Meanwhile she who his wanton fancy had thus unclothed stood there in front of him, pure and sweet, in her little grey jacket and round hat, praying silently that his love for her might be as tender and deep as her own. In some way her virginal modesty must have influenced Yourii, for the lustful thoughts vanished, and tears of emotion filled his eyes. Looking upwards, he saw the gleaming gold above the altar, and the sacred cross round which the yellow tapers shone, and with a fervour long since forgotten he mentally ejaculated: "O God, if thou dost exist, let this maiden love me, and let my love for her be always as great as at this moment." He felt slightly ashamed at his own emotion, and sought to dismiss it with a smile. "It's all nonsense, after all," he thought. "Come," said Sina in a whisper that sounded like a sigh. Solemnly, as if in their souls they bore away with them all the chanting, and the prayers, the sighs and mystic lights, they went out across the court-yard, side by side, and passed through the little door leading to the mountain-slope. Here there was no living soul. The high white wall and time-worn turrets seemed to shut them out from the world of men. At their feet lay the oak forest; far below shone the river like a mirror of silver, while in the distance fields and meadows were merged in the dim horizon-line. In silence they advanced to the edge of the slope, aware that they ought to do something, to say something, yet feeling all the while that they had not sufficient courage. Then Sina raised her head, when, unexpectedly yet quite simply and naturally, her lips met Yourii's. She trembled and grew pale as he gently embraced her, and for the first time felt her warm, supple body in his arms. A bell chimed in that silence. To Yourii it seemed to celebrate the moment in which each had found the other. Sina, laughing, broke away from him and ran back. "Auntie will wonder what has become of me! Wait here, and I'll be back soon." Afterwards Yourii could never remember if she had said this to him in a loud, clear voice that echoed through the woodland, or if the words had floated to him like a soft whisper on the evening breeze. He sat down on the grass and smoothed his hair with his hand. "How silly, and yet how delightful it all is!" he thought, smiling. In the distance he heard Sina's voice. "I'm coming, auntie, I'm coming." CHAPTER XXXVII. First the horizon grew dark; then the river vanished in a mist, and from the pasture-lands a sound came up of neighing horses, while, here and there, faint lights flickered. As he sat there waiting, Yourii began to count these. "One, two, three--oh! there's another, right on the edge of the horizon, just like a tiny star. Peasants are seated round it, keeping their night-watch, cooking potatoes and chatting. The fire yonder is blazing up and crackling merrily, while the horses stand, snorting, beside it. But at this distance it's only a little spark that at any moment might vanish." He found it hard to think about anything at all. This sense of supreme happiness utterly absorbed him. As if in alarm, he murmured at intervals: "She will come back again, directly." Thus he waited there, on the height, listening to horses whinnying in the distance, to the cries of wild duck beyond the river, and to a thousand other elusive, indefinite sounds from the woods at evening which floated mysteriously through the air. Then as behind him he heard steps rapidly approaching, and the rustling of a dress, he knew, without looking round, that it was she, and in an ecstasy of passionate desire he trembled at the thought of the coming crisis. Sina stood still beside him, breathing hard. Delighted at his own audacity, Yourii caught her in his strong arms, and carried her down to the grassy slope beneath. In doing this, he nearly slipped, when she murmured: "We shall fall!" feeling bashful, and yet full of joy. As Yourii pressed her limbs closer to his, it appeared to him that she had at once the sumptuous proportions of a woman and the soft, slight figure of a child. Down below, under the trees, it was dark, and here Yourii placed the girl, seating himself next to her. As the ground was sloping, they seemed to be lying side by side. In the dim light Yourii's lips fastened on hers with wild passionate longing. She did not struggle, but only trembled violently. "Do you love me?" she murmured, breathlessly. Her voice sounded like some mysterious whisper from the woods. Then in amazement, Yourii asked himself: "What am I doing?" The thought was like ice to his burning brain. In a moment everything seemed grey and void as a day in winter, lacking force and life. Her eyelids half-closed, she turned to him with a questioning look. Then, suddenly she saw his face, and overwhelmed with shame, shrank from his embrace. Yourii was beset by countless conflicting sensations. He felt that to stop now would be ridiculous. In a feeble, awkward way he again commenced to caress her, while she as feebly, and awkwardly resisted him. To Yourii the situation now seemed so absolutely absurd, that he released Sina, who was panting like some hunted wild animal. There was a painful silence, suddenly, he said: "Forgive me ... I must be mad." Her breath came quicker, and he felt that he should not have spoken thus, as it must have hurt her. Involuntarily he stammered out all sorts of excuses which he knew were false, his one wish being to get away from her, as the situation had become intolerable. She must have perceived this, too, for she murmured: "I ought ... to go." They got up, without looking at each other, and Yourii made a final effort to revive his previous ardour by embracing her feebly. Then, in her a motherly feeling was roused. As if she felt that she was stronger than he, she nestled closer to him, and looking into his eyes, smiled tenderly, consolingly. "Good-bye! Come and see me to-morrow!" So saying she kissed him with such passion that Yourii felt dazed. At that moment he almost revered her. When she had gone, he listened for a long while to the sound of her retreating footsteps, and then picked up his cap from which he shook dead leaves and mould before thrusting it on his head, and going down the hill to the hospice. He made a long detour so as to avoid meeting Sina. "Ah!" thought he, as he descended the slope, "must I needs bring so pure and innocent a girl to shame? Had it all to end in my doing what any other average man would have done? God bless her! It would have been too vile.... I am glad that I wasn't as bad as all that. How utterly revolting ... all in a moment ... without a word ... like some animal!" Thus he thought with disgust of what a little while before had made him glad and strong. Yet he felt secretly ashamed and dissatisfied. Even his arms and legs seemed to dangle in senseless fashion, and his cap to fit him as might a fool's. "After all, am I really capable of living?" he asked himself, in despair. CHAPTER XXXVIII. In the large corridor of the hospice there was an odour of samovars, and bread, and incense. A strong, active monk was hurrying along, carrying a huge tea-urn. "Father," exclaimed Yourii, confused somewhat at addressing him thus, and imagining that the monk would be equally embarrassed. "What is it, pray?" asked the other politely, through clouds of steam from the samovar. "Is there not a party of visitors here, from the town?" "Yes, in number seven," replied the monk promptly, as if he had anticipated such a question. "This way, please, on the balcony." Yourii opened the door. The spacious room was darkened by dense clouds of tobacco-smoke. Near the balcony there was more light, and one could hear the jingling of bottles and glasses above the noisy talk and laughter. "Life is an incurable malady." It was Schafroff who spoke. "And you are an incurable fool!" shouted Ivanoff, in reply, "Can't you stop your eternal phrase-making?" On entering, Yourii received a boisterous welcome. Schafroff jumped up, nearly dragging the cloth off the table as he seized Yourii's hand, and murmured effusively: "How awfully good of you to come! I am so glad! Really, it's most kind of you! Thank you ever so much!" Yourii as he took a seat between Sanine and Peter Ilitsch, proceeded to look about him. The balcony was brightly lighted by two lamps and a lantern, and outside this circle of light there seemed to be a black, impenetrable wall. Yet Yourii could still perceive the greenish lights in the sky. the silhouette of the mountain, the tops of the nearest trees, and, far below, the glimmering surface of the river. From the wood moths and chafers flew to the lamp, and, fluttering round it, fell on to the table, slowly dying there a fiery death. Yourii, as he pitied their fate, thought to himself: "We, too, like insects, rush to the flame, and flutter round every luminous idea only to perish miserably at the last. We imagine that the idea is the expression of the world's will, whereas it is nothing but the consuming fire within our brain." "Now then, drink up!" said Sanine, as in friendly fashion he passed the bottle to Yourii. "With pleasure," replied the latter, dejectedly, and it immediately occurred to him that this was about the best thing, in fact the only thing that remained to be done. So they all drank and touched glasses. To Yourii vodka tasted horrible. It was burning and bitter as poison. He helped himself to the _hors d'oeuvres,_ but these, too, had a disagreeable flavour, and he could not swallow them. "No!" he thought. "It doesn't matter if it's death, or Siberia, but get away from here I must! Yet, where shall I go? Everywhere it's the same thing, and there's no escaping from one's self. When once a man sets himself above life, then life in any form can never satisfy him, whether he lives in a hole like this, or in St. Petersburg." "As I take it," cried Schafroff, "man, individually, is a mere nothing." Yourii looked at the speaker's dull, unintelligent countenance, with its tired little eyes behind their glasses, and thought that such a man as that was in truth nothing. "The individual is a cypher. It is only they who emerge from the masses, yet are never out of touch with them, and who do not oppose the crowd, as _bourgeois_ heroes usually do--it is only they who have real strength." "And in what does such strength consist, pray?" asked Ivanoff aggressively, as he leant across the table. "Is it in fighting against the actual government? Very likely. But in their struggle for personal happiness, how can the masses help them?" "Ah! there you go! You're a super-man, and want happiness of a special kind to suit yourself. But, we men of the masses, we think that in fighting for the welfare of others our own happiness lies. The triumph of the idea--that is happiness!" "Yet, suppose the idea is a false one?" "That doesn't matter. Belief's the thing!" Schafroff tossed his head stubbornly. "Bah!" said Ivanoff in a contemptuous tone, "every man believes that his own occupation is the most important and most indispensable thing in the whole world. Even a ladies' tailor thinks so. You know that perfectly well, but apparently you have forgotten it; therefore, as a friend I am bound to remind you of the fact." With involuntary hatred Yourii regarded Ivanoff's flabby, perspiring face, and grey, lustreless eyes. "And, in your opinion, what constitutes happiness, pray?" he asked, as his lips curled in contempt. "Well, most assuredly not in perpetual sighing and groaning, or incessant questionings such as, 'I sneezed just now. Was that the right thing to do? Will it not cause harm to some one? Have I, in sneezing, fulfilled my destiny?'" Yourii could read hatred in the speaker's cold eyes, and it infuriated him to think that Ivanoff considered himself his superior intellectually, and was laughing at him. "We'll soon see," he thought. "That's not a programme," he retorted, striving to let his face express intense disdain, as well as reluctance to pursue the discussion. "Do you really need one? If I desire, and am able, to do something, I do it. That's my programme!" "A fine one indeed!" exclaimed Schafroff hotly, Yourii merely shrugged his shoulders and made no reply. For a while they all went on drinking in silence. Then Yourii turned to Sanine and proceeded to expound his views concerning the Supreme Good. He intended Ivanoff to hear what he said, though he did not look at him. Schafroff listened with reverence and enthusiasm. While Ivanoff who had partly turned his back to Yourii received each new statement with a mocking "We've heard all that before!" At last Sanine languidly interposed. "Oh! do stop all this," he said. "Don't you find it terribly boring? Every man is entitled to his own opinion, surely?" He slowly lit a cigarette and went out into the courtyard. To his heated body the calm, blue night was deliciously soothing. Behind the wood the moon rose upward, like a globe of gold, shedding soft, strange light over the dark world. At the back of the orchard with its odour of apples and plums the other white-walled hospice could be dimly seen, and one of the lighted windows seemed to peer down at Sanine through its fence of tender leaves. Suddenly a sound was heard of naked feet pattering on the grass, and Sanine saw the figure of a boy emerge from the gloom. "What do you want?" he asked. "I want to see Mademoiselle Karsavina, the schoolteacher," replied the bare-footed urchin, in a shrill voice. "Why?" To Sanine the name instantly recalled a vision of Sina, standing at the water's edge in all her nude, sunlit loveliness. "I have got a letter for her," said the boy. "Aha! She must be at the hospice over the way, as she is not here. You had better go there." The lad crept away, barefoot, like some little animal, disappearing so quickly in the darkness that it seemed as if he had hidden himself behind a bush. Sanine slowly followed, breathing to the full the soft, honey-sweet air of the garden. He went close up to the other hospice, so that the light from the window as he stood under it fell full upon his calm, pensive face, and illuminated large, heavy pears hanging on the dark orchard trees. By standing on tip-toe Sanine was able to pluck one, and, just as he did so he caught sight of Sina at the window. He saw her in profile, clad in her night-dress. The light on her soft, round shoulders gave them a lustre as of satin. She was lost in her thoughts, that seemingly made her joyous yet ashamed, for her eyelids quivered, and on her lips there was a smile. To Sanine it was like the ecstatic smile of a maiden ripe and ready for a long, entrancing kiss. Riveted to the spot, he stood there and gazed. She was musing on all that had just happened, and her experiences, if they had caused delight, had yet provoked shame. "Good heavens!" thought she, "am I really so depraved?" Then for the hundredth time she blissfully recalled the rapture that was hers as she first lay in Yourii's arms. "My darling! My darling!" she murmured, and again Sanine watched her eyelids tremble, and her smiling lips. Of the subsequent scene, distressful in its unbridled passion, she preferred not to think, instinctively aware that the memory of it would only bring disenchantment. There was a knock at the door. "Who is there?" asked Sina, looking up. Sanine plainly saw her white, soft neck. "Here's a letter for you," cried the boy outside. Sina rose and opened the door. Splashed with wet mud to the knees, the boy entered, and snatching his cap from his head, said: "The young lady sent me." "Sinotschka," wrote Dubova, "if possible, do come back to town this evening. The Inspector of Schools has arrived, and will visit our school to-morrow morning. It won't look well if you are not there." "What is it?" asked Sina's old aunt. "Olga has sent for me. The school-inspector has come," replied Sina, pensively. The boy rubbed one foot against another. "She wished me to tell you to come back without fail," he said. "Are you going?" asked the aunt. "How can I? Alone, in the dark?" "The moon is up," said the boy. "It's quite light out-of-doors." "I shall have to go," said Sina, still hesitating. "Yes, yes, go, my child. Otherwise there might be trouble." "Very well, then, I'll go," said Sina, nodding her head resolutely. She dressed quickly, put on her hat and took leave of her aunt. "Good-bye, auntie," "Good-bye, my dear. God be with you." Sina turned to the boy. "Are you coming with me?" The urchin looked shy and confused, as, again rubbing his feet together, he muttered, "I came to be with mother. She does washing here, for the monks." "But how am I to go alone, Grischka?" "All right! Let's go," replied the lad, in a tone of vigorous assent. They went out into the dark-blue, fragrant night. "What a delightful scent!" she exclaimed, immediately uttering a startled cry, for in the darkness she had stumbled against some one. "It is I," said Sanine, laughing. Sina held out her trembling hand. "It's so dark that one can't see," she said, by way of excuse. "Where are you going?" "Back to the town. They've sent for me." "What, alone?" "No, the little boy's going with me. He's my cavalier." "Cavalier! Ha! Ha!" repeated Grischka merrily, stamping his bare feet. "And what are _you_ doing here?" she asked. "Oh! we're just having a drink together." "You said 'we'?" "Yes--Schafroff, Svarogitsch, Ivanoff ..." "Oh! Yourii Nicolaijevitsch is with you, is he?" asked Sina, and she blushed. To utter the name of him she loved sent a thrill through her as though she were looking down into some precipice. "Why do you ask?" "Because--er--I met him," she answered, blushing deeper. "Well, good-bye!" Sanine gently held her proffered hand in his. "If you like, I will row you across to the other side. Why should you go all that way round?" "Oh! no, please don't trouble," said Sina, feeling strangely shy. "Yes, let him row you across," said little Grischka persuasively, "for there's such a lot of mud on the bank." "Very well, then. You can go back to your mother." "Aren't you afraid to cross the fields alone?" asked the boy. "I will accompany you as far as the town," said Sanine. "But what will your friends say?" "Oh! that doesn't matter. They'll stop there till dawn. Besides, they've bored me enough as it is." "Well, it is very kind of you, I am sure. Grischka you can go." "Good-night, Miss," said the boy, as he noiselessly disappeared. Sina and Sanine were left there alone. "Take my arm," he suggested, "or else you may fall." Sina placed her arm in his, feeling a strange emotion as she touched his muscles that were hard as steel. Thus they went on in the darkness, through the woods to the river. In the wood it was pitch-dark, as if all the trees had been fused and melted in a warm, impenetrable mist. "Oh! how dark it is!" "That doesn't matter," whispered Sanine in her ear. His voice trembled slightly. "I like woods best at night time. It is then that man strips off his everyday mask and becomes bolder, more mysterious, more interesting." As the sandy soil slipped beneath their feet, Sina found it difficult to save herself from falling. It was this darkness and this physical contact with a supple, masterful male to whom she had always been drawn, that now caused her most exquisite agitation. Her face glowed, her soft arm shared its warmth with that of Sanine's, and her laughter was forced and incessant. At the foot of the hill it was less dark. Moonlight lay on the river, and a cool breeze from its broad surface fanned their cheeks. Mysteriously the wood receded in the gloom, as though it had given them into the river's charge. "Where is your boat?" "There it is." The boat lay sharply defined against the bright, smooth surface of the stream. While Sanine got the oars into position, Sina, balancing herself with outstretched arms, took her place in the stern. All at once the moonlight and the luminous reflections from the water gave a fantastic radiance to her form. Pushing off the boat from land, Sanine sprang into it. With a slight grating sound the keel slid over the sand and cut the water, as the boat swam into the moonlight, leaving broad ripples in its wake. "Let me row," said Sina, suddenly endued with strange, overmastering strength. "I love rowing." "Very well, sit here, then," said Sanine, standing in the middle of the boat. Again her supple form brushed lightly past him and as, with his finger- tips, she touched his proffered hand, he could glance downwards at her shapely bosom.... Thus they floated down the stream. The moonlight, shining upon her pale face with its dark eyebrows and gleaming eyes, gave a certain lustre to her simple white dress. To Sanine it seemed as if they were entering a land of faerie, far removed from all men, outside the pale of human law and reason. "What a lovely night!" exclaimed Sina. "Lovely, isn't it?" replied Sanine in an undertone. All at once, she burst out laughing. "I don't know why, but I feel as if I should like to throw my hat into the water, and let down my hair," she said, yielding to a sudden impulse. "Then do it, by all means," murmured Sanine. But she grew ill at ease and was silent. Under the stimulating influence of the calm, sultry, unfathomable night, her thoughts again reverted to her recent experiences. It seemed to her impossible that Sanine should not know of these, and it was just this which made her joy the more intense. Unconsciously she longed to make him aware that she was not always so gentle and modest, but that she could also be something vastly different when she threw off the mask. It was this secret longing that made her flushed and elated. "You have known Yourii Nicolaijevitsch for a long while, haven't you?" she asked in a faltering voice, irresistibly impelled to hover above an abyss. "No," replied Sanine. "Why do you ask?" "Oh! I merely asked. He's a clever fellow, don't you think?" Her tone was one of childish timidity, as if she sought to obtain something from a person far older than herself, who had the right to caress or to punish her. Sanine smiled at her, as he said; "Ye ... es!" From his voice Sina knew that he was smiling, and she blushed deeply. "No ... but, really he is.... Well, he seems to be very unhappy." Her lip quivered. "Most likely. Unhappy he certainly is. Are you sorry for him?" "Of course I am," said Sina with feigned _naïveté_. "It's only natural," said Sanine, "but 'unhappy' means to you something different from what it really is. You think that a man spiritually discontented, who is for ever analysing his moods and his actions counts, not as a deplorably unhappy person, but as one of extraordinary individuality and power. Such perpetual self-analysis appears to you a fine trait which entitles that man to think himself better than all others, and deserving not merely of compassion, but of love and esteem." "Well, what else is it, if not that?" asked Sina ingenuously. She had never talked so much to Sanine before. That he was an original, she knew by hearsay; and she now felt agreeably perturbed at encountering so novel and interesting a personality. Sanine laughed. "There was a time when man lived the narrow life of a brute, not holding himself responsible for his actions nor his feelings. This was followed by the period of conscious life, and at its outset man was wont to overestimate his own sentiments and needs and desires. Here, at this stage, stands Svarogitsch. He is the last of the Mohicans, the final representative of an epoch of human evolution which has disappeared for evermore. He has absorbed, as it were, all the essences of that epoch, which have poisoned his very soul. He does not really live his life; each act, each thought is questioned. 'Have I done right?' 'Have I done wrong?' In his case this becomes almost absurd. In politics he is not sure whether it is not beneath his dignity to rank himself with others, yet, if he retires from politics, he wonders if it is not humiliating to stand aloof. There are many such persons. If Yourii Svarogitsch forms an exception, it is solely on account of his superior intelligence." "I do not quite understand you," began Sina timidly. "You speak of Yourii Nicolaijevitsch as if he himself were to blame for not being other than what he is. If life fails to satisfy a man, then that man stands above life." "Man cannot be above life," replied Sanine, "for he himself is but a fraction of it. He may be dissatisfied, but the cause for such discontent lies in himself. He either cannot or dare not take from life's treasures enough for his actual needs. There are people who spend their lives in a prison. Others are afraid to escape from it, like some captive bird that fears to fly away when set free.... The body and spirit of man form one complete harmonious whole, disturbed only by the dread approach of death. But it is we ourselves who disturb such harmony by our own distorted conception of life. We have branded as bestial our physical desires; we have become ashamed of them; we have shrouded them in degrading forms and trammels. Those of us who by nature are weak, do not notice this, but drag on through life in chains, while those who are crippled by a false conception of life, it is they who are the martyrs. The pent-up forces crave an outlet; the body pines for joy, and suffers torment through its own impotence. Their life is one of perpetual discord and uncertainty, and they catch at any straw that might help them to a newer theory of morals, till at last so melancholy do they become that they are afraid to live, afraid to feel." "Yes, yes," was Sina's vigorous assent. A host of new thoughts invaded her mind. As with shining eyes she glanced round, the splendour of the night, the beauty of the calm river and of the dreaming woods in moonlight seemed to penetrate her whole being. Again she was possessed by that vague longing for sheer dominant strength that should yield her delight. "My dream is always of some golden age," continued Sanine, "when nothing shall stand between man and his happiness, and when, fearless and free, he can gave himself up to all attainable enjoyments." "Yes, but how is he to do that? By a return to barbarism?" "No. The epoch when man lived like a brute was a miserable, barbarous one, and our own epoch, in which the body, dominated by the mind, is kept under and set in the background lacks sense and vigour. But humanity has not lived in vain. It has created new conditions of life which give no scope either for grossness or asceticism." "Yes, but what of love? Does not that impose obligations upon us?" asked Sina hurriedly. "No. If love imposes grievous obligations, it is through jealousy, and jealousy is the outcome of slavery. In any form slavery causes harm. Men should enjoy what love can give them fearlessly and without restrictions. If this were so, love would be infinitely richer and more varied in all its forms, and more influenced by chance and opportunity." "I hadn't the least fear just now," was Sina's proud reflection. She suddenly looked at Sanine, feeling as if this were her first sight of him. There he sat, facing her, in the stern, a fine figure of a man; dark-eyed, broad-shouldered, intensely virile. "What a handsome fellow!" she thought. A whole world of unknown forces and emotions lay before her. Should she enter that world? She smiled at her now curiosity, trembling all over. Sanine must have guessed what was passing in her mind. His breath came quicker, almost in gasps. In passing through a narrow part of the stream, the oars caught in the trailing foliage and slipped from Sina's hands. "I can't get along here, it's so narrow," she said timidly. Her voice sounded gentle and musical as the rippling of the stream. Sanine stood up, and moved towards her. "What is it?" she asked in alarm. "It's all right, I am only going to ..." Sina rose in her turn, and attempted to get to the rudder. The boat rocked so violently that she well nigh lost her balance, and involuntarily she caught hold of Sanine, after falling almost into his arms. At that moment, almost unconsciously, and never believing it possible, she gently prolonged their contact. It was this touch of her that in a moment fired his blood, while she, sensible of his ardour, irresistibly responded thereto. "Ah!" exclaimed Sanine, in surprise and delight. He embraced her passionately, forcing her backwards, so that her hat fell off. The boat rocked with greater violence, as invisible wavelets dashed against the shore. "What are you doing?" she cried, in a faint voice. "Let me go! For heaven's sake! ... What are you doing? ..." She struggled to free herself from those arms of steel, but Sanine crushed her firm bosom closer, closer to his own, till such barriers as there had been between them ceased to exist. Around them, only darkness; the moist odour of the river and the reeds; an atmosphere now hot, now cold; profound silence. Suddenly, unaccountably, she lost all power of volition and of thought; her limbs relaxed, and she surrendered to another's will. CHAPTER XXXIX. Recovering herself at last, she perceived the bright image of the moon in the dark water, and Sanine's face bending over her with glittering eyes. She felt that his arms were wound tightly round her, and that one of the oars was chafing her knee. Then she began to weep gently, persistently, without freeing herself from Sanine's embrace. Her tears were for that which was irretrievable. Fear and pity for herself, and fondness for him made her weep. Sanine lifted her up and set her on his knee. She meekly submitted like some sorrowful child. As in a dream she could hear him gently comforting her in a tender, grateful voice. "I shall drown myself." The thought seemed an answer to a third person's stern question, "What have you done, and what will you do now?" "What shall I do now?" she asked aloud. "We will see," replied Sanine. She tried to slip off his knees, but he held her fast, so she remained there, thinking it strange that she could feel for him neither hatred nor disgust. "It doesn't matter what happens, now," she said to herself, yet a secret physical curiosity prompted her to wonder what this strong man, a stranger, and yet so close a friend, would do with her. After a while, he took the oars, and she reclined beside him, her eyes half-closed, and trembling every time that his hand in rowing moved close to her bosom. As the boat with a grating sound touched the shore, Sina opened her eyes. She saw fields, and water, and white mist, and the moon like a pale phantom ready to flee at dawn. It was now daybreak and a cool breeze was blowing. "Shall I go with you?" asked Sanine gently. "No. I'd rather go alone," she replied. Sanine lifted her out of the boat. It was a joy to him to do this, for he felt that he loved her, and was grateful to her. As he put her down on the shore after embracing her fondly, she stumbled. "Oh! you beauty!" exclaimed Sanine, in a voice full of passion and tenderness and pity. She smiled in unconscious pride. Sanine took hold of her hands, and drew her to him. "Kiss me!" "It doesn't matter; nothing matters now," she thought, as she gave him a long, passionate kiss on his lips. "Good-bye," she murmured, scarcely knowing what she said. "Don't be angry with me, darling," pleaded Sanine. As she crossed the dyke, staggering as she went, and tripping over her dress, Sanine watched her with sorrowful eyes. It grieved him to think of all the needless suffering that was in store for her and which, as he foresaw, she had not the strength to set aside. Slowly her figure moved forward to meet the dawn, and it soon vanished in the white mist. When he could no longer see her, Sanine leapt into the boat, and by a few powerful strokes lashed the water to foam In mid-stream, as the dense morning mists rose round him, Sanine dropped the oars, stood erect in the boat and uttered a great shout of joy. And the woods and the mists, as if alive, responded to his cry. CHAPTER XL. As though stunned by a blow, Sina at once fell asleep, but woke early, feeling utterly broken, and cold as a corpse. Her despair had never slumbered, and for no single moment could she forget that which had been done. In mute dejection she scrutinized every detail of her room, as if to discover what since yesterday had suffered change. Yet, from its corner, touched by morning light, the _ikon_ looked down at her in friendly wise. The windows, the floor, the furniture were unaltered, and on the pillows of the adjoining bed lay the fair head of Dubova who was still fast asleep. All was exactly the same as usual; only the crumpled dress flung carelessly across a chair told its tale. The flush on her face at waking soon gave place to an ashen pallor that was heightened by her coal-black eyebrows. With the awful clearness of an overwrought brain she rehearsed her experiences of the last few hours. She saw herself walking through silent streets at sunrise and hostile windows seemed watching her, while the few persons she met turned round to look at her. On she went in the dawn-light, hampered by her long skirts, and holding a little green plush bag, much as some criminal might stagger homewards. The past night was to her as a night of delirium. Something mad and strange and overwhelming had happened, yet how or why she knew not. To have flung all shame aside, to have forgotten her love for another man, it was this that to her appeared incomprehensible. Jaded and sick at heart, she rose, and noiselessly began to dress, fearful lest Dubova should awake. Then she sat at the window, gazing anxiously at the green and yellow foliage in the garden. Thoughts whirled in her brain, thoughts hazy and confused as smoke driven by the wind. Suddenly Dubova awoke. "What? Up already? How extraordinary!" she exclaimed. When Sina returned in the early morning, her friend had only drowsily asked, "How did you get in such a mess?" and then had fallen asleep again. Now that she noticed that something was wrong, she hurried across to Sina, barefooted, and in her night-dress. "What's the matter? Are you ill?" she asked sympathetically, as might an elder sister. Sina winced, as beneath a blow, yet, with a smile on her rosy lips, she replied in a tone of forced gaiety: "Oh! dear no! Only, I hardly slept at all last night." Thus was the first lie spoken that converted all her frank, proud maidenhood to a memory. In its place there was now something false and sullied. While Dubova was dressing herself, Sina glanced furtively at her from time to time. Her friend seemed to her bright and pure, and she herself as repulsive as a crushed reptile. So powerful was this impression, that even the very part of the room where Dubova stood appeared full of sunshine, while her own corner was steeped in gloom. Sina remembered how she had always thought herself purer and more beautiful than her friend, and the change that had come caused her intense anguish. Yet all this lay hidden deep in her heart, and outwardly she was perfectly calm; indeed, almost gay. She put on a pretty dark-blue dress, and, taking her hat and sunshade, walked to school in her usual buoyant way, where she remained until noon, and then returned home. In the street she met Lida Sanina. They both stood there in the sunlight, graceful, young, and pretty, as with smiles on their lips they talked of trifling things. Lida felt morbidly hostile towards Sina, happy and free from care as she imagined her to be, while the latter envied Lida her liberty and her pleasant, easy life. Each believed herself to be the victim of cruel injustice. "I am surely better than she is. Why is she so happy, and why must I suffer?" In both their minds this thought was uppermost. After lunch, Sina took a book and sat near the window, listlessly gazing at the garden that was still touched with the splendour of the dying summer. The emotional crisis had passed, and now her mood was one of apathy and indifference. "Ah! Well, it's all over with me now," she kept repeating. "I'd better die." Sina saw Sanine before he noticed her. Tall and calm, he crossed the garden, thrusting aside the branches as if to greet them by his touch. Leaning back in her chair, and pressing the book against her bosom, she watched him, wild-eyed, as he slowly approached the window. "Good day," he said, holding out his hand. Before she could rise or recover from her amazement he repeated in a gentle, caressing tone. "Good morning to you." Sina felt utterly powerless. She only murmured: "Good morning." Sanine leant on the window-sill and said: "Do come out into the garden for a little while and have a talk." Sina got up, swayed by a strange force that robbed her of her will. "I'll wait for you there," added Sanine. She merely nodded. As he strolled back to the garden Sina was afraid to look at him. For some seconds she remained motionless, with her hands clasped, and then suddenly went out, holding up her dress so as to walk more easily. Sunlight touched the bright-hued autumn foliage; and the garden seemed steeped in a golden haze. As Sina hastened towards him, Sanine was standing at some distance in the middle of the path. His smile troubled her. He took her hand, and, sitting on the trunk of a tree, gently drew her on to his lap. "I am not sure," he began, "that I ought to have come here to see you, for you may think that I have treated you very badly. But I could not stay away. I wanted to explain things, so that you might not utterly hate and loathe me. After all ... what else could I do? How was I to resist? There came a moment when I felt that the last barrier between us had fallen, and that, if I missed this moment of my life, it would never again be mine. You're so beautiful, so young ..." Sina was mute. Her soft, transparent ear, half-hidden by her hair, became rosy, and her long eyelashes quivered. "You're miserable, now, and yesterday, how beautiful it all was," he said. "Sorrows only exist because man has set a price upon his own happiness. If our way of living were different, last night would remain in our memory as one of life's most beautiful and precious experiences." "Yes, if ..." she said mechanically. Then, all at once, much to her own surprise, she smiled. And as sunrise, and the song of birds, and the sound of whispering reeds, so this smile seemed to cheer her spirit. Yet it was but for a moment. All at once she saw her whole future life before her, a broken life of sorrow and shame. The prospect was so horrible that it roused hatred. "Go away! Leave me!" she said sharply. Her teeth were clenched and her face wore a hard, vindictive expression as she rose to her feet. Sanine pitied her. For a moment he was moved to offer her his name and his protection, yet something held him back. He felt that such amends would be too mean. "Ah! well," he thought, "life must just take its course." "I know that you are in love with Yourii Svarogitsch," he began. "Perhaps it is that which grieves you most?" "I am in love with no one," murmured Sina, clasping her hands convulsively. "Don't bear me any ill-will," pleaded Sanine. "You're just as beautiful as ever you were, and the same happiness that you gave to me, you will give to him you love--far more, indeed, far more. I wish you from my heart all possible joy, and I shall always picture you to myself as I saw you last night. Good-bye ... and, if ever you need me, send for me. If I could ... I would give my life for you." Sina looked at him, and was silent, stirred by strange pity. "It may all come right, who knows?" she thought, and for a moment matters did not seem so dreadful. They gazed into each other's eyes steadfastly, knowing that in their hearts they held a secret which no one would ever discover, and the memory of which would always be bright. "Well, good-bye," said Sina, in a gentle, girlish voice. Sanine looked radiant with pleasure. She held out her hand, and they kissed, simply, affectionately, like brother and sister. Sina accompanied Sanine as far as the garden-gate and sorrowfully watched him go. Then she went back to the garden, and lay down on the scented grass that waved and rustled round her. She shut her eyes, thinking of all that had happened, and wondering whether she ought to tell Yourii or not. "No, no," she said to herself, "I won't think any more about it. Some things are best forgotten." CHAPTER XLI. Next morning Yourii rose late, feeling indisposed. His head ached, and he had a bad taste in his mouth. At first he could only recollect shouts, jingling glasses, and the waning light of lamps at dawn. Then he remembered how, stumbling and grunting, Schafroff and Peter Ilitsch had retired, while he and Ivanoff--the latter pale with drink, but firm on his feet--stood talking on the balcony. They had no eyes for the radiant morning sky, pale green at the horizon, and changing over head to blue; they did not see the fair meadows and fields, nor the shining river that lay below. They still went on arguing. Ivanoff triumphantly proved to Yourii that people of his sort were worthless, since they feared to take from life that which life offered them. They were far better dead and forgotten. It was with malicious pleasure that he quoted Peter Ilitsch's remark, "I should certainly never call such persons men," as he laughed wildly, imagining that he had demolished Yourii by such a phrase. Yet, strange to say, Yourii was not annoyed by it, dealing only with Ivanoff's assertion that his life was a miserable one. That, he said, was because "people of his sort" were more sensitive, more highly-strung; and he agreed that they were far better out of the world. Then, becoming intensely depressed, he almost wept. He now recollected with shame how he had been on the point of telling Ivanoff of his love-episode with Sina, and had almost flung the honour of that pure, lovely girl at the feet of this truculent sot. When at last Ivanoff, growling, had gone out into the courtyard, the room to Yourii seemed horribly dreary and deserted. There was a mist over everything; only the dirty table-cloth, with its green radish-stalks, empty beer-glasses and cigarette-ends danced before his eyes, as he sat there, huddled-up and forlorn. Afterwards, he remembered, Ivanoff came back, and with him was Sanine. The latter seemed gay, talkative and perfectly sober. He looked at Yourii in a strange manner, half-friendly and half-derisive. Then his thoughts turned to the scene in the wood with Sina. "It would have been base of me if I had taken advantage of her weakness," he said to himself. "Yet what shall I do now? Possess her, and then cast her off? No, I could never do that; I'm too kind-hearted. Well, what then? Marry her?" Marriage! To Yourii the very word sounded appallingly commonplace. How could anyone of his complex temperament endure the idea of a philistine _ménage?_ It was impossible. "And yet I love her," he thought. "Why should I put her from me, and go? Why should I destroy my own happiness? It's monstrous! It's absurd!" On reaching home, in order to take his thoughts off the one engrossing subject, he sat down at the table and proceeded to read over certain sententious passages written by him recently. "In this world there is neither good nor bad." "Some say: what is natural is good, and that man is right in his desires." "But that is false, for all is natural. In darkness and void nothing is born; all has the same origin." "Yet others say: All is good which comes from God. Yet that likewise is false; for, if God exists, then all things come from Him, even blasphemy." "Again, there are those who say: goodness lies in doing good to others." "How can that be? What is good for one, is bad for another." "The slave desires his liberty, while his master wants him to remain a slave. The wealthy man wants to keep his wealth, and the poor man, to destroy the rich; he who is oppressed, to be free; the victor to remain unvanquished; the loveless to be loved; the living not to die. Man desires the destruction of beasts, just as beasts wish to destroy man. Thus it was in the beginning, and thus it ever shall be; nor has any man a special right to get good that is good for him alone." "Men are wont to say that loving-kindness is better than hatred. Yet that is false, for if there be a reward, then certainly it is better to be kind and unselfish, but if not, then it is better for a man to take his share of happiness beneath the sun." Yourii read on, thinking that these written meditations of his were amazingly profound. "It's all so true!" he said to himself, and in his melancholy there was a touch of pride. He went to the window and looked out into the garden where the paths were strewn with yellow leaves. The sickly hue of death confronted him at every point--dying leaves and dying insects whose lives depend on warmth and light. Yourii could not comprehend this calm. The pageant of dying summer filled his soul with wrath unutterable. "Autumn already; and then winter, and the snow. Then spring, and summer, and autumn again! The eternal monotony of it all! And what shall I be doing all the while? Exactly what I'm doing now. At best, I shall become dull-witted, caring for nothing. Then old age, and death." The same thoughts that had so often harassed him now rushed through his brain. Life, so he said, had passed by him; after all, there was no such thing as an exceptional existence; even a hero's life is full of tedium, grievous at the outset, and joyless at the close. "An achievement! A victory of some sort!" Yourii wrung his hands in despair. "To blaze up, and then to expire, without fear, without pain. That is the only real life!" A thousand exploits one more heroic than the other, presented themselves to his mind, each like some grinning death's head. Closing his eyes, Yourii could clearly behold a grey Petersburg morning, damp brick walls and a gibbet faintly outlined against the leaden sky. He pictured the barrel of a revolver pressed to his brow; he imagined that he could hear the whiz of _nagaïkas_ as they struck his defenceless face and naked back. "That's what's in store for one! To that one must come!" he exclaimed. The deeds of heroism vanished, and in their place, his own helplessness grinned at him like a mocking mask. He felt that all his dreams of victory and valour were only childish fancies. "Why should I sacrifice my own life or submit to insult and death in order that the working classes in the thirty-second century may not suffer through want of food or of sexual satisfaction? The devil take all workers and non-workers in this world!" "I wish somebody would shoot me," he thought. "Kill me, right out, with a shot aimed from behind, so that I should feel nothing. What nonsense, isn't it? Why must somebody else do it? and not I myself? Am I really such a coward that I cannot pluck up courage to end this life which I know to be nothing but misery? Sooner or later, one must die, so that..." He approached the drawer in which he kept his revolver, and furtively took it out. "Suppose I were to try? Not really because I ... just for fun!" He slipped the weapon into his pocket and went out on to the veranda leading to the garden. On the steps lay yellow, withered leaves. He kicked them in all directions as he whistled a melancholy tune. "What's that you're whistling?" asked Lialia, gaily, as she came across the garden. "It's like a dirge for your departed youth." "Don't talk nonsense!" replied Yourii irritably; and from that moment he felt the approach of something that it was beyond his power to prevent. Like an animal that knows death is near, he wandered restlessly hither and thither, to look for some quiet spot. The courtyard only irritated him, so he walked down to the river where yellow leaves were floating, and threw a dry twig into the stream. For a long time he watched the eddying circles on the water as the floating leaves danced. He turned back and went towards the house, stopping to look at the ruined flower-beds where the last red blossoms yet lingered. Then he returned to the garden. There, amid the brown and yellow foliage one oak-tree stood whose leaves were green. On the bench beneath it a yellow cat lay sunning itself. Yourii gently stroked its soft furry back, as tears rose to his eyes. "This is the end! This is the end!" he kept repeating to himself. Senseless though the words seemed to him, they struck him like an arrow in the heart. "No, no! What nonsense! My whole life lies before me. I'm only twenty- four years old! It's not that. Then, what is it?" He suddenly thought of Sina, and how impossible it would be to meet her after that outrageous scene in the wood. Yet how could he possibly help meeting her? The shame of it overwhelmed him. It would be better to die. The cat arched its back and purred with pleasure, the sound was like a bubbling _samovar_. Yourii watched it attentively, and then began to walk up and down. "My life's so wearisome, so horribly dreary.... Besides, I can't say if... No, no, I'd rather die than see her again!" Sina had gone out of his life for ever. The future, cold, grey, void, lay before him, a long chain of loveless, hopeless days. "No, I'd rather die!" Just then, with heavy tread, the coachman passed, carrying a pail of water, and in it there floated leaves, dead, yellow leaves. The maid- servant appeared in the doorway, and called out to Yourii. For a long while he could not understand what she said. "Yes, yes, all right!" he replied when at last he realized that she was telling him lunch was ready. "Lunch?" he said to himself in horror. "To go into lunch! Everything just as before; to go on living and worrying as to what I ought to do about Sina, about my own life, and my own acts? So I'd better be quick, or else, if I go to lunch, there won't be time afterwards." A strange desire to make haste dominated him, and he trembled violently in every limb. He felt conscious that nothing was going to happen, and yet he had a clear presentiment of approaching death; there was a buzzing in his ears from sheer terror. With hands tucked under her white apron, the maidservant still stood motionless on the veranda, enjoying the soft autumnal air. Like a thief, Yourii crept behind the oak-tree, so that no one should see him from the veranda, and with startling suddenness shot himself in the chest. "Missed fire!" he thought with delight, longing to live, and dreading death. But above him he saw the topmost branches of the oak-tree against the azure sky, and the yellow cat that leapt away in alarm. Uttering a shriek, the maid-servant rushed indoors. Immediately afterwards it seemed to Yourii as if he were surrounded by a huge crowd of people. Some one poured cold water on his head, and a yellow leaf stuck to his brow, much to his discomfort. He heard excited voices on all sides, and some one sobbing, and crying out: "Youra, Youra! Oh! why, why?" "That's Lialia!" thought Yourii. Opening his eyes wide, he began to struggle violently, as in a frenzy he screamed: "Send for the doctor--quick!" But to his horror he felt that all was over--that now nothing could save him. The dead leaves sticking to his brow felt heavier and heavier, crushing his brain. He stretched out his neck in a vain effort to see more clearly, but the leaves grew and grew, till they had covered everything; and what then happened to him Yourii never knew. CHAPTER XLII. Those who knew Yourii Svarogitsch, and those who did not, those who liked, as those who despised him, even those who had never thought about him were sorry, now that he was dead. Nobody could understand why he had done it; though they all imagined that they knew, and that in their inmost souls they held of his thoughts a share. There seemed something so beautiful about suicide, of which tears, flowers, and noble words were the sequel. Of his own relatives not one attended the funeral. His father had had a paralytic stroke, and Lialia could not leave him for a moment. Riasantzeff alone represented the family, and had charge of all the burial-arrangements. It was this solitariness that to spectators appeared particularly sad, and gave a certain mournful grandeur to the personality of the deceased. Many flowers, beautiful, scentless, autumn flowers, were brought and placed on the bier; in the midst of their red and white magnificence the face of Yourii lay calm and peaceful, showing no trace of conflict or of suffering. When the coffin was borne past Sina's house, she and her friend Dubova joined the funeral-procession. Sina looked utterly dejected and unnerved, as if she were being led out to shameful execution. Although she felt convinced that Yourii had heard nothing of her disgrace, there was yet, as it seemed to her, a certain connection between that and his death which would always remain a mystery. The burden of unspeakable shame was hers to bear alone. She deemed herself utterly miserable and depraved. Throughout the night she had wept, as in fancy she fondly kissed the face of her dead lover. When morning came her heart was full of hopeless love for Yourii, and of bitter hatred for Sanine. Her accidental _liaison_ with the last-named resembled a hideous dream. All that Sanine had told her, and which at the moment she had believed, was now revolting to her. She had fallen over a precipice; and rescue there was none. When Sanine approached her she stared at him in horror and disgust before turning abruptly away. As her cold fingers slightly touched his hand held out in hearty greeting, Sanine at once knew all that she thought and felt. Henceforth they could only be as strangers to each other. He bit his lip, and joined Ivanoff who followed at some distance, shaking his smooth fair hair. "Hark at Peter Ilitsch!" said Sanine, "how he's forcing his voice!" A long way ahead, immediately behind the coffin, they were chanting a dirge, and Peter Ilitsch's long-drawn, quavering notes filled the air. "Funny thing, eh?" began Ivanoff. "A feeble sort of chap, and yet he goes and shoots himself all in a moment, like that!" "It's my belief," replied Sanine, "that three seconds before the pistol went off he was uncertain whether to shoot himself or not. As he lived, so he died." "Ah! well," said the other, "at any rate, he's found a place for himself." This, to Ivanoff, as he tossed back his yellow hair, appeared to be the last word in explanation of the tragic occurrence. Personally, it soothed him much. In the graveyard the scene was even more autumnal, where the trees seemed splashed with dull red gold, while here and there the grass showed green through the heaps of withered leaves. The tombstones and crosses looked whiter in this dull setting. So the black earth received Yourii. Just at that awful moment when the coffin disappeared from view and the earth became a barrier for ever between the quick and the dead, Sina uttered a piercing shriek. Her sobs echoed through the quiet burial- ground, painfully affecting the little group of silent mourners. She no longer cared to hide her secret from the others who now all guessed it, horrified that death should have separated this handsome young woman from her lover to whom she had longed to give all her youth and beauty, and who now lay dead in the grave. They led her away, and the sound of her weeping gradually subsided. The grave was hastily filled in, a mound of earth being raised above it on which little green fir-trees were planted. Schafroff grew restless. "I say, somebody ought to make a speech. Gentlemen, this won't do! There ought to be a speech," he said, hurriedly accosting the bystanders in turn. "Ask Sanine," was Ivanoff's malicious suggestion. Schafroff stared at the speaker in amazement, whose face wore an inscrutable expression. "Sanine? Sanine? Where's Sanine?" he exclaimed. "Ah! Vladimir Petrovitch, will you say a few words? We can't go away without a speech." "Make one yourself, then," replied Sanine morosely. He was listening to Sina, sobbing in the distance. "If I could do so I would. He really was a very re... mark... able man, wasn't he? Do, please, say a word or two!" Sanine looked hard at him, and replied almost angrily. "What is there to say? One fool less in the world. That's all!" The bitter words fell with startling clearness on the ears of those present. Such was their amazement that they were at a loss for a reply, but Dubova, in a shrill voice, cried: "How disgraceful!" "Why?" asked Sanine, shrugging his shoulders. Dubova sought to shout at him, threatening him with her fists, but was restrained by several girls who surrounded her. The company broke up in disorder. Vehement sounds of protest were heard on every side, and like a group of withered leaves scattered by the wind, the crowd dispersed. Schafroff at first ran on in front, but soon afterwards came back again. Riasantzeff stood with others aside, and gesticulated violently. Lost in his thoughts, Sanine gazed at the angry face of a person wearing spectacles, and then turned round to join Ivanoff, who appeared perplexed. When referring Schafroff to Sanine he had foreseen a _contretemps_ of some sort, but not one of so serious a nature. While it amused him, he yet felt sorry that it had occurred. Not knowing what to say, he looked away, beyond the grave-stones and crosses, to the distant fields. A young student stood near him, engaged in heated talk. Ivanoff froze him with a glance. "I suppose you think yourself ornamental?" he said. The lad blushed. "That's not in the least funny," he replied. "Funny be d----d! You clear off!" There was such a wicked look in Ivanoff's eyes that the disconcerted youth soon went away. Sanine watched this little scene and smiled. "What fools they are!" he exclaimed. Instantly Ivanoff felt ashamed that even for a moment he should have wavered. "Come on!" he said. "Deuce take the lot of them!" "All right! Let's go!" They walked past Riasantzeff who scowled at them as they went towards the gate. At some distance Sanine noticed another group of young men whom he did not know and who stood, like a flock of sheep, with their heads close together. In their midst stood Schafroff, talking and gesticulating, but he became silent on seeing Sanine. The others all turned to look at the last-named. Their faces expressed honest indignation and a certain shy curiosity. "They're plotting against you," said Ivanoff, somewhat amazed to see the baleful look in Sanine's eyes. Red as a lobster, Schafroff came forward, blinking his eyelids, and approached Sanine, who turned round sharply on his heel, as though he were ready to knock the first man down. Schafroff probably perceived this, for he turned pale, and stopped at a respectful distance. The students and girls followed close at his heels like a flock of sheep behind a bell-wether. "What else do you want?" asked Sanine, without raising his voice. "We want nothing," replied Schafroff in confusion, "but all my fellow- comrades wish me to express their displeasure at--" "Much I care about your displeasure!" hissed Sanine through his clenched teeth. "You asked me to say something about the deceased, and after I had said what I thought, you come and express to me your displeasure! Very good of you, I'm sure! If you weren't a pack of silly, sentimental boys, I would show you that I was right, and that Svarogitsch's life was an absolutely foolish one, for he worried himself about all sorts of useless things and died a fool's death, but you--well, you're all of you too dense and too narrow-minded for words! To the deuce with the lot of you! Be off, I say!" So saying, he walked straight on, forcing the crowd to make way for him. "Don't push, please!" croaked Schafroff, feebly protesting. "Well of all the insolent ..." cried some one, but he did not finish his phrase. "How is it you frighten people like that?" asked Ivanoff, as they walked down the street. "You're a perfect terror!" "If such young fellows with their mad ideas about liberty were always to come bothering you," replied Sanine, "I expect that you would treat them in a much rougher way. Let them all go to hell!" "Cheer up, my friend!" said Ivanoff, half in jest and half in earnest. "Do you know what we'll do? Buy some beer and drink to the memory of Yourii Svarogitsch. Shall we?" "If you like," replied Sanine carelessly. "By the time we get back all the others will have gone," continued Ivanoff, "and we'll drink at the side of the grave, giving honour to the dead and to ourselves enjoyment." "Very well." When they returned, not a living soul was to be seen The tomb-stones and crosses, erect and rigid, stood there as in mute expectation. From a heap of dry leaves a hideous black snake suddenly darted across the path. "Reptile!" cried Ivanoff, shuddering. Then, on to the grass beside the newly-made grave that smelt of humid mould and green fir-trees they flung their empty beer-bottles. CHAPTER XLIII. "Look here," said Sanine, as they walked down the street in the dusk. "Well, what is it?" "Come to the railway-station with me. I'm going away." Ivanoff stood still. "Why?" "Because this place bores me." "Something has scared you, eh?" "Scared me? I'm going because I wish to go." "Yes, but the reason?" "My good fellow, don't ask silly questions. I want to go, and that's enough. As long as one hasn't found people out, there is always a chance that they may prove interesting. Take some of the folk here, for instance Sina Karsavina, or Semenoff, or Lida even, who might have avoided becoming commonplace. But oh! they bore me now. I'm tired of them. I've put up with it all as long as I could; I can't stand it any longer." Ivanoff looked at him for a good while. "Come, come!" he said. "You'll surely say good-bye to your people?" "Not I! It's just they who bore me most." "But what about luggage?" "I haven't got much. If you'll stop in the garden, I'll go into my room and hand you my valise through the window. Otherwise they'll see me, and overwhelm me with questions as to why and wherefore. Besides, what is there to say?" "Oh! I see!" drawled Ivanoff, as with a gesture he seemed to bid the other adieu. "I'm very sorry that you're going, my friend, but ... what can I do?" "Come with me." "Where?" "It doesn't matter where. We can see about that, later." "But I've no money?" Sanine laughed. "Neither have I." "No, no, you'd better go by yourself. School begins in a fortnight, and I shall get back into the old groove." Each looked straight into the other's eyes, and Ivanoff turned away in confusion, as if he had seen a distorted reflection of his own face in a mirror. Crossing the yard, Sanine went indoors while Ivanoff waited in the dark garden, with its sombre shadows and its odour of decay. The leaves rustled under his feet as he approached Sanine's bedroom-window. When Sanine passed through the drawing-room he heard voices on the veranda, and he stopped to listen. "But what do you want of me?" he could hear Lida saying. Her peevish, languid tone surprised him. "I want nothing," replied Novikoff irritably, "only it seems strange that you should think you were sacrificing yourself for me, whereas--" "Yes, yes, I know," said Lida, struggling with her tears. "It is not I, but it is you that are sacrificing yourself. Yes, it's you! What more would you have?" Novikoff was annoyed. "How little you understand my meaning!" he said. "I love you, and thus it's no sacrifice. But if you think that our union implies a sacrifice either on your part or on mine, how on earth are we going to live together? Do try and understand me. We can only live together on one condition, and that is, if neither of us imagines that there is any sacrifice about it. Either we love each other, and our union is a reasonable and natural one, or we don't love each other, and then--" Lida suddenly began to cry. "What's the matter?" exclaimed Novikoff, surprised and irritated. "I can't make you out. I haven't said anything that could offend you. Don't cry like that! Really, one can't say a single word!" "I ... don't know," sobbed Lida, "but ..." Sanine frowned, and went into his room. "So that's as far as Lida has got!" he thought. "Perhaps, if she had drowned herself, it would have been better, after all." Underneath the window, Ivanoff could hear Sanine hastily packing his things. There was a rustling of paper, and the sound of something that had fallen on the floor. "Aren't you coming?" he asked impatiently. "In a minute," replied Sanine, as his pale face appeared at the window. "Catch hold!" The valise was promptly handed out to Ivanoff and Sanine leapt after it. "Come along!" They went swiftly through the garden, that lay dim and desolate in the dusk. The fires of sunset had paled beyond the glimmering stream. At the rail way-station all the signal-lamps had been lighted. A locomotive was snorting and puffing. Men were running about, banging doors and shouting at each other. A group of peasants who carried large bundles filled one part of the platform. At the refreshment-room Sanine and Ivanoff had a farewell drink. "Here's luck, and a pleasant journey!" said Ivanoff. Sanine smiled. "My journeys are always the same," he said. "I don't expect anything from life, and I don't ask for anything either. As for luck, there's not much of that at the finish. Old age and death; that's about all." They went out on to the platform, seeking a quiet place for their leave-taking. "Well, good-bye!" "Good-bye!" Hardly knowing why, they kissed each other. There was a long whistle, and the train began to move. "Ah! my boy. I had grown so fond of you," exclaimed Ivanoff suddenly. "You're the only real man that I have ever met." "And you're the only one that ever cared for me," said Sanine as, laughing, he leapt on to the foot-board of a carriage as it rolled past. "Off we go!" he cried. "Good-bye!" The carriages hurried past Ivanoff as if, like Sanine, they had suddenly resolved to get away. The red light appeared in the gloom, and then seemed to become stationary. Ivanoff mournfully watched its disappearance, and then sauntered homewards through the ill-lighted streets. "Shall I drown my sorrow?" he thought; and, as he entered the tavern, the image of his own grey, tedious life like a ghost went in with him also. CHAPTER XLIV. The lamps burned dimly in the suffocating atmosphere of the crowded rail way-carriage, shedding their fitful light on grimy, ragged passengers wedged tightly together, and wreathed in smoke. Sanine sat next to three peasants. As he got in, they were engaged in talk, and one half-hidden by the gloom, said: "Things are bad, you say?" "Couldn't be worse," replied Sanine's neighbour, an old grey-haired moujik, in a high, feeble voice. "They only think of themselves; they don't trouble about us. You may say what you like, but when it comes to fighting for your skin, the stronger always gets the best of it." "Then, why make a fuss?" asked Sanine, who had guessed what was the subject of their grumbling. The old man turned to him with a questioning wave of the hand. "What else can we do?" Sanine got up and changed his seat. He knew these peasants only too well, who lived like beasts, unable either to cope with their oppression or to destroy their oppressors. Vaguely hoping that some miracle might occur, in waiting for which millions and millions of their fellow-slaves had perished, they continued to lead their brutish existence. Night had come. All were asleep except a little tradesman sitting opposite to Sanine, who was bullying his wife. She said nothing, but looked about her with fear in her eyes. "Wait a bit, you cow, I'll soon show you!" he hissed. Sanine had fallen asleep when a cry from the woman awoke him. The fellow quickly removed his hand, but not before Sanine could see that he had been maltreating his wife. "What a brute you are!" exclaimed Sanine, angrily. The man started backwards in alarm, as he blinked his small, wicked eyes, and grinned. Sanine in disgust went out on to the platform at the rear of the train. As he passed through the corridor-carriages he saw crowds of passengers lying prostrate across each other. It was daybreak and their weary faces looked livid in the grey dawn-light which gave them a helpless, pained expression. Standing on the platform Sanine drank in draughts of the cool morning air. "What a vile thing man is!" he thought. To get away, if only for a short while, from all his fellow-men, from the train, with its foul air, and smoke, and din--it was for that he longed. Eastward the dawn flamed red. Night's last pale, sickly shadows were merged and lost in the grey-blue horizon-line beyond the steppe. Sanine did not waste time in reflection, but, leaving his valise behind him, jumped off the foot-board. With a noise like thunder the train rushed past him as he fell on to the soft, wet sand of the embankment. The red lamp on the last carriage was a long way off when he rose, laughing. Sanine uttered a cry of joy. "That's good!" he exclaimed. All around him was so free, so vast. Broad, level fields of grass lay on either side, stretching away to the misty horizon. Sanine drew a deep breath, as with bright eyes he surveyed the spacious landscape. Then he strode forward, facing the jocund, lustrous dawn; and, as the plain, awaking, assumed magic tints of blue and green beneath the wide dome of heaven; as the first eastern beams broke on his dazzled sight, it seemed to Sanine that he was moving onward; onward to meet the sun. THE END 
34970	----	produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) PIERRE: OR, THE AMBIGUITIES. BY HERMAN MELVILLE. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 329 & 331 PEARL STREET, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1852. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by HERMAN MELVILLE, In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York. TO Greylock's Most Excellent Majesty. In old times authors were proud of the privilege of dedicating their works to Majesty. A right noble custom, which we of Berkshire must revive. For whether we will or no, Majesty is all around us here in Berkshire, sitting as in a grand Congress of Vienna of majestical hill-tops, and eternally challenging our homage. But since the majestic mountain, Greylock--my own more immediate sovereign lord and king--hath now, for innumerable ages, been the one grand dedicatee of the earliest rays of all the Berkshire mornings, I know not how his Imperial Purple Majesty (royal-born: Porphyrogenitus) will receive the dedication of my own poor solitary ray. Nevertheless, forasmuch as I, dwelling with my loyal neighbors, the Maples and the Beeches, in the amphitheater over which his central majesty presides, have received his most bounteous and unstinted fertilizations, it is but meet, that I here devoutly kneel, and render up my gratitude, whether, thereto, The Most Excellent Purple Majesty of Greylock benignantly incline his hoary crown or no. _Pittsfield, Mass._ TABLE OF CONTENTS. BOOK I. PAGE PIERRE JUST EMERGING FROM HIS TEENS 1 BOOK II. LOVE, DELIGHT, AND ALARM 26 BOOK III. THE PRESENTIMENT AND THE VERIFICATION 56 BOOK IV. RETROSPECTIVE 89 BOOK V. MISGIVINGS AND PREPARATIVES 116 BOOK VI. ISABEL, AND THE FIRST PART OF THE STORY OF ISABEL 147 BOOK VII. INTERMEDIATE BETWEEN PIERRE'S TWO INTERVIEWS WITH ISABEL AT THE FARM-HOUSE 173 BOOK VIII. THE SECOND INTERVIEW, AND THE SECOND PART OF THE STORY OF ISABEL. THEIR IMMEDIATE IMPULSIVE EFFECT UPON PIERRE 194 BOOK IX. MORE LIGHT, AND THE GLOOM OF THAT LIGHT. MORE GLOOM, AND THE LIGHT OF THAT GLOOM 224 BOOK X. THE UNPRECEDENTED FINAL RESOLUTION OF PIERRE 233 BOOK XI. HE CROSSES THE RUBICON 247 BOOK XII. ISABEL, MRS. GLENDINNING, THE PORTRAIT, AND LUCY 256 BOOK XIII. THEY DEPART THE MEADOWS 273 BOOK XIV. THE JOURNEY AND THE PAMPHLET 277 BOOK XV. THE COUSINS 294 BOOK XVI. FIRST NIGHT OF THEIR ARRIVAL IN THE CITY 312 BOOK XVII. YOUNG AMERICA IN LITERATURE 333 BOOK XVIII. PIERRE, AS A JUVENILE AUTHOR, RECONSIDERED 350 BOOK XIX. THE CHURCH OF THE APOSTLES 360 BOOK XX. CHARLIE MILLTHORPE 374 BOOK XXI. PIERRE IMMATURELY ATTEMPTS A MATURE BOOK. TIDINGS FROM THE MEADOWS. PLINLIMMON 384 BOOK XXII. THE FLOWER-CURTAIN LIFTED FROM BEFORE A TROPICAL AUTHOR; WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE TRANSCENDENTAL FLESH-BRUSH PHILOSOPHY 402 BOOK XXIII. A LETTER FOR PIERRE. ISABEL. ARRIVAL OF LUCY'S EASEL AND TRUNKS AT THE APOSTLES' 418 BOOK XXIV. LUCY AT THE APOSTLES' 439 BOOK XXV. LUCY, ISABEL, AND PIERRE. PIERRE AT HIS BOOK. ENCELADUS 450 BOOK XXVI. A WALK; A FOREIGN PORTRAIT; A SAIL. AND THE END 475 PIERRE. BOOK I. PIERRE JUST EMERGING FROM HIS TEENS. I. There are some strange summer mornings in the country, when he who is but a sojourner from the city shall early walk forth into the fields, and be wonder-smitten with the trance-like aspect of the green and golden world. Not a flower stirs; the trees forget to wave; the grass itself seems to have ceased to grow; and all Nature, as if suddenly become conscious of her own profound mystery, and feeling no refuge from it but silence, sinks into this wonderful and indescribable repose. Such was the morning in June, when, issuing from the embowered and high-gabled old home of his fathers, Pierre, dewily refreshed and spiritualized by sleep, gayly entered the long, wide, elm-arched street of the village, and half unconsciously bent his steps toward a cottage, which peeped into view near the end of the vista. The verdant trance lay far and wide; and through it nothing came but the brindled kine, dreamily wandering to their pastures, followed, not driven, by ruddy-cheeked, white-footed boys. As touched and bewitched by the loveliness of this silence, Pierre neared the cottage, and lifted his eyes, he swiftly paused, fixing his glance upon one upper, open casement there. Why now this impassioned, youthful pause? Why this enkindled cheek and eye? Upon the sill of the casement, a snow-white glossy pillow reposes, and a trailing shrub has softly rested a rich, crimson flower against it. Well mayst thou seek that pillow, thou odoriferous flower, thought Pierre; not an hour ago, her own cheek must have rested there. "Lucy!" "Pierre!" As heart rings to heart those voices rang, and for a moment, in the bright hush of the morning, the two stood silently but ardently eying each other, beholding mutual reflections of a boundless admiration and love. "Nothing but Pierre," laughed the youth, at last; "thou hast forgotten to bid me good-morning." "That would be little. Good-mornings, good-evenings, good days, weeks, months, and years to thee, Pierre;--bright Pierre!--Pierre!" Truly, thought the youth, with a still gaze of inexpressible fondness; truly the skies do ope, and this invoking angel looks down.--"I would return thee thy manifold good-mornings, Lucy, did not that presume thou had'st lived through a night; and by Heaven, thou belong'st to the regions of an infinite day!" "Fie, now, Pierre; why should ye youths always swear when ye love!" "Because in us love is profane, since it mortally reaches toward the heaven in ye!" "There thou fly'st again, Pierre; thou art always circumventing me so. Tell me, why should ye youths ever show so sweet an expertness in turning all trifles of ours into trophies of yours?" "I know not how that is, but ever was it our fashion to do." And shaking the casement shrub, he dislodged the flower, and conspicuously fastened it in his bosom.--"I must away now, Lucy; see! under these colors I march." "Bravissimo! oh, my only recruit!" II. Pierre was the only son of an affluent, and haughty widow; a lady who externally furnished a singular example of the preservative and beautifying influences of unfluctuating rank, health, and wealth, when joined to a fine mind of medium culture, uncankered by any inconsolable grief, and never worn by sordid cares. In mature age, the rose still miraculously clung to her cheek; litheness had not yet completely uncoiled itself from her waist, nor smoothness unscrolled itself from her brow, nor diamondness departed from her eyes. So that when lit up and bediademed by ball-room lights, Mrs. Glendinning still eclipsed far younger charms, and had she chosen to encourage them, would have been followed by a train of infatuated suitors, little less young than her own son Pierre. But a reverential and devoted son seemed lover enough for this widow Bloom; and besides all this, Pierre when namelessly annoyed, and sometimes even jealously transported by the too ardent admiration of the handsome youths, who now and then, caught in unintended snares, seemed to entertain some insane hopes of wedding this unattainable being; Pierre had more than once, with a playful malice, openly sworn, that the man--gray-beard, or beardless--who should dare to propose marriage to his mother, that man would by some peremptory unrevealed agency immediately disappear from the earth. This romantic filial love of Pierre seemed fully returned by the triumphant maternal pride of the widow, who in the clear-cut lineaments and noble air of the son, saw her own graces strangely translated into the opposite sex. There was a striking personal resemblance between them; and as the mother seemed to have long stood still in her beauty, heedless of the passing years; so Pierre seemed to meet her half-way, and by a splendid precocity of form and feature, almost advanced himself to that mature stand-point in Time, where his pedestaled mother so long had stood. In the playfulness of their unclouded love, and with that strange license which a perfect confidence and mutual understanding at all points, had long bred between them, they were wont to call each other brother and sister. Both in public and private this was their usage; nor when thrown among strangers, was this mode of address ever suspected for a sportful assumption; since the amaranthiness of Mrs. Glendinning fully sustained this youthful pretension.--Thus freely and lightsomely for mother and son flowed on the pure joined current of life. But as yet the fair river had not borne its waves to those sideways repelling rocks, where it was thenceforth destined to be forever divided into two unmixing streams. An excellent English author of these times enumerating the prime advantages of his natal lot, cites foremost, that he first saw the rural light. So with Pierre. It had been his choice fate to have been born and nurtured in the country, surrounded by scenery whose uncommon loveliness was the perfect mould of a delicate and poetic mind; while the popular names of its finest features appealed to the proudest patriotic and family associations of the historic line of Glendinning. On the meadows which sloped away from the shaded rear of the manorial mansion, far to the winding river, an Indian battle had been fought, in the earlier days of the colony, and in that battle the paternal great-grandfather of Pierre, mortally wounded, had sat unhorsed on his saddle in the grass, with his dying voice, still cheering his men in the fray. This was Saddle-Meadows, a name likewise extended to the mansion and the village. Far beyond these plains, a day's walk for Pierre, rose the storied heights, where in the Revolutionary War his grandfather had for several months defended a rude but all-important stockaded fort, against the repeated combined assaults of Indians, Tories, and Regulars. From before that fort, the gentlemanly, but murderous half-breed, Brandt, had fled, but had survived to dine with General Glendinning, in the amicable times which followed that vindictive war. All the associations of Saddle-Meadows were full of pride to Pierre. The Glendinning deeds by which their estate had so long been held, bore the cyphers of three Indian kings, the aboriginal and only conveyancers of those noble woods and plains. Thus loftily, in the days of his circumscribed youth, did Pierre glance along the background of his race; little recking of that maturer and larger interior development, which should forever deprive these things of their full power of pride in his soul. But the breeding of Pierre would have been unwisely contracted, had his youth been unintermittingly passed in these rural scenes. At a very early period he had begun to accompany his father and mother--and afterwards his mother alone--in their annual visits to the city; where naturally mingling in a large and polished society, Pierre had insensibly formed himself in the airier graces of life, without enfeebling the vigor derived from a martial race, and fostered in the country's clarion air. Nor while thus liberally developed in person and manners, was Pierre deficient in a still better and finer culture. Not in vain had he spent long summer afternoons in the deep recesses of his father's fastidiously picked and decorous library; where the Spenserian nymphs had early led him into many a maze of all-bewildering beauty. Thus, with a graceful glow on his limbs, and soft, imaginative flames in his heart, did this Pierre glide toward maturity, thoughtless of that period of remorseless insight, when all these delicate warmths should seem frigid to him, and he should madly demand more ardent fires. Nor had that pride and love which had so bountifully provided for the youthful nurture of Pierre, neglected his culture in the deepest element of all. It had been a maxim with the father of Pierre, that all gentlemanhood was vain; all claims to it preposterous and absurd, unless the primeval gentleness and golden humanities of religion had been so thoroughly wrought into the complete texture of the character, that he who pronounced himself gentleman, could also rightfully assume the meek, but kingly style of Christian. At the age of sixteen, Pierre partook with his mother of the Holy Sacraments. It were needless, and more difficult, perhaps, to trace out precisely the absolute motives which prompted these youthful vows. Enough, that as to Pierre had descended the numerous other noble qualities of his ancestors; and as he now stood heir to their forests and farms; so by the same insensible sliding process, he seemed to have inherited their docile homage to a venerable Faith, which the first Glendinning had brought over sea, from beneath the shadow of an English minister. Thus in Pierre was the complete polished steel of the gentleman, girded with Religion's silken sash; and his great-grandfather's soldierly fate had taught him that the generous sash should, in the last bitter trial, furnish its wearer with Glory's shroud; so that what through life had been worn for Grace's sake, in death might safely hold the man. But while thus all alive to the beauty and poesy of his father's faith, Pierre little foresaw that this world hath a secret deeper than beauty, and Life some burdens heavier than death. So perfect to Pierre had long seemed the illuminated scroll of his life thus far, that only one hiatus was discoverable by him in that sweetly-writ manuscript. A sister had been omitted from the text. He mourned that so delicious a feeling as fraternal love had been denied him. Nor could the fictitious title, which he so often lavished upon his mother, at all supply the absent reality. This emotion was most natural; and the full cause and reason of it even Pierre did not at that time entirely appreciate. For surely a gentle sister is the second best gift to a man; and it is first in point of occurrence; for the wife comes after. He who is sisterless, is as a bachelor before his time. For much that goes to make up the deliciousness of a wife, already lies in the sister. "Oh, had my father but had a daughter!" cried Pierre; "some one whom I might love, and protect, and fight for, if need be. It must be a glorious thing to engage in a mortal quarrel on a sweet sister's behalf! Now, of all things, would to heaven, I had a sister!" Thus, ere entranced in the gentler bonds of a lover; thus often would Pierre invoke heaven for a sister; but Pierre did not then know, that if there be any thing a man might well pray against, that thing is the responsive gratification of some of the devoutest prayers of his youth. It may have been that this strange yearning of Pierre for a sister, had part of its origin in that still stranger feeling of loneliness he sometimes experienced, as not only the solitary head of his family, but the only surnamed male Glendinning extant. A powerful and populous family had by degrees run off into the female branches; so that Pierre found himself surrounded by numerous kinsmen and kinswomen, yet companioned by no surnamed male Glendinning, but the duplicate one reflected to him in the mirror. But in his more wonted natural mood, this thought was not wholly sad to him. Nay, sometimes it mounted into an exultant swell. For in the ruddiness, and flushfulness, and vain-gloriousness of his youthful soul, he fondly hoped to have a monopoly of glory in capping the fame-column, whose tall shaft had been erected by his noble sires. In all this, how unadmonished was our Pierre by that foreboding and prophetic lesson taught, not less by Palmyra's quarries, than by Palmyra's ruins. Among those ruins is a crumbling, uncompleted shaft, and some leagues off, ages ago left in the quarry, is the crumbling corresponding capital, also incomplete. These Time seized and spoiled; these Time crushed in the egg; and the proud stone that should have stood among the clouds, Time left abased beneath the soil. Oh, what quenchless feud is this, that Time hath with the sons of Men! III. It has been said that the beautiful country round about Pierre appealed to very proud memories. But not only through the mere chances of things, had that fine country become ennobled by the deeds of his sires, but in Pierre's eyes, all its hills and swales seemed as sanctified through their very long uninterrupted possession by his race. That fond ideality which, in the eyes of affection, hallows the least trinket once familiar to the person of a departed love; with Pierre that talisman touched the whole earthly landscape about him; for remembering that on those hills his own fine fathers had gazed; through those woods, over these lawns, by that stream, along these tangled paths, many a grand-dame of his had merrily strolled when a girl; vividly recalling these things, Pierre deemed all that part of the earth a love-token; so that his very horizon was to him as a memorial ring. The monarchical world very generally imagines, that in demagoguical America the sacred Past hath no fixed statues erected to it, but all things irreverently seethe and boil in the vulgar caldron of an everlasting uncrystalizing Present. This conceit would seem peculiarly applicable to the social condition. With no chartered aristocracy, and no law of entail, how can any family in America imposingly perpetuate itself? Certainly that common saying among us, which declares, that be a family conspicuous as it may, a single half-century shall see it abased; that maxim undoubtedly holds true with the commonalty. In our cities families rise and burst like bubbles in a vat. For indeed the democratic element operates as a subtile acid among us; forever producing new things by corroding the old; as in the south of France verdigris, the primitive material of one kind of green paint, is produced by grape-vinegar poured upon copper plates. Now in general nothing can be more significant of decay than the idea of corrosion; yet on the other hand, nothing can more vividly suggest luxuriance of life, than the idea of green as a color; for green is the peculiar signet of all-fertile Nature herself. Herein by apt analogy we behold the marked anomalousness of America; whose character abroad, we need not be surprised, is misconceived, when we consider how strangely she contradicts all prior notions of human things; and how wonderfully to her, Death itself becomes transmuted into Life. So that political institutions, which in other lands seem above all things intensely artificial, with America seem to possess the divine virtue of a natural law; for the most mighty of nature's laws is this, that out of Death she brings Life. Still, are there things in the visible world, over which ever-shifting Nature hath not so unbounded a sway. The grass is annually changed; but the limbs of the oak, for a long term of years, defy that annual decree. And if in America the vast mass of families be as the blades of grass, yet some few there are that stand as the oak; which, instead of decaying, annually puts forth new branches; whereby Time, instead of subtracting, is made to capitulate into a multiple virtue. In this matter we will--not superciliously, but in fair spirit--compare pedigrees with England, and strange as it may seem at the first blush, not without some claim to equality. I dare say, that in this thing the Peerage Book is a good statistical standard whereby to judge her; since the compilers of that work can not be entirely insensible on whose patronage they most rely; and the common intelligence of our own people shall suffice to judge us. But the magnificence of names must not mislead us as to the humility of things. For as the breath in all our lungs is hereditary, and my present breath at this moment, is further descended than the body of the present High Priest of the Jews, so far as he can assuredly trace it; so mere names, which are also but air, do likewise revel in this endless descendedness. But if Richmond, and St. Albans, and Grafton, and Portland, and Buccleugh, be names almost old as England herself, the present Dukes of those names stop in their own genuine pedigrees at Charles II., and there find no very fine fountain; since what we would deem the least glorious parentage under the sun, is precisely the parentage of a Buccleugh, for example; whose ancestress could not well avoid being a mother, it is true, but had accidentally omitted the preliminary rite. Yet a king was the sire. Then only so much the worse; for if it be small insult to be struck by a pauper, but mortal offense to receive a blow from a gentleman, then of all things the bye-blows of kings must be signally unflattering. In England the Peerage is kept alive by incessant restorations and creations. One man, George III., manufactured five hundred and twenty-two peers. An earldom, in abeyance for five centuries, has suddenly been assumed by some commoner, to whom it had not so much descended, as through the art of the lawyers been made flexibly to bend in that direction. For not Thames is so sinuous in his natural course, not the Bridgewater Canal more artificially conducted, than blood in the veins of that winding or manufactured nobility. Perishable as stubble, and fungous as the fungi, those grafted families successively live and die on the eternal soil of a name. In England this day, twenty-five hundred peerages are extinct; but the names survive. So that the empty air of a name is more endurable than a man, or than dynasties of men; the air fills man's lungs and puts life into a man, but man fills not the air, nor puts life into that. All honor to the names then, and all courtesy to the men; but if St. Albans tell me he is all-honorable and all-eternal, I must still politely refer him to Nell Gwynne. Beyond Charles II. very few indeed--hardly worthy of note--are the present titled English families which can trace any thing like a direct unvitiated blood-descent from the thief knights of the Norman. Beyond Charles II. their direct genealogies seem vain as though some Jew clothesman, with a tea-canister on his head, turned over the first chapter of St. Matthew to make out his unmingled participation in the blood of King Saul, who had long died ere the career of the Cæsar began. Now, not preliminarily to enlarge upon the fact that, while in England an immense mass of state-masonry is brought to bear as a buttress in upholding the hereditary existence of certain houses, while with us nothing of that kind can possibly be admitted; and to omit all mention of the hundreds of unobtrusive families in New England who, nevertheless, might easily trace their uninterrupted English lineage to a time before Charles the Blade: not to speak of the old and oriental-like English planter families of Virginia and the South; the Randolphs for example, one of whose ancestors, in King James' time, married Pocahontas the Indian Princess, and in whose blood therefore an underived aboriginal royalty was flowing over two hundred years ago; consider those most ancient and magnificent Dutch Manors at the North, whose perches are miles--whose meadows overspread adjacent countries--and whose haughty rent-deeds are held by their thousand farmer tenants, so long as grass grows and water runs; which hints of a surprising eternity for a deed, and seem to make lawyer's ink unobliterable as the sea. Some of those manors are two centuries old; and their present patrons or lords will show you stakes and stones on their estates put there--the stones at least--before Nell Gwynne the Duke-mother was born, and genealogies which, like their own river, Hudson, flow somewhat farther and straighter than the Serpentine brooklet in Hyde Park. These far-descended Dutch meadows lie steeped in a Hindooish haze; an eastern patriarchalness sways its mild crook over pastures, whose tenant flocks shall there feed, long as their own grass grows, long as their own water shall run. Such estates seem to defy Time's tooth, and by conditions which take hold of the indestructible earth seem to contemporize their fee-simples with eternity. Unimaginable audacity of a worm that but crawls through the soil he so imperially claims! In midland counties of England they boast of old oaken dining-halls where three hundred men-at-arms could exercise of a rainy afternoon, in the reign of the Plantagenets. But our lords, the Patroons, appeal not to the past, but they point to the present. One will show you that the public census of a county is but part of the roll of his tenants. Ranges of mountains, high as Ben Nevis or Snowdon, are their walls; and regular armies, with staffs of officers, crossing rivers with artillery, and marching through primeval woods, and threading vast rocky defiles, have been sent out to distrain upon three thousand farmer-tenants of one landlord, at a blow. A fact most suggestive two ways; both whereof shall be nameless here. But whatever one may think of the existence of such mighty lordships in the heart of a republic, and however we may wonder at their thus surviving, like Indian mounds, the Revolutionary flood; yet survive and exist they do, and are now owned by their present proprietors, by as good nominal title as any peasant owns his father's old hat, or any duke his great-uncle's old coronet. For all this, then, we shall not err very widely if we humbly conceive, that--should she choose to glorify herself in that inconsiderable way--our America will make out a good general case with England in this short little matter of large estates, and long pedigrees--pedigrees I mean, wherein is no flaw. IV. In general terms we have been thus decided in asserting the great genealogical and real-estate dignity of some families in America, because in so doing we poetically establish the richly aristocratic condition of Master Pierre Glendinning, for whom we have before claimed some special family distinction. And to the observant reader the sequel will not fail to show, how important is this circumstance, considered with reference to the singularly developed character and most singular life-career of our hero. Nor will any man dream that the last chapter was merely intended for a foolish bravado, and not with a solid purpose in view. Now Pierre stands on this noble pedestal; we shall see if he keeps that fine footing; we shall see if Fate hath not just a little bit of a small word or two to say in this world. But it is not laid down here that the Glendinnings dated back beyond Pharaoh, or the deeds of Saddle-Meadows to the Three Magi in the Gospels. Nevertheless, those deeds, as before hinted, did indeed date back to three kings--Indian kings--only so much the finer for that. But if Pierre did not date back to the Pharaohs, and if the English farmer Hampdens were somewhat the seniors of even the oldest Glendinning; and if some American manors boasted a few additional years and square miles over his, yet think you that it is at all possible, that a youth of nineteen should--merely by way of trial of the thing--strew his ancestral kitchen hearth-stone with wheat in the stalk, and there standing in the chimney thresh out that grain with a flail, whose aerial evolutions had free play among all that masonry; were it not impossible for such a flailer so to thresh wheat in his own ancestral kitchen chimney without feeling just a little twinge or two of what one might call family pride? I should say not. Or how think you it would be with this youthful Pierre, if every day descending to breakfast, he caught sight of an old tattered British banner or two, hanging over an arched window in his hall; and those banners captured by his grandfather, the general, in fair fight? Or how think you it would be if every time he heard the band of the military company of the village, he should distinctly recognize the peculiar tap of a British kettle-drum also captured by his grandfather in fair fight, and afterwards suitably inscribed on the brass and bestowed upon the Saddle-Meadows Artillery Corps? Or how think you it would be, if sometimes of a mild meditative Fourth of July morning in the country, he carried out with him into the garden by way of ceremonial cane, a long, majestic, silver-tipped staff, a Major-General's baton, once wielded on the plume-nodding and musket-flashing review by the same grandfather several times here-in-before mentioned? I should say that considering Pierre was quite young and very unphilosophical as yet, and withal rather high-blooded; and sometimes read the History of the Revolutionary War, and possessed a mother who very frequently made remote social allusions to the epaulettes of the Major-General his grandfather;--I should say that upon all of these occasions, the way it must have been with him, was a very proud, elated sort of way. And if this seem but too fond and foolish in Pierre; and if you tell me that this sort of thing in him showed him no sterling Democrat, and that a truly noble man should never brag of any arm but his own; then I beg you to consider again that this Pierre was but a youngster as yet. And believe me you will pronounce Pierre a thoroughgoing Democrat in time; perhaps a little too Radical altogether to your fancy. In conclusion, do not blame me if I here make repetition, and do verbally quote my own words in saying that _it had been the choice fate of Pierre to have been born and bred in the country_. For to a noble American youth this indeed--more than in any other land--this indeed is a most rare and choice lot. For it is to be observed, that while in other countries, the finest families boast of the country as their home; the more prominent among us, proudly cite the city as their seat. Too often the American that himself makes his fortune, builds him a great metropolitan house, in the most metropolitan street of the most metropolitan town. Whereas a European of the same sort would thereupon migrate into the country. That herein the European hath the better of it, no poet, no philosopher, and no aristocrat will deny. For the country is not only the most poetical and philosophical, but it is the most aristocratic part of this earth, for it is the most venerable, and numerous bards have ennobled it by many fine titles. Whereas the town is the more plebeian portion: which, besides many other things, is plainly evinced by the dirty unwashed face perpetually worn by the town; but the country, like any Queen, is ever attended by scrupulous lady's maids in the guise of the seasons, and the town hath but one dress of brick turned up with stone; but the country hath a brave dress for every week in the year; sometimes she changes her dress twenty-four times in the twenty-four hours; and the country weareth her sun by day as a diamond on a Queen's brow; and the stars by night as necklaces of gold beads; whereas the town's sun is smoky paste, and no diamond, and the town's stars are pinchbeck and not gold. In the country then Nature planted our Pierre; because Nature intended a rare and original development in Pierre. Never mind if hereby she proved ambiguous to him in the end; nevertheless, in the beginning she did bravely. She blew her wind-clarion from the blue hills, and Pierre neighed out lyrical thoughts, as at the trumpet-blast, a war-horse paws himself into a lyric of foam. She whispered through her deep groves at eve, and gentle whispers of humanness, and sweet whispers of love, ran through Pierre's thought-veins, musical as water over pebbles. She lifted her spangled crest of a thickly-starred night, and forth at that glimpse of their divine Captain and Lord, ten thousand mailed thoughts of heroicness started up in Pierre's soul, and glared round for some insulted good cause to defend. So the country was a glorious benediction to young Pierre; we shall see if that blessing pass from him as did the divine blessing from the Hebrews; we shall yet see again, I say, whether Fate hath not just a little bit of a word or two to say in this world; we shall see whether this wee little bit scrap of latinity be very far out of the way--_Nemo contra Deum nisi Deus ipse._ V. "Sister Mary," said Pierre, returned from his sunrise stroll, and tapping at his mother's chamber door:--"do you know, sister Mary, that the trees which have been up all night, are all abroad again this morning before you?--Do you not smell something like coffee, my sister?" A light step moved from within toward the door; which opened, showing Mrs. Glendinning, in a resplendently cheerful morning robe, and holding a gay wide ribbon in her hand. "Good morning, madam," said Pierre, slowly, and with a bow, whose genuine and spontaneous reverence amusingly contrasted with the sportive manner that had preceded it. For thus sweetly and religiously was the familiarity of his affections bottomed on the profoundest filial respect. "Good afternoon to you, Pierre, for I suppose it is afternoon. But come, you shall finish my toilette;--here, brother--" reaching the ribbon--"now acquit yourself bravely--" and seating herself away from the glass, she awaited the good offices of Pierre. "First Lady in waiting to the Dowager Duchess Glendinning," laughed Pierre, as bowing over before his mother, he gracefully passed the ribbon round her neck, simply crossing the ends in front. "Well, what is to hold it there, Pierre?" "I am going to try and tack it with a kiss, sister,--there!--oh, what a pity that sort of fastening won't always hold!--where's the cameo with the fawns, I gave you last night?--Ah! on the slab--you were going to wear it then?--Thank you, my considerate and most politic sister--there!--but stop--here's a ringlet gone romping--so now, dear sister, give that Assyrian toss to your head." The haughtily happy mother rose to her feet, and as she stood before the mirror to criticize her son's adornings, Pierre, noticing the straggling tie of her slipper, knelt down and secured it. "And now for the urn," he cried, "madam!" and with a humorous gallantry, offering his arm to his mother, the pair descended to breakfast. With Mrs. Glendinning it was one of those spontaneous maxims, which women sometimes act upon without ever thinking of, never to appear in the presence of her son in any dishabille that was not eminently becoming. Her own independent observation of things, had revealed to her many very common maxims, which often become operatively lifeless from a vicarious reception of them. She was vividly aware how immense was that influence, which, even in the closest ties of the heart, the merest appearances make upon the mind. And as in the admiring love and graceful devotion of Pierre lay now her highest joy in life; so she omitted no slightest trifle which could possibly contribute to the preservation of so sweet and flattering a thing. Besides all this, Mary Glendinning was a woman, and with more than the ordinary vanity of women--if vanity it can be called--which in a life of nearly fifty years had never betrayed her into a single published impropriety, or caused her one known pang at the heart. Moreover, she had never yearned for admiration; because that was her birthright by the eternal privilege of beauty; she had always possessed it; she had not to turn her head for it, since spontaneously it always encompassed her. Vanity, which in so many women approaches to a spiritual vice, and therefore to a visible blemish; in her peculiar case--and though possessed in a transcendent degree--was still the token of the highest health; inasmuch as never knowing what it was to yearn for its gratification, she was almost entirely unconscious of possessing it at all. Many women carry this light of their lives flaming on their foreheads; but Mary Glendinning unknowingly bore hers within. Through all the infinite traceries of feminine art, she evenly glowed like a vase which, internally illuminated, gives no outward sign of the lighting flame, but seems to shine by the very virtue of the exquisite marble itself. But that bluff corporeal admiration, with which some ball-room women are content, was no admiration to the mother of Pierre. Not the general homage of men, but the selected homage of the noblest men, was what she felt to be her appropriate right. And as her own maternal partialities were added to, and glorified the rare and absolute merits of Pierre; she considered the voluntary allegiance of his affectionate soul, the representative fealty of the choicest guild of his race. Thus, though replenished through all her veins with the subtlest vanity, with the homage of Pierre alone she was content. But as to a woman of sense and spirit, the admiration of even the noblest and most gifted man, is esteemed as nothing, so long as she remains conscious of possessing no directly influencing and practical sorcery over his soul; and as notwithstanding all his intellectual superiority to his mother, Pierre, through the unavoidable weakness of inexperienced and unexpanded youth, was strangely docile to the maternal tuitions in nearly all the things which thus far had any ways interested or affected him; therefore it was, that to Mary Glendinning this reverence of Pierre was invested with all the proudest delights and witcheries of self-complacency, which it is possible for the most conquering virgin to feel. Still more. That nameless and infinitely delicate aroma of inexpressible tenderness and attentiveness which, in every refined and honorable attachment, is cotemporary with the courtship, and precedes the final banns and the rite; but which, like the _bouquet_ of the costliest German wines, too often evaporates upon pouring love out to drink, in the disenchanting glasses of the matrimonial days and nights; this highest and airiest thing in the whole compass of the experience of our mortal life; this heavenly evanescence--still further etherealized in the filial breast--was for Mary Glendinning, now not very far from her grand climacteric, miraculously revived in the courteous lover-like adoration of Pierre. Altogether having its origin in a wonderful but purely fortuitous combination of the happiest and rarest accidents of earth; and not to be limited in duration by that climax which is so fatal to ordinary love; this softened spell which still wheeled the mother and son in one orbit of joy, seemed a glimpse of the glorious possibility, that the divinest of those emotions, which are incident to the sweetest season of love, is capable of an indefinite translation into many of the less signal relations of our many chequered life. In a detached and individual way, it seemed almost to realize here below the sweet dreams of those religious enthusiasts, who paint to us a Paradise to come, when etherealized from all drosses and stains, the holiest passion of man shall unite all kindreds and climes in one circle of pure and unimpairable delight. VI. There was one little uncelestial trait, which, in the opinion of some, may mar the romantic merits of the gentlemanly Pierre Glendinning. He always had an excellent appetite, and especially for his breakfast. But when we consider that though Pierre's hands were small, and his ruffles white, yet his arm was by no means dainty, and his complexion inclined to brown; and that he generally rose with the sun, and could not sleep without riding his twenty, or walking his twelve miles a day, or felling a fair-sized hemlock in the forest, or boxing, or fencing, or boating, or performing some other gymnastical feat; when we consider these athletic habitudes of Pierre, and the great fullness of brawn and muscle they built round about him; all of which manly brawn and muscle, three times a day loudly clamored for attention; we shall very soon perceive that to have a bountiful appetite, was not only no vulgar reproach, but a right royal grace and honor to Pierre; attesting him a man and a gentleman; for a thoroughly developed gentleman is always robust and healthy; and Robustness and Health are great trencher-men. So when Pierre and his mother descended to breakfast, and Pierre had scrupulously seen her supplied with whatever little things were convenient to her; and had twice or thrice ordered the respectable and immemorial Dates, the servitor, to adjust and re-adjust the window-sashes, so that no unkind current of air should take undue liberties with his mother's neck; after seeing to all this, but in a very quiet and inconspicuous way; and also after directing the unruffled Dates, to swing out, horizontally into a particular light, a fine joyous painting, in the good-fellow, Flemish style (which painting was so attached to the wall as to be capable of that mode of adjusting), and furthermore after darting from where he sat a few invigorating glances over the river-meadows to the blue mountains beyond; Pierre made a masonic sort of mysterious motion to the excellent Dates, who in automaton obedience thereto, brought from a certain agreeable little side-stand, a very prominent-looking cold pasty; which, on careful inspection with the knife, proved to be the embossed savory nest of a few uncommonly tender pigeons of Pierre's own shooting. "Sister Mary," said he, lifting on his silver trident one of the choicest of the many fine pigeon morsels; "Sister Mary," said he, "in shooting these pigeons, I was very careful to bring down one in such a manner that the breast is entirely unmarred. It was intended for you! and here it is. Now Sergeant Dates, help hither your mistress' plate. No?--nothing but the crumbs of French rolls, and a few peeps into a coffee-cup--is that a breakfast for the daughter of yonder bold General?"--pointing to a full-length of his gold-laced grandfather on the opposite wall. "Well, pitiable is my case when I have to breakfast for two. Dates!" "Sir." "Remove that toast-rack, Dates; and this plate of tongue, and bring the rolls nearer, and wheel the stand farther off, good Dates." Having thus made generous room for himself, Pierre commenced operations, interrupting his mouthfuls by many sallies of mirthfulness. "You seem to be in prodigious fine spirits this morning, brother Pierre," said his mother. "Yes, very tolerable; at least I can't say, that I am low-spirited exactly, sister Mary;--Dates, my fine fellow, bring me three bowls of milk." "One bowl, sir, you mean," said Dates, gravely and imperturbably. As the servitor left the room, Mrs. Glendinning spoke. "My dear Pierre, how often have I begged you never to permit your hilariousness to betray you into overstepping the exact line of propriety in your intercourse with servants. Dates' look was a respectful reproof to you just now. You must not call Dates, _My fine fellow_. He _is_ a fine fellow, a very fine fellow, indeed; but there is no need of telling him so at my table. It is very easy to be entirely kind and pleasant to servants, without the least touch of any shade of transient good-fellowship with them." "Well, sister, no doubt you are altogether right; after this I shall drop the _fine_, and call Dates nothing but _fellow_;--Fellow, come here!--how will that answer?" "Not at all, Pierre--but you are a Romeo, you know, and so for the present I pass over your nonsense." "Romeo! oh, no. I am far from being Romeo--" sighed Pierre. "I laugh, but he cried; poor Romeo! alas Romeo! woe is me, Romeo! he came to a very deplorable end, did Romeo, sister Mary." "It was his own fault though." "Poor Romeo!" "He was disobedient to his parents." "Alas Romeo!" "He married against their particular wishes." "Woe is me, Romeo!" "But you, Pierre, are going to be married before long, I trust, not to a Capulet, but to one of our own Montagues; and so Romeo's evil fortune will hardly be yours. You will be happy." "The more miserable Romeo!" "Don't be so ridiculous, brother Pierre; so you are going to take Lucy that long ride among the hills this morning? She is a sweet girl; a most lovely girl." "Yes, that is rather my opinion, sister Mary.--By heavens, mother, the five zones hold not such another! She is--yes--though I say it--Dates!--he's a precious long time getting that milk!" "Let him stay.--Don't be a milk-sop, Pierre!" "Ha! my sister is a little satirical this morning. I comprehend." "Never rave, Pierre; and never rant. Your father never did either; nor is it written of Socrates; and both were very wise men. Your father was profoundly in love--that I know to my certain knowledge--but I never heard him rant about it. He was always exceedingly gentlemanly: and gentlemen never rant. Milk-sops and Muggletonians rant, but gentlemen never." "Thank you, sister.--There, put it down, Dates; are the horses ready?" "Just driving round, sir, I believe." "Why, Pierre," said his mother, glancing out at the window, "are you going to Santa Fe De Bogota with that enormous old phaeton;--what do you take that Juggernaut out for?" "Humor, sister, humor; I like it because it's old-fashioned, and because the seat is such a wide sofa of a seat, and finally because a young lady by the name of Lucy Tartan cherishes a high regard for it. She vows she would like to be married in it." "Well, Pierre, all I have to say, is, be sure that Christopher puts the coach-hammer and nails, and plenty of cords and screws into the box. And you had better let him follow you in one of the farm wagons, with a spare axle and some boards." "No fear, sister; no fear;--I shall take the best of care of the old phaeton. The quaint old arms on the panel, always remind me who it was that first rode in it." "I am glad you have that memory, brother Pierre." "And who it was that _next_ rode in it." "Bless you!--God bless you, my dear son!--always think of him and you can never err; yes, always think of your dear perfect father, Pierre." "Well, kiss me now, dear sister, for I must go." "There; this is my cheek, and the other is Lucy's; though now that I look at them both, I think that hers is getting to be the most blooming; sweeter dews fall on that one, I suppose." Pierre laughed, and ran out of the room, for old Christopher was getting impatient. His mother went to the window and stood there. "A noble boy, and docile"--she murmured--"he has all the frolicsomeness of youth, with little of its giddiness. And he does not grow vain-glorious in sophomorean wisdom. I thank heaven I sent him not to college. A noble boy, and docile. A fine, proud, loving, docile, vigorous boy. Pray God, he never becomes otherwise to me. His little wife, that is to be, will not estrange him from me; for she too is docile,--beautiful, and reverential, and most docile. Seldom yet have I known such blue eyes as hers, that were not docile, and would not follow a bold black one, as two meek blue-ribboned ewes, follow their martial leader. How glad am I that Pierre loves her so, and not some dark-eyed haughtiness, with whom I could never live in peace; but who would be ever setting her young married state before my elderly widowed one, and claiming all the homage of my dear boy--the fine, proud, loving, docile, vigorous boy!--the lofty-minded, well-born, noble boy; and with such sweet docilities! See his hair! He does in truth illustrate that fine saying of his father's, that as the noblest colts, in three points--abundant hair, swelling chest, and sweet docility--should resemble a fine woman, so should a noble youth. Well, good-bye, Pierre, and a merry morning to ye!" So saying she crossed the room, and--resting in a corner--her glad proud eye met the old General's baton, which the day before in one of his frolic moods Pierre had taken from its accustomed place in the pictured-bannered hall. She lifted it, and musingly swayed it to and fro; then paused, and staff-wise rested with it in her hand. Her stately beauty had ever somewhat martial in it; and now she looked the daughter of a General, as she was; for Pierre's was a double revolutionary descent. On both sides he sprang from heroes. "This is his inheritance--this symbol of command! and I swell out to think it. Yet but just now I fondled the conceit that Pierre was so sweetly docile! Here sure is a most strange inconsistency! For is sweet docility a general's badge? and is this baton but a distaff then?--Here's something widely wrong. Now I almost wish him otherwise than sweet and docile to me, seeing that it must be hard for man to be an uncompromising hero and a commander among his race, and yet never ruffle any domestic brow. Pray heaven he show his heroicness in some smooth way of favoring fortune, not be called out to be a hero of some dark hope forlorn;--of some dark hope forlorn, whose cruelness makes a savage of a man. Give him, O God, regardful gales! Fan him with unwavering prosperities! So shall he remain all docility to me, and yet prove a haughty hero to the world!" BOOK II. LOVE, DELIGHT, AND ALARM. I. On the previous evening, Pierre had arranged with Lucy the plan of a long winding ride, among the hills which stretched around to the southward from the wide plains of Saddle-Meadows. Though the vehicle was a sexagenarian, the animals that drew it, were but six-year colts. The old phaeton had outlasted several generations of its drawers. Pierre rolled beneath the village elms in billowy style, and soon drew up before the white cottage door. Flinging his reins upon the ground he entered the house. The two colts were his particular and confidential friends; born on the same land with him, and fed with the same corn, which, in the form of Indian-cakes, Pierre himself was often wont to eat for breakfast. The same fountain that by one branch supplied the stables with water, by another supplied Pierre's pitcher. They were a sort of family cousins to Pierre, those horses; and they were splendid young cousins; very showy in their redundant manes and mighty paces, but not at all vain or arrogant. They acknowledged Pierre as the undoubted head of the house of Glendinning. They well knew that they were but an inferior and subordinate branch of the Glendinnings, bound in perpetual feudal fealty to its headmost representative. Therefore, these young cousins never permitted themselves to run from Pierre; they were impatient in their paces, but very patient in the halt. They were full of good-humor too, and kind as kittens. "Bless me, how can you let them stand all alone that way, Pierre," cried Lucy, as she and Pierre stepped forth from the cottage door, Pierre laden with shawls, parasol, reticule, and a small hamper. "Wait a bit," cried Pierre, dropping his load; "I will show you what my colts are." So saying, he spoke to them mildly, and went close up to them, and patted them. The colts neighed; the nigh colt neighing a little jealously, as if Pierre had not patted impartially. Then, with a low, long, almost inaudible whistle, Pierre got between the colts, among the harness. Whereat Lucy started, and uttered a faint cry, but Pierre told her to keep perfectly quiet, for there was not the least danger in the world. And Lucy did keep quiet; for somehow, though she always started when Pierre seemed in the slightest jeopardy, yet at bottom she rather cherished a notion that Pierre bore a charmed life, and by no earthly possibility could die from her, or experience any harm, when she was within a thousand leagues. Pierre, still between the horses, now stepped upon the pole of the phaeton; then stepping down, indefinitely disappeared, or became partially obscured among the living colonnade of the horses' eight slender and glossy legs. He entered the colonnade one way, and after a variety of meanderings, came out another way; during all of which equestrian performance, the two colts kept gayly neighing, and good-humoredly moving their heads perpendicularly up and down; and sometimes turning them sideways toward Lucy; as much as to say--We understand young master; we understand him, Miss; never fear, pretty lady: why, bless your delicious little heart, we played with Pierre before you ever did. "Are you afraid of their running away now, Lucy?" said Pierre, returning to her. "Not much, Pierre; the superb fellows! Why, Pierre, they have made an officer of you--look!" and she pointed to two foam-flakes epauletting his shoulders. "Bravissimo again! I called you my recruit, when you left my window this morning, and here you are promoted." "Very prettily conceited, Lucy. But see, you don't admire their coats; they wear nothing but the finest Genoa velvet, Lucy. See! did you ever see such well-groomed horses?" "Never!" "Then what say you to have them for my groomsmen, Lucy? Glorious groomsmen they would make, I declare. They should have a hundred ells of white favors all over their manes and tails; and when they drew us to church, they would be still all the time scattering white favors from their mouths, just as they did here on me. Upon my soul, they shall be my groomsmen, Lucy. Stately stags! playful dogs! heroes, Lucy. We shall have no marriage bells; they shall neigh for us, Lucy; we shall be wedded to the martial sound of Job's trumpeters, Lucy. Hark! they are neighing now to think of it." "Neighing at your lyrics, Pierre. Come, let us be off. Here, the shawl, the parasol, the basket: what are you looking at them so for?" "I was thinking, Lucy, of the sad state I am in. Not six months ago, I saw a poor affianced fellow, an old comrade of mine, trudging along with his Lucy Tartan, a hillock of bundles under either arm; and I said to myself--There goes a sumpter, now; poor devil, he's a lover. And now look at me! Well, life's a burden, they say; why not be burdened cheerily? But look ye, Lucy, I am going to enter a formal declaration and protest before matters go further with us. When we are married, I am not to carry any bundles, unless in cases of real need; and what is more, when there are any of your young lady acquaintances in sight, I am not to be unnecessarily called upon to back up, and load for their particular edification." "Now I am really vexed with you, Pierre; that is the first ill-natured innuendo I ever heard from you. Are there any of my young lady acquaintances in sight now, I should like to know?" "Six of them, right over the way," said Pierre; "but they keep behind the curtains. I never trust your solitary village streets, Lucy. Sharp-shooters behind every clap-board, Lucy." "Pray, then, dear Pierre, do let us be off!" II. While Pierre and Lucy are now rolling along under the elms, let it be said who Lucy Tartan was. It is needless to say that she was a beauty; because chestnut-haired, bright-cheeked youths like Pierre Glendinning, seldom fall in love with any but a beauty. And in the times to come, there must be--as in the present times, and in the times gone by--some splendid men, and some transcendent women; and how can they ever be, unless always, throughout all time, here and there, a handsome youth weds with a handsome maid! But though owing to the above-named provisions of dame Nature, there always will be beautiful women in the world; yet the world will never see another Lucy Tartan. Her cheeks were tinted with the most delicate white and red, the white predominating. Her eyes some god brought down from heaven; her hair was Danae's, spangled with Jove's shower; her teeth were dived for in the Persian Sea. If long wont to fix his glance on those who, trudging through the humbler walks of life, and whom unequal toil and poverty deform; if that man shall haply view some fair and gracious daughter of the gods, who, from unknown climes of loveliness and affluence, comes floating into sight, all symmetry and radiance; how shall he be transported, that in a world so full of vice and misery as ours, there should yet shine forth this visible semblance of the heavens. For a lovely woman is not entirely of this earth. Her own sex regard her not as such. A crowd of women eye a transcendent beauty entering a room, much as though a bird from Arabia had lighted on the window sill. Say what you will, their jealousy--if any--is but an afterbirth to their open admiration. Do men envy the gods? And shall women envy the goddesses? A beautiful woman is born Queen of men and women both, as Mary Stuart was born Queen of Scots, whether men or women. All mankind are her Scots; her leal clans are numbered by the nations. A true gentleman in Kentucky would cheerfully die for a beautiful woman in Hindostan, though he never saw her. Yea, count down his heart in death-drops for her; and go to Pluto, that she might go to Paradise. He would turn Turk before he would disown an allegiance hereditary to all gentlemen, from the hour their Grand Master, Adam, first knelt to Eve. A plain-faced Queen of Spain dwells not in half the glory a beautiful milliner does. Her soldiers can break heads, but her Highness can not crack a heart; and the beautiful milliner might string hearts for necklaces. Undoubtedly, Beauty made the first Queen. If ever again the succession to the German Empire should be contested, and one poor lame lawyer should present the claims of the first excellingly beautiful woman he chanced to see--she would thereupon be unanimously elected Empress of the Holy Roman German Empire;--that is to say, if all the Germans were true, free-hearted and magnanimous gentlemen, at all capable of appreciating so immense an honor. It is nonsense to talk of France as the seat of all civility. Did not those French heathen have a Salique law? Three of the most bewitching creatures,--immortal flowers of the line of Valois--were excluded from the French throne by that infamous provision. France, indeed! whose Catholic millions still worship Mary Queen of Heaven; and for ten generations refused cap and knee to many angel Maries, rightful Queens of France. Here is cause for universal war. See how vilely nations, as well as men, assume and wear unchallenged the choicest titles, however without merit. The Americans, and not the French, are the world's models of chivalry. Our Salique Law provides that universal homage shall be paid all beautiful women. No man's most solid rights shall weigh against her airiest whims. If you buy the best seat in the coach, to go and consult a doctor on a matter of life and death, you shall cheerfully abdicate that best seat, and limp away on foot, if a pretty woman, traveling, shake one feather from the stage-house door. Now, since we began by talking of a certain young lady that went out riding with a certain youth; and yet find ourselves, after leading such a merry dance, fast by a stage-house window;--this may seem rather irregular sort of writing. But whither indeed should Lucy Tartan conduct us, but among mighty Queens, and all other creatures of high degree; and finally set us roaming, to see whether the wide world can match so fine a wonder. By immemorial usage, am I not bound to celebrate this Lucy Tartan? Who shall stay me? Is she not my hero's own affianced? What can be gainsaid? Where underneath the tester of the night sleeps such another? Yet, how would Lucy Tartan shrink from all this noise and clatter! She is bragged of, but not brags. Thus far she hath floated as stilly through this life, as thistle-down floats over meadows. Noiseless, she, except with Pierre; and even with him she lives through many a panting hush. Oh, those love-pauses that they know--how ominous of their future; for pauses precede the earthquake, and every other terrible commotion! But blue be their sky awhile, and lightsome all their chat, and frolicsome their humors. Never shall I get down the vile inventory! How, if with paper and with pencil I went out into the starry night to inventorize the heavens? Who shall tell stars as teaspoons? Who shall put down the charms of Lucy Tartan upon paper? And for the rest; her parentage, what fortune she would possess, how many dresses in her wardrobe, and how many rings upon her fingers; cheerfully would I let the genealogists, tax-gatherers, and upholsterers attend to that. My proper province is with the angelical part of Lucy. But as in some quarters, there prevails a sort of prejudice against angels, who are merely angels and nothing more; therefore I shall martyrize myself, by letting such gentlemen and ladies into some details of Lucy Tartan's history. She was the daughter of an early and most cherished friend of Pierre's father. But that father was now dead, and she resided an only daughter with her mother, in a very fine house in the city. But though her home was in the city, her heart was twice a year in the country. She did not at all love the city and its empty, heartless, ceremonial ways. It was very strange, but most eloquently significant of her own natural angelhood that, though born among brick and mortar in a sea-port, she still pined for unbaked earth and inland grass. So the sweet linnet, though born inside of wires in a lady's chamber on the ocean coast, and ignorant all its life of any other spot; yet, when spring-time comes, it is seized with flutterings and vague impatiences; it can not eat or drink for these wild longings. Though unlearned by any experience, still the inspired linnet divinely knows that the inland migrating time has come. And just so with Lucy in her first longings for the verdure. Every spring those wild flutterings shook her; every spring, this sweet linnet girl did migrate inland. Oh God grant that those other and long after nameless flutterings of her inmost soul, when all life was become weary to her--God grant, that those deeper flutterings in her were equally significant of her final heavenly migration from this heavy earth. It was fortunate for Lucy that her Aunt Lanyllyn--a pensive, childless, white-turbaned widow--possessed and occupied a pretty cottage in the village of Saddle Meadows; and still more fortunate, that this excellent old aunt was very partial to her, and always felt a quiet delight in having Lucy near her. So Aunt Lanyllyn's cottage, in effect, was Lucy's. And now, for some years past, she had annually spent several months at Saddle Meadows; and it was among the pure and soft incitements of the country that Pierre first had felt toward Lucy the dear passion which now made him wholly hers. Lucy had two brothers; one her senior, by three years, and the other her junior by two. But these young men were officers in the navy; and so they did not permanently live with Lucy and her mother. Mrs. Tartan was mistress of an ample fortune. She was, moreover, perfectly aware that such was the fact, and was somewhat inclined to force it upon the notice of other people, nowise interested in the matter. In other words, Mrs. Tartan, instead of being daughter-proud, for which she had infinite reason, was a little inclined to being purse-proud, for which she had not the slightest reason; seeing that the Great Mogul probably possessed a larger fortune than she, not to speak of the Shah of Persia and Baron Rothschild, and a thousand other millionaires; whereas, the Grand Turk, and all their other majesties of Europe, Asia, and Africa to boot, could not, in all their joint dominions, boast so sweet a girl as Lucy. Nevertheless, Mrs. Tartan was an excellent sort of lady, as this lady-like world goes. She subscribed to charities, and owned five pews in as many churches, and went about trying to promote the general felicity of the world, by making all the handsome young people of her acquaintance marry one another. In other words, she was a match-maker--not a Lucifer match-maker--though, to tell the truth, she may have kindled the matrimonial blues in certain dissatisfied gentlemen's breasts, who had been wedded under her particular auspices, and by her particular advice. Rumor said--but rumor is always fibbing--that there was a secret society of dissatisfied young husbands, who were at the pains of privately circulating handbills among all unmarried young strangers, warning them against the insidious approaches of Mrs. Tartan; and, for reference, named themselves in cipher. But this could not have been true; for, flushed with a thousand matches--burning blue or bright, it made little matter--Mrs. Tartan sailed the seas of fashion, causing all topsails to lower to her; and towing flotillas of young ladies, for all of whom she was bound to find the finest husband harbors in the world. But does not match-making, like charity, begin at home? Why is her own daughter Lucy without a mate? But not so fast; Mrs. Tartan years ago laid out that sweet programme concerning Pierre and Lucy; but in this case, her programme happened to coincide, in some degree, with a previous one in heaven, and only for that cause did it come to pass, that Pierre Glendinning was the proud elect of Lucy Tartan. Besides, this being a thing so nearly affecting herself, Mrs. Tartan had, for the most part, been rather circumspect and cautious in all her manoeuvrings with Pierre and Lucy. Moreover, the thing demanded no manoeuvring at all. The two Platonic particles, after roaming in quest of each other, from the time of Saturn and Ops till now; they came together before Mrs. Tartan's own eyes; and what more could Mrs. Tartan do toward making them forever one and indivisible? Once, and only once, had a dim suspicion passed through Pierre's mind, that Mrs. Tartan was a lady thimble-rigger, and slyly rolled the pea. In their less mature acquaintance, he was breakfasting with Lucy and her mother in the city, and the first cup of coffee had been poured out by Mrs. Tartan, when she declared she smelt matches burning somewhere in the house, and she must see them extinguished. So banning all pursuit, she rose to seek for the burning matches, leaving the pair alone to interchange the civilities of the coffee; and finally sent word to them, from above stairs, that the matches, or something else, had given her a headache, and begged Lucy to send her up some toast and tea, for she would breakfast in her own chamber that morning. Upon this, Pierre looked from Lucy to his boots, and as he lifted his eyes again, saw Anacreon on the sofa on one side of him, and Moore's Melodies on the other, and some honey on the table, and a bit of white satin on the floor, and a sort of bride's veil on the chandelier. Never mind though--thought Pierre, fixing his gaze on Lucy--I'm entirely willing to be caught, when the bait is set in Paradise, and the bait is such an angel. Again he glanced at Lucy, and saw a look of infinite subdued vexation, and some unwonted pallor on her cheek. Then willingly he would have kissed the delicious bait, that so gently hated to be tasted in the trap. But glancing round again, and seeing that the music, which Mrs. Tartan, under the pretense of putting in order, had been adjusting upon the piano; seeing that this music was now in a vertical pile against the wall, with--"_Love was once a little boy_," for the outermost and only visible sheet; and thinking this to be a remarkable coincidence under the circumstances; Pierre could not refrain from a humorous smile, though it was a very gentle one, and immediately repented of, especially as Lucy seeing and interpreting it, immediately arose, with an unaccountable, indignant, angelical, adorable, and all-persuasive "Mr. Glendinning?" utterly confounded in him the slightest germ of suspicion as to Lucy's collusion in her mother's imagined artifices. Indeed, Mrs. Tartan's having any thing whatever to do, or hint, or finesse in this matter of the loves of Pierre and Lucy, was nothing less than immensely gratuitous and sacrilegious. Would Mrs. Tartan doctor lilies when they blow? Would Mrs. Tartan set about match-making between the steel and magnet? Preposterous Mrs. Tartan! But this whole world is a preposterous one, with many preposterous people in it; chief among whom was Mrs. Tartan, match-maker to the nation. This conduct of Mrs. Tartan, was the more absurd, seeing that she could not but know that Mrs. Glendinning desired the thing. And was not Lucy wealthy?--going to be, that is, very wealthy when her mother died;--(sad thought that for Mrs. Tartan)--and was not her husband's family of the best; and had not Lucy's father been a bosom friend of Pierre's father? And though Lucy might be matched to some one man, where among women was the match for Lucy? Exceedingly preposterous Mrs. Tartan! But when a lady like Mrs. Tartan has nothing positive and useful to do, then she will do just such preposterous things as Mrs. Tartan did. Well, time went on; and Pierre loved Lucy, and Lucy, Pierre; till at last the two young naval gentlemen, her brothers, happened to arrive in Mrs. Tartan's drawing-room, from their first cruise--a three years' one up the Mediterranean. They rather stared at Pierre, finding him on the sofa, and Lucy not very remote. "Pray, be seated, gentlemen," said Pierre. "Plenty of room." "My darling brothers!" cried Lucy, embracing them. "My darling brothers and sister!" cried Pierre, folding them together. "Pray, hold off, sir," said the elder brother, who had served as a passed midshipman for the last two weeks. The younger brother retreated a little, and clapped his hand upon his dirk, saying, "Sir, we are from the Mediterranean. Sir, permit me to say, this is decidedly improper! Who may you be, sir?" "I can't explain for joy," cried Pierre, hilariously embracing them all again. "Most extraordinary!" cried the elder brother, extricating his shirt-collar from the embrace, and pulling it up vehemently. "Draw!" cried the younger, intrepidly. "Peace, foolish fellows," cried Lucy--"this is your old play-fellow, Pierre Glendinning." "Pierre? why, Pierre?" cried the lads--"a hug all round again! You've grown a fathom!--who would have known you? But, then--Lucy? I say, Lucy?--what business have you here in this--eh? eh?--hugging-match, I should call it?" "Oh! Lucy don't mean any thing," cried Pierre--"come, one more all round." So they all embraced again; and that evening it was publicly known that Pierre was to wed with Lucy. Whereupon, the young officers took it upon themselves to think--though they by no means presumed to breathe it--that they had authoritatively, though indirectly, accelerated a before ambiguous and highly incommendable state of affairs between the now affianced lovers. III. In the fine old robust times of Pierre's grandfather, an American gentleman of substantial person and fortune spent his time in a somewhat different style from the green-house gentlemen of the present day. The grandfather of Pierre measured six feet four inches in height; during a fire in the old manorial mansion, with one dash of his foot, he had smitten down an oaken door, to admit the buckets of his negro slaves; Pierre had often tried on his military vest, which still remained an heirloom at Saddle Meadows, and found the pockets below his knees, and plenty additional room for a fair-sized quarter-cask within its buttoned girth; in a night-scuffle in the wilderness before the Revolutionary War, he had annihilated two Indian savages by making reciprocal bludgeons of their heads. And all this was done by the mildest hearted, and most blue-eyed gentleman in the world, who, according to the patriarchal fashion of those days, was a gentle, white-haired worshiper of all the household gods; the gentlest husband, and the gentlest father; the kindest of masters to his slaves; of the most wonderful unruffledness of temper; a serene smoker of his after-dinner pipe; a forgiver of many injuries; a sweet-hearted, charitable Christian; in fine, a pure, cheerful, child-like, blue-eyed, divine old man; in whose meek, majestic soul, the lion and the lamb embraced--fit image of his God. Never could Pierre look upon his fine military portrait without an infinite and mournful longing to meet his living aspect in actual life. The majestic sweetness of this portrait was truly wonderful in its effects upon any sensitive and generous-minded young observer. For such, that portrait possessed the heavenly persuasiveness of angelic speech; a glorious gospel framed and hung upon the wall, and declaring to all people, as from the Mount, that man is a noble, god-like being, full of choicest juices; made up of strength and beauty. Now, this grand old Pierre Glendinning was a great lover of horses; but not in the modern sense, for he was no jockey;--one of his most intimate friends of the masculine gender was a huge, proud, gray horse, of a surprising reserve of manner, his saddle-beast; he had his horses' mangers carved like old trenchers, out of solid maple logs; the key of the corn-bin hung in his library; and no one grained his steeds, but himself; unless his absence from home promoted Moyar, an incorruptible and most punctual old black, to that honorable office. He said that no man loved his horses, unless his own hands grained them. Every Christmas he gave them brimming measures. "I keep Christmas with my horses," said grand old Pierre. This grand old Pierre always rose at sunrise; washed his face and chest in the open air; and then, returning to his closet, and being completely arrayed at last, stepped forth to make a ceremonious call at his stables, to bid his very honorable friends there a very good and joyful morning. Woe to Cranz, Kit, Douw, or any other of his stable slaves, if grand old Pierre found one horse unblanketed, or one weed among the hay that filled their rack. Not that he ever had Cranz, Kit, Douw, or any of them flogged--a thing unknown in that patriarchal time and country--but he would refuse to say his wonted pleasant word to them; and that was very bitter to them, for Cranz, Kit, Douw, and all of them, loved grand old Pierre, as his shepherds loved old Abraham. What decorous, lordly, gray-haired steed is this? What old Chaldean rides abroad?--'Tis grand old Pierre; who, every morning before he eats, goes out promenading with his saddle-beast; nor mounts him, without first asking leave. But time glides on, and grand old Pierre grows old: his life's glorious grape now swells with fatness; he has not the conscience to saddle his majestic beast with such a mighty load of manliness. Besides, the noble beast himself is growing old, and has a touching look of meditativeness in his large, attentive eyes. Leg of man, swears grand old Pierre, shall never more bestride my steed; no more shall harness touch him! Then every spring he sowed a field with clover for his steed; and at mid-summer sorted all his meadow grasses, for the choicest hay to winter him; and had his destined grain thrashed out with a flail, whose handle had once borne a flag in a brisk battle, into which this same old steed had pranced with grand old Pierre; one waving mane, one waving sword! Now needs must grand old Pierre take a morning drive; he rides no more with the old gray steed. He has a phaeton built, fit for a vast General, in whose sash three common men might hide. Doubled, trebled are the huge S shaped leather springs; the wheels seem stolen from some mill; the canopied seat is like a testered bed. From beneath the old archway, not one horse, but two, every morning now draw forth old Pierre, as the Chinese draw their fat god Josh, once every year from out his fane. But time glides on, and a morning comes, when the phaeton emerges not; but all the yards and courts are full; helmets line the ways; sword-points strike the stone steps of the porch; muskets ring upon the stairs; and mournful martial melodies are heard in all the halls. Grand old Pierre is dead; and like a hero of old battles, he dies on the eve of another war; ere wheeling to fire on the foe, his platoons fire over their old commander's grave; in A. D. 1812, died grand old Pierre. The drum that beat in brass his funeral march, was a British kettle-drum, that had once helped beat the vain-glorious march, for the thirty thousand predestined prisoners, led into sure captivity by that bragging boy, Burgoyne. Next day the old gray steed turned from his grain; turned round, and vainly whinnied in his stall. By gracious Moyar's hand, he refuses to be patted now; plain as horse can speak, the old gray steed says--"I smell not the wonted hand; where is grand old Pierre? Grain me not, and groom me not;--Where is grand old Pierre?" He sleeps not far from his master now; beneath the field he cropt, he has softly lain him down; and long ere this, grand old Pierre and steed have passed through that grass to glory. But his phaeton--like his plumed hearse, outlives the noble load it bore. And the dark bay steeds that drew grand old Pierre alive, and by his testament drew him dead, and followed the lordly lead of the led gray horse; those dark bay steeds are still extant; not in themselves or in their issue; but in the two descendants of stallions of their own breed. For on the lands of Saddle Meadows, man and horse are both hereditary; and this bright morning Pierre Glendinning, grandson of grand old Pierre, now drives forth with Lucy Tartan, seated where his own ancestor had sat, and reining steeds, whose great-great-great-grandfathers grand old Pierre had reined before. How proud felt Pierre: In fancy's eye, he saw the horse-ghosts a-tandem in the van; "These are but wheelers"--cried young Pierre--"the leaders are the generations." IV. But Love has more to do with his own possible and probable posterities, than with the once living but now impossible ancestries in the past. So Pierre's glow of family pride quickly gave place to a deeper hue, when Lucy bade love's banner blush out from his cheek. That morning was the choicest drop that Time had in his vase. Ineffable distillations of a soft delight were wafted from the fields and hills. Fatal morning that, to all lovers unbetrothed; "Come to your confessional," it cried. "Behold our airy loves," the birds chirped from the trees; far out at sea, no more the sailors tied their bowline-knots; their hands had lost their cunning; will they, nill they, Love tied love-knots on every spangled spar. Oh, praised be the beauty of this earth, the beauty, and the bloom, and the mirthfulness thereof! The first worlds made were winter worlds; the second made, were vernal worlds; the third, and last, and perfectest, was this summer world of ours. In the cold and nether spheres, preachers preach of earth, as we of Paradise above. Oh, there, my friends, they say, they have a season, in their language known as summer. Then their fields spin themselves green carpets; snow and ice are not in all the land; then a million strange, bright, fragrant things powder that sward with perfumes; and high, majestic beings, dumb and grand, stand up with outstretched arms, and hold their green canopies over merry angels--men and women--who love and wed, and sleep and dream, beneath the approving glances of their visible god and goddess, glad-hearted sun, and pensive moon! Oh, praised be the beauty of this earth; the beauty, and the bloom, and the mirthfulness thereof. We lived before, and shall live again; and as we hope for a fairer world than this to come; so we came from one less fine. From each successive world, the demon Principle is more and more dislodged; he is the accursed clog from chaos, and thither, by every new translation, we drive him further and further back again. Hosannahs to this world! so beautiful itself, and the vestibule to more. Out of some past Egypt, we have come to this new Canaan; and from this new Canaan, we press on to some Circassia. Though still the villains, Want and Woe, followed us out of Egypt, and now beg in Canaan's streets: yet Circassia's gates shall not admit them; they, with their sire, the demon Principle, must back to chaos, whence they came. Love was first begot by Mirth and Peace, in Eden, when the world was young. The man oppressed with cares, he can not love; the man of gloom finds not the god. So, as youth, for the most part, has no cares, and knows no gloom, therefore, ever since time did begin, youth belongs to love. Love may end in grief and age, and pain and need, and all other modes of human mournfulness; but love begins in joy. Love's first sigh is never breathed, till after love hath laughed. Love laughs first, and then sighs after. Love has not hands, but cymbals; Love's mouth is chambered like a bugle, and the instinctive breathings of his life breathe jubilee notes of joy! That morning, two bay horses drew two Laughs along the road that led to the hills from Saddle Meadows. Apt time they kept; Pierre Glendinning's young, manly tenor, to Lucy Tartan's girlish treble. Wondrous fair of face, blue-eyed, and golden-haired, the bright blonde, Lucy, was arrayed in colors harmonious with the heavens. Light blue be thy perpetual color, Lucy; light blue becomes thee best--such the repeated azure counsel of Lucy Tartan's mother. On both sides, from the hedges, came to Pierre the clover bloom of Saddle Meadows, and from Lucy's mouth and cheek came the fresh fragrance of her violet young being. "Smell I the flowers, or thee?" cried Pierre. "See I lakes, or eyes?" cried Lucy, her own gazing down into his soul, as two stars gaze down into a tarn. No Cornwall miner ever sunk so deep a shaft beneath the sea, as Love will sink beneath the floatings of the eyes. Love sees ten million fathoms down, till dazzled by the floor of pearls. The eye is Love's own magic glass, where all things that are not of earth, glide in supernatural light. There are not so many fishes in the sea, as there are sweet images in lovers' eyes. In those miraculous translucencies swim the strange eye-fish with wings, that sometimes leap out, instinct with joy; moist fish-wings wet the lover's cheek. Love's eyes are holy things; therein the mysteries of life are lodged; looking in each other's eyes, lovers see the ultimate secret of the worlds; and with thrills eternally untranslatable, feel that Love is god of all. Man or woman who has never loved, nor once looked deep down into their own lover's eyes, they know not the sweetest and the loftiest religion of this earth. Love is both Creator's and Saviour's gospel to mankind; a volume bound in rose-leaves, clasped with violets, and by the beaks of humming-birds printed with peach-juice on the leaves of lilies. Endless is the account of Love. Time and space can not contain Love's story. All things that are sweet to see, or taste, or feel, or hear, all these things were made by Love; and none other things were made by Love. Love made not the Arctic zones, but Love is ever reclaiming them. Say, are not the fierce things of this earth daily, hourly going out? Where now are your wolves of Britain? Where in Virginia now, find you the panther and the pard? Oh, love is busy everywhere. Everywhere Love hath Moravian missionaries. No Propagandist like to love. The south wind wooes the barbarous north; on many a distant shore the gentler west wind persuades the arid east. All this Earth is Love's affianced; vainly the demon Principle howls to stay the banns. Why round her middle wears this world so rich a zone of torrid verdure, if she be not dressing for the final rites? And why provides she orange blossoms and lilies of the valley, if she would not that all men and maids should love and marry? For every wedding where true lovers wed, helps on the march of universal Love. Who are brides here shall be Love's bridemaids in the marriage world to come. So on all sides Love allures; can contain himself what youth who views the wonders of the beauteous woman-world? Where a beautiful woman is, there is all Asia and her Bazars. Italy hath not a sight before the beauty of a Yankee girl; nor heaven a blessing beyond her earthly love. Did not the angelical Lotharios come down to earth, that they might taste of mortal woman's Love and Beauty? even while her own silly brothers were pining after the self-same Paradise they left? Yes, those envying angels did come down; did emigrate; and who emigrates except to be better off? Love is this world's great redeemer and reformer; and as all beautiful women are her selectest emissaries, so hath Love gifted them with a magnetical persuasiveness, that no youth can possibly repel. The own heart's choice of every youth, seems ever as an inscrutable witch to him; and by ten thousand concentric spells and circling incantations, glides round and round him, as he turns: murmuring meanings of unearthly import; and summoning up to him all the subterranean sprites and gnomes; and unpeopling all the sea for naiads to swim round him; so that mysteries are evoked as in exhalations by this Love;--what wonder then that Love was aye a mystic? V. And this self-same morning Pierre was very mystical; not continually, though; but most mystical one moment, and overflowing with mad, unbridled merriment, the next. He seemed a youthful Magian, and almost a mountebank together. Chaldaic improvisations burst from him, in quick Golden Verses, on the heel of humorous retort and repartee. More especially, the bright glance of Lucy was transporting to him. Now, reckless of his horses, with both arms holding Lucy in his embrace, like a Sicilian diver he dives deep down in the Adriatic of her eyes, and brings up some king's-cup of joy. All the waves in Lucy's eyes seemed waves of infinite glee to him. And as if, like veritable seas, they did indeed catch the reflected irradiations of that pellucid azure morning; in Lucy's eyes, there seemed to shine all the blue glory of the general day, and all the sweet inscrutableness of the sky. And certainly, the blue eye of woman, like the sea, is not uninfluenced by the atmosphere. Only in the open air of some divinest, summer day, will you see its ultramarine,--its fluid lapis lazuli. Then would Pierre burst forth in some screaming shout of joy; and the striped tigers of his chestnut eyes leaped in their lashed cages with a fierce delight. Lucy shrank from him in extreme love; for the extremest top of love, is Fear and Wonder. Soon the swift horses drew this fair god and goddess nigh the wooded hills, whose distant blue, now changed into a variously-shaded green, stood before them like old Babylonian walls, overgrown with verdure; while here and there, at regular intervals, the scattered peaks seemed mural towers; and the clumped pines surmounting them, as lofty archers, and vast, out-looking watchers of the glorious Babylonian City of the Day. Catching that hilly air, the prancing horses neighed; laughed on the ground with gleeful feet. Felt they the gay delightsome spurrings of the day; for the day was mad with excessive joy; and high in heaven you heard the neighing of the horses of the sun; and down dropt their nostrils' froth in many a fleecy vapor from the hills. From the plains, the mists rose slowly; reluctant yet to quit so fair a mead. At those green slopings, Pierre reined in his steeds, and soon the twain were seated on the bank, gazing far, and far away; over many a grove and lake; corn-crested uplands, and Herd's-grass lowlands; and long-stretching swales of vividest green, betokening where the greenest bounty of this earth seeks its winding channels; as ever, the most heavenly bounteousness most seeks the lowly places; making green and glad many a humble mortal's breast, and leaving to his own lonely aridness, many a hill-top prince's state. But Grief, not Joy, is a moralizer; and small moralizing wisdom caught Pierre from that scene. With Lucy's hand in his, and feeling, softly feeling of its soft tinglingness; he seemed as one placed in linked correspondence with the summer lightnings; and by sweet shock on shock, receiving intimating fore-tastes of the etherealest delights of earth. Now, prone on the grass he falls, with his attentive upward glance fixed on Lucy's eyes. "Thou art my heaven, Lucy; and here I lie thy shepherd-king, watching for new eye-stars to rise in thee. Ha! I see Venus' transit now;--lo! a new planet there;--and behind all, an infinite starry nebulousness, as if thy being were backgrounded by some spangled vail of mystery." Is Lucy deaf to all these ravings of his lyric love? Why looks she down, and vibrates so; and why now from her over-charged lids, drops such warm drops as these? No joy now in Lucy's eyes, and seeming tremor on her lips. "Ah! thou too ardent and impetuous Pierre!" "Nay, thou too moist and changeful April! know'st thou not, that the moist and changeful April is followed by the glad, assured, and showerless joy of June? And this, Lucy, this day should be thy June, even as it is the earth's?" "Ah Pierre! not June to me. But say, are not the sweets of June made sweet by the April tears?" "Ay, love! but here fall more drops,--more and more;--these showers are longer than beseem the April, and pertain not to the June." "June! June!--thou bride's month of the summer,--following the spring's sweet courtship of the earth,--my June, my June is yet to come!" "Oh! yet to come, but fixedly decreed;--good as come, and better." "Then no flower that, in the bud, the April showers have nurtured; no such flower may untimely perish, ere the June unfolds it? Ye will not swear that, Pierre?" "The audacious immortalities of divinest love are in me; and I now swear to thee all the immutable eternities of joyfulness, that ever woman dreamed of, in this dream-house of the earth. A god decrees to thee unchangeable felicity; and to me, the unchallenged possession of thee and them, for my inalienable fief.--Do I rave? Look on me, Lucy; think on me, girl." "Thou art young, and beautiful, and strong; and a joyful manliness invests thee, Pierre; and thy intrepid heart never yet felt the touch of fear;--But--" "But what?" "Ah, my best Pierre!" "With kisses I will suck thy secret from thy cheek!--but what?" "Let us hie homeward, Pierre. Some nameless sadness, faintness, strangely comes to me. Foretaste I feel of endless dreariness. Tell me once more the story of that face, Pierre,--that mysterious, haunting face, which thou once told'st me, thou didst thrice vainly try to shun. Blue is the sky, oh, bland the air, Pierre;--but--tell me the story of the face,--the dark-eyed, lustrous, imploring, mournful face, that so mystically paled, and shrunk at thine. Ah, Pierre, sometimes I have thought,--never will I wed with my best Pierre, until the riddle of that face be known. Tell me, tell me, Pierre;--as a fixed basilisk, with eyes of steady, flaming mournfulness, that face this instant fastens me." "Bewitched! bewitched!--Cursed be the hour I acted on the thought, that Love hath no reserves. Never should I have told thee the story of that face, Lucy. I have bared myself too much to thee. Oh, never should Love know all!" "Knows not all, then loves not all, Pierre. Never shalt thou so say again;--and Pierre, listen to me. Now,--now, in this inexplicable trepidation that I feel, I do conjure thee, that thou wilt ever continue to do as thou hast done; so that I may ever continue to know all that agitatest thee, the airiest and most transient thought, that ever shall sweep into thee from the wide atmosphere of all things that hem mortality. Did I doubt thee here;--could I ever think, that thy heart hath yet one private nook or corner from me;--fatal disenchanting day for me, my Pierre, would that be. I tell thee, Pierre--and 'tis Love's own self that now speaks through me--only in unbounded confidence and interchangings of all subtlest secrets, can Love possibly endure. Love's self is a secret, and so feeds on secrets, Pierre. Did I only know of thee, what the whole common world may know--what then were Pierre to me?--Thou must be wholly a disclosed secret to me; Love is vain and proud; and when I walk the streets, and meet thy friends, I must still be laughing and hugging to myself the thought,--They know him not;--I only know my Pierre;--none else beneath the circuit of yon sun. Then, swear to me, dear Pierre, that thou wilt never keep a secret from me--no, never, never;--swear!" "Something seizes me. Thy inexplicable tears, falling, falling on my heart, have now turned it to a stone. I feel icy cold and hard; I will not swear!" "Pierre! Pierre!" "God help thee, and God help me, Lucy. I can not think, that in this most mild and dulcet air, the invisible agencies are plotting treasons against our loves. Oh! if ye be now nigh us, ye things I have no name for; then by a name that should be efficacious--by Christ's holy name, I warn ye back from her and me. Touch her not, ye airy devils; hence to your appointed hell! why come ye prowling in these heavenly perlieus? Can not the chains of Love omnipotent bind ye, fiends?" "Is this Pierre? His eyes glare fearfully; now I see layer on layer deeper in him; he turns round and menaces the air and talks to it, as if defied by the air. Woe is me, that fairy love should raise this evil spell!--Pierre?" "But now I was infinite distances from thee, oh my Lucy, wandering baffled in the choking night; but thy voice might find me, though I had wandered to the Boreal realm, Lucy. Here I sit down by thee; I catch a soothing from thee." "My own, own Pierre! Pierre, into ten trillion pieces I could now be torn for thee; in my bosom would yet hide thee, and there keep thee warm, though I sat down on Arctic ice-floes, frozen to a corpse. My own, best, blessed Pierre! Now, could I plant some poniard in me, that my silly ailings should have power to move thee thus, and pain thee thus. Forgive me, Pierre; thy changed face hath chased the other from me; the fright of thee exceeds all other frights. It does not so haunt me now. Press hard my hand; look hard on me, my love, that its last trace may pass away. Now I feel almost whole again; now, 'tis gone. Up, my Pierre; let us up, and fly these hills, whence, I fear, too wide a prospect meets us. Fly we to the plain. See, thy steeds neigh for thee--they call thee--see, the clouds fly down toward the plain--lo, these hills now seem all desolate to me, and the vale all verdure. Thank thee, Pierre.--See, now, I quit the hills, dry-cheeked; and leave all tears behind to be sucked in by these evergreens, meet emblems of the unchanging love, my own sadness nourishes in me. Hard fate, that Love's best verdure should feed so on tears!" Now they rolled swiftly down the slopes; nor tempted the upper hills; but sped fast for the plain. Now the cloud hath passed from Lucy's eye; no more the lurid slanting light forks upward from her lover's brow. In the plain they find peace, and love, and joy again. "It was the merest, idling, wanton vapor, Lucy!" "An empty echo, Pierre, of a sad sound, long past. Bless thee, my Pierre!" "The great God wrap thee ever, Lucy. So, now, we are home." VI. After seeing Lucy into her aunt's most cheerful parlor, and seating her by the honeysuckle that half clambered into the window there; and near to which was her easel for crayon-sketching, upon part of whose frame Lucy had cunningly trained two slender vines, into whose earth-filled pots two of the three legs of the easel were inserted; and sitting down himself by her, and by his pleasant, lightsome chat, striving to chase the last trace of sadness from her; and not till his object seemed fully gained; Pierre rose to call her good aunt to her, and so take his leave till evening, when Lucy called him back, begging him first to bring her the blue portfolio from her chamber, for she wished to kill her last lingering melancholy--if any indeed did linger now--by diverting her thoughts, in a little pencil sketch, to scenes widely different from those of Saddle Meadows and its hills. So Pierre went up stairs, but paused on the threshold of the open door. He never had entered that chamber but with feelings of a wonderful reverentialness. The carpet seemed as holy ground. Every chair seemed sanctified by some departed saint, there once seated long ago. Here his book of Love was all a rubric, and said--Bow now, Pierre, bow. But this extreme loyalty to the piety of love, called from him by such glimpses of its most secret inner shrine, was not unrelieved betimes by such quickenings of all his pulses, that in fantasy he pressed the wide beauty of the world in his embracing arms; for all his world resolved itself into his heart's best love for Lucy. Now, crossing the magic silence of the empty chamber, he caught the snow-white bed reflected in the toilet-glass. This rooted him. For one swift instant, he seemed to see in that one glance the two separate beds--the real one and the reflected one--and an unbidden, most miserable presentiment thereupon stole into him. But in one breath it came and went. So he advanced, and with a fond and gentle joyfulness, his eye now fell upon the spotless bed itself, and fastened on a snow-white roll that lay beside the pillow. Now he started; Lucy seemed coming in upon him; but no--'tis only the foot of one of her little slippers, just peeping into view from under the narrow nether curtains of the bed. Then again his glance fixed itself upon the slender, snow-white, ruffled roll; and he stood as one enchanted. Never precious parchment of the Greek was half so precious in his eyes. Never trembling scholar longed more to unroll the mystic vellum, than Pierre longed to unroll the sacred secrets of that snow-white, ruffled thing. But his hands touched not any object in that chamber, except the one he had gone thither for. "Here is the blue portfolio, Lucy. See, the key hangs to its silver lock;--were you not fearful I would open it?--'twas tempting, I must confess." "Open it!" said Lucy--"why, yes, Pierre, yes; what secret thing keep I from thee? Read me through and through. I am entirely thine. See!" and tossing open the portfolio, all manner of rosy things came floating from it, and a most delicate perfume of some invisible essence. "Ah! thou holy angel, Lucy!" "Why, Pierre, thou art transfigured; thou now lookest as one who--why, Pierre?" "As one who had just peeped in at paradise, Lucy; and----" "Again wandering in thy mind, Pierre; no more--Come, you must leave me, now. I am quite rested again. Quick, call my aunt, and leave me. Stay, this evening we are to look over the book of plates from the city, you know. Be early;--go now, Pierre." "Well, good-bye, till evening, thou height of all delight." VII. As Pierre drove through the silent village, beneath the vertical shadows of the noon-day trees, the sweet chamber scene abandoned him, and the mystical face recurred to him, and kept with him. At last, arrived at home, he found his mother absent; so passing straight through the wide middle hall of the mansion, he descended the piazza on the other ride, and wandered away in reveries down to the river bank. Here one primeval pine-tree had been luckily left standing by the otherwise unsparing woodmen, who long ago had cleared that meadow. It was once crossing to this noble pine, from a clump of hemlocks far across the river, that Pierre had first noticed the significant fact, that while the hemlock and the pine are trees of equal growth and stature, and are so similar in their general aspect, that people unused to woods sometimes confound them; and while both trees are proverbially trees of sadness, yet the dark hemlock hath no music in its thoughtful boughs; but the gentle pine-tree drops melodious mournfulness. At its half-bared roots of sadness, Pierre sat down, and marked the mighty bulk and far out-reaching length of one particular root, which, straying down the bank, the storms and rains had years ago exposed. "How wide, how strong these roots must spread! Sure, this pine-tree takes powerful hold of this fair earth! Yon bright flower hath not so deep a root. This tree hath outlived a century of that gay flower's generations, and will outlive a century of them yet to come. This is most sad. Hark, now I hear the pyramidical and numberless, flame-like complainings of this Eolean pine;--the wind breathes now upon it:--the wind,--that is God's breath! Is He so sad? Oh, tree! so mighty thou, so lofty, yet so mournful! This is most strange! Hark! as I look up into thy high secrecies, oh, tree, the face, the face, peeps down on me!--'Art thou Pierre? Come to me'--oh, thou mysterious girl,--what an ill-matched pendant thou, to that other countenance of sweet Lucy, which also hangs, and first did hang within my heart! Is grief a pendant then to pleasantness? Is grief a self-willed guest that _will_ come in? Yet I have never known thee, Grief;--thou art a legend to me. I have known some fiery broils of glorious frenzy; I have oft tasted of revery; whence comes pensiveness; whence comes sadness; whence all delicious poetic presentiments;--but thou, Grief! art still a ghost-story to me. I know thee not,--do half disbelieve in thee. Not that I would be without my too little cherished fits of sadness now and then; but God keep me from thee, thou other shape of far profounder gloom! I shudder at thee! The face!--the face!--forth again from thy high secrecies, oh, tree! the face steals down upon me. Mysterious girl! who art thou? by what right snatchest thou thus my deepest thoughts? Take thy thin fingers from me;--I am affianced, and not to thee. Leave me!--what share hast thou in me? Surely, thou lovest not me?--that were most miserable for thee, and me, and Lucy. It can not be. What, _who_ art thou? Oh! wretched vagueness--too familiar to me, yet inexplicable,--unknown, utterly unknown! I seem to founder in this perplexity. Thou seemest to know somewhat of me, that I know not of myself,--what is it then? If thou hast a secret in thy eyes of mournful mystery, out with it; Pierre demands it; what is that thou hast veiled in thee so imperfectly, that I seem to see its motion, but not its form? It visibly rustles behind the concealing screen. Now, never into the soul of Pierre, stole there before, a muffledness like this! If aught really lurks in it, ye sovereign powers that claim all my leal worshipings, I conjure ye to lift the veil; I must see it face to face. Tread I on a mine, warn me; advance I on a precipice, hold me back; but abandon me to an unknown misery, that it shall suddenly seize me, and possess me, wholly,--that ye will never do; else, Pierre's fond faith in ye--now clean, untouched--may clean depart; and give me up to be a railing atheist! Ah, now the face departs. Pray heaven it hath not only stolen back, and hidden again in thy high secrecies, oh tree! But 'tis gone--gone--entirely gone; and I thank God, and I feel joy again; joy, which I also feel to be my right as man; deprived of joy, I feel I should find cause for deadly feuds with things invisible. Ha! a coat of iron-mail seems to grow round, and husk me now; and I have heard, that the bitterest winters are foretold by a thicker husk upon the Indian corn; so our old farmers say. But 'tis a dark similitude. Quit thy analogies; sweet in the orator's mouth, bitter in the thinker's belly. Now, then, I'll up with my own joyful will; and with my joy's face scare away all phantoms:--so, they go; and Pierre is Joy's, and Life's again. Thou pine-tree!--henceforth I will resist thy too treacherous persuasiveness. Thou'lt not so often woo me to thy airy tent, to ponder on the gloomy rooted stakes that bind it. Hence now I go; and peace be with thee, pine! That blessed sereneness which lurks ever at the heart of sadness--mere sadness--and remains when all the rest has gone;--that sweet feeling is now mine, and cheaply mine. I am not sorry I was sad, I feel so blessed now. Dearest Lucy!--well, well;--'twill be a pretty time we'll have this evening; there's the book of Flemish prints--that first we must look over; then, second, is Flaxman's Homer--clear-cut outlines, yet full of unadorned barbaric nobleness. Then Flaxman's Dante;--Dante! Night's and Hell's poet he. No, we will not open Dante. Methinks now the face--the face--minds me a little of pensive, sweet Francesca's face--or, rather, as it had been Francesca's daughter's face--wafted on the sad dark wind, toward observant Virgil and the blistered Florentine. No, we will not open Flaxman's Dante. Francesca's mournful face is now ideal to me. Flaxman might evoke it wholly,--make it present in lines of misery--bewitching power. No! I will not open Flaxman's Dante! Damned be the hour I read in Dante! more damned than that wherein Paolo and Francesca read in fatal Launcelot!" BOOK III. THE PRESENTIMENT AND THE VERIFICATION. I. The face, of which Pierre and Lucy so strangely and fearfully hinted, was not of enchanted air; but its mortal lineaments of mournfulness had been visibly beheld by Pierre. Nor had it accosted him in any privacy; or in any lonely byeway; or beneath the white light of the crescent moon; but in a joyous chamber, bright with candles, and ringing with two score women's gayest voices. Out of the heart of mirthfulness, this shadow had come forth to him. Encircled by bandelets of light, it had still beamed upon him; vaguely historic and prophetic; backward, hinting of some irrevocable sin; forward, pointing to some inevitable ill. One of those faces, which now and then appear to man, and without one word of speech, still reveal glimpses of some fearful gospel. In natural guise, but lit by supernatural light; palpable to the senses, but inscrutable to the soul; in their perfectest impression on us, ever hovering between Tartarean misery and Paradisaic beauty; such faces, compounded so of hell and heaven, overthrow in us all foregone persuasions, and make us wondering children in this world again. The face had accosted Pierre some weeks previous to his ride with Lucy to the hills beyond Saddle Meadows; and before her arrival for the summer at the village; moreover it had accosted him in a very common and homely scene; but this enhanced the wonder. On some distant business, with a farmer-tenant, he had been absent from the mansion during the best part of the day, and had but just come home, early of a pleasant moonlight evening, when Dates delivered a message to him from his mother, begging him to come for her about half-past seven that night to Miss Llanyllyn's cottage, in order to accompany her thence to that of the two Miss Pennies. At the mention of that last name, Pierre well knew what he must anticipate. Those elderly and truly pious spinsters, gifted with the most benevolent hearts in the world, and at mid-age deprived by envious nature of their hearing, seemed to have made it a maxim of their charitable lives, that since God had not given them any more the power to hear Christ's gospel preached, they would therefore thenceforth do what they could toward practicing it. Wherefore, as a matter of no possible interest to them now, they abstained from church; and while with prayer-books in their hands the Rev. Mr. Falsgrave's congregation were engaged in worshiping their God, according to the divine behest; the two Miss Pennies, with thread and needle, were hard at work in serving him; making up shirts and gowns for the poor people of the parish. Pierre had heard that they had recently been at the trouble of organizing a regular society, among the neighboring farmers' wives and daughters, to meet twice a month at their own house (the Miss Pennies) for the purpose of sewing in concert for the benefit of various settlements of necessitous emigrants, who had lately pitched their populous shanties further up the river. But though this enterprise had not been started without previously acquainting Mrs. Glendinning of it,--for indeed she was much loved and honored by the pious spinsters,--and their promise of solid assistance from that gracious manorial lady; yet Pierre had not heard that his mother had been officially invited to preside, or be at all present at the semi-monthly meetings; though he supposed, that far from having any scruples against so doing, she would be very glad to associate that way, with the good people of the village. "Now, brother Pierre"--said Mrs. Glendinning, rising from Miss Llanyllyn's huge cushioned chair--"throw my shawl around me; and good-evening to Lucy's aunt.--There, we shall be late." As they walked along, she added--"Now, Pierre, I know you are apt to be a little impatient sometimes, of these sewing scenes; but courage; I merely want to peep in on them; so as to get some inkling of what they would indeed be at; and then my promised benefactions can be better selected by me. Besides, Pierre, I could have had Dates escort me, but I preferred you; because I want you to know who they are you live among; how many really pretty, and naturally-refined dames and girls you shall one day be lord of the manor of. I anticipate a rare display of rural red and white." Cheered by such pleasant promises, Pierre soon found himself leading his mother into a room full of faces. The instant they appeared, a gratuitous old body, seated with her knitting near the door, squeaked out shrilly--"Ah! dames, dames,--Madam Glendinning!--Master Pierre Glendinning!" Almost immediately following this sound, there came a sudden, long-drawn, unearthly, girlish shriek, from the further corner of the long, double room. Never had human voice so affected Pierre before. Though he saw not the person from whom it came, and though the voice was wholly strange to him, yet the sudden shriek seemed to split its way clean through his heart, and leave a yawning gap there. For an instant, he stood bewildered; but started at his mother's voice; her arm being still in his. "Why do you clutch my arm so, Pierre? You pain me. Pshaw! some one has fainted,--nothing more." Instantly Pierre recovered himself, and affecting to mock at his own trepidation, hurried across the room to offer his services, if such were needed. But dames and maidens had been all beforehand with him; the lights were wildly flickering in the air-current made by the flinging open of the casement, near to where the shriek had come. But the climax of the tumult was soon past; and presently, upon closing the casement, it subsided almost wholly. The elder of the spinster Pennies, advancing to Mrs. Glendinning, now gave her to understand, that one of the further crowd of industrious girls present, had been attacked by a sudden, but fleeting fit, vaguely imputable to some constitutional disorder or other. She was now quite well again. And so the company, one and all, seemingly acting upon their natural good-breeding, which in any one at bottom, is but delicacy and charity, refrained from all further curiosity; reminded not the girl of what had passed; noted her scarce at all; and all needles stitched away as before. Leaving his mother to speak with whom she pleased, and attend alone to her own affairs with the society; Pierre, oblivious now in such a lively crowd, of any past unpleasantness, after some courtly words to the Miss Pennies,--insinuated into their understandings through a long coiled trumpet, which, when not in use, the spinsters wore, hanging like a powder-horn from their girdles:--and likewise, after manifesting the profoundest and most intelligent interest in the mystic mechanism of a huge woolen sock, in course of completion by a spectacled old lady of his more particular acquaintance; after all this had been gone through, and something more too tedious to detail, but which occupied him for nearly half an hour, Pierre, with a slightly blushing, and imperfectly balanced assurance, advanced toward the further crowd of maidens; where, by the light of many a well-snuffed candle, they clubbed all their bright contrasting cheeks, like a dense bed of garden tulips. There were the shy and pretty Maries, Marthas, Susans, Betties, Jennies, Nellies; and forty more fair nymphs, who skimmed the cream, and made the butter of the fat farms of Saddle Meadows. Assurance is in presence of the assured. Where embarrassments prevail, they affect the most disembarrassed. What wonder, then, that gazing on such a thick array of wreathing, roguish, half-averted, blushing faces--still audacious in their very embarrassment--Pierre, too, should flush a bit, and stammer in his attitudes a little? Youthful love and graciousness were in his heart; kindest words upon his tongue; but there he stood, target for the transfixing glances of those ambushed archers of the eye. But his abashments last too long; his cheek hath changed from blush to pallor; what strange thing does Pierre Glendinning see? Behind the first close, busy breast-work of young girls, are several very little stands, or circular tables, where sit small groups of twos and threes, sewing in small comparative solitudes, as it were. They would seem to be the less notable of the rural company; or else, for some cause, they have voluntarily retired into their humble banishment. Upon one of these persons engaged at the furthermost and least conspicuous of these little stands, and close by a casement, Pierre's glance is palely fixed. The girl sits steadily sewing; neither she nor her two companions speak. Her eyes are mostly upon her work; but now and then a very close observer would notice that she furtively lifts them, and moves them sideways and timidly toward Pierre; and then, still more furtively and timidly toward his lady mother, further off. All the while, her preternatural calmness sometimes seems only made to cover the intensest struggle in her bosom. Her unadorned and modest dress is black; fitting close up to her neck, and clasping it with a plain, velvet border. To a nice perception, that velvet shows elastically; contracting and expanding, as though some choked, violent thing were risen up there within from the teeming region of her heart. But her dark, olive cheek is without a blush, or sign of any disquietude. So far as this girl lies upon the common surface, ineffable composure steeps her. But still, she sideways steals the furtive, timid glance. Anon, as yielding to the irresistible climax of her concealed emotion, whatever that may be, she lifts her whole marvelous countenance into the radiant candlelight, and for one swift instant, that face of supernaturalness unreservedly meets Pierre's. Now, wonderful loveliness, and a still more wonderful loneliness, have with inexplicable implorings, looked up to him from that henceforth immemorial face. There, too, he seemed to see the fair ground where Anguish had contended with Beauty, and neither being conqueror, both had laid down on the field. Recovering at length from his all too obvious emotion, Pierre turned away still farther, to regain the conscious possession of himself. A wild, bewildering, and incomprehensible curiosity had seized him, to know something definite of that face. To this curiosity, at the moment, he entirely surrendered himself; unable as he was to combat it, or reason with it in the slightest way. So soon as he felt his outward composure returned to him, he purposed to chat his way behind the breastwork of bright eyes and cheeks, and on some parlor pretense or other, hear, if possible, an audible syllable from one whose mere silent aspect had so potentially moved him. But at length, as with this object in mind, he was crossing the room again, he heard his mother's voice, gayly calling him away; and turning, saw her shawled and bonneted. He could now make no plausible stay, and smothering the agitation in him, he bowed a general and hurried adieu to the company, and went forth with his mother. They had gone some way homeward, in perfect silence, when his mother spoke. "Well, Pierre, what can it possibly be!" "My God, mother, did you see her then!" "My son!" cried Mrs. Glendinning, instantly stopping in terror, and withdrawing her arm from Pierre, "what--what under heaven ails you? This is most strange! I but playfully asked, what you were so steadfastly thinking of; and here you answer me by the strangest question, in a voice that seems to come from under your great-grandfather's tomb! What, in heaven's name, does this mean, Pierre? Why were you so silent, and why now are you so ill-timed in speaking! Answer me;--explain all this;--_she_--_she_--what _she_ should you be thinking of but Lucy Tartan?--Pierre, beware, beware! I had thought you firmer in your lady's faith, than such strange behavior as this would seem to hint. Answer me, Pierre, what may this mean? Come, I hate a mystery; speak, my son." Fortunately, this prolonged verbalized wonder in his mother afforded Pierre time to rally from his double and aggravated astonishment, brought about by first suspecting that his mother also had been struck by the strange aspect of the face, and then, having that suspicion so violently beaten back upon him, by her apparently unaffected alarm at finding him in some region of thought wholly unshared by herself at the time. "It is nothing--nothing, sister Mary; just nothing at all in the world. I believe I was dreaming--sleep-walking, or something of that sort. They were vastly pretty girls there this evening, sister Mary, were they not? Come, let us walk on--do, sister mine." "Pierre, Pierre!--but I will take your arm again;--and have you really nothing more to say? were you really wandering, Pierre?" "I swear to you, my dearest mother, that never before in my whole existence, have I so completely gone wandering in my soul, as at that very moment. But it is all over now." Then in a less earnest and somewhat playful tone, he added: "And sister mine, if you know aught of the physical and sanitary authors, you must be aware, that the only treatment for such a case of harmless temporary aberration, is for all persons to ignore it in the subject. So no more of this foolishness. Talking about it only makes me feel very unpleasantly silly, and there is no knowing that it may not bring it back upon me." "Then by all means, my dear boy, not another word about it. But it's passing strange--very, very strange indeed. Well, about that morning business; how fared you? Tell me about it." II. So Pierre, gladly plunging into this welcome current of talk, was enabled to attend his mother home without furnishing further cause for her concern or wonderment. But not by any means so readily could he allay his own concern and wonderment. Too really true in itself, however evasive in its effect at the time, was that earnest answer to his mother, declaring that never in his whole existence had he been so profoundly stirred. The face haunted him as some imploring, and beauteous, impassioned, ideal Madonna's haunts the morbidly longing and enthusiastic, but ever-baffled artist. And ever, as the mystic face thus rose before his fancy's sight, another sense was touched in him; the long-drawn, unearthly, girlish shriek pealed through and through his soul; for now he knew the shriek came from the face--such Delphic shriek could only come from such a source. And wherefore that shriek? thought Pierre. Bodes it ill to the face, or me, or both? How am I changed, that my appearance on any scene should have power to work such woe? But it was mostly the face--the face, that wrought upon him. The shriek seemed as incidentally embodied there. The emotions he experienced seemed to have taken hold of the deepest roots and subtlest fibres of his being. And so much the more that it was so subterranean in him, so much the more did he feel its weird inscrutableness. What was one unknown, sad-eyed, shrieking girl to him? There must be sad-eyed girls somewhere in the world, and this was only one of them. And what was the most beautiful sad-eyed girl to him? Sadness might be beautiful, as well as mirth--he lost himself trying to follow out this tangle. "I will no more of this infatuation," he would cry; but forth from regions of irradiated air, the divine beauty and imploring sufferings of the face, stole into his view. Hitherto I have ever held but lightly, thought Pierre, all stories of ghostly mysticalness in man; my creed of this world leads me to believe in visible, beautiful flesh, and audible breath, however sweet and scented; but only in visible flesh, and audible breath, have I hitherto believed. But now!--now!--and again he would lose himself in the most surprising and preternatural ponderings, which baffled all the introspective cunning of his mind. Himself was too much for himself. He felt that what he had always before considered the solid land of veritable reality, was now being audaciously encroached upon by bannered armies of hooded phantoms, disembarking in his soul, as from flotillas of specter-boats. The terrors of the face were not those of Gorgon; not by repelling hideousness did it smite him so; but bewilderingly allured him, by its nameless beauty, and its long-suffering, hopeless anguish. But he was sensible that this general effect upon him, was also special; the face somehow mystically appealing to his own private and individual affections; and by a silent and tyrannic call, challenging him in his deepest moral being, and summoning Truth, Love, Pity, Conscience, to the stand. Apex of all wonders! thought Pierre; this indeed almost unmans me with its wonderfulness. Escape the face he could not. Muffling his own in his bed-clothes--that did not hide it. Flying from it by sunlight down the meadows, was as vain. Most miraculous of all to Pierre was the vague impression, that somewhere he had seen traits of the likeness of that face before. But where, he could not say; nor could he, in the remotest degree, imagine. He was not unaware--for in one or two instances, he had experienced the fact--that sometimes a man may see a passing countenance in the street, which shall irresistibly and magnetically affect him, for a moment, as wholly unknown to him, and yet strangely reminiscent of some vague face he has previously encountered, in some fancied time, too, of extreme interest to his life. But not so was it now with Pierre. The face had not perplexed him for a few speculative minutes, and then glided from him, to return no more. It stayed close by him; only--and not invariably--could he repel it, by the exertion of all his resolution and self-will. Besides, what of general enchantment lurked in his strange sensations, seemed concentringly condensed, and pointed to a spear-head, that pierced his heart with an inexplicable pang, whenever the specializing emotion--to call it so--seized the possession of his thoughts, and waved into his visions, a thousand forms of by-gone times, and many an old legendary family scene, which he had heard related by his elderly relations, some of them now dead. Disguising his wild reveries as best he might from the notice of his mother, and all other persons of her household, for two days Pierre wrestled with his own haunted spirit; and at last, so effectually purged it of all weirdnesses, and so effectually regained the general mastery of himself, that for a time, life went with him, as though he had never been stirred so strangely. Once more, the sweet unconditional thought of Lucy slid wholly into his soul, dislodging thence all such phantom occupants. Once more he rode, he walked, he swam, he vaulted; and with new zest threw himself into the glowing practice of all those manly exercises, he so dearly loved. It almost seemed in him, that ere promising forever to protect, as well as eternally to love, his Lucy, he must first completely invigorate and embrawn himself into the possession of such a noble muscular manliness, that he might champion Lucy against the whole physical world. Still--even before the occasional reappearance of the face to him--Pierre, for all his willful ardor in his gymnasticals and other diversions, whether in-doors or out, or whether by book or foil; still, Pierre could not but be secretly annoyed, and not a little perplexed, as to the motive, which, for the first time in his recollection, had impelled him, not merely to conceal from his mother a singular circumstance in his life (for that, he felt would have been but venial; and besides, as will eventually be seen, he could find one particular precedent for it, in his past experience) but likewise, and superaddedly, to parry, nay, to evade, and, in effect, to return something alarmingly like a fib, to an explicit question put to him by his mother;--such being the guise, in which part of the conversation they had had that eventful night, now appeared to his fastidious sense. He considered also, that his evasive answer had not pantheistically burst from him in a momentary interregnum of self-command. No; his mother had made quite a lengthy speech to him; during which he well remembered, he had been carefully, though with trepidation, turning over in his mind, how best he might recall her from her unwished-for and untimely scent. Why had this been so? Was this his wont? What inscrutable thing was it, that so suddenly had seized him, and made him a falsifyer--ay, a falsifyer and nothing less--to his own dearly-beloved, and confiding mother? Here, indeed, was something strange for him; here was stuff for his utmost ethical meditations. But, nevertheless, on strict introspection, he felt, that he would not willingly have it otherwise; not willingly would he now undissemble himself in this matter to his mother. Why was this, too? Was this his wont? Here, again, was food for mysticism. Here, in imperfect inklings, tinglings, presentiments, Pierre began to feel--what all mature men, who are Magians, sooner or later know, and more or less assuredly--that not always in our actions, are we our own factors. But this conceit was very dim in Pierre; and dimness is ever suspicious and repugnant to us; and so, Pierre shrank abhorringly from the infernal catacombs of thought, down into which, this foetal fancy beckoned him. Only this, though in secret, did he cherish; only this, he felt persuaded of; namely, that not for both worlds would he have his mother made a partner to his sometime mystic mood. But with this nameless fascination of the face upon him, during those two days that it had first and fully possessed him for its own, did perplexed Pierre refrain from that apparently most natural of all resources,--boldly seeking out, and returning to the palpable cause, and questioning her, by look or voice, or both together--the mysterious girl herself? No; not entirely did Pierre here refrain. But his profound curiosity and interest in the matter--strange as it may seem--did not so much appear to be embodied in the mournful person of the olive girl, as by some radiations from her, embodied in the vague conceits which agitated his own soul. _There_, lurked the subtler secret: _that_, Pierre had striven to tear away. From without, no wonderful effect is wrought within ourselves, unless some interior, responding wonder meets it. That the starry vault shall surcharge the heart with all rapturous marvelings, is only because we ourselves are greater miracles, and superber trophies than all the stars in universal space. Wonder interlocks with wonder; and then the confounding feeling comes. No cause have we to fancy, that a horse, a dog, a fowl, ever stand transfixed beneath yon skyey load of majesty. But our soul's arches underfit into its; and so, prevent the upper arch from falling on us with unsustainable inscrutableness. "Explain ye my deeper mystery," said the shepherd Chaldean king, smiting his breast, lying on his back upon the plain; "and then, I will bestow all my wonderings upon ye, ye stately stars!" So, in some sort, with Pierre. Explain thou this strange integral feeling in me myself, he thought--turning upon the fancied face--and I will then renounce all other wonders, to gaze wonderingly at thee. But thou hast evoked in me profounder spells than the evoking one, thou face! For me, thou hast uncovered one infinite, dumb, beseeching countenance of mystery, underlying all the surfaces of visible time and space. But during those two days of his first wild vassalage to his original sensations, Pierre had not been unvisited by less mysterious impulses. Two or three very plain and practical plannings of desirable procedures in reference to some possible homely explication of all this nonsense--so he would momentarily denominate it--now and then flittingly intermitted his pervading mood of semi-madness. Once he had seized his hat, careless of his accustomed gloves and cane, and found himself in the street, walking very rapidly in the direction of the Miss Pennies'. But whither now? he disenchantingly interrogated himself. Where would you go? A million to one, those deaf old spinsters can tell you nothing you burn to know. Deaf old spinsters are not used to be the depositaries of such mystical secrecies. But then, they may reveal her name--where she dwells, and something, however fragmentary and unsatisfactory, of who she is, and whence. Ay; but then, in ten minutes after your leaving them, all the houses in Saddle Meadows would be humming with the gossip of Pierre Glendinning engaged to marry Lucy Tartan, and yet running about the country, in ambiguous pursuit of strange young women. That will never do. You remember, do you not, often seeing the Miss Pennies, hatless and without a shawl, hurrying through the village, like two postmen intent on dropping some tit-bit of precious gossip? What a morsel for them, Pierre, have you, if you now call upon them. Verily, their trumpets are both for use and for significance. Though very deaf, the Miss Pennies are by no means dumb. They blazon very wide. "Now be sure, and say that it was the Miss Pennies, who left the news--be sure--we--the Miss Pennies--remember--say to Mrs. Glendinning it was we." Such was the message that now half-humorously occurred to Pierre, as having been once confided to him by the sister spinsters, one evening when they called with a choice present of some very _recherche_ chit-chat for his mother; but found the manorial lady out; and so charged her son with it; hurrying away to all the inferior houses, so as not to be anywhere forestalled in their disclosure. Now, I wish it had been any other house than the Miss Pennies; any other house but theirs, and on my soul I believe I should have gone. But not to them--no, that I can not do. It would be sure to reach my mother, and then she would put this and that together--stir a little--let it simmer--and farewell forever to all her majestic notions of my immaculate integrity. Patience, Pierre, the population of this region is not so immense. No dense mobs of Nineveh confound all personal identities in Saddle Meadows. Patience; thou shalt see it soon again; catch it passing thee in some green lane, sacred to thy evening reveries. She that bears it can not dwell remote. Patience, Pierre. Ever are such mysteries best and soonest unraveled by the eventual unraveling of themselves. Or, if you will, go back and get your gloves, and more especially your cane, and begin your own secret voyage of discovery after it. Your cane, I say; because it will probably be a very long and weary walk. True, just now I hinted, that she that bears it can not dwell very remote; but then her nearness may not be at all conspicuous. So, homeward, and put off thy hat, and let thy cane stay still, good Pierre. Seek not to mystify the mystery so. Thus, intermittingly, ever and anon during those sad two days of deepest sufferance, Pierre would stand reasoning and expostulating with himself; and by such meditative treatment, reassure his own spontaneous impulses. Doubtless, it was wise and right that so he did; doubtless: but in a world so full of all dubieties as this, one can never be entirely certain whether another person, however carefully and cautiously conscientious, has acted in all respects conceivable for the very best. But when the two days were gone by, and Pierre began to recognize his former self as restored to him from its mystic exile, then the thoughts of personally and pointedly seeking out the unknown, either preliminarily by a call upon the sister spinsters, or generally by performing the observant lynx-eyed circuit of the country on foot, and as a crafty inquisitor, dissembling his cause of inquisition; these and all similar intentions completely abandoned Pierre. He was now diligently striving, with all his mental might, forever to drive the phantom from him. He seemed to feel that it begat in him a certain condition of his being, which was most painful, and every way uncongenial to his natural, wonted self. It had a touch of he knew not what sort of unhealthiness in it, so to speak; for, in his then ignorance, he could find no better term; it seemed to have in it a germ of somewhat which, if not quickly extirpated, might insidiously poison and embitter his whole life--that choice, delicious life which he had vowed to Lucy for his one pure and comprehensive offering--at once a sacrifice and a delight. Nor in these endeavorings did he entirely fail. For the most part, he felt now that he had a power over the comings and the goings of the face; but not on all occasions. Sometimes the old, original mystic tyranny would steal upon him; the long, dark, locks of mournful hair would fall upon his soul, and trail their wonderful melancholy along with them; the two full, steady, over-brimming eyes of loveliness and anguish would converge their magic rays, till he felt them kindling he could not tell what mysterious fires in the heart at which they aimed. When once this feeling had him fully, then was the perilous time for Pierre. For supernatural as the feeling was, and appealing to all things ultramontane to his soul; yet was it a delicious sadness to him. Some hazy fairy swam above him in the heavenly ether, and showered down upon him the sweetest pearls of pensiveness. Then he would be seized with a singular impulse to reveal the secret to some one other individual in the world. Only one, not more; he could not hold all this strange fullness in himself. It must be shared. In such an hour it was, that chancing to encounter Lucy (her, whom above all others, he did confidingly adore), she heard the story of the face; nor slept at all that night; nor for a long time freed her pillow completely from wild, Beethoven sounds of distant, waltzing melodies, as of ambiguous fairies dancing on the heath. III. This history goes forward and goes backward, as occasion calls. Nimble center, circumference elastic you must have. Now we return to Pierre, wending homeward from his reveries beneath the pine-tree. His burst of impatience against the sublime Italian, Dante, arising from that poet being the one who, in a former time, had first opened to his shuddering eyes the infinite cliffs and gulfs of human mystery and misery;--though still more in the way of experimental vision, than of sensational presentiment or experience (for as yet he had not seen so far and deep as Dante, and therefore was entirely incompetent to meet the grim bard fairly on his peculiar ground), this ignorant burst of his young impatience,--also arising from that half contemptuous dislike, and sometimes selfish loathing, with which, either naturally feeble or undeveloped minds, regard those dark ravings of the loftier poets, which are in eternal opposition to their own fine-spun, shallow dreams of rapturous or prudential Youth;--this rash, untutored burst of Pierre's young impatience, seemed to have carried off with it, all the other forms of his melancholy--if melancholy it had been--and left him now serene again, and ready for any tranquil pleasantness the gods might have in store. For his, indeed, was true Youth's temperament,--summary with sadness, swift to joyfulness, and long protracting, and detaining with that joyfulness, when once it came fully nigh to him. As he entered the dining-hall, he saw Dates retiring from another door with his tray. Alone and meditative, by the bared half of the polished table, sat his mother at her dessert; fruit-baskets, and a decanter were before her. On the other leaf of the same table, still lay the cloth, folded back upon itself, and set out with one plate and its usual accompaniments. "Sit down, Pierre; when I came home, I was surprised to hear that the phaeton had returned so early, and here I waited dinner for you, until I could wait no more. But go to the green pantry now, and get what Dates has but just put away for you there. Heigh-ho! too plainly I foresee it--no more regular dinner-hours, or tea-hours, or supper-hours, in Saddle Meadows, till its young lord is wedded. And that puts me in mind of something, Pierre; but I'll defer it till you have eaten a little. Do you know, Pierre, that if you continue these irregular meals of yours, and deprive me so entirely almost of your company, that I shall run fearful risk of getting to be a terrible wine-bibber;--yes, could you unalarmed see me sitting all alone here with this decanter, like any old nurse, Pierre; some solitary, forlorn old nurse, Pierre, deserted by her last friend, and therefore forced to embrace her flask?" "No, I did not feel any great alarm, sister," said Pierre, smiling, "since I could not but perceive that the decanter was still full to the stopple." "Possibly it may be only a fresh decanter, Pierre;" then changing her voice suddenly--"but mark me, Mr. Pierre Glendinning!" "Well, Mrs. Mary Glendinning!" "Do you know, sir, that you are very shortly to be married,--that indeed the day is all but fixed?" "How-!" cried Pierre, in real joyful astonishment, both at the nature of the tidings, and the earnest tones in which they were conveyed--"dear, dear mother, you have strangely changed your mind then, my dear mother." "It is even so, dear brother;--before this day month I hope to have a little sister Tartan." "You talk very strangely, mother," rejoined Pierre, quickly. "I suppose, then, I have next to nothing to say in the matter!" "Next to nothing, Pierre! What indeed could you say to the purpose? what at all have you to do with it, I should like to know? Do you so much as dream, you silly boy, that men ever have the marrying of themselves? Juxtaposition marries men. There is but one match-maker in the world, Pierre, and that is Mrs. Juxtaposition, a most notorious lady!" "Very peculiar, disenchanting sort of talk, this, under the circumstances, sister Mary," laying down his fork. "Mrs. Juxtaposition, ah! And in your opinion, mother, does this fine glorious passion only amount to that?" "Only to that, Pierre; but mark you: according to my creed--though this part of it is a little hazy--Mrs. Juxtaposition moves her pawns only as she herself is moved to so doing by the spirit." "Ah! that sets it all right again," said Pierre, resuming his fork--"my appetite returns. But what was that about my being married so soon?" he added, vainly striving to assume an air of incredulity and unconcern; "you were joking, I suppose; it seems to me, sister, either you or I was but just now wandering in the mind a little, on that subject. Are you really thinking of any such thing? and have you really vanquished your sagacious scruples by yourself, after I had so long and ineffectually sought to do it for you? Well, I am a million times delighted; tell me quick!" "I will, Pierre. You very well know, that from the first hour you apprised me--or rather, from a period prior to that--from the moment that I, by my own insight, became aware of your love for Lucy, I have always approved it. Lucy is a delicious girl; of honorable descent, a fortune, well-bred, and the very pattern of all that I think amiable and attractive in a girl of seventeen." "Well, well, well," cried Pierre rapidly and impetuously; "we both knew that before." "Well, well, well, Pierre," retorted his mother, mockingly. "It is not well, well, well; but ill, ill, ill, to torture me so, mother; go on, do!" "But notwithstanding my admiring approval of your choice, Pierre; yet, as you know, I have resisted your entreaties for my consent to your speedy marriage, because I thought that a girl of scarcely seventeen, and a boy scarcely twenty, should not be in such a hurry;--there was plenty of time, I thought, which could be profitably employed by both." "Permit me here to interrupt you, mother. Whatever you may have seen in me; she,--I mean Lucy,--has never been in the slightest hurry to be married;--that's all. But I shall regard it as a _lapsus-lingua_ in you." "Undoubtedly, a _lapsus_. But listen to me. I have been carefully observing both you and Lucy of late; and that has made me think further of the matter. Now, Pierre, if you were in any profession, or in any business at all; nay, if I were a farmer's wife, and you my child, working in my fields; why, then, you and Lucy should still wait awhile. But as you have nothing to do but to think of Lucy by day, and dream of her by night, and as she is in the same predicament, I suppose; with respect to you; and as the consequence of all this begins to be discernible in a certain, just perceptible, and quite harmless thinness, so to speak, of the cheek; but a very conspicuous and dangerous febrileness of the eye; therefore, I choose the lesser of two evils; and now you have my permission to be married, as soon as the thing can be done with propriety. I dare say you have no objection to have the wedding take place before Christmas, the present month being the first of summer." Pierre said nothing; but leaping to his feet, threw his two arms around his mother, and kissed her repeatedly. "A most sweet and eloquent answer, Pierre; but sit down again. I desire now to say a little concerning less attractive, but quite necessary things connected with this affair. You know, that by your father's will, these lands and--" "Miss Lucy, my mistress;" said Dates, throwing open the door. Pierre sprang to his feet; but as if suddenly mindful of his mother's presence, composed himself again, though he still approached the door. Lucy entered, carrying a little basket of strawberries. "Why, how do you do, my dear," said Mrs. Glendinning affectionately. "This is an unexpected pleasure." "Yes; and I suppose that Pierre here is a little surprised too; seeing that he was to call upon me this evening, and not I upon him before sundown. But I took a sudden fancy for a solitary stroll,--the afternoon was such a delicious one; and chancing--it was only chancing--to pass through the Locust Lane leading hither, I met the strangest little fellow, with this basket in his hand.--'Yes, buy them, miss'--said he. 'And how do you know I want to buy them,' returned I, 'I don't want to buy them.'--'Yes you do, miss; they ought to be twenty-six cents, but I'll take thirteen cents, that being my shilling. I always want the odd half cent, I do. Come, I can't wait, I have been expecting you long enough.'" "A very sagacious little imp," laughed Mrs. Glendinning. "Impertinent little rascal," cried Pierre. "And am I not now the silliest of all silly girls, to be telling you my adventures so very frankly," smiled Lucy. "No; but the most celestial of all innocents," cried Pierre, in a rhapsody of delight. "Frankly open is the flower, that hath nothing but purity to show." "Now, my dear little Lucy," said Mrs. Glendinning, "let Pierre take off your shawl, and come now and stay to tea with us. Pierre has put back the dinner so, the tea-hour will come now very soon." "Thank you; but I can not stay this time. Look, I have forgotten my own errand; I brought these strawberries for you, Mrs. Glendinning, and for Pierre;--Pierre is so wonderfully fond of them." "I was audacious enough to think as much," cried Pierre, "for you _and_ me, you see, mother; for you _and_ me, you understand that, I hope." "Perfectly, my dear brother." Lucy blushed. "How warm it is, Mrs. Glendinning." "Very warm, Lucy. So you won't stay to tea?" "No, I must go now; just a little stroll, that's all; good-bye! Now don't be following me, Pierre. Mrs. Glendinning, will you keep Pierre back? I know you want him; you were talking over some private affair when I entered; you both looked so very confidential." "And you were not very far from right, Lucy," said Mrs. Glendinning, making no sign to stay her departure. "Yes, business of the highest importance," said Pierre, fixing his eyes upon Lucy significantly. At this moment, Lucy just upon the point of her departure, was hovering near the door; the setting sun, streaming through the window, bathed her whole form in golden loveliness and light; that wonderful, and most vivid transparency of her clear Welsh complexion, now fairly glowed like rosy snow. Her flowing, white, blue-ribboned dress, fleecily invested her. Pierre almost thought that she could only depart the house by floating out of the open window, instead of actually stepping from the door. All her aspect to him, was that moment touched with an indescribable gayety, buoyancy, fragility, and an unearthly evanescence. Youth is no philosopher. Not into young Pierre's heart did there then come the thought, that as the glory of the rose endures but for a day, so the full bloom of girlish airiness and bewitchingness, passes from the earth almost as soon; as jealously absorbed by those frugal elements, which again incorporate that translated girlish bloom, into the first expanding flower-bud. Not into young Pierre, did there then steal that thought of utmost sadness; pondering on the inevitable evanescence of all earthly loveliness; which makes the sweetest things of life only food for ever-devouring and omnivorous melancholy. Pierre's thought was different from this, and yet somehow akin to it. This to be my wife? I that but the other day weighed an hundred and fifty pounds of solid avoirdupois;--_I_ to wed this heavenly fleece? Methinks one husbandly embrace would break her airy zone, and she exhale upward to that heaven whence she hath hither come, condensed to mortal sight. It can not be; I am of heavy earth, and she of airy light. By heaven, but marriage is an impious thing! Meanwhile, as these things ran through his soul, Mrs. Glendinning also had thinkings of her own. "A very beautiful tableau," she cried, at last, artistically turning her gay head a little sideways--"very beautiful, indeed; this, I suppose is all premeditated for my entertainment. Orpheus finding his Eurydice; or Pluto stealing Proserpine. Admirable! It might almost stand for either." "No," said Pierre, gravely; "it is the last. Now, first I see a meaning there." Yes, he added to himself inwardly, I am Pluto stealing Proserpine; and every accepted lover is. "And you would be very stupid, brother Pierre, if you did not see something there," said his mother, still that way pursuing her own different train of thought. "The meaning thereof is this: Lucy has commanded me to stay you; but in reality she wants you to go along with her. Well, you may go as far as the porch; but then, you must return, for we have not concluded our little affair, you know. Adieu, little lady!" There was ever a slight degree of affectionate patronizing in the manner of the resplendent, full-blown Mrs. Glendinning, toward the delicate and shrinking girlhood of young Lucy. She treated her very much as she might have treated some surpassingly beautiful and precocious child; and this was precisely what Lucy was. Looking beyond the present period, Mrs. Glendinning could not but perceive, that even in Lucy's womanly maturity, Lucy would still be a child to her; because, she, elated, felt, that in a certain intellectual vigor, so to speak, she was the essential opposite of Lucy, whose sympathetic mind and person had both been cast in one mould of wondrous delicacy. But here Mrs. Glendinning was both right and wrong. So far as she here saw a difference between herself and Lucy Tartan, she did not err; but so far--and that was very far--as she thought she saw her innate superiority to her in the absolute scale of being, here she very widely and immeasurably erred. For what may be artistically styled angelicalness, this is the highest essence compatible with created being; and angelicalness hath no vulgar vigor in it. And that thing which very often prompts to the display of any vigor--which thing, in man or woman, is at bottom nothing but ambition--this quality is purely earthly, and not angelical. It is false, that any angels fell by reason of ambition. Angels never fall; and never feel ambition. Therefore, benevolently, and affectionately, and all-sincerely, as thy heart, oh, Mrs. Glendinning! now standest affected toward the fleecy Lucy; still, lady, thou dost very sadly mistake it, when the proud, double-arches of the bright breastplate of thy bosom, expand with secret triumph over one, whom thou so sweetly, but still so patronizingly stylest, The Little Lucy. But ignorant of these further insights, that very superb-looking lady, now waiting Pierre's return from the portico door, sat in a very matronly revery; her eyes fixed upon the decanter of amber-hued wine before her. Whether it was that she somehow saw some lurking analogical similitude between that remarkably slender, and gracefully cut little pint-decanter, brimfull of light, golden wine, or not, there is no absolute telling now. But really, the peculiarly, and reminiscently, and forecastingly complacent expression of her beaming and benevolent countenance, seemed a tell-tale of some conceit very much like the following:--Yes, she's a very pretty little pint-decanter of a girl: a very pretty little Pale Sherry pint-decanter of a girl; and I--I'm a quart decanter of--of--Port--potent Port! Now, Sherry for boys, and Port for men--so I've heard men say; and Pierre is but a boy; but when his father wedded me,--why, his father was turned of five-and-thirty years. After a little further waiting for him, Mrs. Glendinning heard Pierre's voice--"Yes, before eight o'clock at least, Lucy--no fear;" and then the hall door banged, and Pierre returned to her. But now she found that this unforeseen visit of Lucy had completely routed all business capacity in her mercurial son; fairly capsizing him again into, there was no telling what sea of pleasant pensiveness. "Dear me! some other time, sister Mary." "Not this time; that is very certain, Pierre. Upon my word I shall have to get Lucy kidnapped, and temporarily taken out of the country, and you handcuffed to the table, else there will be no having a preliminary understanding with you, previous to calling in the lawyers. Well, I shall yet manage you, one way or other. Good-bye, Pierre; I see you don't want me now. I suppose I shan't see you till to-morrow morning. Luckily, I have a very interesting book to read. Adieu!" But Pierre remained in his chair; his gaze fixed upon the stilly sunset beyond the meadows, and far away to the now golden hills. A glorious, softly glorious, and most gracious evening, which seemed plainly a tongue to all humanity, saying: I go down in beauty to rise in joy; Love reigns throughout all worlds that sunsets visit; it is a foolish ghost story; there is no such thing as misery. Would Love, which is omnipotent, have misery in his domain? Would the god of sunlight decree gloom? It is a flawless, speckless, fleckless, beautiful world throughout; joy now, and joy forever! Then the face, which before had seemed mournfully and reproachfully looking out upon him from the effulgent sunset's heart; the face slid from him; and left alone there with his soul's joy, thinking that that very night he would utter the magic word of marriage to his Lucy; not a happier youth than Pierre Glendinning sat watching that day's sun go down. IV. After this morning of gayety, this noon of tragedy, and this evening so full of chequered pensiveness; Pierre now possessed his soul in joyful mildness and steadfastness; feeling none of that wild anguish of anticipative rapture, which, in weaker minds, too often dislodges Love's sweet bird from her nest. The early night was warm, but dark--for the moon was not risen yet--and as Pierre passed on beneath the pendulous canopies of the long arms of the weeping elms of the village, an almost impenetrable blackness surrounded him, but entered not the gently illuminated halls of his heart. He had not gone very far, when in the distance beyond, he noticed a light moving along the opposite side of the road, and slowly approaching. As it was the custom for some of the more elderly, and perhaps timid inhabitants of the village, to carry a lantern when going abroad of so dark a night, this object conveyed no impression of novelty to Pierre; still, as it silently drew nearer and nearer, the one only distinguishable thing before him, he somehow felt a nameless presentiment that the light must be seeking him. He had nearly gained the cottage door, when the lantern crossed over toward him; and as his nimble hand was laid at last upon the little wicket-gate, which he thought was now to admit him to so much delight; a heavy hand was laid upon himself, and at the same moment, the lantern was lifted toward his face, by a hooded and obscure-looking figure, whose half-averted countenance he could but indistinctly discern. But Pierre's own open aspect, seemed to have been quickly scrutinized by the other. "I have a letter for Pierre Glendinning," said the stranger, "and I believe this is he." At the same moment, a letter was drawn forth, and sought his hand. "For me!" exclaimed Pierre, faintly, starting at the strangeness of the encounter;--"methinks this is an odd time and place to deliver your mail;--who are you?--Stay!" But without waiting an answer, the messenger had already turned about, and was re-crossing the road. In the first impulse of the moment, Pierre stept forward, and would have pursued him; but smiling at his own causeless curiosity and trepidation, paused again; and softly turned over the letter in his hand. What mysterious correspondent is this, thought he, circularly moving his thumb upon the seal; no one writes me but from abroad; and their letters come through the office; and as for Lucy--pooh!--when she herself is within, she would hardly have her notes delivered at her own gate. Strange! but I'll in, and read it;--no, not that;--I come to read again in her own sweet heart--that dear missive to me from heaven,--and this impertinent letter would pre-occupy me. I'll wait till I go home. He entered the gate, and laid his hand upon the cottage knocker. Its sudden coolness caused a slight, and, at any other time, an unaccountable sympathetic sensation in his hand. To his unwonted mood, the knocker seemed to say--"Enter not!--Begone, and first read thy note." Yielding now, half alarmed, and half bantering with himself, to these shadowy interior monitions, he half-unconsciously quitted the door; repassed the gate; and soon found himself retracing his homeward path. He equivocated with himself no more; the gloom of the air had now burst into his heart, and extinguished its light; then, first in all his life, Pierre felt the irresistible admonitions and intuitions of Fate. He entered the hall unnoticed, passed up to his chamber, and hurriedly locking the door in the dark, lit his lamp. As the summoned flame illuminated the room, Pierre, standing before the round center-table, where the lamp was placed, with his hand yet on the brass circle which regulated the wick, started at a figure in the opposite mirror. It bore the outline of Pierre, but now strangely filled with features transformed, and unfamiliar to him; feverish eagerness, fear, and nameless forebodings of ill! He threw himself into a chair, and for a time vainly struggled with the incomprehensible power that possessed him. Then, as he avertedly drew the letter from his bosom, he whispered to himself--Out on thee, Pierre! how sheepish now will ye feel when this tremendous note will turn out to be an invitation to a supper to-morrow night; quick, fool, and write the stereotyped reply: Mr. Pierre Glendinning will be very happy to accept Miss so and so's polite invitation. Still for the moment he held the letter averted. The messenger had so hurriedly accosted him, and delivered his duty, that Pierre had not yet so much as gained one glance at the superscription of the note. And now the wild thought passed through his mind of what would be the result, should he deliberately destroy the note, without so much as looking at the hand that had addressed it. Hardly had this half-crazy conceit fully made itself legible in his soul, when he was conscious of his two hands meeting in the middle of the sundered note! He leapt from his chair--By heaven! he murmured, unspeakably shocked at the intensity of that mood which had caused him unwittingly as it were, to do for the first time in his whole life, an act of which he was privately ashamed. Though the mood that was on him was none of his own willful seeking; yet now he swiftly felt conscious that he had perhaps a little encouraged it, through that certain strange infatuation of fondness, which the human mind, however vigorous, sometimes feels for any emotion at once novel and mystical. Not willingly, at such times--never mind how fearful we may be--do we try to dissolve the spell which seems, for the time, to admit us, all astonished, into the vague vestibule of the spiritual worlds. Pierre now seemed distinctly to feel two antagonistic agencies within him; one of which was just struggling into his consciousness, and each of which was striving for the mastery; and between whose respective final ascendencies, he thought he could perceive, though but shadowly, that he himself was to be the only umpire. One bade him finish the selfish destruction of the note; for in some dark way the reading of it would irretrievably entangle his fate. The other bade him dismiss all misgivings; not because there was no possible ground for them, but because to dismiss them was the manlier part, never mind what might betide. This good angel seemed mildly to say--Read, Pierre, though by reading thou may'st entangle thyself, yet may'st thou thereby disentangle others. Read, and feel that best blessedness which, with the sense of all duties discharged, holds happiness indifferent. The bad angel insinuatingly breathed--Read it not, dearest Pierre; but destroy it, and be happy. Then, at the blast of his noble heart, the bad angel shrunk up into nothingness; and the good one defined itself clearer and more clear, and came nigher and more nigh to him, smiling sadly but benignantly; while forth from the infinite distances wonderful harmonies stole into his heart; so that every vein in him pulsed to some heavenly swell. V. "The name at the end of this letter will be wholly strange to thee. Hitherto my existence has been utterly unknown to thee. This letter will touch thee and pain thee. Willingly would I spare thee, but I can not. My heart bears me witness, that did I think that the suffering these lines would give thee, would, in the faintest degree, compare with what mine has been, I would forever withhold them. "Pierre Glendinning, thou art not the only child of thy father; in the eye of the sun, the hand that traces this is thy sister's; yes, Pierre, Isabel calls thee her brother--her brother! oh, sweetest of words, which so often I have thought to myself, and almost deemed it profanity for an outcast like me to speak or think. Dearest Pierre, my brother, my own father's child! art thou an angel, that thou canst overleap all the heartless usages and fashions of a banded world, that will call thee fool, fool, fool! and curse thee, if thou yieldest to that heavenly impulse which alone can lead thee to respond to the long tyrannizing, and now at last unquenchable yearnings of my bursting heart? Oh, my brother! "But, Pierre Glendinning, I will be proud with thee. Let not my hapless condition extinguish in me, the nobleness which I equally inherit with thee. Thou shall not be cozened, by my tears and my anguish, into any thing which thy most sober hour will repent. Read no further. If it suit thee, burn this letter; so shalt thou escape the certainty of that knowledge, which, if thou art now cold and selfish, may hereafter, in some maturer, remorseful, and helpless hour, cause thee a poignant upbraiding. No, I shall not, I will not implore thee.--Oh, my brother, my dear, dear Pierre,--help me, fly to me; see, I perish without thee;--pity, pity,--here I freeze in the wide, wide world;--no father, no mother, no sister, no brother, no living thing in the fair form of humanity, that holds me dear. No more, oh no more, dear Pierre, can I endure to be an outcast in the world, for which the dear Savior died. Fly to me, Pierre;--nay, I could tear what I now write,--as I have torn so many other sheets, all written for thy eye, but which never reached thee, because in my distraction, I knew not how to write to thee, nor what to say to thee; and so, behold again how I rave. "Nothing more; I will write no more;--silence becomes this grave;--the heart-sickness steals over me, Pierre, my brother. "Scarce know I what I have written. Yet will I write thee the fatal line, and leave all the rest to thee, Pierre, my brother.--She that is called Isabel Banford dwells in the little red farm-house, three miles from the village, on the slope toward the lake. To-morrow night-fall--not before--not by day, not by day, Pierre. THY SISTER, ISABEL." VI. This letter, inscribed in a feminine, but irregular hand, and in some places almost illegible, plainly attesting the state of the mind which had dictated it;--stained, too, here and there, with spots of tears, which chemically acted upon by the ink, assumed a strange and reddish hue--as if blood and not tears had dropped upon the sheet;--and so completely torn in two by Pierre's own hand, that it indeed seemed the fit scroll of a torn, as well as bleeding heart;--this amazing letter, deprived Pierre for the time of all lucid and definite thought or feeling. He hung half-lifeless in his chair; his hand, clutching the letter, was pressed against his heart, as if some assassin had stabbed him and fled; and Pierre was now holding the dagger in the wound, to stanch the outgushing of the blood. Ay, Pierre, now indeed art thou hurt with a wound, never to be completely healed but in heaven; for thee, the before undistrusted moral beauty of the world is forever fled; for thee, thy sacred father is no more a saint; all brightness hath gone from thy hills, and all peace from thy plains; and now, now, for the first time, Pierre, Truth rolls a black billow through thy soul! Ah, miserable thou, to whom Truth, in her first tides, bears nothing but wrecks! The perceptible forms of things; the shapes of thoughts; the pulses of life, but slowly came back to Pierre. And as the mariner, shipwrecked and cast on the beach, has much ado to escape the recoil of the wave that hurled him there; so Pierre long struggled, and struggled, to escape the recoil of that anguish, which had dashed him out of itself, upon the beach of his swoon. But man was not made to succumb to the villain Woe. Youth is not young and a wrestler in vain. Pierre staggeringly rose to his feet; his wide eyes fixed, and his whole form in a tremble. "Myself am left, at least," he slowly and half-chokingly murmured. "With myself I front thee! Unhand me all fears, and unlock me all spells! Henceforth I will know nothing but Truth; glad Truth, or sad Truth; I will know what is, and do what my deepest angel dictates.--The letter!--Isabel,--sister,--brother,--me, _me_--my sacred father!--This is some accursed dream!--nay, but this paper thing is forged,--a base and malicious forgery, I swear;--Well didst thou hide thy face from me, thou vile lanterned messenger, that didst accost me on the threshold of Joy, with this lying warrant of Woe! Doth Truth come in the dark, and steal on us, and rob us so, and then depart, deaf to all pursuing invocations? If this night, which now wraps my soul, be genuine as that which now wraps this half of the world; then Fate, I have a choice quarrel with thee. Thou art a palterer and a cheat; thou hast lured me on through gay gardens to a gulf. Oh! falsely guided in the days of my Joy, am I now truly led in this night of my grief?--I will be a raver, and none shall stay me! I will lift my hand in fury, for am I not struck? I will be bitter in my breath, for is not this cup of gall? Thou Black Knight, that with visor down, thus confrontest me, and mockest at me; Lo! I strike through thy helm, and will see thy face, be it Gorgon!--Let me go, ye fond affections; all piety leave me;--I will be impious, for piety hath juggled me, and taught me to revere, where I should spurn. From all idols, I tear all veils; henceforth I will see the hidden things; and live right out in my own hidden life!--Now I feel that nothing but Truth can move me so. This letter is not a forgery. Oh! Isabel, thou art my sister; and I will love thee, and protect thee, ay, and own thee through all. Ah! forgive me, ye heavens, for my ignorant ravings, and accept this my vow.--Here I swear myself Isabel's. Oh! thou poor castaway girl, that in loneliness and anguish must have long breathed that same air, which I have only inhaled for delight; thou who must even now be weeping, and weeping, cast into an ocean of uncertainty as to thy fate, which heaven hath placed in my hands; sweet Isabel! would I not be baser than brass, and harder, and colder than ice, if I could be insensible to such claims as thine? Thou movest before me, in rainbows spun of thy tears! I see thee long weeping, and God demands me for thy comforter; and comfort thee, stand by thee, and fight for thee, will thy leapingly-acknowledging brother, whom thy own father named Pierre!" He could not stay in his chamber: the house contracted to a nut-shell around him; the walls smote his forehead; bare-headed he rushed from the place, and only in the infinite air, found scope for that boundless expansion of his life. BOOK IV. RETROSPECTIVE. I. In their precise tracings-out and subtile causations, the strongest and fieriest emotions of life defy all analytical insight. We see the cloud, and feel its bolt; but meteorology only idly essays a critical scrutiny as to how that cloud became charged, and how this bolt so stuns. The metaphysical writers confess, that the most impressive, sudden, and overwhelming event, as well as the minutest, is but the product of an infinite series of infinitely involved and untraceable foregoing occurrences. Just so with every motion of the heart. Why this cheek kindles with a noble enthusiasm; why that lip curls in scorn; these are things not wholly imputable to the immediate apparent cause, which is only one link in the chain; but to a long line of dependencies whose further part is lost in the mid-regions of the impalpable air. Idle then would it be to attempt by any winding way so to penetrate into the heart, and memory, and inmost life, and nature of Pierre, as to show why it was that a piece of intelligence which, in the natural course of things, many amiable gentlemen, both young and old, have been known to receive with a momentary feeling of surprise, and then a little curiosity to know more, and at last an entire unconcern; idle would it be, to attempt to show how to Pierre it rolled down on his soul like melted lava, and left so deep a deposit of desolation, that all his subsequent endeavors never restored the original temples to the soil, nor all his culture completely revived its buried bloom. But some random hints may suffice to deprive a little of its strangeness, that tumultuous mood, into which so small a note had thrown him. There had long stood a shrine in the fresh-foliaged heart of Pierre, up to which he ascended by many tableted steps of remembrance; and around which annually he had hung fresh wreaths of a sweet and holy affection. Made one green bower of at last, by such successive votive offerings of his being; this shrine seemed, and was indeed, a place for the celebration of a chastened joy, rather than for any melancholy rites. But though thus mantled, and tangled with garlands, this shrine was of marble--a niched pillar, deemed solid and eternal, and from whose top radiated all those innumerable sculptured scrolls and branches, which supported the entire one-pillared temple of his moral life; as in some beautiful gothic oratories, one central pillar, trunk-like, upholds the roof. In this shrine, in this niche of this pillar, stood the perfect marble form of his departed father; without blemish, unclouded, snow-white, and serene; Pierre's fond personification of perfect human goodness and virtue. Before this shrine, Pierre poured out the fullness of all young life's most reverential thoughts and beliefs. Not to God had Pierre ever gone in his heart, unless by ascending the steps of that shrine, and so making it the vestibule of his abstractest religion. Blessed and glorified in his tomb beyond Prince Mausolus is that mortal sire, who, after an honorable, pure course of life, dies, and is buried, as in a choice fountain, in the filial breast of a tender-hearted and intellectually appreciative child. For at that period, the Solomonic insights have not poured their turbid tributaries into the pure-flowing well of the childish life. Rare preservative virtue, too, have those heavenly waters. Thrown into that fountain, all sweet recollections become marbleized; so that things which in themselves were evanescent, thus became unchangeable and eternal. So, some rare waters in Derbyshire will petrify birds'-nests. But if fate preserves the father to a later time, too often the filial obsequies are less profound; the canonization less ethereal. The eye-expanded boy perceives, or vaguely thinks he perceives, slight specks and flaws in the character he once so wholly reverenced. When Pierre was twelve years old, his father had died, leaving behind him, in the general voice of the world, a marked reputation as a gentleman and a Christian; in the heart of his wife, a green memory of many healthy days of unclouded and joyful wedded life, and in the inmost soul of Pierre, the impression of a bodily form of rare manly beauty and benignity, only rivaled by the supposed perfect mould in which his virtuous heart had been cast. Of pensive evenings, by the wide winter fire, or in summer, in the southern piazza, when that mystical night-silence so peculiar to the country would summon up in the minds of Pierre and his mother, long trains of the images of the past; leading all that spiritual procession, majestically and holily walked the venerated form of the departed husband and father. Then their talk would be reminiscent and serious, but sweet; and again, and again, still deep and deeper, was stamped in Pierre's soul the cherished conceit, that his virtuous father, so beautiful on earth, was now uncorruptibly sainted in heaven. So choicely, and in some degree, secludedly nurtured, Pierre, though now arrived at the age of nineteen, had never yet become so thoroughly initiated into that darker, though truer aspect of things, which an entire residence in the city from the earliest period of life, almost inevitably engraves upon the mind of any keenly observant and reflective youth of Pierre's present years. So that up to this period, in his breast, all remained as it had been; and to Pierre, his father's shrine seemed spotless, and still new as the marble of the tomb of him of Arimathea. Judge, then, how all-desolating and withering the blast, that for Pierre, in one night, stripped his holiest shrine of all over-laid bloom, and buried the mild statue of the saint beneath the prostrated ruins of the soul's temple itself. II. As the vine flourishes, and the grape empurples close up to the very walls and muzzles of cannoned Ehrenbreitstein; so do the sweetest joys of life grow in the very jaws of its perils. But is life, indeed, a thing for all infidel levities, and we, its misdeemed beneficiaries, so utterly fools and infatuate, that what we take to be our strongest tower of delight, only stands at the caprice of the minutest event--the falling of a leaf, the hearing of a voice, or the receipt of one little bit of paper scratched over with a few small characters by a sharpened feather? Are we so entirely insecure, that that casket, wherein we have placed our holiest and most final joy, and which we have secured by a lock of infinite deftness; can that casket be picked and desecrated at the merest stranger's touch, when we think that we alone hold the only and chosen key? Pierre! thou art foolish; rebuild--no, not that, for thy shrine still stands; it stands, Pierre, firmly stands; smellest thou not its yet undeparted, embowering bloom? Such a note as thine can be easily enough written, Pierre; impostors are not unknown in this curious world; or the brisk novelist, Pierre, will write thee fifty such notes, and so steal gushing tears from his reader's eyes; even as _thy_ note so strangely made thine own manly eyes so arid; so glazed, and so arid, Pierre--foolish Pierre! Oh! mock not the poniarded heart. The stabbed man knows the steel; prate not to him that it is only a tickling feather. Feels he not the interior gash? What does this blood on my vesture? and what does this pang in my soul? And here again, not unreasonably, might invocations go up to those Three Weird Ones, that tend Life's loom. Again we might ask them, What threads were those, oh, ye Weird Ones, that ye wove in the years foregone; that now to Pierre, they so unerringly conduct electric presentiments, that his woe is woe, his father no more a saint, and Isabel a sister indeed? Ah, fathers and mothers! all the world round, be heedful,--give heed! Thy little one may not now comprehend the meaning of those words and those signs, by which, in its innocent presence, thou thinkest to disguise the sinister thing ye would hint. Not now he knows; not very much even of the externals he consciously remarks; but if, in after-life, Fate puts the chemic key of the cipher into his hands; then how swiftly and how wonderfully, he reads all the obscurest and most obliterate inscriptions he finds in his memory; yea, and rummages himself all over, for still hidden writings to read. Oh, darkest lessons of Life have thus been read; all faith in Virtue been murdered, and youth gives itself up to an infidel scorn. But not thus, altogether, was it now with Pierre; yet so like, in some points, that the above true warning may not misplacedly stand. His father had died of a fever; and, as is not uncommon in such maladies, toward his end, he at intervals lowly wandered in his mind. At such times, by unobserved, but subtle arts, the devoted family attendants, had restrained his wife from being present at his side. But little Pierre, whose fond, filial love drew him ever to that bed; they heeded not innocent little Pierre, when his father was delirious; and so, one evening, when the shadows intermingled with the curtains; and all the chamber was hushed; and Pierre but dimly saw his father's face; and the fire on the hearth lay in a broken temple of wonderful coals; then a strange, plaintive, infinitely pitiable, low voice, stole forth from the testered bed; and Pierre heard,--"My daughter! my daughter!" "He wanders again," said the nurse. "Dear, dear father!" sobbed the child--"thou hast not a daughter, but here is thy own little Pierre." But again the unregardful voice in the bed was heard; and now in a sudden, pealing wail,--"My daughter!--God! God!--my daughter!" The child snatched the dying man's hand; it faintly grew to his grasp; but on the other side of the bed, the other hand now also emptily lifted itself and emptily caught, as if at some other childish fingers. Then both hands dropped on the sheet; and in the twinkling shadows of the evening little Pierre seemed to see, that while the hand which he held wore a faint, feverish flush, the other empty one was ashy white as a leper's. "It is past," whispered the nurse, "he will wander so no more now till midnight,--that is his wont." And then, in her heart, she wondered how it was, that so excellent a gentleman, and so thoroughly good a man, should wander so ambiguously in his mind; and trembled to think of that mysterious thing in the soul, which seems to acknowledge no human jurisdiction, but in spite of the individual's own innocent self, will still dream horrid dreams, and mutter unmentionable thoughts; and into Pierre's awe-stricken, childish soul, there entered a kindred, though still more nebulous conceit. But it belonged to the spheres of the impalpable ether; and the child soon threw other and sweeter remembrances over it, and covered it up; and at last, it was blended with all other dim things, and imaginings of dimness; and so, seemed to survive to no real life in Pierre. But though through many long years the henbane showed no leaves in his soul; yet the sunken seed was there: and the first glimpse of Isabel's letter caused it to spring forth, as by magic. Then, again, the long-hushed, plaintive and infinitely pitiable voice was heard,--"My daughter! my daughter!" followed by the compunctious "God! God!" And to Pierre, once again the empty hand lifted itself, and once again the ashy hand fell. III. In the cold courts of justice the dull head demands oaths, and holy writ proofs; but in the warm halls of the heart one single, untestified memory's spark shall suffice to enkindle such a blaze of evidence, that all the corners of conviction are as suddenly lighted up as a midnight city by a burning building, which on every side whirls its reddened brands. In a locked, round-windowed closet connecting with the chamber of Pierre, and whither he had always been wont to go, in those sweetly awful hours, when the spirit crieth to the spirit, Come into solitude with me, twin-brother; come away: a secret have I; let me whisper it to thee aside; in this closet, sacred to the Tadmore privacies and repose of the sometimes solitary Pierre, there hung, by long cords from the cornice, a small portrait in oil, before which Pierre had many a time trancedly stood. Had this painting hung in any annual public exhibition, and in its turn been described in print by the casual glancing critics, they would probably have described it thus, and truthfully: "An impromptu portrait of a fine-looking, gay-hearted, youthful gentleman. He is lightly, and, as it were, airily and but grazingly seated in, or rather flittingly tenanting an old-fashioned chair of Malacca. One arm confining his hat and cane is loungingly thrown over the back of the chair, while the fingers of the other hand play with his gold watch-seal and key. The free-templed head is sideways turned, with a peculiarly bright, and care-free, morning expression. He seems as if just dropped in for a visit upon some familiar acquaintance. Altogether, the painting is exceedingly clever and cheerful; with a fine, off-handed expression about it. Undoubtedly a portrait, and no fancy-piece; and, to hazard a vague conjecture, by an amateur." So bright, and so cheerful then; so trim, and so young; so singularly healthful, and handsome; what subtile element could so steep this whole portrait, that, to the wife of the original, it was namelessly unpleasant and repelling? The mother of Pierre could never abide this picture which she had always asserted did signally belie her husband. Her fond memories of the departed refused to hang one single wreath around it. It is not he, she would emphatically and almost indignantly exclaim, when more urgently besought to reveal the cause for so unreasonable a dissent from the opinion of nearly all the other connections and relatives of the deceased. But the portrait which she held to do justice to her husband, correctly to convey his features in detail, and more especially their truest, and finest, and noblest combined expression; this portrait was a much larger one, and in the great drawing-room below occupied the most conspicuous and honorable place on the wall. Even to Pierre these two paintings had always seemed strangely dissimilar. And as the larger one had been painted many years after the other, and therefore brought the original pretty nearly within his own childish recollections; therefore, he himself could not but deem it by far the more truthful and life-like presentation of his father. So that the mere preference of his mother, however strong, was not at all surprising to him, but rather coincided with his own conceit. Yet not for this, must the other portrait be so decidedly rejected. Because, in the first place, there was a difference in time, and some difference of costume to be considered, and the wide difference of the styles of the respective artiste, and the wide difference of those respective, semi-reflected, ideal faces, which, even in the presence of the original, a spiritual artist will rather choose to draw from than from the fleshy face, however brilliant and fine. Moreover, while the larger portrait was that of a middle-aged, married man, and seemed to possess all the nameless and slightly portly tranquillities, incident to that condition when a felicitous one; the smaller portrait painted a brisk, unentangled, young bachelor, gayly ranging up and down in the world; light-hearted, and a very little bladish perhaps; and charged to the lips with the first uncloying morning fullness and freshness of life. Here, certainly, large allowance was to be made in any careful, candid estimation of these portraits. To Pierre this conclusion had become well-nigh irresistible, when he placed side by side two portraits of himself; one taken in his early childhood, a frocked and belted boy of four years old; and the other, a grown youth of sixteen. Except an indestructible, all-surviving something in the eyes and on the temples, Pierre could hardly recognize the loud-laughing boy in the tall, and pensively smiling youth. If a few years, then, can have in me made all this difference, why not in my father? thought Pierre. Besides all this, Pierre considered the history, and, so to speak, the family legend of the smaller painting. In his fifteenth year, it was made a present to him by an old maiden aunt, who resided in the city, and who cherished the memory of Pierre's father, with all that wonderful amaranthine devotion which an advanced maiden sister ever feels for the idea of a beloved younger brother, now dead and irrevocably gone. As the only child of that brother, Pierre was an object of the warmest and most extravagant attachment on the part of this lonely aunt, who seemed to see, transformed into youth once again, the likeness, and very soul of her brother, in the fair, inheriting brow of Pierre. Though the portrait we speak of was inordinately prized by her, yet at length the strict canon of her romantic and imaginative love asserted the portrait to be Pierre's--for Pierre was not only his father's only child, but his namesake--so soon as Pierre should be old enough to value aright so holy and inestimable a treasure. She had accordingly sent it to him, trebly boxed, and finally covered with a water-proof cloth; and it was delivered at Saddle Meadows, by an express, confidential messenger, an old gentleman of leisure, once her forlorn, because rejected gallant, but now her contented, and chatty neighbor. Henceforth, before a gold-framed and gold-lidded ivory miniature,--a fraternal gift--aunt Dorothea now offered up her morning and her evening rites, to the memory of the noblest and handsomest of brothers. Yet an annual visit to the far closet of Pierre--no slight undertaking now for one so stricken in years, and every way infirm--attested the earnestness of that strong sense of duty, that painful renunciation of self, which had induced her voluntarily to part with the precious memorial. IV. "Tell me, aunt," the child Pierre had early said to her, long before the portrait became his--"tell me, aunt, how this chair-portrait, as you call it, was painted;--who painted it?--whose chair was this?--have you the chair now?--I don't see it in your room here;--what is papa looking at so strangely?--I should like to know now, what papa was thinking of, then. Do, now, dear aunt, tell me all about this picture, so that when it is mine, as you promise me, I shall know its whole history." "Sit down, then, and be very still and attentive, my dear child," said aunt Dorothea; while she a little averted her head, and tremulously and inaccurately sought her pocket, till little Pierre cried--"Why, aunt, the story of the picture is not in any little book, is it, that you are going to take out and read to me?" "My handkerchief, my child." "Why, aunt, here it is, at your elbow; here, on the table; here, aunt; take it, do; Oh, don't tell me any thing about the picture, now; I won't hear it." "Be still, my darling Pierre," said his aunt, taking the handkerchief, "draw the curtain a little, dearest; the light hurts my eyes. Now, go into the closet, and bring me my dark shawl;--take your time.--There; thank you, Pierre; now sit down again, and I will begin.--The picture was painted long ago, my child; you were not born then." "Not born?" cried little Pierre. "Not born," said his aunt. "Well, go on, aunt; but don't tell me again that once upon a time I was not little Pierre at all, and yet my father was alive. Go on, aunt,--do, do!" "Why, how nervous you are getting, my child;--Be patient; I am very old, Pierre; and old people never like to be hurried." "Now, my own dear Aunt Dorothea, do forgive me this once, and go on with your story." "When your poor father was quite a young man, my child, and was on one of his long autumnal visits to his friends in this city, he was rather intimate at times with a cousin of his, Ralph Winwood, who was about his own age,--a fine youth he was, too, Pierre." "I never saw him, aunt; pray, where is he now?" interrupted Pierre;--"does he live in the country, now, as mother and I do?" "Yes, my child; but a far-away, beautiful country, I hope;--he's in heaven, I trust." "Dead," sighed little Pierre--"go on, aunt." "Now, cousin Ralph had a great love for painting, my child; and he spent many hours in a room, hung all round with pictures and portraits; and there he had his easel and brushes; and much liked to paint his friends, and hang their faces on his walls; so that when all alone by himself, he yet had plenty of company, who always wore their best expressions to him, and never once ruffled him, by ever getting cross or ill-natured, little Pierre. Often, he had besought your father to sit to him; saying, that his silent circle of friends would never be complete, till your father consented to join them. But in those days, my child, your father was always in motion. It was hard for me to get him to stand still, while I tied his cravat; for he never came to any one but me for that. So he was always putting off, and putting off cousin Ralph. 'Some other time, cousin; not to-day;--to-morrow, perhaps;--or next week;'--and so, at last cousin Ralph began to despair. But I'll catch him yet, cried sly cousin Ralph. So now he said nothing more to your father about the matter of painting him; but every pleasant morning kept his easel and brushes and every thing in readiness; so as to be ready the first moment your father should chance to drop in upon him from his long strolls; for it was now and then your father's wont to pay flying little visits to cousin Ralph in his painting-room.--But, my child, you may draw back the curtain now--it's getting very dim here, seems to me." "Well, I thought so all along, aunt," said little Pierre, obeying; "but didn't you say the light hurt your eyes." "But it does not now, little Pierre." "Well, well; go on, go on, aunt; you can't think how interested I am," said little Pierre, drawing his stool close up to the quilted satin hem of his good Aunt Dorothea's dress. "I will, my child. But first let me tell you, that about this time there arrived in the port, a cabin-full of French emigrants of quality;--poor people, Pierre, who were forced to fly from their native land, because of the cruel, blood-shedding times there. But you have read all that in the little history I gave you, a good while ago." "I know all about it;--the French Revolution," said little Pierre. "What a famous little scholar you are, my dear child,"--said Aunt Dorothea, faintly smiling--"among those poor, but noble emigrants, there was a beautiful young girl, whose sad fate afterward made a great noise in the city, and made many eyes to weep, but in vain, for she never was heard of any more." "How? how? aunt;--I don't understand;--did she disappear then, aunt?" "I was a little before my story, child. Yes, she did disappear, and never was heard of again; but that was afterward, some time afterward, my child. I am very sure it was; I could take my oath of that, Pierre." "Why, dear aunt," said little Pierre, "how earnestly you talk--after what? your voice is getting very strange; do now;--don't talk that way; you frighten me so, aunt." "Perhaps it is this bad cold I have to-day; it makes my voice a little hoarse, I fear, Pierre. But I will try and not talk so hoarsely again. Well, my child, some time before this beautiful young lady disappeared, indeed it was only shortly after the poor emigrants landed, your father made her acquaintance; and with many other humane gentlemen of the city, provided for the wants of the strangers, for they were very poor indeed, having been stripped of every thing, save a little trifling jewelry, which could not go very far. At last, the friends of your father endeavored to dissuade him from visiting these people so much; they were fearful that as the young lady was so very beautiful, and a little inclined to be intriguing--so some said--your father might be tempted to marry her; which would not have been a wise thing in him; for though the young lady might have been very beautiful, and good-hearted, yet no one on this side the water certainly knew her history; and she was a foreigner; and would not have made so suitable and excellent a match for your father as your dear mother afterward did, my child. But, for myself, I--who always knew your father very well in all his intentions, and he was very confidential with me, too--I, for my part, never credited that he would do so unwise a thing as marry the strange young lady. At any rate, he at last discontinued his visits to the emigrants; and it was after this that the young lady disappeared. Some said that she must have voluntarily but secretly returned into her own country; and others declared that she must have been kidnapped by French emissaries; for, after her disappearance, rumor began to hint that she was of the noblest birth, and some ways allied to the royal family; and then, again, there were some who shook their heads darkly, and muttered of drownings, and other dark things; which one always hears hinted when people disappear, and no one can find them. But though your father and many other gentlemen moved heaven and earth to find trace of her, yet, as I said before, my child, she never re-appeared." "The poor French lady!" sighed little Pierre. "Aunt, I'm afraid she was murdered." "Poor lady, there is no telling," said his aunt. "But listen, for I am coming to the picture again. Now, at the time your father was so often visiting the emigrants, my child, cousin Ralph was one of those who a little fancied that your father was courting her; but cousin Ralph being a quiet young man, and a scholar, not well acquainted with what is wise, or what is foolish in the great world; cousin Ralph would not have been at all mortified had your father really wedded with the refugee young lady. So vainly thinking, as I told you, that your father was courting her, he fancied it would be a very fine thing if he could paint your father as her wooer; that is, paint him just after his coming from his daily visits to the emigrants. So he watched his chance; every thing being ready in his painting-room, as I told you before; and one morning, sure enough, in dropt your father from his walk. But before he came into the room, cousin Ralph had spied him from the window; and when your father entered, cousin Ralph had the sitting-chair ready drawn out, back of his easel, but still fronting toward him, and pretended to be very busy painting. He said to your father--'Glad to see you, cousin Pierre; I am just about something here; sit right down there now, and tell me the news; and I'll sally out with you presently. And tell us something of the emigrants, cousin Pierre,' he slyly added--wishing, you see, to get your father's thoughts running that supposed wooing way, so that he might catch some sort of corresponding expression you see, little Pierre." "I don't know that I precisely understand, aunt; but go on, I am so interested; do go on, dear aunt." "Well, by many little cunning shifts and contrivances, cousin Ralph kept your father there sitting, and sitting in the chair, rattling and rattling away, and so self-forgetful too, that he never heeded that all the while sly cousin Ralph was painting and painting just as fast as ever he could; and only making believe laugh at your father's wit; in short, cousin Ralph was stealing his portrait, my child." "Not _stealing_ it, I hope," said Pierre, "that would be very wicked." "Well, then, we won't call it stealing, since I am sure that cousin Ralph kept your father all the time off from him, and so, could not have possibly picked his pocket, though indeed, he slyly picked his portrait, so to speak. And if indeed it was stealing, or any thing of that sort; yet seeing how much comfort that portrait has been to me, Pierre, and how much it will yet be to you, I hope; I think we must very heartily forgive cousin Ralph, for what he then did." "Yes, I think we must indeed," chimed in little Pierre, now eagerly eying the very portrait in question, which hung over the mantle. "Well, by catching your father two or three times more in that way, cousin Ralph at last finished the painting; and when it was all framed, and every way completed, he would have surprised your father by hanging it boldly up in his room among his other portraits, had not your father one morning suddenly come to him--while, indeed, the very picture itself was placed face down on a table and cousin Ralph fixing the cord to it--came to him, and frightened cousin Ralph by quietly saying, that now that he thought of it, it seemed to him that cousin Ralph had been playing tricks with him; but he hoped it was not so. 'What do you mean?' said cousin Ralph, a little flurried. 'You have not been hanging my portrait up here, have you, cousin Ralph?' said your father, glancing along the walls. 'I'm glad I don't see it. It is my whim, cousin Ralph,--and perhaps it is a very silly one,--but if you have been lately painting my portrait, I want you to destroy it; at any rate, don't show it to any one, keep it out of sight. What's that you have there, cousin Ralph?' "Cousin Ralph was now more and more fluttered; not knowing what to make--as indeed, to this day, I don't completely myself--of your father's strange manner. But he rallied, and said--'This, cousin Pierre, is a secret portrait I have here; you must be aware that we portrait-painters are sometimes called upon to paint such. I, therefore, can not show it to you, or tell you any thing about it.' "'Have you been painting my portrait or not, cousin Ralph?' said your father, very suddenly and pointedly. "'I have painted nothing that looks as you there look,' said cousin Ralph, evasively, observing in your father's face a fierce-like expression, which he had never seen there before. And more than that, your father could not get from him." "And what then?" said little Pierre. "Why not much, my child; only your father never so much as caught one glimpse of that picture; indeed, never knew for certain, whether there was such a painting in the world. Cousin Ralph secretly gave it to me, knowing how tenderly I loved your father; making me solemnly promise never to expose it anywhere where your father could ever see it, or any way hear of it. This promise I faithfully kept; and it was only after your dear father's death, that I hung it in my chamber. There, Pierre, you now have the story of the chair-portrait." "And a very strange one it is," said Pierre--"and so interesting, I shall never forget it, aunt." "I hope you never will, my child. Now ring the bell, and we will have a little fruit-cake, and I will take a glass of wine, Pierre;--do you hear, my child?--the bell--ring it. Why, what do you do standing there, Pierre?" "_Why_ didn't papa want to have cousin Ralph paint his picture, aunt?" "How these children's minds do run!" exclaimed old aunt Dorothea staring at little Pierre in amazement--"That indeed is more than I can tell you, little Pierre. But cousin Ralph had a foolish fancy about it. He used to tell me, that being in your father's room some few days after the last scene I described, he noticed there a very wonderful work on Physiognomy, as they call it, in which the strangest and shadowiest rules were laid down for detecting people's innermost secrets by studying their faces. And so, foolish cousin Ralph always flattered himself, that the reason your father did not want his portrait taken was, because he was secretly in love with the French young lady, and did not want his secret published in a portrait; since the wonderful work on Physiognomy had, as it were, indirectly warned him against running that risk. But cousin Ralph being such a retired and solitary sort of a youth, he always had such curious whimsies about things. For my part, I don't believe your father ever had any such ridiculous ideas on the subject. To be sure, I myself can not tell you _why_ he did not want his picture taken; but when you get to be as old as I am, little Pierre, you will find that every one, even the best of us, at times, is apt to act very queerly and unaccountably; indeed some things we do, we can not entirely explain the reason of, even to ourselves, little Pierre. But you will know all about these strange matters by and by." "I hope I shall, aunt," said little Pierre--"But, dear aunt, I thought Marten was to bring in some fruit-cake?" "Ring the bell for him, then, my child." "Oh! I forgot," said little Pierre, doing her bidding. By-and-by, while the aunt was sipping her wine; and the boy eating his cake, and both their eyes were fixed on the portrait in question; little Pierre, pushing his stool nearer the picture exclaimed--"Now, aunt, did papa really look exactly like that? Did you ever see him in that same buff vest, and huge-figured neckcloth? I remember the seal and key, pretty well; and it was only a week ago that I saw mamma take them out of a little locked drawer in her wardrobe--but I don't remember the queer whiskers; nor the buff vest; nor the huge white-figured neckcloth; did you ever see papa in that very neckcloth, aunt?" "My child, it was I that chose the stuff for that neckcloth; yes, and hemmed it for him, and worked P. G. in one corner; but that aint in the picture. It is an excellent likeness, my child, neckcloth and all; as he looked at that time. Why, little Pierre, sometimes I sit here all alone by myself, gazing, and gazing, and gazing at that face, till I begin to think your father is looking at me, and smiling at me, and nodding at me, and saying--Dorothea! Dorothea!" "How strange," said little Pierre, "I think it begins to look at me now, aunt. Hark! aunt, it's so silent all round in this old-fashioned room, that I think I hear a little jingling in the picture, as if the watch-seal was striking against the key--Hark! aunt." "Bless me, don't talk so strangely, my child." "I heard mamma say once--but she did not say so to me--that, for her part, she did not like aunt Dorothea's picture; it was not a good likeness, so she said. Why don't mamma like the picture, aunt?" "My child, you ask very queer questions. If your mamma don't like the picture, it is for a very plain reason. She has a much larger and finer one at home, which she had painted for herself; yes, and paid I don't know how many hundred dollars for it; and that, too, is an excellent likeness, _that_ must be the reason, little Pierre." And thus the old aunt and the little child ran on; each thinking the other very strange; and both thinking the picture still stranger; and the face in the picture still looked at them frankly, and cheerfully, as if there was nothing kept concealed; and yet again, a little ambiguously and mockingly, as if slyly winking to some other picture, to mark what a very foolish old sister, and what a very silly little son, were growing so monstrously grave and speculative about a huge white-figured neckcloth, a buff vest, and a very gentleman-like and amiable countenance. And so, after this scene, as usual, one by one, the fleet years ran on; till the little child Pierre had grown up to be the tall Master Pierre, and could call the picture his own; and now, in the privacy of his own little closet, could stand, or lean, or sit before it all day long, if he pleased, and keep thinking, and thinking, and thinking, and thinking, till by-and-by all thoughts were blurred, and at last there were no thoughts at all. Before the picture was sent to him, in his fifteenth year, it had been only through the inadvertence of his mother, or rather through a casual passing into a parlor by Pierre, that he had any way learned that his mother did not approve of the picture. Because, as then Pierre was still young, and the picture was the picture of his father, and the cherished property of a most excellent, and dearly-beloved, affectionate aunt; therefore the mother, with an intuitive delicacy, had refrained from knowingly expressing her peculiar opinion in the presence of little Pierre. And this judicious, though half-unconscious delicacy in the mother, had been perhaps somewhat singularly answered by a like nicety of sentiment in the child; for children of a naturally refined organization, and a gentle nurture, sometimes possess a wonderful, and often undreamed of, daintiness of propriety, and thoughtfulness, and forbearance, in matters esteemed a little subtile even by their elders, and self-elected betters. The little Pierre never disclosed to his mother that he had, through another person, become aware of her thoughts concerning Aunt Dorothea's portrait; he seemed to possess an intuitive knowledge of the circumstance, that from the difference of their relationship to his father, and for other minute reasons, he could in some things, with the greater propriety, be more inquisitive concerning him, with his aunt, than with his mother, especially touching the matter of the chair-portrait. And Aunt Dorothea's reasons accounting for his mother's distaste, long continued satisfactory, or at least not unsufficiently explanatory. And when the portrait arrived at the Meadows, it so chanced that his mother was abroad; and so Pierre silently hung it up in his closet; and when after a day or two his mother returned, he said nothing to her about its arrival, being still strangely alive to that certain mild mystery which invested it, and whose sacredness now he was fearful of violating, by provoking any discussion with his mother about Aunt Dorothea's gift, or by permitting himself to be improperly curious concerning the reasons of his mother's private and self-reserved opinions of it. But the first time--and it was not long after the arrival of the portrait--that he knew of his mother's having entered his closet; then, when he next saw her, he was prepared to hear what she should voluntarily say about the late addition to its embellishments; but as she omitted all mention of any thing of that sort, he unobtrusively scanned her countenance, to mark whether any little clouding emotion might be discoverable there. But he could discern none. And as all genuine delicacies are by their nature accumulative; therefore this reverential, mutual, but only tacit forbearance of the mother and son, ever after continued uninvaded. And it was another sweet, and sanctified, and sanctifying bond between them. For, whatever some lovers may sometimes say, love does not always abhor a secret, as nature is said to abhor a vacuum. Love is built upon secrets, as lovely Venice upon invisible and incorruptible piles in the sea. Love's secrets, being mysteries, ever pertain to the transcendent and the infinite; and so they are as airy bridges, by which our further shadows pass over into the regions of the golden mists and exhalations; whence all poetical, lovely thoughts are engendered, and drop into us, as though pearls should drop from rainbows. As time went on, the chasteness and pure virginity of this mutual reservation, only served to dress the portrait in sweeter, because still more mysterious attractions; and to fling, as it were, fresh fennel and rosemary around the revered memory of the father. Though, indeed, as previously recounted, Pierre now and then loved to present to himself for some fanciful solution the penultimate secret of the portrait, in so far, as that involved his mother's distaste; yet the cunning analysis in which such a mental procedure would involve him, never voluntarily transgressed that sacred limit, where his mother's peculiar repugnance began to shade off into ambiguous considerations, touching any unknown possibilities in the character and early life of the original. Not, that he had altogether forbidden his fancy to range in such fields of speculation; but all such imaginings must be contributory to that pure, exalted idea of his father, which, in his soul, was based upon the known acknowledged facts of his father's life. V. If, when the mind roams up and down in the ever-elastic regions of evanescent invention, any definite form or feature can be assigned to the multitudinous shapes it creates out of the incessant dissolvings of its own prior creations; then might we here attempt to hold and define the least shadowy of those reasons, which about the period of adolescence we now treat of, more frequently occurred to Pierre, whenever he essayed to account for his mother's remarkable distaste for the portrait. Yet will we venture one sketch. Yes--sometimes dimly thought Pierre--who knows but cousin Ralph, after all, may have been not so very far from the truth, when he surmised that at one time my father did indeed cherish some passing emotion for the beautiful young Frenchwoman. And this portrait being painted at that precise time, and indeed with the precise purpose of perpetuating some shadowy testification of the fact in the countenance of the original: therefore, its expression is not congenial, is not familiar, is not altogether agreeable to my mother: because, not only did my father's features never look so to her (since it was afterward that she first became acquainted with him), but also, that certain womanliness of women; that thing I should perhaps call a tender jealousy, a fastidious vanity, in any other lady, enables her to perceive that the glance of the face in the portrait, is not, in some nameless way, dedicated to herself, but to some other and unknown object; and therefore, is she impatient of it, and it is repelling to her; for she must naturally be intolerant of any imputed reminiscence in my father, which is not in some way connected with her own recollections of him. Whereas, the larger and more expansive portrait in the great drawing-room, taken in the prime of life; during the best and rosiest days of their wedded union; at the particular desire of my mother; and by a celebrated artist of her own election, and costumed after her own taste; and on all hands considered to be, by those who know, a singularly happy likeness at the period; a belief spiritually reinforced by my own dim infantile remembrances; for all these reasons, this drawing-room portrait possesses an inestimable charm to her; there, she indeed beholds her husband as he had really appeared to her; she does not vacantly gaze upon an unfamiliar phantom called up from the distant, and, to her, well-nigh fabulous days of my father's bachelor life. But in that other portrait, she sees rehearsed to her fond eyes, the latter tales and legends of his devoted wedded love. Yes, I think now that I plainly see it must be so. And yet, ever new conceits come vaporing up in me, as I look on the strange chair-portrait: which, though so very much more unfamiliar to me, than it can possibly be to my mother, still sometimes seems to say--Pierre, believe not the drawing-room painting; that is not thy father; or, at least, is not _all_ of thy father. Consider in thy mind, Pierre, whether we two paintings may not make only one. Faithful wives are ever over-fond to a certain imaginary image of their husbands; and faithful widows are ever over-reverential to a certain imagined ghost of that same imagined image, Pierre. Look again, I am thy father as he more truly was. In mature life, the world overlays and varnishes us, Pierre; the thousand proprieties and polished finenesses and grimaces intervene, Pierre; then, we, as it were, abdicate ourselves, and take unto us another self, Pierre; in youth we _are_, Pierre, but in age we _seem_. Look again. I am thy real father, so much the more truly, as thou thinkest thou recognizest me not, Pierre. To their young children, fathers are not wont to unfold themselves entirely, Pierre. There are a thousand and one odd little youthful peccadilloes, that we think we may as well not divulge to them, Pierre. Consider this strange, ambiguous smile, Pierre; more narrowly regard this mouth. Behold, what is this too ardent and, as it were, unchastened light in these eyes, Pierre? I am thy father, boy. There was once a certain, oh, but too lovely young Frenchwoman, Pierre. Youth is hot, and temptation strong, Pierre; and in the minutest moment momentous things are irrevocably done, Pierre; and Time sweeps on, and the thing is not always carried down by its stream, but may be left stranded on its bank; away beyond, in the young, green countries, Pierre. Look again. Doth thy mother dislike me for naught? Consider. Do not all her spontaneous, loving impressions, ever strive to magnify, and spiritualize, and deify, her husband's memory, Pierre? Then why doth she cast despite upon me; and never speak to thee of me; and why dost thou thyself keep silence before her, Pierre? Consider. Is there no little mystery here? Probe a little, Pierre. Never fear, never fear. No matter for thy father now. Look, do I not smile?--yes, and with an unchangeable smile; and thus have I unchangeably smiled for many long years gone by, Pierre. Oh, it is a permanent smile! Thus I smiled to cousin Ralph; and thus in thy dear old Aunt Dorothea's parlor, Pierre; and just so, I smile here to thee, and even thus in thy father's later life, when his body may have been in grief, still--hidden away in Aunt Dorothea's secretary--I thus smiled as before; and just so I'd smile were I now hung up in the deepest dungeon of the Spanish Inquisition, Pierre; though suspended in outer darkness, still would I smile with this smile, though then not a soul should be near. Consider; for a smile is the chosen vehicle for all ambiguities, Pierre. When we would deceive, we smile; when we are hatching any nice little artifice, Pierre; only just a little gratifying our own sweet little appetites, Pierre; then watch us, and out comes the odd little smile. Once upon a time, there was a lovely young Frenchwoman, Pierre. Have you carefully, and analytically, and psychologically, and metaphysically, considered her belongings and surroundings, and all her incidentals, Pierre? Oh, a strange sort of story, that, thy dear old Aunt Dorothea once told thee, Pierre. I once knew a credulous old soul, Pierre. Probe, probe a little--see--there seems one little crack there, Pierre--a wedge, a wedge. Something ever comes of all persistent inquiry; we are not so continually curious for nothing, Pierre; not for nothing, do we so intrigue and become wily diplomatists, and glozers with our own minds, Pierre; and afraid of following the Indian trail from the open plain into the dark thickets, Pierre; but enough; a word to the wise. Thus sometimes in the mystical, outer quietude of the long country nights; either when the hushed mansion was banked round by the thick-fallen December snows, or banked round by the immovable white August moonlight; in the haunted repose of a wide story, tenanted only by himself; and sentineling his own little closet; and standing guard, as it were, before the mystical tent of the picture; and ever watching the strangely concealed lights of the meanings that so mysteriously moved to and fro within; thus sometimes stood Pierre before the portrait of his father, unconsciously throwing himself open to all those ineffable hints and ambiguities, and undefined half-suggestions, which now and then people the soul's atmosphere, as thickly as in a soft, steady snow-storm, the snow-flakes people the air. Yet as often starting from these reveries and trances, Pierre would regain the assured element of consciously bidden and self-propelled thought; and then in a moment the air all cleared, not a snow-flake descended, and Pierre, upbraiding himself for his self-indulgent infatuation, would promise never again to fall into a midnight revery before the chair-portrait of his father. Nor did the streams of these reveries seem to leave any conscious sediment in his mind; they were so light and so rapid, that they rolled their own alluvial along; and seemed to leave all Pierre's thought-channels as clean and dry as though never any alluvial stream had rolled there at all. And so still in his sober, cherishing memories, his father's beatification remained untouched; and all the strangeness of the portrait only served to invest his idea with a fine, legendary romance; the essence whereof was that very mystery, which at other times was so subtly and evilly significant. But now, _now!_--Isabel's letter read: swift as the first light that slides from the sun, Pierre saw all preceding ambiguities, all mysteries ripped open as if with a keen sword, and forth trooped thickening phantoms of an infinite gloom. Now his remotest infantile reminiscences--the wandering mind of his father--the empty hand, and the ashen--the strange story of Aunt Dorothea--the mystical midnight suggestions of the portrait itself; and, above all, his mother's intuitive aversion, all, all overwhelmed him with reciprocal testimonies. And now, by irresistible intuitions, all that had been inexplicably mysterious to him in the portrait, and all that had been inexplicably familiar in the face, most magically these now coincided; the merriness of the one not inharmonious with the mournfulness of the other, but by some ineffable correlativeness, they reciprocally identified each other, and, as it were, melted into each other, and thus interpenetratingly uniting, presented lineaments of an added supernaturalness. On all sides, the physical world of solid objects now slidingly displaced itself from around him, and he floated into an ether of visions; and, starting to his feet with clenched hands and outstaring eyes at the transfixed face in the air, he ejaculated that wonderful verse from Dante, descriptive of the two mutually absorbing shapes in the Inferno: "Ah! how dost thou change, Agnello! See! thou art not double now, Nor only one!" BOOK V. MISGIVINGS AND PREPARATIONS. I. It was long after midnight when Pierre returned to the house. He had rushed forth in that complete abandonment of soul, which, in so ardent a temperament, attends the first stages of any sudden and tremendous affliction; but now he returned in pallid composure, for the calm spirit of the night, and the then risen moon, and the late revealed stars, had all at last become as a strange subduing melody to him, which, though at first trampled and scorned, yet by degrees had stolen into the windings of his heart, and so shed abroad its own quietude in him. Now, from his height of composure, he firmly gazed abroad upon the charred landscape within him; as the timber man of Canada, forced to fly from the conflagration of his forests, comes back again when the fires have waned, and unblinkingly eyes the immeasurable fields of fire-brands that here and there glow beneath the wide canopy of smoke. It has been said, that always when Pierre would seek solitude in its material shelter and walled isolation, then the closet communicating with his chamber was his elected haunt. So, going to his room, he took up the now dim-burning lamp he had left there, and instinctively entered that retreat, seating himself, with folded arms and bowed head, in the accustomed dragon-footed old chair. With leaden feet, and heart now changing from iciness to a strange sort of indifference, and a numbing sensation stealing over him, he sat there awhile, till, like the resting traveler in snows, he began to struggle against this inertness as the most treacherous and deadliest of symptoms. He looked up, and found himself fronted by the no longer wholly enigmatical, but still ambiguously smiling picture of his father. Instantly all his consciousness and his anguish returned, but still without power to shake the grim tranquillity which possessed him. Yet endure the smiling portrait he could not; and obeying an irresistible nameless impulse, he rose, and without unhanging it, reversed the picture on the wall. This brought to sight the defaced and dusty back, with some wrinkled, tattered paper over the joints, which had become loosened from the paste. "Oh, symbol of thy reversed idea in my soul," groaned Pierre; "thou shalt not hang thus. Rather cast thee utterly out, than conspicuously insult thee so. I will no more have a father." He removed the picture wholly from the wall, and the closet; and concealed it in a large chest, covered with blue chintz, and locked it up there. But still, in a square space of slightly discolored wall, the picture still left its shadowy, but vacant and desolate trace. He now strove to banish the least trace of his altered father, as fearful that at present all thoughts concerning him were not only entirely vain, but would prove fatally distracting and incapacitating to a mind, which was now loudly called upon, not only to endure a signal grief, but immediately to act upon it. Wild and cruel case, youth ever thinks; but mistakenly; for Experience well knows, that action, though it seems an aggravation of woe, is really an alleviative; though permanently to alleviate pain, we must first dart some added pangs. Nor now, though profoundly sensible that his whole previous moral being was overturned, and that for him the fair structure of the world must, in some then unknown way, be entirely rebuilded again, from the lowermost corner stone up; nor now did Pierre torment himself with the thought of that last desolation; and how the desolate place was to be made flourishing again. He seemed to feel that in his deepest soul, lurked an indefinite but potential faith, which could rule in the interregnum of all hereditary beliefs, and circumstantial persuasions; not wholly, he felt, was his soul in anarchy. The indefinite regent had assumed the scepter as its right; and Pierre was not entirely given up to his grief's utter pillage and sack. To a less enthusiastic heart than Pierre's the foremost question in respect to Isabel which would have presented itself, would have been, _What_ must I do? But such a question never presented itself to Pierre; the spontaneous responsiveness of his being left no shadow of dubiousness as to the direct point he must aim at. But if the object was plain, not so the path to it. _How_ must I do it? was a problem for which at first there seemed no chance of solution. But without being entirely aware of it himself, Pierre was one of those spirits, which not in a determinate and sordid scrutiny of small pros and cons--but in an impulsive subservience to the god-like dictation of events themselves, find at length the surest solution of perplexities, and the brightest prerogative of command. And as for him, _What_ must I do? was a question already answered by the inspiration of the difficulty itself; so now he, as it were, unconsciously discharged his mind, for the present, of all distracting considerations concerning _How_ he should do it; assured that the coming interview with Isabel could not but unerringly inspire him there. Still, the inspiration which had thus far directed him had not been entirely mute and undivulging as to many very bitter things which Pierre foresaw in the wide sea of trouble into which he was plunged. If it be the sacred province and--by the wisest, deemed--the inestimable compensation of the heavier woes, that they both purge the soul of gay-hearted errors and replenish it with a saddened truth; that holy office is not so much accomplished by any covertly inductive reasoning process, whose original motive is received from the particular affliction; as it is the magical effect of the admission into man's inmost spirit of a before unexperienced and wholly inexplicable element, which like electricity suddenly received into any sultry atmosphere of the dark, in all directions splits itself into nimble lances of purifying light; which at one and the same instant discharge all the air of sluggishness and inform it with an illuminating property; so that objects which before, in the uncertainty of the dark, assumed shadowy and romantic outlines, now are lighted up in their substantial realities; so that in these flashing revelations of grief's wonderful fire, we see all things as they are; and though, when the electric element is gone, the shadows once more descend, and the false outlines of objects again return; yet not with their former power to deceive; for now, even in the presence of the falsest aspects, we still retain the impressions of their immovable true ones, though, indeed, once more concealed. Thus with Pierre. In the joyous young times, ere his great grief came upon him, all the objects which surrounded him were concealingly deceptive. Not only was the long-cherished image of his rather now transfigured before him from a green foliaged tree into a blasted trunk, but every other image in his mind attested the universality of that electral light which had darted into his soul. Not even his lovely, immaculate mother, remained entirely untouched, unaltered by the shock. At her changed aspect, when first revealed to him, Pierre had gazed in a panic; and now, when the electrical storm had gone by, he retained in his mind, that so suddenly revealed image, with an infinite mournfulness. She, who in her less splendid but finer and more spiritual part, had ever seemed to Pierre not only as a beautiful saint before whom to offer up his daily orisons, but also as a gentle lady-counsellor and confessor, and her revered chamber as a soft satin-hung cabinet and confessional;--his mother was no longer this all-alluring thing; no more, he too keenly felt, could he go to his mother, as to one who entirely sympathized with him; as to one before whom he could almost unreservedly unbosom himself; as to one capable of pointing out to him the true path where he seemed most beset. Wonderful, indeed, was that electric insight which Fate had now given him into the vital character of his mother. She well might have stood all ordinary tests; but when Pierre thought of the touchstone of his immense strait applied to her spirit, he felt profoundly assured that she would crumble into nothing before it. She was a noble creature, but formed chiefly for the gilded prosperities of life, and hitherto mostly used to its unruffled serenities; bred and expanded, in all developments, under the sole influence of hereditary forms and world-usages. Not his refined, courtly, loving, equable mother, Pierre felt, could unreservedly, and like a heaven's heroine, meet the shock of his extraordinary emergency, and applaud, to his heart's echo, a sublime resolve, whose execution should call down the astonishment and the jeers of the world. My mother!--dearest mother!--God hath given me a sister, and unto thee a daughter, and covered her with the world's extremest infamy and scorn, that so I and thou--_thou_, my mother, mightest gloriously own her, and acknowledge her, and,---- Nay, nay, groaned Pierre, never, never, could such syllables be one instant tolerated by her. Then, high-up, and towering, and all-forbidding before Pierre grew the before unthought of wonderful edifice of his mother's immense pride;--her pride of birth, her pride of affluence, her pride of purity, and all the pride of high-born, refined, and wealthy Life, and all the Semiramian pride of woman. Then he staggered back upon himself, and only found support in himself. Then Pierre felt that deep in him lurked a divine unidentifiableness, that owned no earthly kith or kin. Yet was this feeling entirely lonesome, and orphan-like. Fain, then, for one moment, would he have recalled the thousand sweet illusions of Life; tho' purchased at the price of Life's Truth; so that once more he might not feel himself driven out an infant Ishmael into the desert, with no maternal Hagar to accompany and comfort him. Still, were these emotions without prejudice to his own love for his mother, and without the slightest bitterness respecting her; and, least of all, there was no shallow disdain toward her of superior virtue. He too plainly saw, that not his mother had made his mother; but the Infinite Haughtiness had first fashioned her; and then the haughty world had further molded her; nor had a haughty Ritual omitted to finish her. Wonderful, indeed, we repeat it, was the electrical insight which Pierre now had into the character of his mother, for not even the vivid recalling of her lavish love for him could suffice to gainsay his sudden persuasion. Love me she doth, thought Pierre, but how? Loveth she me with the love past all understanding? that love, which in the loved one's behalf, would still calmly confront all hate? whose most triumphing hymn, triumphs only by swelling above all opposing taunts and despite?--Loving mother, here have I a loved, but world-infamous sister to own;--and if thou lovest me, mother, thy love will love her, too, and in the proudest drawing-room take her so much the more proudly by the hand.--And as Pierre thus in fancy led Isabel before his mother; and in fancy led her away, and felt his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth, with her transfixing look of incredulous, scornful horror; then Pierre's enthusiastic heart sunk in and in, and caved clean away in him, as he so poignantly felt his first feeling of the dreary heart-vacancies of the conventional life. Oh heartless, proud, ice-gilded world, how I hate thee, he thought, that thy tyrannous, insatiate grasp, thus now in my bitterest need--thus doth rob me even of my mother; thus doth make me now doubly an orphan, without a green grave to bedew. My tears,--could I weep them,--must now be wept in the desolate places; now to me is it, as though both father and mother had gone on distant voyages, and, returning, died in unknown seas. She loveth me, ay;--but why? Had I been cast in a cripple's mold, how then? Now, do I remember that in her most caressing love, there ever gleamed some scaly, glittering folds of pride. Me she loveth with pride's love; in me she thinks she seeth her own curled and haughty beauty; before my glass she stands,--pride's priestess--and to her mirrored image, not to me, she offers up her offerings of kisses. Oh, small thanks I owe thee, Favorable Goddess, that didst clothe this form with all the beauty of a man, that so thou mightest hide from me all the truth of a man. Now I see that in his beauty a man is snared, and made stone-blind, as the worm within its silk. Welcome then be Ugliness and Poverty and Infamy, and all ye other crafty ministers of Truth, that beneath the hoods and rags of beggars hide yet the belts and crowns of kings. And dimmed be all beauty that must own the clay; and dimmed be all wealth, and all delight, and all the annual prosperities of earth, that but gild the links, and stud with diamonds the base rivets and the chains of Lies. Oh, now methinks I a little see why of old the men _of_ Truth went barefoot, girded with a rope, and ever moving under mournfulness as underneath a canopy. I remember now those first wise words, wherewith our Savior Christ first spoke in his first speech to men:--'Blessed are the poor in spirit, and blessed they that mourn.' Oh, hitherto I have but piled up words; bought books, and bought some small experiences, and builded me in libraries; now I sit down and read. Oh, now I know the night, and comprehend the sorceries of the moon, and all the dark persuadings that have their birth in storms and winds. Oh, not long will Joy abide, when Truth doth come; nor Grief her laggard be. Well may this head hang on my breast--it holds too much; well may my heart knock at my ribs,--prisoner impatient of his iron bars. Oh, men are jailers all; jailers of themselves; and in Opinion's world ignorantly hold their noblest part a captive to their vilest; as disguised royal Charles when caught by peasants. The heart! the heart! 'tis God's anointed; let me pursue the heart! II. But if the presentiment in Pierre of his mother's pride, as bigotedly hostile to the noble design he cherished; if this feeling was so wretched to him; far more so was the thought of another and a deeper hostility, arising from her more spiritual part. For her pride would not be so scornful, as her wedded memories reject with horror, the unmentionable imputation involved in the mere fact of Isabel's existence. In what galleries of conjecture, among what horrible haunting toads and scorpions, would such a revelation lead her? When Pierre thought of this, the idea of at all divulging his secret to his mother, not only was made repelling by its hopelessness, as an infirm attack upon her citadel of pride, but was made in the last degree inhuman, as torturing her in her tenderest recollections, and desecrating the whitest altar in her sanctuary. Though the conviction that he must never disclose his secret to his mother was originally an unmeditated, and as it were, an inspired one; yet now he was almost pains-taking in scrutinizing the entire circumstances of the matter, in order that nothing might be overlooked. For already he vaguely felt, that upon the concealment, or the disclosure of this thing, with reference to his mother, hinged his whole future course of conduct, his whole earthly weal, and Isabel's. But the more and the more that he pondered upon it, the more and the more fixed became his original conviction. He considered that in the case of a disclosure, all human probability pointed to his mother's scornful rejection of his suit as a pleader for Isabel's honorable admission into the honorable mansion of the Glendinnings. Then in that case, unconsciously thought Pierre, I shall have given the deep poison of a miserable truth to my mother, without benefit to any, and positive harm to all. And through Pierre's mind there then darted a baleful thought; how that the truth should not always be paraded; how that sometimes a lie is heavenly, and truth infernal. Filially infernal, truly, thought Pierre, if I should by one vile breath of truth, blast my father's blessed memory in the bosom of my mother, and plant the sharpest dagger of grief in her soul. I will not do it! But as this resolution in him opened up so dark and wretched a background to his view, he strove to think no more of it now, but postpone it until the interview with Isabel should have in some way more definitely shaped his purposes. For, when suddenly encountering the shock of new and unanswerable revelations, which he feels must revolutionize all the circumstances of his life, man, at first, ever seeks to shun all conscious definitiveness in his thoughts and purposes; as assured, that the lines that shall precisely define his present misery, and thereby lay out his future path; these can only be defined by sharp stakes that cut into his heart. III. Most melancholy of all the hours of earth, is that one long, gray hour, which to the watcher by the lamp intervenes between the night and day; when both lamp and watcher, over-tasked, grow sickly in the pallid light; and the watcher, seeking for no gladness in the dawn, sees naught but garish vapors there; and almost invokes a curse upon the public day, that shall invade his lonely night of sufferance. The one small window of his closet looked forth upon the meadow, and across the river, and far away to the distant heights, storied with the great deeds of the Glendinnings. Many a time had Pierre sought this window before sunrise, to behold the blood-red, out-flinging dawn, that would wrap those purple hills as with a banner. But now the morning dawned in mist and rain, and came drizzlingly upon his heart. Yet as the day advanced, and once more showed to him the accustomed features of his room by that natural light, which, till this very moment, had never lighted him but to his joy; now that the day, and not the night, was witness to his woe; now first the dread reality came appallingly upon him. A sense of horrible forlornness, feebleness, impotence, and infinite, eternal desolation possessed him. It was not merely mental, but corporeal also. He could not stand; and when he tried to sit, his arms fell floorwards as tied to leaden weights. Dragging his ball and chain, he fell upon his bed; for when the mind is cast down, only in sympathetic proneness can the body rest; whence the bed is often Grief's first refuge. Half stupefied, as with opium, he fell into the profoundest sleep. In an hour he awoke, instantly recalling all the previous night; and now finding himself a little strengthened, and lying so quietly and silently there, almost without bodily consciousness, but his soul unobtrusively alert; careful not to break the spell by the least movement of a limb, or the least turning of his head. Pierre steadfastly faced his grief, and looked deep down into its eyes; and thoroughly, and calmly, and summarily comprehended it now--so at least he thought--and what it demanded from him; and what he must quickly do in its more immediate sequences; and what that course of conduct was, which he must pursue in the coming unevadable breakfast interview with his mother; and what, for the present must be his plan with Lucy. His time of thought was brief. Rising from his bed, he steadied himself upright a moment; and then going to his writing-desk, in a few at first faltering, but at length unlagging lines, traced the following note: "I must ask pardon of you, Lucy, for so strangely absenting myself last night. But you know me well enough to be very sure that I would not have done so without important cause. I was in the street approaching your cottage, when a message reached me, imperatively calling me away. It is a matter which will take up all my time and attention for, possibly, two or three days. I tell you this, now, that you may be prepared for it. And I know that however unwelcome this may be to you, you will yet bear with it for my sake; for, indeed, and indeed, Lucy dear, I would not dream of staying from you so long, unless irresistibly coerced to it. Do not come to the mansion until I come to you; and do not manifest any curiosity or anxiety about me, should you chance in the interval to see my mother in any other place. Keep just as cheerful as if I were by you all the time. Do this, now, I conjure you; and so farewell!" He folded the note, and was about sealing it, when he hesitated a moment, and instantly unfolding it, read it to himself. But he could not adequately comprehend his own writing, for a sudden cloud came over him. This passed; and taking his pen hurriedly again, he added the following postscript: "Lucy, this note may seem mysterious; but if it shall, I did not mean to make it so; nor do I know that I could have helped it. But the only reason is this, Lucy: the matter which I have alluded to, is of such a nature, that, for the present I stand virtually pledged not to disclose it to any person but those more directly involved in it. But where one can not reveal the thing itself, it only makes it the more mysterious to write round it this way. So merely know me entirely unmenaced in person, and eternally faithful to you; and so be at rest till I see you." Then sealing the note, and ringing the bell, he gave it in strict charge to a servant, with directions to deliver it at the earliest practicable moment, and not wait for any answer. But as the messenger was departing the chamber, he called him back, and taking the sealed note again, and hollowing it in his hand, scrawled inside of it in pencil the following words: "Don't write me; don't inquire for me;" and then returned it to the man, who quitted him, leaving Pierre rooted in thought in the middle of the room. But he soon roused himself, and left the mansion; and seeking the cool, refreshing meadow stream, where it formed a deep and shady pool, he bathed; and returning invigorated to his chamber, changed his entire dress; in the little trifling concernments of his toilette, striving utterly to banish all thought of that weight upon his soul. Never did he array himself with more solicitude for effect. It was one of his fond mother's whims to perfume the lighter contents of his wardrobe; and it was one of his own little femininenesses--of the sort sometimes curiously observable in very robust-bodied and big-souled men, as Mohammed, for example--to be very partial to all pleasant essences. So that when once more he left the mansion in order to freshen his cheek anew to meet the keen glance of his mother--to whom the secret of his possible pallor could not be divulged; Pierre went forth all redolent; but alas! his body only the embalming cerements of his buried dead within. IV. His stroll was longer than he meant; and when he returned up the Linden walk leading to the breakfast-room, and ascended the piazza steps, and glanced into the wide window there, he saw his mother seated not far from the table; her face turned toward his own; and heard her gay voice, and peculiarly light and buoyant laugh, accusing him, and not her, of being the morning's laggard now. Dates was busy among some spoons and napkins at a side-stand. Summoning all possible cheerfulness to his face, Pierre entered the room. Remembering his carefulness in bathing and dressing; and knowing that there is no air so calculated to give bloom to the cheek as that of a damply fresh, cool, and misty morning, Pierre persuaded himself that small trace would now be found on him of his long night of watching. 'Good morning, sister;--Such a famous stroll! I have been all the way to---- ' 'Where? good heavens! where? for such a look as that!--why, Pierre, Pierre? what ails thee? Dates, I will touch the bell presently.' As the good servitor fumbled for a moment among the napkins, as if unwilling to stir so summarily from his accustomed duty, and not without some of a well and long-tried old domestic's vague, intermitted murmuring, at being wholly excluded from a matter of family interest; Mrs. Glendinning kept her fixed eye on Pierre, who, unmindful that the breakfast was not yet entirely ready, seating himself at the table, began helping himself--though but nervously enough--to the cream and sugar. The moment the door closed on Dates, the mother sprang to her feet, and threw her arms around her son; but in that embrace, Pierre miserably felt that their two hearts beat not together in such unison as before. 'What haggard thing possesses thee, my son? Speak, this is incomprehensible! Lucy;--fie!--not she?--no love-quarrel there;--speak, speak, my darling boy! 'My dear sister,' began Pierre. 'Sister me not, now, Pierre;--I am thy mother.' 'Well, then, dear mother, thou art quite as incomprehensible to me as I to---- ' 'Talk faster, Pierre--this calmness freezes me. Tell me; for, by my soul, something most wonderful must have happened to thee. Thou art my son, and I command thee. It is not Lucy; it is something else. Tell me.' 'My dear mother,' said Pierre, impulsively moving his chair backward from the table, 'if thou wouldst only believe me when I say it, I have really nothing to tell thee. Thou knowest that sometimes, when I happen to feel very foolishly studious and philosophical, I sit up late in my chamber; and then, regardless of the hour, foolishly run out into the air, for a long stroll across the meadows. I took such a stroll last night; and had but little time left for napping afterward; and what nap I had I was none the better for. But I won't be so silly again, soon; so do, dearest mother, stop looking at me, and let us to breakfast.--Dates! Touch the bell there, sister.' 'Stay, Pierre!--There is a heaviness in this hour. I feel, I know, that thou art deceiving me;--perhaps I erred in seeking to wrest thy secret from thee; but believe me, my son, I never thought thou hadst any secret thing from me, except thy first love for Lucy--and that, my own womanhood tells me, was most pardonable and right. But now, what can it be? Pierre, Pierre! consider well before thou determinest upon withholding confidence from me. I am thy mother. It may prove a fatal thing. Can that be good and virtuous, Pierre, which shrinks from a mother's knowledge? Let us not loose hands so, Pierre; thy confidence from me, mine goes from thee. Now, shall I touch the bell?' Pierre, who had thus far been vainly seeking to occupy his hands with his cap and spoon; he now paused, and unconsciously fastened a speechless glance of mournfulness upon his mother. Again he felt presentiments of his mother's newly-revealed character. He foresaw the supposed indignation of her wounded pride; her gradually estranged affections thereupon; he knew her firmness, and her exaggerated ideas of the inalienable allegiance of a son. He trembled to think, that now indeed was come the first initial moment of his heavy trial. But though he knew all the significance of his mother's attitude, as she stood before him, intently eying him, with one hand upon the bell-cord; and though he felt that the same opening of the door that should now admit Dates, could not but give eternal exit to all confidence between him and his mother; and though he felt, too, that this was his mother's latent thought; nevertheless, he was girded up in his well-considered resolution. "Pierre, Pierre! shall I touch the bell?" "Mother, stay!--yes do, sister." The bell was rung; and at the summons Dates entered; and looking with some significance at Mrs. Glendinning, said,--"His Reverence has come, my mistress, and is now in the west parlor." "Show Mr. Falsgrave in here immediately; and bring up the coffee; did I not tell you I expected him to breakfast this morning?" "Yes, my mistress; but I thought that--that--just then"--glancing alarmedly from mother to son. "Oh, my good Dates, nothing has happened," cried Mrs. Glendinning, lightly, and with a bitter smile, looking toward her son,--"show Mr. Falsgrave in. Pierre, I did not see thee, to tell thee, last night; but Mr. Falsgrave breakfasts with us by invitation. I was at the parsonage yesterday, to see him about that wretched affair of Delly, and we are finally to settle upon what is to be done this morning. But my mind is made up concerning Ned; no such profligate shall pollute this place; nor shall the disgraceful Delly." Fortunately, the abrupt entrance of the clergyman, here turned away attention from the sudden pallor of Pierre's countenance, and afforded him time to rally. "Good morning, madam; good morning, sir;" said Mr. Falsgrave, in a singularly mild, flute-like voice, turning to Mrs. Glendinning and her son; the lady receiving him with answering cordiality, but Pierre too embarrassed just then to be equally polite. As for one brief moment Mr. Falsgrave stood before the pair, ere taking the offered chair from Dates, his aspect was eminently attractive. There are certain ever-to-be-cherished moments in the life of almost any man, when a variety of little foregoing circumstances all unite to make him temporarily oblivious of whatever may be hard and bitter in his life, and also to make him most amiably and ruddily disposed; when the scene and company immediately before him are highly agreeable; and if at such a time he chance involuntarily to put himself into a scenically favorable bodily posture; then, in that posture, however transient, thou shalt catch the noble stature of his Better Angel; catch a heavenly glimpse of the latent heavenliness of man. It was so with Mr. Falsgrave now. Not a house within a circuit of fifty miles that he preferred entering before the mansion-house of Saddle Meadows; and though the business upon which he had that morning come, was any thing but relishable to him, yet that subject was not in his memory then. Before him stood united in one person, the most exalted lady and the most storied beauty of all the country round; and the finest, most intellectual, and most congenial youth he knew. Before him also, stood the generous foundress and the untiring patroness of the beautiful little marble church, consecrated by the good Bishop, not four years gone by. Before him also, stood--though in polite disguise--the same untiring benefactress, from whose purse, he could not help suspecting, came a great part of his salary, nominally supplied by the rental of the pews. He had been invited to breakfast; a meal, which, in a well-appointed country family, is the most cheerful circumstance of daily life; he smelt all Java's spices in the aroma from the silver coffee-urn; and well he knew, what liquid deliciousness would soon come from it. Besides all this, and many more minutenesses of the kind, he was conscious that Mrs. Glendinning entertained a particular partiality for him (though not enough to marry him, as he ten times knew by very bitter experience), and that Pierre was not behindhand in his esteem. And the clergyman was well worthy of it. Nature had been royally bountiful to him in his person. In his happier moments, as the present, his face was radiant with a courtly, but mild benevolence; his person was nobly robust and dignified; while the remarkable smallness of his feet, and the almost infantile delicacy, and vivid whiteness and purity of his hands, strikingly contrasted with his fine girth and stature. For in countries like America, where there is no distinct hereditary caste of gentlemen, whose order is factitiously perpetuated as race-horses and lords are in kingly lands; and especially, in those agricultural districts, where, of a hundred hands, that drop a ballot for the Presidency, ninety-nine shall be of the brownest and the brawniest; in such districts, this daintiness of the fingers, when united with a generally manly aspect, assumes a remarkableness unknown in European nations. This most prepossessing form of the clergyman lost nothing by the character of his manners, which were polished and unobtrusive, but peculiarly insinuating, without the least appearance of craftiness or affectation. Heaven had given him his fine, silver-keyed person for a flute to play on in this world; and he was nearly the perfect master of it. His graceful motions had the undulatoriness of melodious sounds. You almost thought you heard, not saw him. So much the wonderful, yet natural gentleman he seemed, that more than once Mrs. Glendinning had held him up to Pierre as a splendid example of the polishing and gentlemanizing influences of Christianity upon the mind and manners; declaring, that extravagant as it might seem, she had always been of his father's fancy,--that no man could be a complete gentleman, and preside with dignity at his own table, unless he partook of the church's sacraments. Nor in Mr. Falsgrave's case was this maxim entirely absurd. The child of a poor northern farmer who had wedded a pretty sempstress, the clergyman had no heraldic line of ancestry to show, as warrant and explanation of his handsome person and gentle manners; the first, being the willful partiality of nature; and the second, the consequence of a scholastic life, attempered by a taste for the choicest female society, however small, which he had always regarded as the best relish of existence. If now his manners thus responded to his person, his mind answered to them both, and was their finest illustration. Besides his eloquent persuasiveness in the pulpit, various fugitive papers upon subjects of nature, art, and literature, attested not only his refined affinity to all beautiful things, visible or invisible; but likewise that he possessed a genius for celebrating such things, which in a less indolent and more ambitious nature, would have been sure to have gained a fair poet's name ere now. For this Mr. Falsgrave was just hovering upon his prime of years; a period which, in such a man, is the sweetest, and, to a mature woman, by far the most attractive of manly life. Youth has not yet completely gone with its beauty, grace, and strength; nor has age at all come with its decrepitudes; though the finest undrossed parts of it--its mildness and its wisdom--have gone on before, as decorous chamberlains precede the sedan of some crutched king. Such was this Mr. Falsgrave, who now sat at Mrs. Glendinning's breakfast table, a corner of one of that lady's generous napkins so inserted into his snowy bosom, that its folds almost invested him as far down as the table's edge; and he seemed a sacred priest, indeed, breakfasting in his surplice. "Pray, Mr. Falsgrave," said Mrs. Glendinning, "break me off a bit of that roll." Whether or not his sacerdotal experiences had strangely refined and spiritualized so simple a process as breaking bread; or whether it was from the spotless aspect of his hands: certain it is that Mr. Falsgrave acquitted himself on this little occasion, in a manner that beheld of old by Leonardo, might have given that artist no despicable hint touching his celestial painting. As Pierre regarded him, sitting there so mild and meek; such an image of white-browed and white-handed, and napkined immaculateness; and as he felt the gentle humane radiations which came from the clergyman's manly and rounded beautifulness; and as he remembered all the good that he knew of this man, and all the good that he had heard of him, and could recall no blemish in his character; and as in his own concealed misery and forlornness, he contemplated the open benevolence, and beaming excellent-heartedness of Mr. Falsgrave, the thought darted through his mind, that if any living being was capable of giving him worthy counsel in his strait; and if to any one he could go with Christian propriety and some small hopefulness, that person was the one before him. "Pray, Mr. Glendinning," said the clergyman, pleasantly, as Pierre was silently offering to help him to some tongue--"don't let me rob you of it--pardon me, but you seem to have very little yourself this morning, I think. An execrable pun, I know: but"--turning toward Mrs. Glendinning--"when one is made to feel very happy, one is somehow apt to say very silly things. Happiness and silliness--ah, it's a suspicious coincidence." "Mr. Falsgrave," said the hostess--"Your cup is empty. Dates!--We were talking yesterday, Mr. Falsgrave, concerning that vile fellow, Ned." "Well, Madam," responded the gentleman, a very little uneasily. "He shall not stay on any ground of mine; my mind is made up, sir. Infamous man!--did he not have a wife as virtuous and beautiful now, as when I first gave her away at your altar?--It was the sheerest and most gratuitous profligacy." The clergyman mournfully and assentingly moved his head. "Such men," continued the lady, flushing with the sincerest indignation--"are to my way of thinking more detestable than murderers." "That is being a little hard upon them, my dear Madam," said Mr. Falsgrave, mildly. "Do you not think so, Pierre"--now, said the lady, turning earnestly upon her son--"is not the man, who has sinned like that Ned, worse than a murderer? Has he not sacrificed one woman completely, and given infamy to another--to both of them--for their portion. If his own legitimate boy should now hate him, I could hardly blame him." "My dear Madam," said the clergyman, whose eyes having followed Mrs. Glendinning's to her son's countenance, and marking a strange trepidation there, had thus far been earnestly scrutinizing Pierre's not wholly repressible emotion;--"My dear Madam," he said, slightly bending over his stately episcopal-looking person--"Virtue has, perhaps, an over-ardent champion in you; you grow too warm; but Mr. Glendinning, here, he seems to grow too cold. Pray, favor us with your views, Mr. Glendinning?" "I will not think now of the man," said Pierre, slowly, and looking away from both his auditors--"let us speak of Delly and her infant--she has, or had one, I have loosely heard;--their case is miserable indeed." "The mother deserves it," said the lady, inflexibly--"and the child--Reverend sir, what are the words of the Bible?" "'The sins of the father shall be visited upon the children to the third generation,'" said Mr. Falsgrave, with some slight reluctance in his tones. "But Madam, that does not mean, that the community is in any way to take the infamy of the children into their own voluntary hands, as the conscious delegated stewards of God's inscrutable dispensations. Because it is declared that the infamous consequences of sin shall be hereditary, it does not follow that our personal and active loathing of sin, should descend from the sinful sinner to his sinless child." "I understand you, sir," said Mrs. Glendinning, coloring slightly, "you think me too censorious. But if we entirely forget the parentage of the child, and every way receive the child as we would any other, feel for it in all respects the same, and attach no sign of ignominy to it--how then is the Bible dispensation to be fulfilled? Do we not then put ourselves in the way of its fulfilment, and is that wholly free from impiety?" Here it was the clergyman's turn to color a little, and there was a just perceptible tremor of the under lip. "Pardon me," continued the lady, courteously, "but if there is any one blemish in the character of the Reverend Mr. Falsgrave, it is that the benevolence of his heart, too much warps in him the holy rigor of our Church's doctrines. For my part, as I loathe the man, I loathe the woman, and never desire to behold the child." A pause ensued, during which it was fortunate for Pierre, that by the social sorcery of such occasions as the present, the eyes of all three were intent upon the cloth; all three for the moment, giving loose to their own distressful meditations upon the subject in debate, and Mr. Falsgrave vexedly thinking that the scene was becoming a little embarrassing. Pierre was the first who spoke; as before, he steadfastly kept his eyes away from both his auditors; but though he did not designate his mother, something in the tone of his voice showed that what he said was addressed more particularly to her. "Since we seem to have been strangely drawn into the ethical aspect of this melancholy matter," said he, "suppose we go further in it; and let me ask, how it should be between the legitimate and the illegitimate child--children of one father--when they shall have passed their childhood?" Here the clergyman quickly raising his eyes, looked as surprised and searchingly at Pierre, as his politeness would permit. "Upon my word"--said Mrs. Glendinning, hardly less surprised, and making no attempt at disguising it--"this is an odd question you put; you have been more attentive to the subject than I had fancied. But what do you mean, Pierre? I did not entirely understand you." "Should the legitimate child shun the illegitimate, when one father is father to both?" rejoined Pierre, bending his head still further over his plate. The clergyman looked a little down again, and was silent; but still turned his head slightly sideways toward his hostess, as if awaiting some reply to Pierre from her. "Ask the world, Pierre"--said Mrs. Glendinning warmly--"and ask your own heart." "My own heart? I will, Madam"--said Pierre, now looking up steadfastly; "but what do _you_ think, Mr. Falsgrave?" letting his glance drop again--"should the one shun the other; should the one refuse his highest sympathy and perfect love for the other, especially if that other be deserted by all the rest of the world? What think you would have been our blessed Savior's thoughts on such a matter? And what was that he so mildly said to the adulteress?" A swift color passed over the clergyman's countenance, suffusing even his expanded brow; he slightly moved in his chair, and looked uncertainly from Pierre to his mother. He seemed as a shrewd, benevolent-minded man, placed between opposite opinions--merely opinions--who, with a full, and doubly-differing persuasion in himself, still refrains from uttering it, because of an irresistible dislike to manifesting an absolute dissent from the honest convictions of any person, whom he both socially and morally esteems. "Well, what do you reply to my son?"--said Mrs. Glendinning at last. "Madam and sir"--said the clergyman, now regaining his entire self-possession. "It is one of the social disadvantages which we of the pulpit labor under, that we are supposed to know more of the moral obligations of humanity than other people. And it is a still more serious disadvantage to the world, that our unconsidered, conversational opinions on the most complex problems of ethics, are too apt to be considered authoritative, as indirectly proceeding from the church itself. Now, nothing can be more erroneous than such notions; and nothing so embarrasses me, and deprives me of that entire serenity, which is indispensable to the delivery of a careful opinion on moral subjects, than when sudden questions of this sort are put to me in company. Pardon this long preamble, for I have little more to say. It is not every question, however direct, Mr. Glendinning, which can be conscientiously answered with a yes or no. Millions of circumstances modify all moral questions; so that though conscience may possibly dictate freely in any known special case; yet, by one universal maxim, to embrace all moral contingencies,--this is not only impossible, but the attempt, to me, seems foolish." At this instant, the surplice-like napkin dropped from the clergyman's bosom, showing a minute but exquisitely cut cameo brooch, representing the allegorical union of the serpent and dove. It had been the gift of an appreciative friend, and was sometimes worn on secular occasions like the present. "I agree with you, sir"--said Pierre, bowing. "I fully agree with you. And now, madam, let us talk of something else." "You madam me very punctiliously this morning, Mr. Glendinning"--said his mother, half-bitterly smiling, and half-openly offended, but still more surprised at Pierre's frigid demeanor. "'Honor thy father and mother;'" said Pierre--"_both_ father and mother," he unconsciously added. "And now that it strikes me, Mr. Falsgrave, and now that we have become so strangely polemical this morning, let me say, that as that command is justly said to be the only one with a promise, so it seems to be without any contingency in the application. It would seem--would it not, sir?--that the most deceitful and hypocritical of fathers should be equally honored by the son, as the purest." "So it would certainly seem, according to the strict letter of the Decalogue--certainly." "And do you think, sir, that it should be so held, and so applied in actual life? For instance, should I honor my father, if I knew him to be a seducer?" "Pierre! Pierre!" said his mother, profoundly coloring, and half rising; "there is no need of these argumentative assumptions. You very immensely forget yourself this morning." "It is merely the interest of the general question, Madam," returned Pierre, coldly. "I am sorry. If your former objection does not apply here, Mr. Falsgrave, will you favor me with an answer to my question?" "There you are again, Mr. Glendinning," said the clergyman, thankful for Pierre's hint; "that is another question in morals absolutely incapable of a definite answer, which shall be universally applicable." Again the surplice-like napkin chanced to drop. "I am tacitly rebuked again then, sir," said Pierre, slowly; "but I admit that perhaps you are again in the right. And now, Madam, since Mr. Falsgrave and yourself have a little business together, to which my presence is not necessary, and may possibly prove quite dispensable, permit me to leave you. I am going off on a long ramble, so you need not wait dinner for me. Good morning, Mr. Falsgrave; good morning, Madam," looking toward his mother. As the door closed upon him, Mr. Falsgrave spoke--"Mr. Glendinning looks a little pale to-day: has he been ill?" "Not that I know of," answered the lady, indifferently, "but did you ever see young gentleman so stately as he was! Extraordinary!" she murmured; "what can this mean--Madam--Madam? But your cup is empty again, sir"--reaching forth her hand. "No more, no more, Madam," said the clergyman. "Madam? pray don't Madam me any more, Mr. Falsgrave; I have taken a sudden hatred to that title." "Shall it be Your Majesty, then?" said the clergyman, gallantly; "the May Queens are so styled, and so should be the Queens of October." Here the lady laughed. "Come," said she, "let us go into another room, and settle the affair of that infamous Ned and that miserable Delly." V. The swiftness and unrepellableness of the billow which, with its first shock, had so profoundly whelmed Pierre, had not only poured into his soul a tumult of entirely new images and emotions, but, for the time, it almost entirely drove out of him all previous ones. The things that any way bore directly upon the pregnant fact of Isabel, these things were all animate and vividly present to him; but the things which bore more upon himself, and his own personal condition, as now forever involved with his sister's, these things were not so animate and present to him. The conjectured past of Isabel took mysterious hold of his father; therefore, the idea of his father tyrannized over his imagination; and the possible future of Isabel, as so essentially though indirectly compromisable by whatever course of conduct his mother might hereafter ignorantly pursue with regard to himself, as henceforth, through Isabel, forever altered to her; these considerations brought his mother with blazing prominence before him. Heaven, after all, hath been a little merciful to the miserable man; not entirely untempered to human nature are the most direful blasts of Fate. When on all sides assailed by prospects of disaster, whose final ends are in terror hidden from it, the soul of man--either, as instinctively convinced that it can not battle with the whole host at once; or else, benevolently blinded to the larger arc of the circle which menacingly hems it in;--whichever be the truth, the soul of man, thus surrounded, can not, and does never intelligently confront the totality of its wretchedness. The bitter drug is divided into separate draughts for him: to-day he takes one part of his woe; to-morrow he takes more; and so on, till the last drop is drunk. Not that in the despotism of other things, the thought of Lucy, and the unconjecturable suffering into which she might so soon be plunged, owing to the threatening uncertainty of the state of his own future, as now in great part and at all hazards dedicated to Isabel; not that this thought had thus far been alien to him. Icy-cold, and serpent-like, it had overlayingly crawled in upon his other shuddering imaginings; but those other thoughts would as often upheave again, and absorb it into themselves, so that it would in that way soon disappear from his cotemporary apprehension. The prevailing thoughts connected with Isabel he now could front with prepared and open eyes; but the occasional thought of Lucy, when _that_ started up before him, he could only cover his bewildered eyes with his bewildered hands. Nor was this the cowardice of selfishness, but the infinite sensitiveness of his soul. He could bear the agonizing thought of Isabel, because he was immediately resolved to help her, and to assuage a fellow-being's grief; but, as yet, he could not bear the thought of Lucy, because the very resolution that promised balm to Isabel obscurely involved the everlasting peace of Lucy, and therefore aggravatingly threatened a far more than fellow-being's happiness. Well for Pierre it was, that the penciling presentiments of his mind concerning Lucy as quickly erased as painted their tormenting images. Standing half-befogged upon the mountain of his Fate, all that part of the wide panorama was wrapped in clouds to him; but anon those concealings slid aside, or rather, a quick rent was made in them; disclosing far below, half-vailed in the lower mist, the winding tranquil vale and stream of Lucy's previous happy life; through the swift cloud-rent he caught one glimpse of her expectant and angelic face peeping from the honey-suckled window of her cottage; and the next instant the stormy pinions of the clouds locked themselves over it again; and all was hidden as before; and all went confused in whirling rack and vapor as before. Only by unconscious inspiration, caught from the agencies invisible to man, had he been enabled to write that first obscurely announcing note to Lucy; wherein the collectedness, and the mildness, and the calmness, were but the natural though insidious precursors of the stunning bolts on bolts to follow. But, while thus, for the most part wrapped from his consciousness and vision, still, the condition of his Lucy, as so deeply affected now, was still more and more disentangling and defining itself from out its nearer mist, and even beneath the general upper fog. For when unfathomably stirred, the subtler elements of man do not always reveal themselves in the concocting act; but, as with all other potencies, show themselves chiefly in their ultimate resolvings and results. Strange wild work, and awfully symmetrical and reciprocal, was that now going on within the self-apparently chaotic breast of Pierre. As in his own conscious determinations, the mournful Isabel was being snatched from her captivity of world-wide abandonment; so, deeper down in the more secret chambers of his unsuspecting soul, the smiling Lucy, now as dead and ashy pale, was being bound a ransom for Isabel's salvation. Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. Eternally inexorable and unconcerned is Fate, a mere heartless trader in men's joys and woes. Nor was this general and spontaneous self-concealment of all the most momentous interests of his love, as irretrievably involved with Isabel and his resolution respecting her; nor was this unbidden thing in him unseconded by the prompting of his own conscious judgment, when in the tyranny of the master-event itself, that judgment was permitted some infrequent play. He could not but be aware, that all meditation on Lucy now was worse than useless. How could he now map out his and her young life-chart, when all was yet misty-white with creamy breakers! Still more: divinely dedicated as he felt himself to be; with divine commands upon him to befriend and champion Isabel, through all conceivable contingencies of Time and Chance; how could he insure himself against the insidious inroads of self-interest, and hold intact all his unselfish magnanimities, if once he should permit the distracting thought of Lucy to dispute with Isabel's the pervading possession of his soul? And if--though but unconsciously as yet--he was almost superhumanly prepared to make a sacrifice of all objects dearest to him, and cut himself away from his last hopes of common happiness, should they cross his grand enthusiast resolution;--if this was so with him; then, how light as gossamer, and thinner and more impalpable than airiest threads of gauze, did he hold all common conventional regardings;--his hereditary duty to his mother, his pledged worldly faith and honor to the hand and seal of his affiancement? Not that at present all these things did thus present themselves to Pierre; but these things were foetally forming in him. Impregnations from high enthusiasms he had received; and the now incipient offspring which so stirred, with such painful, vague vibrations in his soul; this, in its mature development, when it should at last come forth in living deeds, would scorn all personal relationship with Pierre, and hold his heart's dearest interests for naught. Thus, in the Enthusiast to Duty, the heaven-begotten Christ is born; and will not own a mortal parent, and spurns and rends all mortal bonds. VI. One night, one day, and a small part of the one ensuing evening had been given to Pierre to prepare for the momentous interview with Isabel. Now, thank God, thought Pierre, the night is past,--the night of Chaos and of Doom; the day only, and the skirt of evening now remain. May heaven new-string my soul, and confirm me in the Christ-like feeling I first felt. May I, in all my least shapeful thoughts still square myself by the inflexible rule of holy right. Let no unmanly, mean temptation cross my path this day; let no base stone lie in it. This day I will forsake the censuses of men, and seek the suffrages of the god-like population of the trees, which now seem to me a nobler race than man. Their high foliage shall drop heavenliness upon me; my feet in contact with their mighty roots, immortal vigor shall so steal into me. Guide me, gird me, guard me, this day, ye sovereign powers! Bind me in bonds I can not break; remove all sinister allurings from me; eternally this day deface in me the detested and distorted images of all the convenient lies and duty-subterfuges of the diving and ducking moralities of this earth. Fill me with consuming fire for them; to my life's muzzle, cram me with your own intent. Let no world-syren come to sing to me this day, and wheedle from me my undauntedness. I cast my eternal die this day, ye powers. On my strong faith in ye Invisibles, I stake three whole felicities, and three whole lives this day. If ye forsake me now,--farewell to Faith, farewell to Truth, farewell to God; exiled for aye from God and man, I shall declare myself an equal power with both; free to make war on Night and Day, and all thoughts and things of mind and matter, which the upper and the nether firmaments do clasp! VII. But Pierre, though, charged with the fire of all divineness, his containing thing was made of clay. Ah, muskets the gods have made to carry infinite combustions, and yet made them of clay! Save me from being bound to Truth, liege lord, as I am now. How shall I steal yet further into Pierre, and show how this heavenly fire was helped to be contained in him, by mere contingent things, and things that he knew not. But I shall follow the endless, winding way,--the flowing river in the cave of man; careless whither I be led, reckless where I land. Was not the face--though mutely mournful--beautiful, bewitchingly? How unfathomable those most wondrous eyes of supernatural light! In those charmed depths, Grief and Beauty plunged and dived together. So beautiful, so mystical, so bewilderingly alluring; speaking of a mournfulness infinitely sweeter and more attractive than all mirthfulness; that face of glorious suffering; that face of touching loveliness; that face was Pierre's own sister's; that face was Isabel's; that face Pierre had visibly seen; into those same supernatural eyes our Pierre had looked. Thus, already, and ere the proposed encounter, he was assured that, in a transcendent degree, womanly beauty, and not womanly ugliness, invited him to champion the right. Be naught concealed in this book of sacred truth. How, if accosted in some squalid lane, a humped, and crippled, hideous girl should have snatched his garment's hem, with--"Save me, Pierre--love me, own me, brother; I am thy sister!"--Ah, if man were wholly made in heaven, why catch we hell-glimpses? Why in the noblest marble pillar that stands beneath the all-comprising vault, ever should we descry the sinister vein? We lie in nature very close to God; and though, further on, the stream may be corrupted by the banks it flows through; yet at the fountain's rim, where mankind stand, there the stream infallibly bespeaks the fountain. So let no censorious word be here hinted of mortal Pierre. Easy for me to slyly hide these things, and always put him before the eye as perfect as immaculate; unsusceptible to the inevitable nature and the lot of common men. I am more frank with Pierre than the best men are with themselves. I am all unguarded and magnanimous with Pierre; therefore you see his weakness, and therefore only. In reserves men build imposing characters; not in revelations. He who shall be wholly honest, though nobler than Ethan Allen; that man shall stand in danger of the meanest mortal's scorn. BOOK VI. ISABEL, AND THE FIRST PART OF THE STORY OF ISABEL. I. Half wishful that the hour would come; half shuddering that every moment it still came nearer and more near to him; dry-eyed, but wet with that dark day's rain; at fall of eve, Pierre emerged from long wanderings in the primeval woods of Saddle Meadows, and for one instant stood motionless upon their sloping skirt. Where he stood was in the rude wood road, only used by sledges in the time of snow; just where the out-posted trees formed a narrow arch, and fancied gateway leading upon the far, wide pastures sweeping down toward the lake. In that wet and misty eve the scattered, shivering pasture elms seemed standing in a world inhospitable, yet rooted by inscrutable sense of duty to their place. Beyond, the lake lay in one sheet of blankness and of dumbness, unstirred by breeze or breath; fast bound there it lay, with not life enough to reflect the smallest shrub or twig. Yet in that lake was seen the duplicate, stirless sky above. Only in sunshine did that lake catch gay, green images; and these but displaced the imaged muteness of the unfeatured heavens. On both sides, in the remoter distance, and also far beyond the mild lake's further shore, rose the long, mysterious mountain masses; shaggy with pines and hemlocks, mystical with nameless, vapory exhalations, and in that dim air black with dread and gloom. At their base, profoundest forests lay entranced, and from their far owl-haunted depths of caves and rotted leaves, and unused and unregarded inland overgrowth of decaying wood--for smallest sticks of which, in other climes many a pauper was that moment perishing; from out the infinite inhumanities of those profoundest forests, came a moaning, muttering, roaring, intermitted, changeful sound: rain-shakings of the palsied trees, slidings of rocks undermined, final crashings of long-riven boughs, and devilish gibberish of the forest-ghosts. But more near, on the mild lake's hither shore, where it formed a long semi-circular and scooped acclivity of corn-fields, there the small and low red farm-house lay; its ancient roof a bed of brightest mosses; its north front (from the north the moss-wind blows), also moss-incrusted, like the north side of any vast-trunked maple in the groves. At one gabled end, a tangled arbor claimed support, and paid for it by generous gratuities of broad-flung verdure, one viny shaft of which pointed itself upright against the chimney-bricks, as if a waving lightning-rod. Against the other gable, you saw the lowly dairy-shed; its sides close netted with traced Madeira vines; and had you been close enough, peeping through that imprisoning tracery, and through the light slats barring the little embrasure of a window, you might have seen the gentle and contented captives--the pans of milk, and the snow-white Dutch cheeses in a row, and the molds of golden butter, and the jars of lily cream. In front, three straight gigantic lindens stood guardians of this verdant spot. A long way up, almost to the ridge-pole of the house, they showed little foliage; but then, suddenly, as three huge green balloons, they poised their three vast, inverted, rounded cones of verdure in the air. Soon as Pierre's eye rested on the place, a tremor shook him. Not alone because of Isabel, as there a harborer now, but because of two dependent and most strange coincidences which that day's experience had brought to him. He had gone to breakfast with his mother, his heart charged to overflowing with presentiments of what would probably be her haughty disposition concerning such a being as Isabel, claiming her maternal love: and lo! the Reverend Mr. Falsgrave enters, and Ned and Delly are discussed, and that whole sympathetic matter, which Pierre had despaired of bringing before his mother in all its ethic bearings, so as absolutely to learn her thoughts upon it, and thereby test his own conjectures; all that matter had been fully talked about; so that, through that strange coincidence, he now perfectly knew his mother's mind, and had received forewarnings, as if from heaven, not to make any present disclosure to her. That was in the morning; and now, at eve catching a glimpse of the house where Isabel was harboring, at once he recognized it as the rented farm-house of old Walter Ulver, father to the self-same Delly, forever ruined through the cruel arts of Ned. Strangest feelings, almost supernatural, now stole into Pierre. With little power to touch with awe the souls of less susceptible, reflective, and poetic beings, such coincidences, however frequently they may recur, ever fill the finer organization with sensations which transcend all verbal renderings. They take hold of life's subtlest problem. With the lightning's flash, the query is spontaneously propounded--chance, or God? If too, the mind thus influenced be likewise a prey to any settled grief, then on all sides the query magnifies, and at last takes in the all-comprehending round of things. For ever is it seen, that sincere souls in suffering, then most ponder upon final causes. The heart, stirred to its depths, finds correlative sympathy in the head, which likewise is profoundly moved. Before miserable men, when intellectual, all the ages of the world pass as in a manacled procession, and all their myriad links rattle in the mournful mystery. Pacing beneath the long-skirting shadows of the elevated wood, waiting for the appointed hour to come, Pierre strangely strove to imagine to himself the scene which was destined to ensue. But imagination utterly failed him here; the reality was too real for him; only the face, the face alone now visited him; and so accustomed had he been of late to confound it with the shapes of air, that he almost trembled when he thought that face to face, that face must shortly meet his own. And now the thicker shadows begin to fall; the place is lost to him; only the three dim, tall lindens pilot him as he descends the hill, hovering upon the house. He knows it not, but his meditative route is sinuous; as if that moment his thought's stream was likewise serpentining: laterally obstructed by insinuated misgivings as to the ultimate utilitarian advisability of the enthusiast resolution that was his. His steps decrease in quickness as he comes more nigh, and sees one feeble light struggling in the rustic double-casement. Infallibly he knows that his own voluntary steps are taking him forever from the brilliant chandeliers of the mansion of Saddle Meadows, to join company with the wretched rush-lights of poverty and woe. But his sublime intuitiveness also paints to him the sun-like glories of god-like truth and virtue; which though ever obscured by the dense fogs of earth, still shall shine eventually in unclouded radiance, casting illustrative light upon the sapphire throne of God. II. He stands before the door; the house is steeped in silence; he knocks; the casement light flickers for a moment, and then moves away; within, he hears a door creak on its hinges; then his whole heart beats wildly as the outer latch is lifted; and holding the light above her supernatural head, Isabel stands before him. It is herself. No word is spoken; no other soul is seen. They enter the room of the double casement; and Pierre sits down, overpowered with bodily faintness and spiritual awe. He lifts his eyes to Isabel's gaze of loveliness and loneliness; and then a low, sweet, half-sobbing voice of more than natural musicalness is heard:-- "And so, thou art my brother;--shall I call thee Pierre?" Steadfastly, with his one first and last fraternal inquisition of the person of the mystic girl, Pierre now for an instant eyes her; and in that one instant sees in the imploring face, not only the nameless touchingness of that of the sewing-girl, but also the subtler expression of the portrait of his then youthful father, strangely translated, and intermarryingly blended with some before unknown, foreign feminineness. In one breath, Memory and Prophecy, and Intuition tell him--"Pierre, have no reserves; no minutest possible doubt;--this being is thy sister; thou gazest on thy father's flesh." "And so thou art my brother!--shall I call thee Pierre?" He sprang to his feet, and caught her in his undoubting arms. "Thou art! thou art!" He felt a faint struggling within his clasp; her head drooped against him; his whole form was bathed in the flowing glossiness of her long and unimprisoned hair. Brushing the locks aside, he now gazed upon the death-like beauty of the face, and caught immortal sadness from it. She seemed as dead; as suffocated,--the death that leaves most unimpaired the latent tranquillities and sweetnesses of the human countenance. He would have called aloud for succor; but the slow eyes opened upon him; and slowly he felt the girl's supineness leaving her; and now she recovers herself a little,--and again he feels her faintly struggling in his arms, as if somehow abashed, and incredulous of mortal right to hold her so. Now Pierre repents his over-ardent and incautious warmth, and feels himself all reverence for her. Tenderly he leads her to a bench within the double casement; and sits beside her; and waits in silence, till the first shock of this encounter shall have left her more composed and more prepared to hold communion with him. "How feel'st thou now, my sister?" "Bless thee! bless thee!" Again the sweet, wild power of the musicalness of the voice, and some soft, strange touch of foreignness in the accent,--so it fancifully seemed to Pierre, thrills through and through his soul. He bent and kissed her brow; and then feels her hand seeking his, and then clasping it without one uttered word. All his being is now condensed in that one sensation of the clasping hand. He feels it as very small and smooth, but strangely hard. Then he knew that by the lonely labor of her hands, his own father's daughter had earned her living in the same world, where he himself, her own brother, had so idly dwelled. Once more he reverently kissed her brow, and his warm breath against it murmured with a prayer to heaven. "I have no tongue to speak to thee, Pierre, my brother. My whole being, all my life's thoughts and longings are in endless arrears to thee; then how can I speak to thee? Were it God's will, Pierre, my utmost blessing now, were to lie down and die. Then should I be at peace. Bear with me, Pierre." "Eternally will I do that, my beloved Isabel! Speak not to me yet awhile, if that seemeth best to thee, if that only is possible to thee. This thy clasping hand, my sister, _this_ is now thy tongue to me." "I know not where to begin to speak to thee, Pierre; and yet my soul o'erbrims in me." "From my heart's depths, I love and reverence thee; and feel for thee, backward and forward, through all eternity!" "Oh, Pierre, can'st thou not cure in me this dreaminess, this bewilderingness I feel? My poor head swims and swims, and will not pause. My life can not last long thus; I am too full without discharge. Conjure tears for me, Pierre; that my heart may not break with the present feeling,--more death-like to me than all my grief gone by!" "Ye thirst-slaking evening skies, ye hilly dews and mists, distil your moisture here! The bolt hath passed; why comes not the following shower?--Make her to weep!" Then her head sought his support; and big drops fell on him; and anon, Isabel gently slid her head from him, and sat a little composedly beside him. "If thou feelest in endless arrears of thought to me, my sister; so do I feel toward thee. I too, scarce know what I should speak to thee. But when thou lookest on me, my sister, thou beholdest one, who in his soul hath taken vows immutable, to be to thee, in all respects, and to the uttermost bounds and possibilities of Fate, thy protecting and all-acknowledging brother!" "Not mere sounds of common words, but inmost tones of my heart's deepest melodies should now be audible to thee. Thou speakest to a human thing, but something heavenly should answer thee;--some flute heard in the air should answer thee; for sure thy most undreamed-of accents, Pierre, sure they have not been unheard on high. Blessings that are imageless to all mortal fancyings, these shall be thine for this." "Blessing like to thine, doth but recoil and bless homeward to the heart that uttered it. I can not bless thee, my sister, as thou dost bless thyself in blessing my unworthiness. But, Isabel, by still keeping present the first wonder of our meeting, we shall make our hearts all feebleness. Let me then rehearse to thee what Pierre is; what life hitherto he hath been leading; and what hereafter he shall lead;--so thou wilt be prepared." "Nay, Pierre, that is my office; thou art first entitled to my tale, then, if it suit thee, thou shalt make me the unentitled gift of thine. Listen to me, now. The invisible things will give me strength;--it is not much, Pierre;--nor aught very marvelous. Listen then;--I feel soothed down to utterance now." During some brief, interluding, silent pauses in their interview thus far, Pierre had heard a soft, slow, sad, to-and-fro, meditative stepping on the floor above; and in the frequent pauses that intermitted the strange story in the following chapter, that same soft, slow, sad, to-and-fro, meditative, and most melancholy stepping, was again and again audible in the silent room. III. "I never knew a mortal mother. The farthest stretch of my life's memory can not recall one single feature of such a face. If, indeed, mother of mine hath lived, she is long gone, and cast no shadow on the ground she trod. Pierre, the lips that do now speak to thee, never touched a woman's breast; I seem not of woman born. My first dim life-thoughts cluster round an old, half-ruinous house in some region, for which I now have no chart to seek it out. If such a spot did ever really exist, that too seems to have been withdrawn from all the remainder of the earth. It was a wild, dark house, planted in the midst of a round, cleared, deeply-sloping space, scooped out of the middle of deep stunted pine woods. Ever I shrunk at evening from peeping out of my window, lest the ghostly pines should steal near to me, and reach out their grim arms to snatch me into their horrid shadows. In summer the forest unceasingly hummed with unconjecturable voices of unknown birds and beasts. In winter its deep snows were traced like any paper map, with dotting night-tracks of four-footed creatures, that, even to the sun, were never visible, and never were seen by man at all. In the round open space the dark house stood, without one single green twig or leaf to shelter it; shadeless and shelterless in the heart of shade and shelter. Some of the windows were rudely boarded up, with boards nailed straight up and down; and those rooms were utterly empty, and never were entered, though they were doorless. But often, from the echoing corridor, I gazed into them with fear; for the great fire-places were all in ruins; the lower tier of back-stones were burnt into one white, common crumbling; and the black bricks above had fallen upon the hearths, heaped here and there with the still falling soot of long-extinguished fires. Every hearth-stone in that house had one long crack through it; every floor drooped at the corners; and outside, the whole base of the house, where it rested on the low foundation of greenish stones, was strewn with dull, yellow molderings of the rotting sills. No name; no scrawled or written thing; no book, was in the house; no one memorial speaking of its former occupants. It was dumb as death. No grave-stone, or mound, or any little hillock around the house, betrayed any past burials of man or child. And thus, with no trace then to me of its past history, thus it hath now entirely departed and perished from my slightest knowledge as to where that house so stood, or in what region it so stood. None other house like it have I ever seen. But once I saw plates of the outside of French chateaux which powerfully recalled its dim image to me, especially the two rows of small dormer windows projecting from the inverted hopper-roof. But that house was of wood, and these of stone. Still, sometimes I think that house was not in this country, but somewhere in Europe; perhaps in France; but it is all bewildering to me; and so you must not start at me, for I can not but talk wildly upon so wild a theme. "In this house I never saw any living human soul, but an old man and woman. The old man's face was almost black with age, and was one purse of wrinkles, his hoary beard always tangled, streaked with dust and earthy crumbs. I think in summer he toiled a little in the garden, or some spot like that, which lay on one side of the house. All my ideas are in uncertainty and confusion here. But the old man and the old woman seem to have fastened themselves indelibly upon my memory. I suppose their being the only human things around me then, _that_ caused the hold they took upon me. They seldom spoke to me; but would sometimes, of dark, gusty nights, sit by the fire and stare at me, and then mumble to each other, and then stare at me again. They were not entirely unkind to me; but, I repeat, they seldom or never spoke to me. What words or language they used to each other, this it is impossible for me to recall. I have often wished to; for then I might at least have some additional idea whether the house was in this country or somewhere beyond the sea. And here I ought to say, that sometimes I have, I know not what sort of vague remembrances of at one time--shortly after the period I now speak of--chattering in two different childish languages; one of which waned in me as the other and latter grew. But more of this anon. It was the woman that gave me my meals; for I did not eat with them. Once they sat by the fire with a loaf between them, and a bottle of some thin sort of reddish wine; and I went up to them, and asked to eat with them, and touched the loaf. But instantly the old man made a motion as if to strike me, but did not, and the woman, glaring at me, snatched the loaf and threw it into the fire before them. I ran frightened from the room; and sought a cat, which I had often tried to coax into some intimacy, but, for some strange cause, without success. But in my frightened loneliness, then, I sought the cat again, and found her up-stairs, softly scratching for some hidden thing among the litter of the abandoned fire-places. I called to her, for I dared not go into the haunted chamber; but she only gazed sideways and unintelligently toward me; and continued her noiseless searchings. I called again, and then she turned round and hissed at me; and I ran down stairs, still stung with the thought of having been driven away there, too. I now knew not where to go to rid myself of my loneliness. At last I went outside of the house, and sat down on a stone, but its coldness went up to my heart, and I rose and stood on my feet. But my head was dizzy; I could not stand; I fell, and knew no more. But next morning I found myself in bed in my uncheerable room, and some dark bread and a cup of water by me. "It has only been by chance that I have told thee this one particular reminiscence of my early life in that house. I could tell many more like it, but this is enough to show what manner of life I led at that time. Every day that I then lived, I felt all visible sights and all audible sounds growing stranger and stranger, and fearful and more fearful to me. To me the man and the woman were just like the cat; none of them would speak to me; none of them were comprehensible to me. And the man, and the woman, and the cat, were just like the green foundation stones of the house to me; I knew not whence they came, or what cause they had for being there. I say again, no living human soul came to the house but the man and the woman; but sometimes the old man early trudged away to a road that led through the woods, and would not come back till late in the evening; he brought the dark bread, and the thin, reddish wine with him. Though the entrance to the wood was not so very far from the door, yet he came so slowly and infirmly trudging with his little load, that it seemed weary hours on hours between my first descrying him among the trees, and his crossing the splintered threshold. "Now the wide and vacant blurrings of my early life thicken in my mind. All goes wholly memoryless to me now. It may have been that about that time I grew sick with some fever, in which for a long interval I lost myself. Or it may be true, which I have heard, that after the period of our very earliest recollections, then a space intervenes of entire unknowingness, followed again by the first dim glimpses of the succeeding memory, more or less distinctly embracing all our past up to that one early gap in it. "However this may be, nothing more can I recall of the house in the wide open space; nothing of how at last I came to leave it; but I must have been still extremely young then. But some uncertain, tossing memory have I of being at last in another round, open space, but immensely larger than the first one, and with no encircling belt of woods. Yet often it seems to me that there were three tall, straight things like pine-trees somewhere there nigh to me at times; and that they fearfully shook and snapt as the old trees used to in the mountain storms. And the floors seemed sometimes to droop at the corners still more steeply than the old floors did; and changefully drooped too, so that I would even seem to feel them drooping under me. "Now, too, it was that, as it sometimes seems to me, I first and last chattered in the two childish languages I spoke of a little time ago. There seemed people about me, some of whom talked one, and some the other; but I talked both; yet one not so readily as the other; and but beginningly as it were; still this other was the one which was gradually displacing the former. The men who--as it sometimes dreamily seems to me at times--often climbed the three strange tree-like things, they talked--I needs must think--if indeed I have any real thought about so bodiless a phantom as this is--they talked the language which I speak of as at this time gradually waning in me. It was a bonny tongue; oh, seems to me so sparkling-gay and lightsome; just the tongue for a child like me, if the child had not been so sad always. It was pure children's language, Pierre; so twittering--such a chirp. "In thy own mind, thou must now perceive, that most of these dim remembrances in me, hint vaguely of a ship at sea. But all is dim and vague to me. Scarce know I at any time whether I tell you real things, or the unrealest dreams. Always in me, the solidest things melt into dreams, and dreams into solidities. Never have I wholly recovered from the effects of my strange early life. This it is, that even now--this moment--surrounds thy visible form, my brother, with a mysterious mistiness; so that a second face, and a third face, and a fourth face peep at me from within thy own. Now dim, and more dim, grows in me all the memory of how thou and I did come to meet. I go groping again amid all sorts of shapes, which part to me; so that I seem to advance through the shapes; and yet the shapes have eyes that look at me. I turn round, and they look at me; I step forward, and they look at me.--Let me be silent now; do not speak to me." IV. Filled with nameless wonderings at this strange being, Pierre sat mute, intensely regarding her half-averted aspect. Her immense soft tresses of the jettiest hair had slantingly fallen over her as though a curtain were half drawn from before some saint enshrined. To Pierre, she seemed half unearthly; but this unearthliness was only her mysteriousness, not any thing that was repelling or menacing to him. And still, the low melodies of her far interior voice hovered in sweet echoes in the room; and were trodden upon, and pressed like gushing grapes, by the steady invisible pacing on the floor above. She moved a little now, and after some strange wanderings more coherently continued. "My next memory which I think I can in some degree rely upon, was yet another house, also situated away from human haunts, in the heart of a not entirely silent country. Through this country, and by the house, wound a green and lagging river. That house must have been in some lowland; for the first house I spoke of seems to me to have been somewhere among mountains, or near to mountains;--the sounds of the far waterfalls,--I seem to hear them now; the steady up-pointed cloud-shapes behind the house in the sunset sky--I seem to see them now. But this other house, this second one, or third one, I know not which, I say again it was in some lowland. There were no pines around it; few trees of any sort; the ground did not slope so steeply as around the first house. There were cultivated fields about it, and in the distance farm-houses, and out-houses, and cattle, and fowls, and many objects of that familiar sort. This house I am persuaded was in this country; on this side of the sea. It was a very large house, and full of people; but for the most part they lived separately. There were some old people in it, and there were young men, and young women in it,--some very handsome; and there were children in it. It seemed a happy place to some of these people; many of them were always laughing; but it was not a happy place for me. "But here I may err, because of my own consciousness I can not identify in myself--I mean in the memory of my whole foregoing life,--I say, I can not identify that thing which is called happiness; that thing whose token is a laugh, or a smile, or a silent serenity on the lip. I may have been happy, but it is not in my conscious memory now. Nor do I feel a longing for it, as though I had never had it; my spirit seeks different food from happiness; for I think I have a suspicion of what it is. I have suffered wretchedness, but not because of the absence of happiness, and without praying for happiness. I pray for peace--for motionlessness--for the feeling of myself, as of some plant, absorbing life without seeking it, and existing without individual sensation. I feel that there can be no perfect peace in individualness. Therefore I hope one day to feel myself drank up into the pervading spirit animating all things. I feel I am an exile here. I still go straying.--Yes; in thy speech, thou smilest.--But let me be silent again. Do not answer me. When I resume, I will not wander so, but make short end." Reverently resolved not to offer the slightest let or hinting hindrance to the singular tale rehearsing to him, but to sit passively and receive its marvelous droppings into his soul, however long the pauses; and as touching less mystical considerations, persuaded that by so doing he should ultimately derive the least nebulous and imperfect account of Isabel's history; Pierre still sat waiting her resuming, his eyes fixed upon the girl's wonderfully beautiful ear, which chancing to peep forth from among her abundant tresses, nestled in that blackness like a transparent sea-shell of pearl. She moved a little now; and after some strange wanderings more coherently continued; while the sound of the stepping on the floor above--it seemed to cease. "I have spoken of the second or rather the third spot in my memory of the past, as it first appeared to me; I mean, I have spoken of the people in the house, according to my very earliest recallable impression of them. But I stayed in that house for several years--five, six, perhaps, seven years--and during that interval of my stay, all things changed to me, because I learned more, though always dimly. Some of its occupants departed; some changed from smiles to tears; some went moping all the day; some grew as savages and outrageous, and were dragged below by dumb-like men into deep places, that I knew nothing of, but dismal sounds came through the lower floor, groans and clanking fallings, as of iron in straw. Now and then, I saw coffins silently at noon-day carried into the house, and in five minutes' time emerge again, seemingly heavier than they entered; but I saw not who was in them. Once, I saw an immense-sized coffin, endwise pushed through a lower window by three men who did not speak; and watching, I saw it pushed out again, and they drove off with it. But the numbers of those invisible persons who thus departed from the house, were made good by other invisible persons arriving in close carriages. Some in rags and tatters came on foot, or rather were driven on foot. Once I heard horrible outcries, and peeping from my window, saw a robust but squalid and distorted man, seemingly a peasant, tied by cords with four long ends to them, held behind by as many ignorant-looking men who with a lash drove the wild squalid being that way toward the house. Then I heard answering hand-clappings, shrieks, howls, laughter, blessings, prayers, oaths, hymns, and all audible confusions issuing from all the chambers of the house. "Sometimes there entered the house--though only transiently, departing within the hour they came--people of a then remarkable aspect to me. They were very composed of countenance; did not laugh; did not groan; did not weep; did not make strange faces; did not look endlessly fatigued; were not strangely and fantastically dressed; in short, did not at all resemble any people I had ever seen before, except a little like some few of the persons of the house, who seemed to have authority over the rest. These people of a remarkable aspect to me, I thought they were strangely demented people;--composed of countenance, but wandering of mind; soul-composed and bodily-wandering, and strangely demented people. "By-and-by, the house seemed to change again, or else my mind took in more, and modified its first impressions. I was lodged up-stairs in a little room; there was hardly any furniture in the room; sometimes I wished to go out of it; but the door was locked. Sometimes the people came and took me out of the room, into a much larger and very long room, and here I would collectively see many of the other people of the house, who seemed likewise brought from distant and separate chambers. In this long room they would vacantly roam about, and talk vacant talk to each other. Some would stand in the middle of the room gazing steadily on the floor for hours together, and never stirred, but only breathed and gazed upon the floor. Some would sit crouching in the corner, and sit crouching there, and only breathe and crouch in the corners. Some kept their hands tight on their hearts, and went slowly promenading up and down, moaning and moaning to themselves. One would say to another--"Feel of it--here, put thy hand in the break." Another would mutter--"Broken, broken, broken"--and would mutter nothing but that one word broken. But most of them were dumb, and could not, or would not speak, or had forgotten how to speak. They were nearly all pale people. Some had hair white as snow, and yet were quite young people. Some were always talking about Hell, Eternity, and God; and some of all things as fixedly decreed; others would say nay to this, and then they would argue, but without much conviction either way. But once nearly all the people present--even the dumb moping people, and the sluggish persons crouching in the corners--nearly all of them laughed once, when after a whole day's loud babbling, two of these predestinarian opponents, said each to the other--'Thou hast convinced me, friend; but we are quits; for so also, have I convinced thee, the other way; now then, let's argue it all over again; for still, though mutually converted, we are still at odds.' Some harangued the wall; some apostrophized the air; some hissed at the air; some lolled their tongues out at the air; some struck the air; some made motions, as if wrestling with the air, and fell out of the arms of the air, panting from the invisible hug. "Now, as in the former thing, thou must, ere this, have suspected what manner of place this second or third house was, that I then lived in. But do not speak the word to me. That word has never passed my lips; even now, when I hear the word, I run from it; when I see it printed in a book, I run from the book. The word is wholly unendurable to me. Who brought me to the house; how I came there, I do not know. I lived a long time in the house; that alone I know; I say I know, but still I am uncertain; still Pierre, still the--oh the dreaminess, the bewilderingness--it never entirely leaves me. Let me be still again." She leaned away from him; she put her small hard hand to her forehead; then moved it down, very slowly, but still hardly over her eyes, and kept it there, making no other sign, and still as death. Then she moved and continued her vague tale of terribleness. "I must be shorter; I did not mean to turn off into the mere offshootings of my story, here and there; but the dreaminess I speak of leads me sometimes; and I, as impotent then, obey the dreamy prompting. Bear with me; now I will be briefer." "It came to pass, at last, that there was a contention about me in the house; some contention which I heard in the after rumor only, not at the actual time. Some strangers had arrived; or had come in haste, being sent for to the house. Next day they dressed me in new and pretty, but still plain clothes, and they took me down stairs, and out into the air, and into a carriage with a pleasant-looking woman, a stranger to me; and I was driven off a good way, two days nearly we drove away, stopping somewhere over-night; and on the evening of the second day we came to another house, and went into it, and stayed there. "This house was a much smaller one than the other, and seemed sweetly quiet to me after that. There was a beautiful infant in it; and this beautiful infant always archly and innocently smiling on me, and strangely beckoning me to come and play with it, and be glad with it; and be thoughtless, and be glad and gleeful with it; this beautiful infant first brought me to my own mind, as it were; first made me sensible that I was something different from stones, trees, cats; first undid in me the fancy that all people were as stones, trees, cats; first filled me with the sweet idea of humanness; first made me aware of the infinite mercifulness, and tenderness, and beautifulness of humanness; and this beautiful infant first filled me with the dim thought of Beauty; and equally, and at the same time, with the feeling of the Sadness; of the immortalness and universalness of the Sadness. I now feel that I should soon have gone,---- stop me now; do not let me go that way. I owe all things to that beautiful infant. Oh, how I envied it, lying in its happy mother's breast, and drawing life and gladness, and all its perpetual smilingness from that white and smiling breast. That infant saved me; but still gave me vague desirings. Now I first began to reflect in my mind; to endeavor after the recalling past things; but try as I would, little could I recall, but the bewilderingness;--and the stupor, and the torpor, and the blackness, and the dimness, and the vacant whirlingness of the bewilderingness. Let me be still again." And the stepping on the floor above,--it then resumed. V. "I must have been nine, or ten, or eleven years old, when the pleasant-looking woman carried me away from the large house. She was a farmer's wife; and now that was my residence, the farm-house. They taught me to sew, and work with wool, and spin the wool; I was nearly always busy now. This being busy, too, this it must have been, which partly brought to me the power of being sensible of myself as something human. Now I began to feel strange differences. When I saw a snake trailing through the grass, and darting out the fire-fork from its mouth, I said to myself, That thing is not human, but I am human. When the lightning flashed, and split some beautiful tree, and left it to rot from all its greenness, I said, That lightning is not human, but I am human. And so with all other things. I can not speak coherently here; but somehow I felt that all good, harmless men and women were human things, placed at cross-purposes, in a world of snakes and lightnings, in a world of horrible and inscrutable inhumanities. I have had no training of any sort. All my thoughts well up in me; I know not whether they pertain to the old bewilderings or not; but as they are, they are, and I can not alter them, for I had nothing to do with putting them in my mind, and I never affect any thoughts, and I never adulterate any thoughts; but when I speak, think forth from the tongue, speech being sometimes before the thought; so, often, my own tongue teaches me new things. "Now as yet I never had questioned the woman, or her husband, or the young girls, their children, why I had been brought to the house, or how long I was to stay in the house. There I was; just as I found myself in the world; there I was; for what cause I had been brought into the world, would have been no stranger question to me, than for what cause I had been brought to the house. I knew nothing of myself, or any thing pertaining to myself; I felt my pulse, my thought; but other things I was ignorant of, except the general feeling of my humanness among the inhumanities. But as I grew older, I expanded in my mind. I began to learn things out of me; to see still stranger, and minuter differences. I called the woman mother, and so did the other girls; yet the woman often kissed them, but seldom me. She always helped them first at table. The farmer scarcely ever spoke to me. Now months, years rolled on, and the young girls began to stare at me. Then the bewilderingness of the old starings of the solitary old man and old woman, by the cracked hearth-stone of the desolate old house, in the desolate, round, open space; the bewilderingness of those old starings now returned to me; and the green starings, and the serpent hissings of the uncompanionable cat, recurred to me, and the feeling of the infinite forlornness of my life rolled over me. But the woman was very kind to me; she taught the girls not to be cruel to me; she would call me to her, and speak cheerfully to me, and I thanked--not God, for I had been taught no God--I thanked the bright human summer, and the joyful human sun in the sky; I thanked the human summer and the sun, that they had given me the woman; and I would sometimes steal away into the beautiful grass, and worship the kind summer and the sun; and often say over to myself the soft words, summer and the sun. "Still, weeks and years ran on, and my hair began to vail me with its fullness and its length; and now often I heard the word beautiful, spoken of my hair, and beautiful, spoken of myself. They would not say the word openly to me, but I would by chance overhear them whispering it. The word joyed me with the human feeling of it. They were wrong not to say it openly to me; my joy would have been so much the more assured for the openness of their saying beautiful, to me; and I know it would have filled me with all conceivable kindness toward every one. Now I had heard the word beautiful, whispered, now and then, for some months, when a new being came to the house; they called him gentleman. His face was wonderful to me. Something strangely like it, and yet again unlike it, I had seen before, but where, I could not tell. But one day, looking into the smooth water behind the house, there I saw the likeness--something strangely like, and yet unlike, the likeness of his face. This filled me with puzzlings. The new being, the gentleman, he was very gracious to me; he seemed astonished, confounded at me; he looked at me, then at a very little, round picture--so it seemed--which he took from his pocket, and yet concealed from me. Then he kissed me, and looked with tenderness and grief upon me; and I felt a tear fall on me from him. Then he whispered a word into my ear. 'Father,' was the word he whispered; the same word by which the young girls called the farmer. Then I knew it was the word of kindness and of kisses. I kissed the gentleman. "When he left the house I wept for him to come again. And he did come again. All called him my father now. He came to see me once every month or two; till at last he came not at all; and when I wept and asked for him, they said the word _Dead_ to me. Then the bewilderings of the comings and the goings of the coffins at the large and populous house; these bewilderings came over me. What was it to be dead? What is it to be living? Wherein is the difference between the words Death and Life? Had I been ever dead? Was I living? Let me be still again. Do not speak to me." And the stepping on the floor above; again it did resume. "Months ran on; and now I somehow learned that my father had every now and then sent money to the woman to keep me with her in the house; and that no more money had come to her after he was dead; the last penny of the former money was now gone. Now the farmer's wife looked troubledly and painfully at me; and the farmer looked unpleasantly and impatiently at me. I felt that something was miserably wrong; I said to myself, I am one too many; I must go away from the pleasant house. Then the bewilderings of all the loneliness and forlornness of all my forlorn and lonely life; all these bewilderings and the whelmings of the bewilderings rolled over me; and I sat down without the house, but could not weep. "But I was strong, and I was a grown girl now. I said to the woman--Keep me hard at work; let me work all the time, but let me stay with thee. But the other girls were sufficient to do the work; me they wanted not. The farmer looked out of his eyes at me, and the out-lookings of his eyes said plainly to me--Thee we do not want; go from us; thou art one too many; and thou art more than one too many. Then I said to the woman--Hire me out to some one; let me work for some one.--But I spread too wide my little story. I must make an end. "The woman listened to me, and through her means I went to live at another house, and earned wages there. My work was milking the cows, and making butter, and spinning wool, and weaving carpets of thin strips of cloth. One day there came to this house a pedler. In his wagon he had a guitar, an old guitar, yet a very pretty one, but with broken strings. He had got it slyly in part exchange from the servants of a grand house some distance off. Spite of the broken strings, the thing looked very graceful and beautiful to me; and I knew there was melodiousness lurking in the thing, though I had never seen a guitar before, nor heard of one; but there was a strange humming in my heart that seemed to prophesy of the hummings of the guitar. Intuitively, I knew that the strings were not as they should be. I said to the man--I will buy of thee the thing thou callest a guitar. But thou must put new strings to it. So he went to search for them; and brought the strings, and restringing the guitar, tuned it for me. So with part of my earnings I bought the guitar. Straightway I took it to my little chamber in the gable, and softly laid it on my bed. Then I murmured; sung and murmured to it; very lowly, very softly; I could hardly hear myself. And I changed the modulations of my singings and my murmurings; and still sung, and murmured, lowly, softly,--more and more; and presently I heard a sudden sound: sweet and low beyond all telling was the sweet and sudden sound. I clapt my hands; the guitar was speaking to me; the dear guitar was singing to me; murmuring and singing to me, the guitar. Then I sung and murmured to it with a still different modulation; and once more it answered me from a different string; and once more it murmured to me, and it answered to me with a different string. The guitar was human; the guitar taught me the secret of the guitar; the guitar learned me to play on the guitar. No music-master have I ever had but the guitar. I made a loving friend of it; a heart friend of it. It sings to me as I to it. Love is not all on one side with my guitar. All the wonders that are unimaginable and unspeakable; all these wonders are translated in the mysterious melodiousness of the guitar. It knows all my past history. Sometimes it plays to me the mystic visions of the confused large house I never name. Sometimes it brings to me the bird-twitterings in the air; and sometimes it strikes up in me rapturous pulsations of legendary delights eternally unexperienced and unknown to me. Bring me the guitar." VI. Entranced, lost, as one wandering bedazzled and amazed among innumerable dancing lights, Pierre had motionlessly listened to this abundant-haired, and large-eyed girl of mystery. "Bring me the guitar!" Starting from his enchantment, Pierre gazed round the room, and saw the instrument leaning against a corner. Silently he brought it to the girl, and silently sat down again. "Now listen to the guitar; and the guitar shall sing to thee the sequel of my story; for not in words can it be spoken. So listen to the guitar." Instantly the room was populous with sounds of melodiousness, and mournfulness, and wonderfulness; the room swarmed with the unintelligible but delicious sounds. The sounds seemed waltzing in the room; the sounds hung pendulous like glittering icicles from the corners of the room; and fell upon him with a ringing silveryness; and were drawn up again to the ceiling, and hung pendulous again, and dropt down upon him again with the ringing silveryness. Fire-flies seemed buzzing in the sounds; summer-lightnings seemed vividly yet softly audible in the sounds. And still the wild girl played on the guitar; and her long dark shower of curls fell over it, and vailed it; and still, out from the vail came the swarming sweetness, and the utter unintelligibleness, but the infinite significancies of the sounds of the guitar. "Girl of all-bewildering mystery!" cried Pierre--"Speak to me;--sister, if thou indeed canst be a thing that's mortal--speak to me, if thou be Isabel!" "Mystery! Mystery! Mystery of Isabel! Mystery! Mystery! Isabel and Mystery!" Among the waltzings, and the droppings, and the swarmings of the sounds, Pierre now heard the tones above deftly stealing and winding among the myriad serpentinings of the other melody:--deftly stealing and winding as respected the instrumental sounds, but in themselves wonderfully and abandonedly free and bold--bounding and rebounding as from multitudinous reciprocal walls; while with every syllable the hair-shrouded form of Isabel swayed to and fro with a like abandonment, and suddenness, and wantonness:--then it seemed not like any song; seemed not issuing from any mouth; but it came forth from beneath the same vail concealing the guitar. Now a strange wild heat burned upon his brow; he put his hand to it. Instantly the music changed; and drooped and changed; and changed and changed; and lingeringly retreated as it changed; and at last was wholly gone. Pierre was the first to break the silence. "Isabel, thou hast filled me with such wonderings; I am so distraught with thee, that the particular things I had to tell to thee, when I hither came; these things I can not now recall, to speak them to thee:--I feel that something is still unsaid by thee, which at some other time thou wilt reveal. But now I can stay no longer with thee. Know me eternally as thy loving, revering, and most marveling brother, who will never desert thee, Isabel. Now let me kiss thee and depart, till to-morrow night; when I shall open to thee all my mind, and all my plans concerning me and thee. Let me kiss thee, and adieu!" As full of unquestioning and unfaltering faith in him, the girl sat motionless and heard him out. Then silently rose, and turned her boundlessly confiding brow to him. He kissed it thrice, and without another syllable left the place. BOOK VII. INTERMEDIATE BETWEEN PIERRE'S TWO INTERVIEWS WITH ISABEL AT THE FARM-HOUSE. I. Not immediately, not for a long time, could Pierre fully, or by any approximation, realize the scene which he had just departed. But the vague revelation was now in him, that the visible world, some of which before had seemed but too common and prosaic to him; and but too intelligible; he now vaguely felt, that all the world, and every misconceivedly common and prosaic thing in it, was steeped a million fathoms in a mysteriousness wholly hopeless of solution. First, the enigmatical story of the girl, and the profound sincerity of it, and yet the ever accompanying haziness, obscurity, and almost miraculousness of it;--first, this wonderful story of the girl had displaced all commonness and prosaicness from his soul; and then, the inexplicable spell of the guitar, and the subtleness of the melodious appealings of the few brief words from Isabel sung in the conclusion of the melody--all this had bewitched him, and enchanted him, till he had sat motionless and bending over, as a tree-transformed and mystery-laden visitant, caught and fast bound in some necromancer's garden. But as now burst from these sorceries, he hurried along the open road, he strove for the time to dispel the mystic feeling, or at least postpone it for a while, until he should have time to rally both body and soul from the more immediate consequences of that day's long fastings and wanderings, and that night's never-to-be-forgotten scene. He now endeavored to beat away all thoughts from him, but of present bodily needs. Passing through the silent village, he heard the clock tell the mid hour of night. Hurrying on, he entered the mansion by a private door, the key of which hung in a secret outer place. Without undressing, he flung himself upon the bed. But remembering himself again, he rose and adjusted his alarm-clock, so that it would emphatically repeat the hour of five. Then to bed again, and driving off all intrudings of thoughtfulness, and resolutely bending himself to slumber, he by-and-by fell into its at first reluctant, but at last welcoming and hospitable arms. At five he rose; and in the east saw the first spears of the advanced-guard of the day. It had been his purpose to go forth at that early hour, and so avoid all casual contact with any inmate of the mansion, and spend the entire day in a second wandering in the woods, as the only fit prelude to the society of so wild a being as his new-found sister Isabel. But the familiar home-sights of his chamber strangely worked upon him. For an instant, he almost could have prayed Isabel back into the wonder-world from which she had so slidingly emerged. For an instant, the fond, all-understood blue eyes of Lucy displaced the as tender, but mournful and inscrutable dark glance of Isabel. He seemed placed between them, to choose one or the other; then both seemed his; but into Lucy's eyes there stole half of the mournfulness of Isabel's, without diminishing hers. Again the faintness, and the long life-weariness benumbed him. He left the mansion, and put his bare forehead against the restoring wind. He re-entered the mansion, and adjusted the clock to repeat emphatically the call of seven; and then lay upon his bed. But now he could not sleep. At seven he changed his dress; and at half-past eight went below to meet his mother at the breakfast table, having a little before overheard her step upon the stair. II. He saluted her; but she looked gravely and yet alarmedly, and then in a sudden, illy-repressed panic, upon him. Then he knew he must be wonderfully changed. But his mother spoke not to him, only to return his good-morning. He saw that she was deeply offended with him, on many accounts; moreover, that she was vaguely frightened about him, and finally that notwithstanding all this, her stung pride conquered all apprehensiveness in her; and he knew his mother well enough to be very certain that, though he should unroll a magician's parchment before her now, she would verbally express no interest, and seek no explanation from him. Nevertheless, he could not entirely abstain from testing the power of her reservedness. "I have been quite an absentee, sister Mary," said he, with ill-affected pleasantness. "Yes, Pierre. How does the coffee suit you this morning? It is some new coffee." "It is very nice; very rich and odorous, sister Mary." "I am glad you find it so, Pierre." "Why don't you call me brother Pierre?" "Have I not called you so? Well, then, brother Pierre,--is that better?" "Why do you look so indifferently and icily upon me, sister Mary?" "Do I look indifferently and icily? Then I will endeavor to look otherwise. Give me the toast there, Pierre." "You are very deeply offended at me, my dear mother." "Not in the slightest degree, Pierre. Have you seen Lucy lately?" "I have not, my mother." "Ah! A bit of salmon, Pierre." "You are too proud to show toward me what you are this moment feeling, my mother." Mrs. Glendinning slowly rose to her feet, and her full stature of womanly beauty and majesty stood imposingly over him. "Tempt me no more, Pierre. I will ask no secret from thee; all shall be voluntary between us, as it ever has been, until very lately, or all shall be nothing between us. Beware of me, Pierre. There lives not that being in the world of whom thou hast more reason to beware, so you continue but a little longer to act thus with me." She reseated herself, and spoke no more. Pierre kept silence; and after snatching a few mouthfuls of he knew not what, silently quitted the table, and the room, and the mansion. III. As the door of the breakfast-room closed upon Pierre, Mrs. Glendinning rose, her fork unconsciously retained in her hand. Presently, as she paced the room in deep, rapid thought, she became conscious of something strange in her grasp, and without looking at it, to mark what it was, impulsively flung it from her. A dashing noise was heard, and then a quivering. She turned; and hanging by the side of Pierre's portrait, she saw her own smiling picture pierced through, and the fork, whose silver tines had caught in the painted bosom, vibratingly rankled in the wound. She advanced swiftly to the picture, and stood intrepidly before it. "Yes, thou art stabbed! but the wrong hand stabbed thee; this should have been _thy_ silver blow," turning to Pierre's portrait face. "Pierre, Pierre, thou hast stabbed me with a poisoned point. I feel my blood chemically changing in me. I, the mother of the only surnamed Glendinning, I feel now as though I had borne the last of a swiftly to be extinguished race. For swiftly to be extinguished is that race, whose only heir but so much as impends upon a deed of shame. And some deed of shame, or something most dubious and most dark, is in thy soul, or else some belying specter, with a cloudy, shame-faced front, sat at yon seat but now! What can it be? Pierre, unbosom. Smile not so lightly upon my heavy grief. Answer; what is it, boy? Can it? can it? no--yes--surely--can it? it can not be! But he was not at Lucy's yesterday; nor was she here; and she would not see me when I called. What can this bode? But not a mere broken match--broken as lovers sometimes break, to mend the break with joyful tears, so soon again--not a mere broken match can break my proud heart so. If that indeed be part, it is not all. But no, no, no; it can not, can not be. He would not, could not, do so mad, so impious a thing. It was a most surprising face, though I confessed it not to him, nor even hinted that I saw it. But no, no, no, it can not be. Such young peerlessness in such humbleness, can not have an honest origin. Lilies are not stalked on weeds, though polluted, they sometimes may stand among them. She must be both poor and vile--some chance-blow of a splendid, worthless rake, doomed to inherit both parts of her infecting portion--vileness and beauty. No, I will not think it of him. But what then? Sometimes I have feared that my pride would work me some woe incurable, by closing both my lips, and varnishing all my front, where I perhaps ought to be wholly in the melted and invoking mood. But who can get at one's own heart, to mend it? Right one's self against another, that, one may sometimes do; but when that other is one's own self, these ribs forbid. Then I will live my nature out. I will stand on pride. I will not budge. Let come what will, I shall not half-way run to meet it, to beat it off. Shall a mother abase herself before her stripling boy? Let him tell me of himself, or let him slide adown!" IV. Pierre plunged deep into the woods, and paused not for several miles; paused not till he came to a remarkable stone, or rather, smoothed mass of rock, huge as a barn, which, wholly isolated horizontally, was yet sweepingly overarched by beech-trees and chestnuts. It was shaped something like a lengthened egg, but flattened more; and, at the ends, pointed more; and yet not pointed, but irregularly wedge-shaped. Somewhere near the middle of its under side, there was a lateral ridge; and an obscure point of this ridge rested on a second lengthwise-sharpened rock, slightly protruding from the ground. Beside that one obscure and minute point of contact, the whole enormous and most ponderous mass touched not another object in the wide terraqueous world. It was a breathless thing to see. One broad haunched end hovered within an inch of the soil, all along to the point of teetering contact; but yet touched not the soil. Many feet from that--beneath one part of the opposite end, which was all seamed and half-riven--the vacancy was considerably larger, so as to make it not only possible, but convenient to admit a crawling man; yet no mortal being had ever been known to have the intrepid heart to crawl there. It might well have been the wonder of all the country round. But strange to tell, though hundreds of cottage hearthstones--where, of long winter-evenings, both old men smoked their pipes and young men shelled their corn--surrounded it, at no very remote distance, yet had the youthful Pierre been the first known publishing discoverer of this stone, which he had thereupon fancifully christened the Memnon Stone. Possibly, the reason why this singular object had so long remained unblazoned to the world, was not so much because it had never before been lighted on--though indeed, both belted and topped by the dense deep luxuriance of the aboriginal forest, it lay like Captain Kidd's sunken hull in the gorge of the river Hudson's Highlands,--its crown being full eight fathoms under high-foliage mark during the great spring-tide of foliage;--and besides this, the cottagers had no special motive for visiting its more immediate vicinity at all; their timber and fuel being obtained from more accessible woodlands--as because, even, if any of the simple people should have chanced to have beheld it, they, in their hoodwinked unappreciativeness, would not have accounted it any very marvelous sight, and therefore, would never have thought it worth their while to publish it abroad. So that in real truth, they might have seen it, and yet afterward have forgotten so inconsiderable a circumstance. In short, this wondrous Memnon Stone could be no Memnon Stone to them; nothing but a huge stumbling-block, deeply to be regretted as a vast prospective obstacle in the way of running a handy little cross-road through that wild part of the Manor. Now one day while reclining near its flank, and intently eying it, and thinking how surprising it was, that in so long-settled a country he should have been the first discerning and appreciative person to light upon such a great natural curiosity, Pierre happened to brush aside several successive layers of old, gray-haired, close cropped, nappy moss, and beneath, to his no small amazement, he saw rudely hammered in the rock some half-obliterate initials--"S. ye W." Then he knew, that ignorant of the stone, as all the simple country round might immemorially have been, yet was not himself the only human being who had discovered that marvelous impending spectacle: but long and long ago, in quite another age, the stone had been beheld, and its wonderfulness fully appreciated--as the painstaking initials seemed to testify--by some departed man, who, were he now alive, might possibly wag a beard old as the most venerable oak of centuries' growth. But who,--who in Methuselah's name,--who might have been this "S. ye W?" Pierre pondered long, but could not possibly imagine; for the initials, in their antiqueness, seemed to point to some period before the era of Columbus' discovery of the hemisphere. Happening in the end to mention the strange matter of these initials to a white-haired old gentleman, his city kinsman, who, after a long and richly varied, but unfortunate life, had at last found great solace in the Old Testament, which he was continually studying with ever-increasing admiration; this white-haired old kinsman, after having learnt all the particulars about the stone--its bulk, its height, the precise angle of its critical impendings, and all that,--and then, after much prolonged cogitation upon it, and several long-drawn sighs, and aged looks of hoar significance, and reading certain verses in Ecclesiastes; after all these tedious preliminaries, this not-at-all-to-be-hurried white-haired old kinsman, had laid his tremulous hand upon Pierre's firm young shoulder, and slowly whispered--"Boy; 'tis Solomon the Wise." Pierre could not repress a merry laugh at this; wonderfully diverted by what seemed to him so queer and crotchety a conceit; which he imputed to the alledged dotage of his venerable kinsman, who he well knew had once maintained, that the old Scriptural Ophir was somewhere on our northern sea-coast; so no wonder the old gentleman should fancy that King Solomon might have taken a trip--as a sort of amateur supercargo--of some Tyre or Sidon gold-ship across the water, and happened to light on the Memnon Stone, while rambling about with bow and quiver shooting partridges. But merriment was by no means Pierre's usual mood when thinking of this stone; much less when seated in the woods, he, in the profound significance of that deep forest silence, viewed its marvelous impendings. A flitting conceit had often crossed him, that he would like nothing better for a head-stone than this same imposing pile; in which, at times, during the soft swayings of the surrounding foliage, there seemed to lurk some mournful and lamenting plaint, as for some sweet boy long since departed in the antediluvian time. Not only might this stone well have been the wonder of the simple country round, but it might well have been its terror. Sometimes, wrought to a mystic mood by contemplating its ponderous inscrutableness, Pierre had called it the Terror Stone. Few could be bribed to climb its giddy height, and crawl out upon its more hovering end. It seemed as if the dropping of one seed from the beak of the smallest flying bird would topple the immense mass over, crashing against the trees. It was a very familiar thing to Pierre; he had often climbed it, by placing long poles against it, and so creeping up to where it sloped in little crumbling stepping-places; or by climbing high up the neighboring beeches, and then lowering himself down upon the forehead-like summit by the elastic branches. But never had he been fearless enough--or rather fool-hardy enough, it may be, to crawl on the ground beneath the vacancy of the higher end; that spot first menaced by the Terror Stone should it ever really topple. V. Yet now advancing steadily, and as if by some interior pre-determination, and eying the mass unfalteringly; he then threw himself prone upon the wood's last year's leaves, and slid himself straight into the horrible interspace, and lay there as dead. He spoke not, for speechless thoughts were in him. These gave place at last to things less and less unspeakable; till at last, from beneath the very brow of the beetlings and the menacings of the Terror Stone came the audible words of Pierre:-- "If the miseries of the undisclosable things in me, shall ever unhorse me from my manhood's seat; if to vow myself all Virtue's and all Truth's, be but to make a trembling, distrusted slave of me; if Life is to prove a burden I can not bear without ignominious cringings; if indeed our actions are all fore-ordained, and we are Russian serfs to Fate; if invisible devils do titter at us when we most nobly strive; if Life be a cheating dream, and virtue as unmeaning and unsequeled with any blessing as the midnight mirth of wine; if by sacrificing myself for Duty's sake, my own mother re-sacrifices me; if Duty's self be but a bugbear, and all things are allowable and unpunishable to man;--then do thou, Mute Massiveness, fall on me! Ages thou hast waited; and if these things be thus, then wait no more; for whom better canst thou crush than him who now lies here invoking thee?" A down-darting bird, all song, swiftly lighted on the unmoved and eternally immovable balancings of the Terror Stone, and cheerfully chirped to Pierre. The tree-boughs bent and waved to the rushes of a sudden, balmy wind; and slowly Pierre crawled forth, and stood haughtily upon his feet, as he owed thanks to none, and went his moody way. VI. When in his imaginative ruminating moods of early youth, Pierre had christened the wonderful stone by the old resounding name of Memnon, he had done so merely from certain associative remembrances of that Egyptian marvel, of which all Eastern travelers speak. And when the fugitive thought had long ago entered him of desiring that same stone for his head-stone, when he should be no more; then he had only yielded to one of those innumerable fanciful notions, tinged with dreamy painless melancholy, which are frequently suggested to the mind of a poetic boy. But in after-times, when placed in far different circumstances from those surrounding him at the Meadows, Pierre pondered on the stone, and his young thoughts concerning it, and, later, his desperate act in crawling under it; then an immense significance came to him, and the long-passed unconscious movements of his then youthful heart seemed now prophetic to him, and allegorically verified by the subsequent events. For, not to speak of the other and subtler meanings which lie crouching behind the colossal haunches of this stone, regarded as the menacingly impending Terror Stone--hidden to all the simple cottagers, but revealed to Pierre--consider its aspects as the Memnon Stone. For Memnon was that dewey, royal boy, son of Aurora, and born King of Egypt, who, with enthusiastic rashness flinging himself on another's account into a rightful quarrel, fought hand to hand with his overmatch, and met his boyish and most dolorous death beneath the walls of Troy. His wailing subjects built a monument in Egypt to commemorate his untimely fate. Touched by the breath of the bereaved Aurora, every sunrise that statue gave forth a mournful broken sound, as of a harp-string suddenly sundered, being too harshly wound. Herein lies an unsummed world of grief. For in this plaintive fable we find embodied the Hamletism of the antique world; the Hamletism of three thousand years ago: "The flower of virtue cropped by a too rare mischance." And the English Tragedy is but Egyptian Memnon, Montaignized and modernized; for being but a mortal man Shakspeare had his fathers too. Now as the Memnon Statue survives down to this present day, so does that nobly-striving but ever-shipwrecked character in some royal youths (for both Memnon and Hamlet were the sons of kings), of which that statue is the melancholy type. But Memnon's sculptured woes did once melodiously resound; now all is mute. Fit emblem that of old, poetry was a consecration and an obsequy to all hapless modes of human life; but in a bantering, barren, and prosaic, heartless age, Aurora's music-moan is lost among our drifting sands which whelm alike the monument and the dirge. VII. As Pierre went on through the woods, all thoughts now left him but those investing Isabel. He strove to condense her mysterious haze into some definite and comprehensible shape. He could not but infer that the feeling of bewilderment, which she had so often hinted of during their interview, had caused her continually to go aside from the straight line of her narration; and finally to end it in an abrupt and enigmatical obscurity. But he also felt assured, that as this was entirely unintended, and now, doubtless, regretted by herself, so their coming second interview would help to clear up much of this mysteriousness; considering that the elapsing interval would do much to tranquilize her, and rally her into less of wonderfulness to him; he did not therefore so much accuse his unthinkingness in naming the postponing hour he had. For, indeed, looking from the morning down the vista of the day, it seemed as indefinite and interminable to him. He could not bring himself to confront any face or house; a plowed field, any sign of tillage, the rotted stump of a long-felled pine, the slightest passing trace of man was uncongenial and repelling to him. Likewise in his own mind all remembrances and imaginings that had to do with the common and general humanity had become, for the time, in the most singular manner distasteful to him. Still, while thus loathing all that was common in the two different worlds--that without, and that within--nevertheless, even in the most withdrawn and subtlest region of his own essential spirit, Pierre could not now find one single agreeable twig of thought whereon to perch his weary soul. Men in general seldom suffer from this utter pauperism of the spirit. If God hath not blessed them with incurable frivolity, men in general have still some secret thing of self-conceit or virtuous gratulation; men in general have always done some small self-sacrificing deed for some other man; and so, in those now and then recurring hours of despondent lassitude, which must at various and differing intervals overtake almost every civilized human being; such persons straightway bethink them of their one, or two, or three small self-sacrificing things, and suck respite, consolation, and more or less compensating deliciousness from it. But with men of self-disdainful spirits; in whose chosen souls heaven itself hath by a primitive persuasion unindoctrinally fixed that most true Christian doctrine of the utter nothingness of good works; the casual remembrance of their benevolent well-doings, does never distill one drop of comfort for them, even as (in harmony with the correlative Scripture doctrine) the recalling of their outlived errors and mis-deeds, conveys to them no slightest pang or shadow of reproach. Though the clew-defying mysteriousness of Isabel's narration, did now for the time, in this particular mood of his, put on a repelling aspect to our Pierre; yet something must occupy the soul of man; and Isabel was nearest to him then; and Isabel he thought of; at first, with great discomfort and with pain, but anon (for heaven eventually rewards the resolute and duteous thinker) with lessening repugnance, and at last with still-increasing willingness and congenialness. Now he recalled his first impressions, here and there, while she was rehearsing to him her wild tale; he recalled those swift but mystical corroborations in his own mind and memory, which by shedding another twinkling light upon her history, had but increased its mystery, while at the same time remarkably substantiating it. Her first recallable recollection was of an old deserted chateau-like house in a strange, French-like country, which she dimly imagined to be somewhere beyond the sea. Did not this surprisingly correspond with certain natural inferences to be drawn from his Aunt Dorothea's account of the disappearance of the French young lady? Yes; the French young lady's disappearance on this side the water was only contingent upon her reappearance on the other; then he shuddered as he darkly pictured the possible sequel of her life, and the wresting from her of her infant, and its immurement in the savage mountain wilderness. But Isabel had also vague impressions of herself crossing the sea;--_re_crossing, emphatically thought Pierre, as he pondered on the unbidden conceit, that she had probably first unconsciously and smuggledly crossed it hidden beneath her sorrowing mother's heart. But in attempting to draw any inferences, from what he himself had ever heard, for a coinciding proof or elucidation of this assumption of Isabel's actual crossing the sea at so tender an age; here Pierre felt all the inadequateness of both his own and Isabel's united knowledge, to clear up the profound mysteriousness of her early life. To the certainty of this irremovable obscurity he bowed himself, and strove to dismiss it from his mind, as worse than hopeless. So, also, in a good degree, did he endeavor to drive out of him, Isabel's reminiscence of the, to her, unnameable large house, from which she had been finally removed by the pleasant woman in the coach. This episode in her life, above all other things, was most cruelly suggestive to him, as possibly involving his father in the privity to a thing, at which Pierre's inmost soul fainted with amazement and abhorrence. Here the helplessness of all further light, and the eternal impossibility of logically exonerating his dead father, in his own mind, from the liability to this, and many other of the blackest self-insinuated suppositions; all this came over Pierre with a power so infernal and intense, that it could only have proceeded from the unretarded malice of the Evil One himself. But subtilly and wantonly as these conceits stole into him, Pierre as subtilly opposed them; and with the hue-and-cry of his whole indignant soul, pursued them forth again into the wide Tartarean realm from which they had emerged. The more and the more that Pierre now revolved the story of Isabel in his mind, so much the more he amended his original idea, that much of its obscurity would depart upon a second interview. He saw, or seemed to see, that it was not so much Isabel who had by her wild idiosyncrasies mystified the narration of her history, as it was the essential and unavoidable mystery of her history itself, which had invested Isabel with such wonderful enigmas to him. VIII. The issue of these reconsiderings was the conviction, that all he could now reasonably anticipate from Isabel, in further disclosure on the subject of her life, were some few additional particulars bringing it down to the present moment; and, also, possibly filling out the latter portion of what she had already revealed to him. Nor here, could he persuade himself, that she would have much to say. Isabel had not been so digressive and withholding as he had thought. What more, indeed, could she now have to impart, except by what strange means she had at last come to find her brother out; and the dreary recital of how she had pecuniarily wrestled with her destitute condition; how she had come to leave one place of toiling refuge for another, till now he found her in humble servitude at farmer Ulver's? Is it possible then, thought Pierre, that there lives a human creature in this common world of everydays, whose whole history may be told in little less than two-score words, and yet embody in that smallness a fathomless fountain of ever-welling mystery? Is it possible, after all, that spite of bricks and shaven faces, this world we live in is brimmed with wonders, and I and all mankind, beneath our garbs of common-placeness, conceal enigmas that the stars themselves, and perhaps the highest seraphim can not resolve? The intuitively certain, however literally unproven fact of Isabel's sisterhood to him, was a link that he now felt binding him to a before unimagined and endless chain of wondering. His very blood seemed to flow through all his arteries with unwonted subtileness, when he thought that the same tide flowed through the mystic veins of Isabel. All his occasional pangs of dubiousness as to the grand governing thing of all--the reality of the physical relationship--only recoiled back upon him with added tribute of both certainty and insolubleness. She is my sister--my own father's daughter. Well; why do I believe it? The other day I had not so much as heard the remotest rumor of her existence; and what has since occurred to change me? What so new and incontestable vouchers have I handled? None at all. But I have seen her. Well; grant it; I might have seen a thousand other girls, whom I had never seen before; but for that, I would not own any one among them for my sister. But the portrait, the chair-portrait, Pierre? Think of that. But that was painted before Isabel was born; what can that portrait have to do with Isabel? It is not the portrait of Isabel, it is my father's portrait; and yet my mother swears it is not he. Now alive as he was to all these searching argumentative itemizings of the minutest known facts any way bearing upon the subject; and yet, at the same time, persuaded, strong as death, that in spite of them, Isabel was indeed his sister; how could Pierre, naturally poetic, and therefore piercing as he was; how could he fail to acknowledge the existence of that all-controlling and all-permeating wonderfulness, which, when imperfectly and isolatedly recognized by the generality, is so significantly denominated The Finger of God? But it is not merely the Finger, it is the whole outspread Hand of God; for doth not Scripture intimate, that He holdeth all of us in the hollow of His hand?--a Hollow, truly! Still wandering through the forest, his eye pursuing its ever-shifting shadowy vistas; remote from all visible haunts and traces of that strangely wilful race, who, in the sordid traffickings of clay and mud, are ever seeking to denationalize the natural heavenliness of their souls; there came into the mind of Pierre, thoughts and fancies never imbibed within the gates of towns; but only given forth by the atmosphere of primeval forests, which, with the eternal ocean, are the only unchanged general objects remaining to this day, from those that originally met the gaze of Adam. For so it is, that the apparently most inflammable or evaporable of all earthly things, wood and water, are, in this view, immensely the most endurable. Now all his ponderings, however excursive, wheeled round Isabel as their center; and back to her they came again from every excursion; and again derived some new, small germs for wonderment. The question of Time occurred to Pierre. How old was Isabel? According to all reasonable inferences from the presumed circumstances of her life, she was his elder, certainly, though by uncertain years; yet her whole aspect was that of more than childlikeness; nevertheless, not only did he feel his muscular superiority to her, so to speak, which made him spontaneously alive to a feeling of elderly protectingness over her; not only did he experience the thoughts of superior world-acquaintance, and general cultured knowledge; but spite of reason's self, and irrespective of all mere computings, he was conscious of a feeling which independently pronounced him her senior in point of Time, and Isabel a child of everlasting youngness. This strange, though strong conceit of his mysterious persuasion, doubtless, had its untraced, and but little-suspected origin in his mind, from ideas born of his devout meditations upon the artless infantileness of her face; which, though profoundly mournful in the general expression, yet did not, by any means, for that cause, lose one whit in its singular infantileness; as the faces of real infants, in their earliest visibleness, do oft-times wear a look of deep and endless sadness. But it was not the sadness, nor indeed, strictly speaking, the infantileness of the face of Isabel which so singularly impressed him with the idea of her original and changeless youthfulness. It was something else; yet something which entirely eluded him. Imaginatively exalted by the willing suffrages of all mankind into higher and purer realms than men themselves inhabit; beautiful women--those of them at least who are beautiful in soul as well as body--do, notwithstanding the relentless law of earthly fleetingness, still seem, for a long interval, mysteriously exempt from the incantations of decay; for as the outward loveliness touch by touch departs, the interior beauty touch by touch replaces that departing bloom, with charms, which, underivable from earth, possess the ineffaceableness of stars. Else, why at the age of sixty, have some women held in the strongest bonds of love and fealty, men young enough to be their grandsons? And why did all-seducing Ninon unintendingly break scores of hearts at seventy? It is because of the perennialness of womanly sweetness. Out from the infantile, yet eternal mournfulness of the face of Isabel, there looked on Pierre that angelic childlikeness, which our Savior hints is the one only investiture of translated souls; for of such--even of little children--is the other world. Now, unending as the wonderful rivers, which once bathed the feet of the primeval generations, and still remain to flow fast by the graves of all succeeding men, and by the beds of all now living; unending, ever-flowing, ran through the soul of Pierre, fresh and fresher, further and still further, thoughts of Isabel. But the more his thoughtful river ran, the more mysteriousness it floated to him; and yet the more certainty that the mysteriousness was unchangeable. In her life there was an unraveled plot; and he felt that unraveled it would eternally remain to him. No slightest hope or dream had he, that what was dark and mournful in her would ever be cleared up into some coming atmosphere of light and mirth. Like all youths, Pierre had conned his novel-lessons; had read more novels than most persons of his years; but their false, inverted attempts at systematizing eternally unsystemizable elements; their audacious, intermeddling impotency, in trying to unravel, and spread out, and classify, the more thin than gossamer threads which make up the complex web of life; these things over Pierre had no power now. Straight through their helpless miserableness he pierced; the one sensational truth in him transfixed like beetles all the speculative lies in them. He saw that human life doth truly come from that, which all men are agreed to call by the name of _God_; and that it partakes of the unravelable inscrutableness of God. By infallible presentiment he saw, that not always doth life's beginning gloom conclude in gladness; that wedding-bells peal not ever in the last scene of life's fifth act; that while the countless tribes of common novels laboriously spin veils of mystery, only to complacently clear them up at last; and while the countless tribe of common dramas do but repeat the same; yet the profounder emanations of the human mind, intended to illustrate all that can be humanly known of human life; these never unravel their own intricacies, and have no proper endings; but in imperfect, unanticipated, and disappointing sequels (as mutilated stumps), hurry to abrupt intermergings with the eternal tides of time and fate. So Pierre renounced all thought of ever having Isabel's dark lantern illuminated to him. Her light was lidded, and the lid was locked. Nor did he feel a pang at this. By posting hither and thither among the reminiscences of his family, and craftily interrogating his remaining relatives on his father's side, he might possibly rake forth some few small grains of dubious and most unsatisfying things, which, were he that way strongly bent, would only serve the more hopelessly to cripple him in his practical resolves. He determined to pry not at all into this sacred problem. For him now the mystery of Isabel possessed all the bewitchingness of the mysterious vault of night, whose very darkness evokes the witchery. The thoughtful river still ran on in him, and now it floated still another thing to him. Though the letter of Isabel gushed with all a sister's sacred longings to embrace her brother, and in the most abandoned terms painted the anguish of her life-long estrangement from him; and though, in effect, it took vows to this,--that without his continual love and sympathy, further life for her was only fit to be thrown into the nearest unfathomed pool, or rushing stream; yet when the brother and the sister had encountered, according to the set appointment, none of these impassionedments had been repeated. She had more than thrice thanked God, and most earnestly blessed himself, that now he had come near to her in her loneliness; but no gesture of common and customary sisterly affection. Nay, from his embrace had she not struggled? nor kissed him once; nor had he kissed her, except when the salute was solely sought by him. Now Pierre began to see mysteries interpierced with mysteries, and mysteries eluding mysteries; and began to seem to see the mere imaginariness of the so supposed solidest principle of human association. Fate had done this thing for them. Fate had separated the brother and the sister, till to each other they somehow seemed so not at all. Sisters shrink not from their brother's kisses. And Pierre felt that never, never would he be able to embrace Isabel with the mere brotherly embrace; while the thought of any other caress, which took hold of any domesticness, was entirely vacant from his uncontaminated soul, for it had never consciously intruded there. Therefore, forever unsistered for him by the stroke of Fate, and apparently forever, and twice removed from the remotest possibility of that love which had drawn him to his Lucy; yet still the object of the ardentest and deepest emotions of his soul; therefore, to him, Isabel wholly soared out of the realms of mortalness, and for him became transfigured in the highest heaven of uncorrupted Love. BOOK VIII. THE SECOND INTERVIEW AT THE FARM-HOUSE, AND THE SECOND PART OF THE STORY OF ISABEL. THEIR IMMEDIATE IMPULSIVE EFFECT UPON PIERRE. I. His second interview with Isabel was more satisfying, but none the less affecting and mystical than the first, though in the beginning, to his no small surprise, it was far more strange and embarrassing. As before, Isabel herself admitted him into the farm-house, and spoke no word to him till they were both seated in the room of the double casement, and himself had first addressed her. If Pierre had any way predetermined how to deport himself at the moment, it was to manifest by some outward token the utmost affection for his sister; but her rapt silence and that atmosphere of unearthliness which invested her, now froze him to his seat; his arms refused to open, his lips refused to meet in the fraternal kiss; while all the while his heart was overflowing with the deepest love, and he knew full well, that his presence was inexpressibly grateful to the girl. Never did love and reverence so intimately react and blend; never did pity so join with wonder in casting a spell upon the movements of his body, and impeding him in its command. After a few embarrassed words from Pierre, and a brief reply, a pause ensued, during which not only was the slow, soft stepping overhead quite audible, as at intervals on the night before, but also some slight domestic sounds were heard from the adjoining room; and noticing the unconsciously interrogating expression of Pierre's face, Isabel thus spoke to him: "I feel, my brother, that thou dost appreciate the peculiarity and the mystery of my life, and of myself, and therefore I am at rest concerning the possibility of thy misconstruing any of my actions. It is only when people refuse to admit the uncommonness of some persons and the circumstances surrounding them, that erroneous conceits are nourished, and their feelings pained. My brother, if ever I shall seem reserved and unembracing to thee, still thou must ever trust the heart of Isabel, and permit no doubt to cross thee there. My brother, the sounds thou hast just overheard in yonder room, have suggested to thee interesting questions connected with myself. Do not speak; I fervently understand thee. I will tell thee upon what terms I have been living here; and how it is that I, a hired person, am enabled to receive thee in this seemly privacy; for as thou mayest very readily imagine, this room is not my own. And this reminds me also that I have yet some few further trifling things to tell thee respecting the circumstances which have ended in bestowing upon me so angelical a brother." "I can not retain that word"--said Pierre, with earnest lowness, and drawing a little nearer to her--"of right, it only pertains to thee." "My brother, I will now go on, and tell thee all that I think thou couldst wish to know, in addition to what was so dimly rehearsed last night. Some three months ago, the people of the distant farm-house, where I was then staying, broke up their household and departed for some Western country. No place immediately presented itself where my services were wanted, but I was hospitably received at an old neighbor's hearth, and most kindly invited to tarry there, till some employ should offer. But I did not wait for chance to help me; my inquiries resulted in ascertaining the sad story of Delly Ulver, and that through the fate which had overtaken her, her aged parents were not only plunged into the most poignant grief, but were deprived of the domestic help of an only daughter, a circumstance whose deep discomfort can not be easily realized by persons who have always been ministered to by servants. Though indeed my natural mood--if I may call it so, for want of a better term--was strangely touched by thinking that the misery of Delly should be the source of benefit to me; yet this had no practically operative effect upon me,--my most inmost and truest thoughts seldom have;--and so I came hither, and my hands will testify that I did not come entirely for naught. Now, my brother, since thou didst leave me yesterday, I have felt no small surprise, that thou didst not then seek from me, how and when I came to learn the name of Glendinning as so closely associated with myself; and how I came to know Saddle Meadows to be the family seat, and how I at last resolved upon addressing thee, Pierre, and none other; and to what may be attributed that very memorable scene in the sewing-circle at the Miss Pennies." "I have myself been wondering at myself that these things should hitherto have so entirely absented themselves from my mind," responded Pierre;--"but truly, Isabel, thy all-abounding hair falls upon me with some spell which dismisses all ordinary considerations from me, and leaves me only sensible to the Nubian power in thine eyes. But go on, and tell me every thing and any thing. I desire to know all, Isabel, and yet, nothing which thou wilt not voluntarily disclose. I feel that already I know the pith of all; that already I feel toward thee to the very limit of all; and that, whatever remains for thee to tell me, can but corroborate and confirm. So go on, my dearest,--ay, my only sister." Isabel fixed her wonderful eyes upon him with a gaze of long impassionment; then rose suddenly to her feet, and advanced swiftly toward him; but more suddenly paused, and reseated herself in silence, and continued so for a time, with her head averted from him, and mutely resting on her hand, gazing out of the open casement upon the soft heat-lightning, occasionally revealed there. She resumed anon. II. "My brother, thou wilt remember that certain part of my story which in reference to my more childish years spent remote from here, introduced the gentleman--my--yes, _our_ father, Pierre. I can not describe to thee, for indeed, I do not myself comprehend how it was, that though at the time I sometimes called him my father, and the people of the house also called him so, sometimes when speaking of him to me; yet--partly, I suppose, because of the extraordinary secludedness of my previous life--I did not then join in my mind with the word father, all those peculiar associations which the term ordinarily inspires in children. The word father only seemed a word of general love and endearment to me--little or nothing more; it did not seem to involve any claims of any sort, one way or the other. I did not ask the name of my father; for I could have had no motive to hear him named, except to individualize the person who was so peculiarly kind to me; and individualized in that way he already was, since he was generally called by us _the gentleman_, and sometimes _my father_. As I have no reason to suppose that had I then or afterward, questioned the people of the house as to what more particular name my father went by in the world, they would have at all disclosed it to me; and, indeed, since, for certain singular reasons, I now feel convinced that on that point they were pledged to secrecy; I do not know that I ever would have come to learn my father's name,--and by consequence, ever have learned the least shade or shadow of knowledge as to you, Pierre, or any of your kin--had it not been for the merest little accident, which early revealed it to me, though at the moment I did not know the value of that knowledge. The last time my father visited the house, he chanced to leave his handkerchief behind him. It was the farmer's wife who first discovered it. She picked it up, and fumbling at it a moment, as if rapidly examining the corners, tossed it to me, saying, 'Here, Isabel, here is the good gentleman's handkerchief; keep it for him now, till he comes to see little Bell again.' Gladly I caught the handkerchief, and put it into my bosom. It was a white one; and upon closely scanning it, I found a small line of fine faded yellowish writing in the middle of it. At that time I could not read either print or writing, so I was none the wiser then; but still, some secret instinct told me, that the woman would not so freely have given me the handkerchief, had she known there was any writing on it. I forbore questioning her on the subject; I waited till my father should return, to secretly question him. The handkerchief had become dusty by lying on the uncarpeted floor. I took it to the brook and washed it, and laid it out on the grass where none would chance to pass; and I ironed it under my little apron, so that none would be attracted to it, to look at it again. But my father never returned; so, in my grief, the handkerchief became the more and the more endeared to me; it absorbed many of the secret tears I wept in memory of my dear departed friend, whom, in my child-like ignorance, I then equally called _my father_ and _the gentleman_. But when the impression of his death became a fixed thing to me, then again I washed and dried and ironed the precious memorial of him, and put it away where none should find it but myself, and resolved never more to soil it with my tears; and I folded it in such a manner, that the name was invisibly buried in the heart of it, and it was like opening a book and turning over many blank leaves before I came to the mysterious writing, which I knew should be one day read by me, without direct help from any one. Now I resolved to learn my letters, and learn to read, in order that of myself I might learn the meaning of those faded characters. No other purpose but that only one, did I have in learning then to read. I easily induced the woman to give me my little teachings, and being uncommonly quick, and moreover, most eager to learn, I soon mastered the alphabet, and went on to spelling, and by-and-by to reading, and at last to the complete deciphering of the talismanic word--Glendinning. I was yet very ignorant. _Glendinning_, thought I, what is that? It sounds something like _gentleman_;--Glen-din-ning;--just as many syllables as _gentleman_; and--G--it begins with the same letter; yes, it must mean _my father_. I will think of him by that word now;--I will not think of the _gentleman_, but of _Glendinning_. When at last I removed from that house and went to another, and still another, and as I still grew up and thought more to myself, that word was ever humming in my head, I saw it would only prove the key to more. But I repressed all undue curiosity, if any such has ever filled my breast. I would not ask of any one, who it was that had been Glendinning; where he had lived; whether, ever any other girl or boy had called him father as I had done. I resolved to hold myself in perfect patience, as somehow mystically certain, that Fate would at last disclose to me, of itself, and at the suitable time, whatever Fate thought it best for me to know. But now, my brother, I must go aside a little for a moment.--Hand me the guitar." Surprised and rejoiced thus far at the unanticipated newness, and the sweet lucidness and simplicity of Isabel's narrating, as compared with the obscure and marvelous revelations of the night before, and all eager for her to continue her story in the same limpid manner, but remembering into what a wholly tumultuous and unearthly frame of mind the melodies of her guitar had formerly thrown him; Pierre now, in handing the instrument to Isabel, could not entirely restrain something like a look of half-regret, accompanied rather strangely with a half-smile of gentle humor. It did not pass unnoticed by his sister, who receiving the guitar, looked up into his face with an expression which would almost have been arch and playful, were it not for the ever-abiding shadows cast from her infinite hair into her unfathomed eyes, and redoubledly shot back again from them. "Do not be alarmed, my brother; and do not smile at me; I am not going to play the Mystery of Isabel to thee to-night. Draw nearer to me now. Hold the light near to me." So saying she loosened some ivory screws of the guitar, so as to open a peep lengthwise through its interior. "Now hold it thus, my brother; thus; and see what thou wilt see; but wait one instant till I hold the lamp." So saying, as Pierre held the instrument before him as directed, Isabel held the lamp so as to cast its light through the round sounding-hole into the heart of the guitar. "Now, Pierre, now." Eagerly Pierre did as he was bid; but somehow felt disappointed, and yet surprised at what he saw. He saw the word _Isabel_, quite legibly but still fadedly gilded upon a part of one side of the interior, where it made a projecting curve. "A very curious place thou hast chosen, Isabel, wherein to have the ownership of the guitar engraved. How did ever any person get in there to do it, I should like to know?" The girl looked surprisedly at him a moment; then took the instrument from him, and looked into it herself. She put it down, and continued. "I see, my brother, thou dost not comprehend. When one knows every thing about any object, one is too apt to suppose that the slightest hint will suffice to throw it quite as open to any other person. _I_ did not have the name gilded there, my brother." "How?" cried Pierre. "The name was gilded there when I first got the guitar, though then I did not know it. The guitar must have been expressly made for some one by the name of Isabel; because the lettering could only have been put there before the guitar was put together." "Go on--hurry," said Pierre. "Yes, one day, after I had owned it a long time, a strange whim came into me. Thou know'st that it is not at all uncommon for children to break their dearest playthings in order to gratify a half-crazy curiosity to find out what is in the hidden heart of them. So it is with children, sometimes. And, Pierre, I have always been, and feel that I must always continue to be a child, though I should grow to three score years and ten. Seized with this sudden whim, I unscrewed the part I showed thee, and peeped in, and saw 'Isabel.' Now I have not yet told thee, that from as early a time as I can remember, I have nearly always gone by the name of Bell. And at the particular time I now speak of, my knowledge of general and trivial matters was sufficiently advanced to make it quite a familiar thing to me, that Bell was often a diminutive for Isabella, or Isabel. It was therefore no very strange affair, that considering my age, and other connected circumstances at the time, I should have instinctively associated the word Isabel, found in the guitar, with my own abbreviated name, and so be led into all sorts of fancyings. They return upon me now. Do not speak to me." She leaned away from him, toward the occasionally illuminated casement, in the same manner as on the previous night, and for a few moments seemed struggling with some wild bewilderment But now she suddenly turned, and fully confronted Pierre with all the wonderfulness of her most surprising face. "I am called woman, and thou, man, Pierre; but there is neither man nor woman about it. Why should I not speak out to thee? There is no sex in our immaculateness. Pierre, the secret name in the guitar even now thrills me through and through. Pierre, think! think! Oh, canst thou not comprehend? see it?--what I mean, Pierre? The secret name in the guitar thrills me, thrills me, whirls me, whirls me; so secret, wholly hidden, yet constantly carried about in it; unseen, unsuspected, always vibrating to the hidden heart-strings--broken heart-strings; oh, my mother, my mother, my mother!" As the wild plaints of Isabel pierced into his bosom's core, they carried with them the first inkling of the extraordinary conceit, so vaguely and shrinkingly hinted at in her till now entirely unintelligible words. She lifted her dry burning eyes of long-fringed fire to him. "Pierre--I have no slightest proof--but the guitar was _hers_, I know, I feel it was. Say, did I not last night tell thee, how it first sung to me upon the bed, and answered me, without my once touching it? and how it always sung to me and answered me, and soothed and loved me,--Hark now; thou shalt hear my mother's spirit." She carefully scanned the strings, and tuned them carefully; then placed the guitar in the casement-bench, and knelt before it; and in low, sweet, and changefully modulated notes, so barely audible, that Pierre bent over to catch them; breathed the word _mother, mother, mother_! There was profound silence for a time; when suddenly, to the lowest and least audible note of all, the magical untouched guitar responded with a quick spark of melody, which in the following hush, long vibrated and subsidingly tingled through the room; while to his augmented wonder, he now espied, quivering along the metallic strings of the guitar, some minute scintillations, seemingly caught from the instrument's close proximity to the occasionally irradiated window. The girl still kept kneeling; but an altogether unwonted expression suddenly overcast her whole countenance. She darted one swift glance at Pierre; and then with a single toss of her hand tumbled her unrestrained locks all over her, so that they tent-wise invested her whole kneeling form close to the floor, and yet swept the floor with their wild redundancy. Never Saya of Limeean girl, at dim mass in St. Dominic's cathedral, so completely muffled the human figure. To Pierre, the deep oaken recess of the double-casement, before which Isabel was kneeling, seemed now the immediate vestibule of some awful shrine, mystically revealed through the obscurely open window, which ever and anon was still softly illumined by the mild heat-lightnings and ground-lightnings, that wove their wonderfulness without, in the unsearchable air of that ebonly warm and most noiseless summer night. Some unsubduable word was on Pierre's lip, but a sudden voice from out the veil bade him be silent. "Mother--mother--mother!" Again, after a preluding silence, the guitar as magically responded as before; the sparks quivered along its strings; and again Pierre felt as in the immediate presence of the spirit. "Shall I, mother?--Art thou ready? Wilt thou tell me?--Now? Now?" These words were lowly and sweetly murmured in the same way with the word _mother_, being changefully varied in their modulations, till at the last _now_, the magical guitar again responded; and the girl swiftly drew it to her beneath her dark tent of hair. In this act, as the long curls swept over the strings of the guitar, the strange sparks--still quivering there--caught at those attractive curls; the entire casement was suddenly and wovenly illumined; then waned again; while now, in the succeeding dimness, every downward undulating wave and billow of Isabel's tossed tresses gleamed here and there like a tract of phosphorescent midnight sea; and, simultaneously, all the four winds of the world of melody broke loose, and again as on the previous night, only in a still more subtile, and wholly inexplicable way, Pierre felt himself surrounded by ten thousand sprites and gnomes, and his whole soul was swayed and tossed by supernatural tides; and again he heard the wondrous, rebounding, chanted words: "Mystery! Mystery! Mystery of Isabel! Mystery! Mystery! Isabel and Mystery! Mystery!" III. Almost deprived of consciousness by the spell flung over him by the marvelous girl, Pierre unknowingly gazed away from her, as on vacancy; and when at last stillness had once more fallen upon the room--all except the stepping--and he recovered his self-possession, and turned to look where he might now be, he was surprised to see Isabel composedly, though avertedly, seated on the bench; the longer and fuller tresses of her now ungleaming hair flung back, and the guitar quietly leaning in the corner. He was about to put some unconsidered question to her, but she half-anticipated it by bidding him, in a low, but nevertheless almost authoritative tone, not to make any allusion to the scene he had just beheld. He paused, profoundly thinking to himself, and now felt certain that the entire scene, from the first musical invocation of the guitar, must have unpremeditatedly proceeded from a sudden impulse in the girl, inspired by the peculiar mood into which the preceding conversation, and especially the handling of the guitar under such circumstances, had irresistibly thrown her. But that certain something of the preternatural in the scene, of which he could not rid his mind:--the, so to speak, voluntary and all but intelligent responsiveness of the guitar--its strangely scintillating strings--the so suddenly glorified head of Isabel; altogether, these things seemed not at the time entirely produced by customary or natural causes. To Pierre's dilated senses Isabel seemed to swim in an electric fluid; the vivid buckler of her brow seemed as a magnetic plate. Now first this night was Pierre made aware of what, in the superstitiousness of his rapt enthusiasm, he could not help believing was an extraordinary physical magnetism in Isabel. And--as it were derived from this marvelous quality thus imputed to her--he now first became vaguely sensible of a certain still more marvelous power in the girl over himself and his most interior thoughts and motions;--a power so hovering upon the confines of the invisible world, that it seemed more inclined that way than this;--a power which not only seemed irresistibly to draw him toward Isabel, but to draw him away from another quarter--wantonly as it were, and yet quite ignorantly and unintendingly; and, besides, without respect apparently to any thing ulterior, and yet again, only under cover of drawing him to her. For over all these things, and interfusing itself with the sparkling electricity in which she seemed to swim, was an ever-creeping and condensing haze of ambiguities. Often, in after-times with her, did he recall this first magnetic night, and would seem to see that she then had bound him to her by an extraordinary atmospheric spell--both physical and spiritual--which henceforth it had become impossible for him to break, but whose full potency he never recognized till long after he had become habituated to its sway. This spell seemed one with that Pantheistic master-spell, which eternally locks in mystery and in muteness the universal subject world, and the physical electricalness of Isabel seemed reciprocal with the heat-lightnings and the ground-lightnings nigh to which it had first become revealed to Pierre. She seemed molded from fire and air, and vivified at some Voltaic pile of August thunder-clouds heaped against the sunset. The occasional sweet simplicity, and innocence, and humbleness of her story; her often serene and open aspect; her deep-seated, but mostly quiet, unobtrusive sadness, and that touchingness of her less unwonted tone and air;--these only the more signalized and contrastingly emphasized the profounder, subtler, and more mystic part of her. Especially did Pierre feel this, when after another silent interval, she now proceeded with her story in a manner so gently confiding, so entirely artless, so almost peasant-like in its simplicity, and dealing in some details so little sublimated in themselves, that it seemed well nigh impossible that this unassuming maid should be the same dark, regal being who had but just now bade Pierre be silent in so imperious a tone, and around whose wondrous temples the strange electric glory had been playing. Yet not very long did she now thus innocently proceed, ere, at times, some fainter flashes of her electricalness came from her, but only to be followed by such melting, human, and most feminine traits as brought all his soft, enthusiast tears into the sympathetic but still unshedding eyes of Pierre. IV. "Thou rememberest, my brother, my telling thee last night, how the--the--thou knowest what I mean--_that, there_"--avertedly pointing to the guitar; "thou rememberest how it came into my possession. But perhaps I did not tell thee, that the pedler said he had got it in barter from the servants of a great house some distance from the place where I was then residing." Pierre signed his acquiescence, and Isabel proceeded: "Now, at long though stated intervals, that man passed the farm-house in his trading route between the small towns and villages. When I discovered the gilding in the guitar, I kept watch for him; for though I truly felt persuaded that Fate had the dispensing of her own secrets in her own good time; yet I also felt persuaded that in some cases Fate drops us one little hint, leaving our own minds to follow it up, so that we of ourselves may come to the grand secret in reserve. So I kept diligent watch for him; and the next time he stopped, without permitting him at all to guess my motives, I contrived to steal out of him what great house it was from which the guitar had come. And, my brother, it was the mansion of Saddle Meadows." Pierre started, and the girl went on: "Yes, my brother, Saddle Meadows; 'old General Glendinning's place,' he said; 'but the old hero's long dead and gone now; and--the more's the pity--so is the young General, his son, dead and gone; but then there is a still younger grandson General left; that family always keep the title and the name a-going; yes, even to the surname,--Pierre. Pierre Glendinning was the white-haired old General's name, who fought in the old French and Indian wars; and Pierre Glendinning is his young great-grandson's name.' Thou may'st well look at me so, my brother;--yes, he meant thee, _thee_, my brother." "But the guitar--the guitar!"--cried Pierre--"how came the guitar openly at Saddle Meadows, and how came it to be bartered away by servants? Tell me that, Isabel!" "Do not put such impetuous questions to me, Pierre; else thou mayst recall the old--may be, it is the evil spell upon me. I can not precisely and knowingly answer thee. I could surmise; but what are surmises worth? Oh, Pierre, better, a million times, and far sweeter are mysteries than surmises: though the mystery be unfathomable, it is still the unfathomableness of fullness; but the surmise, that is but shallow and unmeaning emptiness." "But this is the most inexplicable point of all. Tell me, Isabel; surely thou must have thought something about this thing." "Much, Pierre, very much; but only about the mystery of it--nothing more. Could I, I would not now be fully told, how the guitar came to be at Saddle Meadows, and came to be bartered away by the servants of Saddle Meadows. Enough, that it found me out, and came to me, and spoke and sung to me, and soothed me, and has been every thing to me." She paused a moment; while vaguely to his secret self Pierre revolved these strange revealings; but now he was all attention again as Isabel resumed. "I now held in my mind's hand the clew, my brother. But I did not immediately follow it further up. Sufficient to me in my loneliness was the knowledge, that I now knew where my father's family was to be found. As yet not the slightest intention of ever disclosing myself to them, had entered my mind. And assured as I was, that for obvious reasons, none of his surviving relatives could possibly know me, even if they saw me, for what I really was, I felt entire security in the event of encountering any of them by chance. But my unavoidable displacements and migrations from one house to another, at last brought me within twelve miles of Saddle Meadows. I began to feel an increasing longing in me; but side by side with it, a new-born and competing pride,--yes, pride, Pierre. Do my eyes flash? They belie me, if they do not. But it is no common pride, Pierre; for what has Isabel to be proud of in this world? It is the pride of--of--a too, too longing, loving heart, Pierre--the pride of lasting suffering and grief, my brother! Yes, I conquered the great longing with the still more powerful pride, Pierre; and so I would not now be here, in this room,--nor wouldst thou ever have received any line from me; nor, in all worldly probability, ever so much as heard of her who is called Isabel Banford, had it not been for my hearing that at Walter Ulver's, only three miles from the mansion of Saddle Meadows, poor Bell would find people kind enough to give her wages for her work. Feel my hand, my brother." "Dear divine girl, my own exalted Isabel!" cried Pierre, catching the offered hand with ungovernable emotion, "how most unbeseeming, that this strange hardness, and this still stranger littleness should be united in any human hand. But hard and small, it by an opposite analogy hints of the soft capacious heart that made the hand so hard with heavenly submission to thy most undeserved and martyred lot. Would, Isabel, that these my kisses on the hand, were on the heart itself, and dropt the seeds of eternal joy and comfort there." He leaped to his feet, and stood before her with such warm, god-like majesty of love and tenderness, that the girl gazed up at him as though he were the one benignant star in all her general night. "Isabel," cried Pierre, "I stand the sweet penance in my father's stead, thou, in thy mother's. By our earthly acts we shall redeemingly bless both their eternal lots; we will love with the pure and perfect love of angel to an angel. If ever I fall from thee, dear Isabel, may Pierre fall from himself; fall back forever into vacant nothingness and night!" "My brother, my brother, speak not so to me; it is too much; unused to any love ere now, thine, so heavenly and immense, falls crushing on me! Such love is almost hard to bear as hate. Be still; do not speak to me." They were both silent for a time; when she went on. "Yes, my brother, Fate had now brought me within three miles of thee; and--but shall I go straight on, and tell thee all, Pierre? all? every thing? art thou of such divineness, that I may speak straight on, in all my thoughts, heedless whither they may flow, or what things they may float to me?" "Straight on, and fearlessly," said Pierre. "By chance I saw thy mother, Pierre, and under such circumstances that I _knew_ her to be thy mother; and--but shall I go on?" "Straight on, my Isabel; thou didst see my mother--well?" "And when I saw her, though I spake not to her, nor she to me, yet straightway my heart knew that she would love me not." "Thy heart spake true," muttered Pierre to himself; "go on." "I re-swore an oath never to reveal myself to thy mother." "Oath well sworn," again he muttered; "go on." "But I saw _thee_, Pierre; and, more than ever filled my mother toward thy father, Pierre, then upheaved in me. Straightway I knew that if ever I should come to be made known to thee, then thy own generous love would open itself to me." "Again thy heart spake true," he murmured; "go on--and didst thou re-swear again?" "No, Pierre; but yes, I did. I swore that thou wert my brother; with love and pride I swore, that young and noble Pierre Glendinning was my brother!" "And only that?" "Nothing more, Pierre; not to thee even, did I ever think to reveal myself." "How then? thou _art_ revealed to me." "Yes; but the great God did it, Pierre--not poor Bell. Listen. "I felt very dreary here; poor, dear Delly--thou must have heard something of her story--a most sorrowful house, Pierre. Hark! that is her seldom-pausing pacing thou hearest from the floor above. So she keeps ever pacing, pacing, pacing; in her track, all thread-bare, Pierre, is her chamber-rug. Her father will not look upon her; her mother, she hath cursed her to her face. Out of yon chamber, Pierre, Delly hath not slept, for now four weeks and more; nor ever hath she once laid upon her bed; it was last made up five weeks ago; but paces, paces, paces, all through the night, till after twelve; and then sits vacant in her chair. Often I would go to her to comfort her; but she says, 'Nay, nay, nay,' to me through the door; says 'Nay, nay, nay,' and only nay to me, through the bolted door; bolted three weeks ago--when I by cunning arts stole her dead baby from her, and with these fingers, alone, by night, scooped out a hollow, and, seconding heaven's own charitable stroke, buried that sweet, wee symbol of her not unpardonable shame far from the ruthless foot of man--yes, bolted three weeks ago, not once unbolted since; her food I must thrust through the little window in her closet. Pierre, hardly these two handfuls has she eaten in a week." "Curses, wasp-like, cohere on that villain, Ned, and sting him to his death!" cried Pierre, smit by this most piteous tale. "What can be done for her, sweet Isabel; can Pierre do aught?" "If thou or I do not, then the ever-hospitable grave will prove her quick refuge, Pierre. Father and mother both, are worse than dead and gone to her. They would have turned her forth, I think, but for my own poor petitionings, unceasing in her behalf!" Pierre's deep concern now gave place to a momentary look of benevolent intelligence. "Isabel, a thought of benefit to Delly has just entered me; but I am still uncertain how best it may be acted on. Resolved I am though to succor her. Do thou still hold her here yet awhile, by thy sweet petitionings, till my further plans are more matured. Now run on with thy story, and so divert me from the pacing;--her every step steps in my soul." "Thy noble heart hath many chambers, Pierre; the records of thy wealth, I see, are not bound up in the one poor book of Isabel, my brother. Thou art a visible token, Pierre, of the invisible angel-hoods, which in our darker hours we do sometimes distrust. The gospel of thy acts goes very far, my brother. Were all men like to thee, then were there no men at all,--mankind extinct in seraphim!" "Praises are for the base, my sister, cunningly to entice them to fair Virtue by our ignorings of the ill in them, and our imputings of the good not theirs. So make not my head to hang, sweet Isabel. Praise me not. Go on now with thy tale." "I have said to thee, my brother, how most dreary I found it here, and from the first. Wonted all my life to sadness--if it be such--still, this house hath such acuteness in its general grief, such hopelessness and despair of any slightest remedy--that even poor Bell could scarce abide it always, without some little going forth into contrasting scenes. So I went forth into the places of delight, only that I might return more braced to minister in the haunts of woe. For continual unchanging residence therein, doth but bring on woe's stupor, and make us as dead. So I went forth betimes; visiting the neighboring cottages; where there were chattering children, and no one place vacant at the cheerful board. Thus at last I chanced to hear of the Sewing Circle to be held at the Miss Pennies'; and how that they were anxious to press into their kind charity all the maidens of the country round. In various cottages, I was besought to join; and they at length persuaded me; not that I was naturally loth to it, and needed such entreaties; but at first I felt great fear, lest at such a scene I might closely encounter some of the Glendinnings; and that thought was then namelessly repulsive to me. But by stealthy inquiries I learned, that the lady of the manorial-house would not be present;--it proved deceptive information;--but I went; and all the rest thou knowest." "I do, sweet Isabel, but thou must tell it over to me; and all thy emotions there." V. "Though but one day hath passed, my brother, since we first met in life, yet thou hast that heavenly magnet in thee, which draws all my soul's interior to thee. I will go on.--Having to wait for a neighbor's wagon, I arrived but late at the Sewing Circle. When I entered, the two joined rooms were very full. With the farmer's girls, our neighbors, I passed along to the further corner, where thou didst see me; and as I went, some heads were turned, and some whisperings I heard, of--'She's the new help at poor Walter Ulver's--the strange girl they've got--she thinks herself 'mazing pretty, I'll be bound;--but nobody knows her--Oh, how demure!--but not over-good, I guess;--I wouldn't be her, not I--mayhap she's some other ruined Delly, run away;--minx!' It was the first time poor Bell had ever mixed in such a general crowded company; and knowing little or nothing of such things, I had thought, that the meeting being for charity's sweet sake, uncharity could find no harbor there; but no doubt it was mere thoughtlessness, not malice in them. Still, it made my heart ache in me sadly; for then I very keenly felt the dread suspiciousness, in which a strange and lonely grief invests itself to common eyes; as if grief itself were not enough, nor innocence any armor to us, but despite must also come, and icy infamy! Miserable returnings then I had--even in the midst of bright-budding girls and full-blown women--miserable returnings then I had of the feeling, the bewildering feeling of the inhumanities I spoke of in my earlier story. But Pierre, blessed Pierre, do not look so sadly and half-reproachfully upon me. Lone and lost though I have been, I love my kind; and charitably and intelligently pity them, who uncharitably and unintelligently do me despite. And thou, _thou_, blessed brother, hath glorified many somber places in my soul, and taught me once for all to know, that my kind are capable of things which would be glorious in angels. So look away from me, dear Pierre, till thou hast taught thine eyes more wonted glances." "They are vile falsifying telegraphs of me, then, sweet Isabel. What my look was I can not tell, but my heart was only dark with ill-restrained upbraidings against heaven that could unrelentingly see such innocence as thine so suffer. Go on with thy too-touching tale." "Quietly I sat there sewing, not brave enough to look up at all, and thanking my good star, that had led me to so concealed a nook behind the rest: quietly I sat there, sewing on a flannel shirt, and with each stitch praying God, that whatever heart it might be folded over, the flannel might hold it truly warm; and keep out the wide-world-coldness which I felt myself; and which no flannel, or thickest fur, or any fire then could keep off from me; quietly I sat there sewing, when I heard the announcing words--oh, how deep and ineffaceably engraved they are!--'Ah, dames, dames, Madame Glendinning,--Master Pierre Glendinning.' Instantly, my sharp needle went through my side and stitched my heart; the flannel dropt from my hand; thou heard'st my shriek. But the good people bore me still nearer to the casement close at hand, and threw it open wide; and God's own breath breathed on me; and I rallied; and said it was some merest passing fit--'twas quite over now--I was used to it--they had my heart's best thanks--but would they now only leave me to myself, it were best for me;--I would go on and sew. And thus it came and passed away; and again I sat sewing on the flannel, hoping either that the unanticipated persons would soon depart, or else that some spirit would catch me away from there; I sat sewing on--till, Pierre! Pierre!--without looking up--for that I dared not do at any time that evening--only once--without looking up, or knowing aught but the flannel on my knee, and the needle in my heart, I felt,--Pierre, _felt_--a glance of magnetic meaning on me. Long, I, shrinking, sideways turned to meet it, but could not; till some helping spirit seized me, and all my soul looked up at thee in my full-fronting face. It was enough. Fate was in that moment. All the loneliness of my life, all the choked longings of my soul, now poured over me. I could not away from them. Then first I felt the complete deplorableness of my state; that while thou, my brother, had a mother, and troops of aunts and cousins, and plentiful friends in city and in country--I, I, Isabel, thy own father's daughter, was thrust out of all hearts' gates, and shivered in the winter way. But this was but the least. Not poor Bell can tell thee all the feelings of poor Bell, or what feelings she felt first. It was all one whirl of old and new bewilderings, mixed and slanted with a driving madness. But it was most the sweet, inquisitive, kindly interested aspect of thy face,--so strangely like thy father's, too--the one only being that I first did love--it was that which most stirred the distracting storm in me; most charged me with the immense longings for some one of my blood to know me, and to own me, though but once, and then away. Oh, my dear brother--Pierre! Pierre!--could'st thou take out my heart, and look at it in thy hand, then thou would'st find it all over written, this way and that, and crossed again, and yet again, with continual lines of longings, that found no end but in suddenly calling thee. Call him! Call him! He will come!--so cried my heart to me; so cried the leaves and stars to me, as I that night went home. But pride rose up--the very pride in my own longings,--and as one arm pulled, the other held. So I stood still, and called thee not. But Fate will be Fate, and it was fated. Once having met thy fixed regardful glance; once having seen the full angelicalness in thee, my whole soul was undone by thee; my whole pride was cut off at the root, and soon showed a blighting in the bud; which spread deep into my whole being, till I knew, that utterly decay and die away I must, unless pride let me go, and I, with the one little trumpet of a pen, blew my heart's shrillest blast, and called dear Pierre to me. My soul was full; and as my beseeching ink went tracing o'er the page, my tears contributed their mite, and made a strange alloy. How blest I felt that my so bitterly tear-mingled ink--that last depth of my anguish--would never be visibly known to thee, but the tears would dry upon the page, and all be fair again, ere the so submerged-freighted letter should meet thine eye. "Ah, there thou wast deceived, poor Isabel," cried Pierre impulsively; "thy tears dried not fair, but dried red, almost like blood; and nothing so much moved my inmost soul as that tragic sight." "How? how? Pierre, my brother? Dried they red? Oh, horrible! enchantment! most undreamed of!" "Nay, the ink--the ink! something chemic in it changed thy real tears to seeming blood;--only that, my sister." "Oh Pierre! thus wonderfully is it--seems to me--that our own hearts do not ever know the extremity of their own sufferings; sometimes we bleed blood, when we think it only water. Of our sufferings, as of our talents, others sometimes are the better judges. But stop me! force me backward to my story! Yet methinks that now thou knowest all;--no, not entirely all. Thou dost not know what planned and winnowed motive I did have in writing thee; nor does poor Bell know that; for poor Bell was too delirious to have planned and winnowed motives then. The impulse in me called thee, not poor Bell. God called thee, Pierre, not poor Bell. Even now, when I have passed one night after seeing thee, and hearkening to all thy full love and graciousness; even now, I stand as one amazed, and feel not what may be coming to me, or what will now befall me, from having so rashly claimed thee for mine. Pierre, now, _now_, this instant a vague anguish fills me. Tell me, by loving me, by owning me, publicly or secretly,--tell me, doth it involve any vital hurt to thee? Speak without reserve; speak honestly; as I do to thee! Speak now, Pierre, and tell me all!" "Is Love a harm? Can Truth betray to pain? Sweet Isabel, how can hurt come in the path to God? Now, when I know thee all, now did I forget thee, fail to acknowledge thee, and love thee before the wide world's whole brazen width--could I do that; then might'st thou ask thy question reasonably and say--Tell me, Pierre, does not the suffocating in thee of poor Bell's holy claims, does not that involve for thee unending misery? And my truthful soul would echo--Unending misery! Nay, nay, nay. Thou art my sister and I am thy brother; and that part of the world which knows me, shall acknowledge thee; or by heaven I will crush the disdainful world down on its knees to thee, my sweet Isabel!" "The menacings in thy eyes are dear delights to me; I grow up with thy own glorious stature; and in thee, my brother, I see God's indignant embassador to me, saying--Up, up, Isabel, and take no terms from the common world, but do thou make terms to it, and grind thy fierce rights out of it! Thy catching nobleness unsexes me, my brother; and now I know that in her most exalted moment, then woman no more feels the twin-born softness of her breasts, but feels chain-armor palpitating there!" Her changed attitude of beautiful audacity; her long scornful hair, that trailed out a disheveled banner; her wonderful transfigured eyes, in which some meteors seemed playing up; all this now seemed to Pierre the work of an invisible enchanter. Transformed she stood before him; and Pierre, bowing low over to her, owned that irrespective, darting majesty of humanity, which can be majestical and menacing in woman as in man. But her gentler sex returned to Isabel at last; and she sat silent in the casement's niche, looking out upon the soft ground-lightnings of the electric summer night. VI. Sadly smiling, Pierre broke the pause. "My sister, thou art so rich, that thou must do me alms; I am very hungry; I have forgotten to eat since breakfast;--and now thou shalt bring me bread and a cup of water, Isabel, ere I go forth from thee. Last night I went rummaging in a pantry, like a bake-house burglar; but to-night thou and I must sup together, Isabel; for as we may henceforth live together, let us begin forthwith to eat in company." Isabel looked up at him, with sudden and deep emotion, then all acquiescing sweetness, and silently left the room. As she returned, Pierre, casting his eyes toward the ceiling, said--"She is quiet now, the pacing hath entirely ceased." "Not the beating, tho'; her foot hath paused, not her unceasing heart. My brother, she is not quiet now; quiet for her hath gone; so that the pivoted stillness of this night is yet a noisy madness to her." "Give me pen or pencil, and some paper, Isabel." She laid down her loaf, and plate, and knife, and brought him pen, and ink, and paper. Pierre took the pen. "Was this the one, dear Isabel?" "It is the one, my brother; none other is in this poor cot." He gazed at it intensely. Then turning to the table, steadily wrote the following note: "For Delly Ulver: with the deep and true regard and sympathy of Pierre Glendinning. "Thy sad story--partly known before--hath now more fully come to me, from one who sincerely feels for thee, and who hath imparted her own sincerity to me. Thou desirest to quit this neighborhood, and be somewhere at peace, and find some secluded employ fitted to thy sex and age. With this, I now willingly charge myself, and insure it to thee, so far as my utmost ability can go. Therefore--if consolation be not wholly spurned by thy great grief, which too often happens, though it be but grief's great folly so to feel--therefore, two true friends of thine do here beseech thee to take some little heart to thee, and bethink thee, that all thy life is not yet lived; that Time hath surest healing in his continuous balm. Be patient yet a little while, till thy future lot be disposed for thee, through our best help; and so, know me and Isabel thy earnest friends and true-hearted lovers." He handed the note to Isabel. She read it silently, and put it down, and spread her two hands over him, and with one motion lifted her eyes toward Delly and toward God. "Thou think'st it will not pain her to receive the note, Isabel? Thou know'st best. I thought, that ere our help do really reach her, some promise of it now might prove slight comfort. But keep it, and do as thou think'st best." "Then straightway will I give it her, my brother," said Isabel, quitting him. An infixing stillness, now thrust a long rivet through the night, and fast nailed it to that side of the world. And alone again in such an hour, Pierre could not but listen. He heard Isabel's step on the stair; then it approached him from above; then he heard a gentle knock, and thought he heard a rustling, as of paper slid over a threshold underneath a door. Then another advancing and opposite step tremblingly met Isabel's; and then both steps stepped from each other, and soon Isabel came back to him. "Thou did'st knock, and slide it underneath the door?" "Yes, and she hath it now. Hark! a sobbing! Thank God, long arid grief hath found a tear at last. Pity, sympathy hath done this.--Pierre, for thy dear deed thou art already sainted, ere thou be dead." "Do saints hunger, Isabel?" said Pierre, striving to call her away from this. "Come, give me the loaf; but no, thou shalt help me, my sister.--Thank thee;--this is twice over the bread of sweetness.--Is this of thine own making, Isabel?" "My own making, my brother." "Give me the cup; hand it me with thine own hand. So:--Isabel, my heart and soul are now full of deepest reverence; yet I do dare to call this the real sacrament of the supper.--Eat with me." They eat together without a single word; and without a single word, Pierre rose, and kissed her pure and spotless brow, and without a single word departed from the place. VII. We know not Pierre Glendinning's thoughts as he gained the village and passed on beneath its often shrouding trees, and saw no light from man, and heard no sound from man, but only, by intervals, saw at his feet the soft ground-lightnings, snake-like, playing in and out among the blades of grass; and between the trees, caught the far dim light from heaven, and heard the far wide general hum of the sleeping but still breathing earth. He paused before a detached and pleasant house, with much shrubbery about it. He mounted the portico and knocked distinctly there, just as the village clock struck one. He knocked, but no answer came. He knocked again, and soon he heard a sash thrown up in the second story, and an astonished voice inquired who was there? "It is Pierre Glendinning, and he desires an instant interview with the Reverend Mr. Falsgrave." "Do I hear right?--in heaven's name, what is the matter, young gentleman?" "Every thing is the matter; the whole world is the matter. Will you admit me, sir?" "Certainly--but I beseech thee--nay, stay, I will admit thee." In quicker time than could have been anticipated, the door was opened to Pierre by Mr. Falsgrave in person, holding a candle, and invested in his very becoming student's wrapper of Scotch plaid. "For heaven's sake, what is the matter, Mr. Glendinning?" "Heaven and earth is the matter, sir! shall we go up to the study?" "Certainly, but--but--" "Well, let us proceed, then." They went up-stairs, and soon found themselves in the clergyman's retreat, and both sat down; the amazed host still holding the candle in his hand, and intently eying Pierre, with an apprehensive aspect. "Thou art a man of God, sir, I believe." "I? I? I? upon my word, Mr. Glendinning!" "Yes, sir, the world calls thee a man of God. Now, what hast thou, the man of God, decided, with my mother, concerning Delly Ulver?" "Delly Ulver! why, why--what can this madness mean?" "It means, sir, what have thou and my mother decided concerning Delly Ulver." "She?--Delly Ulver? She is to depart the neighborhood; why, her own parents want her not." "_How_ is she to depart? _Who_ is to take her? Art _thou_ to take her? _Where_ is she to go? _Who_ has food for her? _What_ is to keep her from the pollution to which such as she are every day driven to contribute, by the detestable uncharitableness and heartlessness of the world?" "Mr. Glendinning," said the clergyman, now somewhat calmly putting down the candle, and folding himself with dignity in his gown; "Mr. Glendinning, I will not now make any mention of my natural astonishment at this most unusual call, and the most extraordinary time of it. Thou hast sought information upon a certain point, and I have given it to thee, to the best of my knowledge. All thy after and incidental questions, I choose to have no answer for. I will be most happy to see thee at any other time, but for the present thou must excuse my presence. Good-night, sir." But Pierre sat entirely still, and the clergyman could not but remain standing still. "I perfectly comprehend the whole, sir. Delly Ulver, then, is to be driven out to starve or rot; and this, too, by the acquiescence of a man of God. Mr. Falsgrave, the subject of Delly, deeply interesting as it is to me, is only the preface to another, still more interesting to me, and concerning which I once cherished some slight hope that thou wouldst have been able, in thy Christian character, to sincerely and honestly counsel me. But a hint from heaven assures me now, that thou hast no earnest and world-disdaining counsel for me. I must seek it direct from God himself, whom, I now know, never delegates his holiest admonishings. But I do not blame thee; I think I begin to see how thy profession is unavoidably entangled by all fleshly alliances, and can not move with godly freedom in a world of benefices. I am more sorry than indignant. Pardon me for my most uncivil call, and know me as not thy enemy. Good-night, sir." BOOK IX. MORE LIGHT, AND THE GLOOM OF THAT LIGHT. MORE GLOOM, AND THE LIGHT OF THAT GLOOM. I. In those Hyperborean regions, to which enthusiastic Truth, and Earnestness, and Independence, will invariably lead a mind fitted by nature for profound and fearless thought, all objects are seen in a dubious, uncertain, and refracting light. Viewed through that rarefied atmosphere the most immemorially admitted maxims of men begin to slide and fluctuate, and finally become wholly inverted; the very heavens themselves being not innocent of producing this confounding effect, since it is mostly in the heavens themselves that these wonderful mirages are exhibited. But the example of many minds forever lost, like undiscoverable Arctic explorers, amid those treacherous regions, warns us entirely away from them; and we learn that it is not for man to follow the trail of truth too far, since by so doing he entirely loses the directing compass of his mind; for arrived at the Pole, to whose barrenness only it points, there, the needle indifferently respects all points of the horizon alike. But even the less distant regions of thought are not without their singular introversions. Hardly any sincere man of ordinary reflective powers, and accustomed to exercise them at all, but must have been independently struck by the thought, that, after all, what is so enthusiastically applauded as the march of mind,--meaning the inroads of Truth into Error--which has ever been regarded by hopeful persons as the one fundamental thing most earnestly to be prayed for as the greatest possible Catholic blessing to the world;--almost every thinking man must have been some time or other struck with the idea, that, in certain respects, a tremendous mistake may be lurking here, since all the world does never gregariously advance to Truth, but only here and there some of its individuals do; and by advancing, leave the rest behind; cutting themselves forever adrift from their sympathy, and making themselves always liable to be regarded with distrust, dislike, and often, downright--though, ofttimes, concealed--fear and hate. What wonder, then, that those advanced minds, which in spite of advance, happen still to remain, for the time, ill-regulated, should now and then be goaded into turning round in acts of wanton aggression upon sentiments and opinions now forever left in their rear. Certain it is, that in their earlier stages of advance, especially in youthful minds, as yet untranquilized by long habituation to the world as it inevitably and eternally is; this aggressiveness is almost invariably manifested, and as invariably afterward deplored by themselves. That amazing shock of practical truth, which in the compass of a very few days and hours had not so much advanced, as magically transplanted the youthful mind of Pierre far beyond all common discernments; it had not been entirely unattended by the lamentable rearward aggressiveness we have endeavored to portray above. Yielding to that unwarrantable mood, he had invaded the profound midnight slumbers of the Reverend Mr. Falsgrave, and most discourteously made war upon that really amiable and estimable person. But as through the strange force of circumstances his advance in insight had been so surprisingly rapid, so also was now his advance in some sort of wisdom, in charitableness; and his concluding words to Mr. Falsgrave, sufficiently evinced that already, ere quitting that gentleman's study, he had begun to repent his ever entering it on such a mission. And as he now walked on in the profound meditations induced by the hour; and as all that was in him stirred to and fro, intensely agitated by the ever-creative fire of enthusiastic earnestness, he became fully alive to many palliating considerations, which had they previously occurred to him would have peremptorily forbidden his impulsive intrusion upon the respectable clergyman. But it is through the malice of this earthly air, that only by being guilty of Folly does mortal man in many cases arrive at the perception of Sense. A thought which should forever free us from hasty imprecations upon our ever-recurring intervals of Folly; since though Folly be our teacher, Sense is the lesson she teaches; since if Folly wholly depart from us, Further Sense will be her companion in the flight, and we will be left standing midway in wisdom. For it is only the miraculous vanity of man which ever persuades him, that even for the most richly gifted mind, there ever arrives an earthly period, where it can truly say to itself, I have come to the Ultimate of Human Speculative Knowledge; hereafter, at this present point I will abide. Sudden onsets of new truth will assail him, and over-turn him as the Tartars did China; for there is no China Wall that man can build in his soul, which shall permanently stay the irruptions of those barbarous hordes which Truth ever nourishes in the loins of her frozen, yet teeming North; so that the Empire of Human Knowledge can never be lasting in any one dynasty, since Truth still gives new Emperors to the earth. But the thoughts we here indite as Pierre's are to be very carefully discriminated from those we indite concerning him. Ignorant at this time of the ideas concerning the reciprocity and partnership of Folly and Sense, in contributing to the mental and moral growth of the mind; Pierre keenly upbraided his thoughtlessness, and began to stagger in his soul; as distrustful of that radical change in his general sentiments, which had thus hurried him into a glaring impropriety and folly; as distrustful of himself, the most wretched distrust of all. But this last distrust was not of the heart; for heaven itself, so he felt, had sanctified that with its blessing; but it was the distrust of his intellect, which in undisciplinedly espousing the manly enthusiast cause of his heart, seemed to cast a reproach upon that cause itself. But though evermore hath the earnest heart an eventual balm for the most deplorable error of the head; yet in the interval small alleviation is to be had, and the whole man droops into nameless melancholy. Then it seems as though the most magnanimous and virtuous resolutions were only intended for fine spiritual emotions, not as mere preludes to their bodily translation into acts; since in essaying their embodiment, we have but proved ourselves miserable bunglers, and thereupon taken ignominious shame to ourselves. Then, too, the never-entirely repulsed hosts of Commonness, and Conventionalness, and Worldly Prudent-mindedness return to the charge; press hard on the faltering soul; and with inhuman hootings deride all its nobleness as mere eccentricity, which further wisdom and experience shall assuredly cure. The man is as seized by arms and legs, and convulsively pulled either way by his own indecisions and doubts. Blackness advances her banner over this cruel altercation, and he droops and swoons beneath its folds. It was precisely in this mood of mind that, at about two in the morning, Pierre, with a hanging head, now crossed the private threshold of the Mansion of Saddle Meadows. II. In the profoundly silent heart of a house full of sleeping serving-men and maids, Pierre now sat in his chamber before his accustomed round table, still tossed with the books and the papers which, three days before, he had abruptly left, for a sudden and more absorbing object. Uppermost and most conspicuous among the books were the Inferno of Dante, and the Hamlet of Shakspeare. His mind was wandering and vague; his arm wandered and was vague. Soon he found the open Inferno in his hand, and his eye met the following lines, allegorically overscribed within the arch of the outgoings of the womb of human life: "Through me you pass into the city of Woe; Through me you pass into eternal pain; Through me, among the people lost for aye. * * * * * All hope abandon, ye who enter here." He dropped the fatal volume from his hand; he dropped his fated head upon his chest. His mind was wandering and vague; his arm wandered and was vague. Some moments passed, and he found the open Hamlet in his hand, and his eyes met the following lines: "The time is out of joint;--Oh cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!" He dropped the too true volume from his hand; his petrifying heart dropped hollowly within him, as a pebble down Carrisbrook well. III. The man Dante Alighieri received unforgivable affronts and insults from the world; and the poet Dante Alighieri bequeathed his immortal curse to it, in the sublime malediction of the Inferno. The fiery tongue whose political forkings lost him the solacements of this world, found its malicious counterpart in that muse of fire, which would forever bar the vast bulk of mankind from all solacement in the worlds to come. Fortunately for the felicity of the Dilletante in Literature, the horrible allegorical meanings of the Inferno, lie not on the surface; but unfortunately for the earnest and youthful piercers into truth and reality, those horrible meanings, when first discovered, infuse their poison into a spot previously unprovided with that sovereign antidote of a sense of uncapitulatable security, which is only the possession of the furthest advanced and profoundest souls. Judge ye, then, ye Judicious, the mood of Pierre, so far as the passage in Dante touched him. If among the deeper significances of its pervading indefiniteness, which significances are wisely hidden from all but the rarest adepts, the pregnant tragedy of Hamlet convey any one particular moral at all fitted to the ordinary uses of man, it is this:--that all meditation is worthless, unless it prompt to action; that it is not for man to stand shilly-shallying amid the conflicting invasions of surrounding impulses; that in the earliest instant of conviction, the roused man must strike, and, if possible, with the precision and the force of the lightning-bolt. Pierre had always been an admiring reader of Hamlet; but neither his age nor his mental experience thus far, had qualified him either to catch initiating glimpses into the hopeless gloom of its interior meaning, or to draw from the general story those superficial and purely incidental lessons, wherein the painstaking moralist so complacently expatiates. The intensest light of reason and revelation combined, can not shed such blazonings upon the deeper truths in man, as will sometimes proceed from his own profoundest gloom. Utter darkness is then his light, and cat-like he distinctly sees all objects through a medium which is mere blindness to common vision. Wherefore have Gloom and Grief been celebrated of old as the selectest chamberlains to knowledge? Wherefore is it, that not to know Gloom and Grief is not to know aught that an heroic man should learn? By the light of that gloom, Pierre now turned over the soul of Hamlet in his hand. He knew not--at least, felt not--then, that Hamlet, though a thing of life, was, after all, but a thing of breath, evoked by the wanton magic of a creative hand, and as wantonly dismissed at last into endless halls of hell and night. It is the not impartially bestowed privilege of the more final insights, that at the same moment they reveal the depths, they do, sometimes, also reveal--though by no means so distinctly--some answering heights. But when only midway down the gulf, its crags wholly conceal the upper vaults, and the wanderer thinks it all one gulf of downward dark. Judge ye, then, ye Judicious, the mood of Pierre, so far as the passage in Hamlet touched him. IV. Torn into a hundred shreds the printed pages of Hell and Hamlet lay at his feet, which trampled them, while their vacant covers mocked him with their idle titles. Dante had made him fierce, and Hamlet had insinuated that there was none to strike. Dante had taught him that he had bitter cause of quarrel; Hamlet taunted him with faltering in the fight. Now he began to curse anew his fate, for now he began to see that after all he had been finely juggling with himself, and postponing with himself, and in meditative sentimentalities wasting the moments consecrated to instant action. Eight-and-forty hours and more had passed. Was Isabel acknowledged? Had she yet hung on his public arm? Who knew yet of Isabel but Pierre? Like a skulking coward he had gone prowling in the woods by day, and like a skulking coward he had stolen to her haunt by night! Like a thief he had sat and stammered and turned pale before his mother, and in the cause of Holy Right, permitted a woman to grow tall and hector over him! Ah! Easy for man to think like a hero; but hard for man to act like one. All imaginable audacities readily enter into the soul; few come boldly forth from it. Did he, or did he not vitally mean to do this thing? Was the immense stuff to do it his, or was it not his? Why defer? Why put off? What was there to be gained by deferring and putting off? His resolution had been taken, why was it not executed? What more was there to learn? What more which was essential to the public acknowledgment of Isabel, had remained to be learned, after his first glance at her first letter? Had doubts of her identity come over him to stay him?--None at all. Against the wall of the thick darkness of the mystery of Isabel, recorded as by some phosphoric finger was the burning fact, that Isabel was his sister. Why then? How then? Whence then this utter nothing of his acts? Did he stagger at the thought, that at the first announcement to his mother concerning Isabel, and his resolution to own her boldly and lovingly, his proud mother, spurning the reflection on his father, would likewise spurn Pierre and Isabel, and denounce both him and her, and hate them both alike, as unnatural accomplices against the good name of the purest of husbands and parents? Not at all. Such a thought was not in him. For had he not already resolved, that his mother should know nothing of the fact of Isabel?--But how now? What then? How was Isabel to be acknowledged to the world, if his mother was to know nothing of that acknowledgment?--Short-sighted, miserable palterer and huckster, thou hast been playing a most fond and foolish game with thyself! Fool and coward! Coward and fool! Tear thyself open, and read there the confounding story of thy blind dotishness! Thy two grand resolutions--the public acknowledgment of Isabel, and the charitable withholding of her existence from thy own mother,--these are impossible adjuncts.--Likewise, thy so magnanimous purpose to screen thy father's honorable memory from reproach, and thy other intention, the open vindication of thy fraternalness to Isabel,--these also are impossible adjuncts. And the having individually entertained four such resolves, without perceiving that once brought together, they all mutually expire; this, this ineffable folly, Pierre, brands thee in the forehead for an unaccountable infatuate! Well may'st thou distrust thyself, and curse thyself, and tear thy Hamlet and thy Hell! Oh! fool, blind fool, and a million times an ass! Go, go, thou poor and feeble one! High deeds are not for such blind grubs as thou! Quit Isabel, and go to Lucy! Beg humble pardon of thy mother, and hereafter be a more obedient and good boy to her, Pierre--Pierre, Pierre,--infatuate! Impossible would it be now to tell all the confusion and confoundings in the soul of Pierre, so soon as the above absurdities in his mind presented themselves first to his combining consciousness. He would fain have disowned the very memory and the mind which produced to him such an immense scandal upon his common sanity. Now indeed did all the fiery floods in the Inferno, and all the rolling gloom in Hamlet suffocate him at once in flame and smoke. The cheeks of his soul collapsed in him: he dashed himself in blind fury and swift madness against the wall, and fell dabbling in the vomit of his loathed identity. BOOK X. THE UNPRECEDENTED FINAL RESOLUTION OF PIERRE. I. Glorified be his gracious memory who first said, The deepest gloom precedes the day. We care not whether the saying will prove true to the utmost bounds of things; sufficient that it sometimes does hold true within the bounds of earthly finitude. Next morning Pierre rose from the floor of his chamber, haggard and tattered in body from his past night's utter misery, but stoically serene and symmetrical in soul, with the foretaste of what then seemed to him a planned and perfect Future. Now he thinks he knows that the wholly unanticipated storm which had so terribly burst upon him, had yet burst upon him for his good; for the place, which in its undetected incipiency, the storm had obscurely occupied in his soul, seemed now clear sky to him; and all his horizon seemed distinctly commanded by him. His resolution was a strange and extraordinary one; but therefore it only the better met a strange and extraordinary emergency. But it was not only strange and extraordinary in its novelty of mere aspect, but it was wonderful in its unequaled renunciation of himself. From the first, determined at all hazards to hold his father's fair fame inviolate from any thing he should do in reference to protecting Isabel, and extending to her a brother's utmost devotedness and love; and equally determined not to shake his mother's lasting peace by any useless exposure of unwelcome facts; and yet vowed in his deepest soul some way to embrace Isabel before the world, and yield to her his constant consolation and companionship; and finding no possible mode of unitedly compassing all these ends, without a most singular act of pious imposture, which he thought all heaven would justify in him, since he himself was to be the grand self-renouncing victim; therefore, this was his settled and immovable purpose now; namely: to assume before the world, that by secret rites, Pierre Glendinning was already become the husband of Isabel Banford--an assumption which would entirely warrant his dwelling in her continual company, and upon equal terms, taking her wherever the world admitted him; and at the same time foreclose all sinister inquisitions bearing upon his deceased parent's memory, or any way affecting his mother's lasting peace, as indissolubly linked with that. True, he in embryo, foreknew, that the extraordinary thing he had resolved, would, in another way, indirectly though inevitably, dart a most keen pang into his mother's heart; but this then seemed to him part of the unavoidable vast price of his enthusiastic virtue; and, thus minded, rather would he privately pain his living mother with a wound that might be curable, than cast world-wide and irremediable dishonor--so it seemed to him--upon his departed father. Probably no other being than Isabel could have produced upon Pierre impressions powerful enough to eventuate in a final resolution so unparalleled as the above. But the wonderful melodiousness of her grief had touched the secret monochord within his breast, by an apparent magic, precisely similar to that which had moved the stringed tongue of her guitar to respond to the heart-strings of her own melancholy plaints. The deep voice of the being of Isabel called to him from out the immense distances of sky and air, and there seemed no veto of the earth that could forbid her heavenly claim. During the three days that he had personally known her, and so been brought into magnetic contact with her, other persuasions and potencies than those direct ones, involved in her bewildering eyes and marvelous story, had unconsciously left their ineffaceable impressions on him, and perhaps without his privity, had mainly contributed to his resolve. She had impressed him as the glorious child of Pride and Grief, in whose countenance were traceable the divinest lineaments of both her parents. Pride gave to her her nameless nobleness; Grief touched that nobleness with an angelical softness; and again that softness was steeped in a most charitable humility, which was the foundation of her loftiest excellence of all. Neither by word or letter had Isabel betrayed any spark of those more common emotions and desires which might not unreasonably be ascribed to an ordinary person placed in circumstances like hers. Though almost penniless, she had not invoked the pecuniary bounty of Pierre; and though she was altogether silent on that subject, yet Pierre could not but be strangely sensible of something in her which disdained to voluntarily hang upon the mere bounty even of a brother. Nor, though she by various nameless ways, manifested her consciousness of being surrounded by uncongenial and inferior beings, while yet descended from a generous stock, and personally meriting the most refined companionships which the wide world could yield; nevertheless, she had not demanded of Pierre that he should array her in brocade, and lead her forth among the rare and opulent ladies of the land. But while thus evincing her intuitive, true lady-likeness and nobleness by this entire freedom from all sordid motives, neither had she merged all her feelings in any sickly sentimentalities of sisterly affection toward her so suddenly discovered brother; which, in the case of a naturally unattractive woman in her circumstances, would not have been altogether alluring to Pierre. No. That intense and indescribable longing, which her letter by its very incoherencies had best embodied, proceeded from no base, vain, or ordinary motive whatever; but was the unsuppressible and unmistakable cry of the godhead through her soul, commanding Pierre to fly to her, and do his highest and most glorious duty in the world. Nor now, as it changedly seemed to Pierre, did that duty consist in stubbornly flying in the marble face of the Past, and striving to reverse the decree which had pronounced that Isabel could never perfectly inherit all the privileges of a legitimate child of her father. And thoroughly now he felt, that even as this would in the present case be both preposterous in itself and cruel in effect to both the living and the dead, so was it entirely undesired by Isabel, who though once yielding to a momentary burst of aggressive enthusiasm, yet in her more wonted mood of mournfulness and sweetness, evinced no such lawless wandering. Thoroughly, now he felt, that Isabel was content to live obscure in her paternal identity, so long as she could any way appease her deep longings for the constant love and sympathy and close domestic contact of some one of her blood. So that Pierre had no slightest misgiving that upon learning the character of his scheme, she would deem it to come short of her natural expectations; while so far as its apparent strangeness was concerned,--a strangeness, perhaps invincible to squeamish and humdrum women--here Pierre anticipated no obstacle in Isabel; for her whole past was strange, and strangeness seemed best befitting to her future. But had Pierre now reread the opening paragraph of her letter to him, he might have very quickly derived a powerful anticipative objection from his sister, which his own complete disinterestedness concealed from him. Though Pierre had every reason to believe that--owing to her secluded and humble life--Isabel was in entire ignorance of the fact of his precise relation to Lucy Tartan:--an ignorance, whose first indirect and unconscious manifestation in Isabel, had been unspeakably welcome to him;--and though, of course, he had both wisely and benevolently abstained from enlightening her on that point; still, notwithstanding this, was it possible that any true-hearted noble girl like Isabel, would, to benefit herself, willingly become a participator in an act, which would prospectively and forever bar the blessed boon of marriageable love from one so young and generous as Pierre, and eternally entangle him in a fictitious alliance, which, though in reality but a web of air, yet in effect would prove a wall of iron; for the same powerful motive which induced the thought of forming such an alliance, would always thereafter forbid that tacit exposure of its fictitiousness, which would be consequent upon its public discontinuance, and the real nuptials of Pierre with any other being during the lifetime of Isabel. But according to what view you take of it, it is either the gracious or the malicious gift of the great gods to man, that on the threshold of any wholly new and momentous devoted enterprise, the thousand ulterior intricacies and emperilings to which it must conduct; these, at the outset, are mostly withheld from sight; and so, through her ever-primeval wilderness Fortune's Knight rides on, alike ignorant of the palaces or the pitfalls in its heart. Surprising, and past all ordinary belief, are those strange oversights and inconsistencies, into which the enthusiastic meditation upon unique or extreme resolves will sometimes beget in young and over-ardent souls. That all-comprehending oneness, that calm representativeness, by which a steady philosophic mind reaches forth and draws to itself, in their collective entirety, the objects of its contemplations; that pertains not to the young enthusiast. By his eagerness, all objects are deceptively foreshortened; by his intensity each object is viewed as detached; so that essentially and relatively every thing is misseen by him. Already have we exposed that passing preposterousness in Pierre, which by reason of the above-named cause which we have endeavored to portray, induced him to cherish for a time four unitedly impossible designs. And now we behold this hapless youth all eager to involve himself in such an inextricable twist of Fate, that the three dextrous maids themselves could hardly disentangle him, if once he tie the complicating knots about him and Isabel. Ah, thou rash boy! are there no couriers in the air to warn thee away from these emperilings, and point thee to those Cretan labyrinths, to which thy life's cord is leading thee? Where now are the high beneficences? Whither fled the sweet angels that are alledged guardians to man? Not that the impulsive Pierre wholly overlooked all that was menacing to him in his future, if now he acted out his most rare resolve; but eagerly foreshortened by him, they assumed not their full magnitude of menacing; nor, indeed,--so riveted now his purpose--were they pushed up to his face, would he for that renounce his self-renunciation; while concerning all things more immediately contingent upon his central resolution; these were, doubtless, in a measure, foreseen and understood by him. Perfectly, at least, he seemed to foresee and understand, that the present hope of Lucy Tartan must be banished from his being; that this would carry a terrible pang to her, which in the natural recoil would but redouble his own; that to the world all his heroicness, standing equally unexplained and unsuspected, therefore the world would denounce him as infamously false to his betrothed; reckless of the most binding human vows; a secret wooer and wedder of an unknown and enigmatic girl; a spurner of all a loving mother's wisest counselings; a bringer down of lasting reproach upon an honorable name; a besotted self-exile from a most prosperous house and bounteous fortune; and lastly, that now his whole life would, in the eyes of the wide humanity, be covered with an all-pervading haze of incurable sinisterness, possibly not to be removed even in the concluding hour of death. Such, oh thou son of man! are the perils and the miseries thou callest down on thee, when, even in a virtuous cause, thou steppest aside from those arbitrary lines of conduct, by which the common world, however base and dastardly, surrounds thee for thy worldly good. Ofttimes it is very wonderful to trace the rarest and profoundest things, and find their probable origin in something extremely trite or trivial. Yet so strange and complicate is the human soul; so much is confusedly evolved from out itself, and such vast and varied accessions come to it from abroad, and so impossible is it always to distinguish between these two, that the wisest man were rash, positively to assign the precise and incipient origination of his final thoughts and acts. Far as we blind moles can see, man's life seems but an acting upon mysterious hints; it is somehow hinted to us, to do thus or thus. For surely no mere mortal who has at all gone down into himself will ever pretend that his slightest thought or act solely originates in his own defined identity. This preamble seems not entirely unnecessary as usher of the strange conceit, that possibly the latent germ of Pierre's proposed extraordinary mode of executing his proposed extraordinary resolve--namely, the nominal conversion of a sister into a wife--might have been found in the previous conversational conversion of a mother into a sister; for hereby he had habituated his voice and manner to a certain fictitiousness in one of the closest domestic relations of life; and since man's moral texture is very porous, and things assumed upon the surface, at last strike in--hence, this outward habituation to the above-named fictitiousness had insensibly disposed his mind to it as it were; but only innocently and pleasantly as yet. If, by any possibility, this general conceit be so, then to Pierre the times of sportfulness were as pregnant with the hours of earnestness; and in sport he learnt the terms of woe. II. If next to that resolve concerning his lasting fraternal succor to Isabel, there was at this present time any determination in Pierre absolutely inflexible, and partaking at once of the sacredness and the indissolubleness of the most solemn oath, it was the enthusiastic, and apparently wholly supererogatory resolution to hold his father's memory untouched; nor to one single being in the world reveal the paternity of Isabel. Unrecallably dead and gone from out the living world, again returned to utter helplessness, so far as this world went; his perished father seemed to appeal to the dutifulness and mercifulness of Pierre, in terms far more moving than though the accents proceeded from his mortal mouth. And what though not through the sin of Pierre, but through his father's sin, that father's fair fame now lay at the mercy of the son, and could only be kept inviolate by the son's free sacrifice of all earthly felicity;--what if this were so? It but struck a still loftier chord in the bosom of the son, and filled him with infinite magnanimities. Never had the generous Pierre cherished the heathenish conceit, that even in the general world, Sin is a fair object to be stretched on the cruelest racks by self-complacent Virtue, that self-complacent Virtue may feed her lily-liveredness on the pallor of Sin's anguish. For perfect Virtue does not more loudly claim our approbation, than repented Sin in its concludedness does demand our utmost tenderness and concern. And as the more immense the Virtue, so should be the more immense our approbation; likewise the more immense the Sin, the more infinite our pity. In some sort, Sin hath its sacredness, not less than holiness. And great Sin calls forth more magnanimity than small Virtue. What man, who is a man, does not feel livelier and more generous emotions toward the great god of Sin--Satan,--than toward yonder haberdasher, who only is a sinner in the small and entirely honorable way of trade? Though Pierre profoundly shuddered at that impenetrable yet blackly significant nebulousness, which the wild story of Isabel threw around the early life of his father; yet as he recalled the dumb anguish of the invocation of the empty and the ashy hand uplifted from his father's death-bed, he most keenly felt that of whatsoever unknown shade his father's guilt might be, yet in the final hour of death it had been most dismally repented of; by a repentance only the more full of utter wretchedness, that it was a consuming secret in him. Mince the matter how his family would, had not his father died a raver? Whence that raving, following so prosperous a life? Whence, but from the cruelest compunctions? Touched thus, and strung in all his sinews and his nerves to the holding of his father's memory intact,--Pierre turned his confronting and unfrightened face toward Lucy Tartan, and stilly vowed that not even she should know the whole; no, not know the least. There is an inevitable keen cruelty in the loftier heroism. It is not heroism only to stand unflinched ourselves in the hour of suffering; but it is heroism to stand unflinched both at our own and at some loved one's united suffering; a united suffering, which we could put an instant period to, if we would but renounce the glorious cause for which ourselves do bleed, and see our most loved one bleed. If he would not reveal his father's shame to the common world, whose favorable opinion for himself, Pierre now despised; how then reveal it to the woman he adored? To her, above all others, would he now uncover his father's tomb, and bid her behold from what vile attaintings he himself had sprung? So Pierre turned round and tied Lucy to the same stake which must hold himself, for he too plainly saw, that it could not be, but that both their hearts must burn. Yes, his resolve concerning his father's memory involved the necessity of assuming even to Lucy his marriage with Isabel. Here he could not explain himself, even to her. This would aggravate the sharp pang of parting, by self-suggested, though wholly groundless surmising in Lucy's mind, in the most miserable degree contaminating to her idea of him. But on this point, he still fondly trusted that without at all marring his filial bond, he would be enabled by some significant intimations to arrest in Lucy's mind those darker imaginings which might find entrance there; and if he could not set her wholly right, yet prevent her from going wildly wrong. For his mother Pierre was more prepared. He considered that by an inscrutable decree, which it was but foolishness to try to evade, or shun, or deny existence to, since he felt it so profoundly pressing on his inmost soul; the family of the Glendinnings was imperiously called upon to offer up a victim to the gods of woe; one grand victim at the least; and that grand victim must be his mother, or himself. If he disclosed his secret to the world, then his mother was made the victim; if at all hazards he kept it to himself, then himself would be the victim. A victim as respecting his mother, because under the peculiar circumstances of the case, the non-disclosure of the secret involved her entire and infamy-engendering misconception of himself. But to this he bowed submissive. One other thing--and the last to be here named, because the very least in the conscious thoughts of Pierre; one other thing remained to menace him with assured disastrousness. This thing it was, which though but dimly hinted of as yet, still in the apprehension must have exerted a powerful influence upon Pierre, in preparing him for the worst. His father's last and fatal sickness had seized him suddenly. Both the probable concealed distraction of his mind with reference to his early life as recalled to him in an evil hour, and his consequent mental wanderings; these, with other reasons, had prevented him from framing a new will to supersede one made shortly after his marriage, and ere Pierre was born. By that will which as yet had never been dragged into the courts of law; and which, in the fancied security of her own and her son's congenial and loving future, Mrs. Glendinning had never but once, and then inconclusively, offered to discuss, with a view to a better and more appropriate ordering of things to meet circumstances non-existent at the period the testament was framed; by that will, all the Glendinning property was declared his mother's. Acutely sensible to those prophetic intimations in him, which painted in advance the haughty temper of his offended mother, as all bitterness and scorn toward a son, once the object of her proudest joy, but now become a deep reproach, as not only rebellious to her, but glaringly dishonorable before the world; Pierre distinctly foresaw, that as she never would have permitted Isabel Banford in her true character to cross her threshold; neither would she now permit Isabel Banford to cross her threshold in any other, and disguised character; least of all, as that unknown and insidious girl, who by some pernicious arts had lured her only son from honor into infamy. But not to admit Isabel, was now to exclude Pierre, if indeed on independent grounds of exasperation against himself, his mother would not cast him out. Nor did the same interior intimations in him which fore-painted the above bearing of his mother, abstain to trace her whole haughty heart as so unrelentingly set against him, that while she would close her doors against both him and his fictitious wife, so also she would not willingly contribute one copper to support them in a supposed union so entirely abhorrent to her. And though Pierre was not so familiar with the science of the law, as to be quite certain what the law, if appealed to concerning the provisions of his father's will, would decree concerning any possible claims of the son to share with the mother in the property of the sire; yet he prospectively felt an invincible repugnance to dragging his dead father's hand and seal into open Court, and fighting over them with a base mercenary motive, and with his own mother for the antagonist. For so thoroughly did his infallible presentiments paint his mother's character to him, as operated upon and disclosed in all those fiercer traits,--hitherto held in abeyance by the mere chance and felicity of circumstances,--that he felt assured that her exasperation against him would even meet the test of a public legal contention concerning the Glendinning property. For indeed there was a reserved strength and masculineness in the character of his mother, from which on all these points Pierre had every thing to dread. Besides, will the matter how he would, Pierre for nearly two whole years to come, would still remain a minor, an infant in the eye of the law, incapable of personally asserting any legal claim; and though he might sue by his next friend, yet who would be his voluntary next friend, when the execution of his great resolve would, for him, depopulate all the world of friends? Now to all these things, and many more, seemed the soul of this infatuated young enthusiast braced. III. There is a dark, mad mystery in some human hearts, which, sometimes, during the tyranny of a usurper mood, leads them to be all eagerness to cast off the most intense beloved bond, as a hindrance to the attainment of whatever transcendental object that usurper mood so tyrannically suggests. Then the beloved bond seems to hold us to no essential good; lifted to exalted mounts, we can dispense with all the vale; endearments we spurn; kisses are blisters to us; and forsaking the palpitating forms of mortal love, we emptily embrace the boundless and the unbodied air. We think we are not human; we become as immortal bachelors and gods; but again, like the Greek gods themselves, prone we descend to earth; glad to be uxorious once more; glad to hide these god-like heads within the bosoms made of too-seducing clay. Weary with the invariable earth, the restless sailor breaks from every enfolding arm, and puts to sea in height of tempest that blows off shore. But in long night-watches at the antipodes, how heavily that ocean gloom lies in vast bales upon the deck; thinking that that very moment in his deserted hamlet-home the household sun is high, and many a sun-eyed maiden meridian as the sun. He curses Fate; himself he curses; his senseless madness, which is himself. For whoso once has known this sweet knowledge, and then fled it; in absence, to him the avenging dream will come. Pierre was now this vulnerable god; this self-upbraiding sailor; this dreamer of the avenging dream. Though in some things he had unjuggled himself, and forced himself to eye the prospect as it was; yet, so far as Lucy was concerned, he was at bottom still a juggler. True, in his extraordinary scheme, Lucy was so intimately interwoven, that it seemed impossible for him at all to cast his future without some way having that heart's love in view. But ignorant of its quantity as yet, or fearful of ascertaining it; like an algebraist, for the real Lucy he, in his scheming thoughts, had substituted but a sign--some empty _x_--and in the ultimate solution of the problem, that empty _x_ still figured; not the real Lucy. But now, when risen from the abasement of his chamber-floor, and risen from the still profounder prostration of his soul, Pierre had thought that all the horizon of his dark fate was commanded by him; all his resolutions clearly defined, and immovably decreed; now finally, to top all, there suddenly slid into his inmost heart the living and breathing form of Lucy. His lungs collapsed; his eyeballs glared; for the sweet imagined form, so long buried alive in him, seemed now as gliding on him from the grave; and her light hair swept far adown her shroud. Then, for the time, all minor things were whelmed in him; his mother, Isabel, the whole wide world; and one only thing remained to him;--this all-including query--Lucy or God? But here we draw a vail. Some nameless struggles of the soul can not be painted, and some woes will not be told. Let the ambiguous procession of events reveal their own ambiguousness. BOOK XI. HE CROSSES THE RUBICON I. Sucked within the Maelstrom, man must go round. Strike at one end the longest conceivable row of billiard balls in close contact, and the furthermost ball will start forth, while all the rest stand still; and yet that last ball was not struck at all. So, through long previous generations, whether of births or thoughts, Fate strikes the present man. Idly he disowns the blow's effect, because he felt no blow, and indeed, received no blow. But Pierre was not arguing Fixed Fate and Free Will, now; Fixed Fate and Free Will were arguing him, and Fixed Fate got the better in the debate. The peculiarities of those influences which on the night and early morning following the last interview with Isabel, persuaded Pierre to the adoption of his final resolve, did now irresistibly impel him to a remarkable instantaneousness in his actions, even as before he had proved a lagger. Without being consciously that way pointed, through the desire of anticipating any objections on the part of Isabel to the assumption of a marriage between himself and her; Pierre was now impetuously hurried into an act, which should have the effective virtue of such an executed intention, without its corresponding motive. Because, as the primitive resolve so deplorably involved Lucy, her image was then prominent in his mind; and hence, because he felt all eagerness to hold her no longer in suspense, but by a certain sort of charity of cruelty, at once to pronounce to her her fate; therefore, it was among his first final thoughts that morning to go to Lucy. And to this, undoubtedly, so trifling a circumstance as her being nearer to him, geographically, than Isabel, must have contributed some added, though unconscious influence, in his present fateful frame of mind. On the previous undetermined days, Pierre had solicitously sought to disguise his emotions from his mother, by a certain carefulness and choiceness in his dress. But now, since his very soul was forced to wear a mask, he would wear no paltry palliatives and disguisements on his body. He went to the cottage of Lucy as disordered in his person, as haggard in his face. II. She was not risen yet. So, the strange imperious instantaneousness in him, impelled him to go straight to her chamber-door, and in a voice of mild invincibleness, demand immediate audience, for the matter pressed. Already namelessly concerned and alarmed for her lover, now eight-and-forty hours absent on some mysterious and undisclosable affair; Lucy, at this surprising summons was overwhelmed with sudden terror; and in oblivion of all ordinary proprieties, responded to Pierre's call, by an immediate assent. Opening the door, he advanced slowly and deliberately toward her; and as Lucy caught his pale determined figure, she gave a cry of groping misery, which knew not the pang that caused it, and lifted herself trembling in her bed; but without uttering one word. Pierre sat down on the bedside; and his set eyes met her terrified and virgin aspect. "Decked in snow-white, and pale of cheek, thou indeed art fitted for the altar; but not that one of which thy fond heart did'st dream:--so fair a victim!" "Pierre!" "'Tis the last cruelty of tyrants to make their enemies slay each other." "My heart! my heart!" "Nay;---- Lucy, I am married." The girl was no more pale, but white as any leper; the bed-clothes trembled to the concealed shudderings of all her limbs; one moment she sat looking vacantly into the blank eyes of Pierre, and then fell over toward him in a swoon. Swift madness mounted into the brain of Pierre; all the past seemed as a dream, and all the present an unintelligible horror. He lifted her, and extended her motionless form upon the bed, and stamped for succor. The maid Martha came running into the room, and beholding those two inexplicable figures, shrieked, and turned in terror. But Pierre's repeated cry rallied Martha from this, and darting out of the chamber, she returned with a sharp restorative, which at length brought Lucy back to life. "Martha! Martha!" now murmured Lucy, in a scarce audible whispering, and shuddering in the maid's own shuddering arms, "quick, quick; come to me--drive it away! wake me! wake me!" "Nay, pray God to sleep again," cried Martha, bending over her and embracing her, and half-turning upon Pierre with a glance of loathing indignation. "In God's holy name, sir, what may this be? How came you here; accursed!" "Accursed?--it is well. Is she herself again, Martha?" "Thou hast somehow murdered her; how then be herself again? My sweet mistress! oh, my young mistress! Tell me! tell me!" and she bent low over her. Pierre now advanced toward the bed, making a gesture for the maid to leave them; but soon as Lucy re-caught his haggard form, she whisperingly wailed again, "Martha! Martha! drive it away!--there--there! him--him!" and shut her eyes convulsively, with arms abhorrently outstretched. "Monster! incomprehensible fiend!" cried the anew terror-smitten maid--"depart! See! she dies away at the sight of thee--begone! Wouldst thou murder her afresh? Begone!" Starched and frozen by his own emotion, Pierre silently turned and quitted the chamber; and heavily descending the stairs, tramped heavily--as a man slowly bearing a great burden--through a long narrow passage leading to a wing in the rear of the cottage, and knocking at Miss Lanyllyn's door, summoned her to Lucy, who, he briefly said, had fainted. Then, without waiting for any response, left the house, and went directly to the mansion. III. "Is my mother up yet?" said he to Dates, whom he met in the hall. "Not yet, sir;--heavens, sir! are you sick?" "To death! Let me pass." Ascending toward his mother's chamber, he heard a coming step, and met her on the great middle landing of the stairs, where in an ample niche, a marble group of the temple-polluting Laocoon and his two innocent children, caught in inextricable snarls of snakes, writhed in eternal torments. "Mother, go back with me to thy chamber." She eyed his sudden presence with a dark but repressed foreboding; drew herself up haughtily and repellingly, and with a quivering lip, said, "Pierre, thou thyself hast denied me thy confidence, and thou shall not force me back to it so easily. Speak! what is that now between thee and me?" "I am married, mother." "Great God! To whom?" "Not to Lucy Tartan, mother." "That thou merely sayest 'tis not Lucy, without saying who indeed it is, this is good proof she is something vile. Does Lucy know thy marriage?" "I am but just from Lucy's." Thus far Mrs. Glendinning's rigidity had been slowly relaxing. Now she clutched the balluster, bent over, and trembled, for a moment. Then erected all her haughtiness again, and stood before Pierre in incurious, unappeasable grief and scorn for him. "My dark soul prophesied something dark. If already thou hast not found other lodgment, and other table than this house supplies, then seek it straight. Beneath my roof, and at my table, he who was once Pierre Glendinning no more puts himself." She turned from him, and with a tottering step climbed the winding stairs, and disappeared from him; while in the balluster he held, Pierre seemed to feel the sudden thrill running down to him from his mother's convulsive grasp. He stared about him with an idiot eye; staggered to the floor below, to dumbly quit the house; but as he crossed its threshold, his foot tripped upon its raised ledge; he pitched forward upon the stone portico, and fell. He seemed as jeeringly hurled from beneath his own ancestral roof. IV. Passing through the broad court-yard's postern, Pierre closed it after him, and then turned and leaned upon it, his eyes fixed upon the great central chimney of the mansion, from which a light blue smoke was wreathing gently into the morning air. "The hearth-stone from which thou risest, never more, I inly feel, will these feet press. Oh God, what callest thou that which has thus made Pierre a vagabond?" He walked slowly away, and passing the windows of Lucy, looked up, and saw the white curtains closely drawn, the white-cottage profoundly still, and a white saddle-horse tied before the gate. "I would enter, but again would her abhorrent wails repel; what more can I now say or do to her? I can not explain. She knows all I purposed to disclose. Ay, but thou didst cruelly burst upon her with it; thy impetuousness, thy instantaneousness hath killed her, Pierre!--Nay, nay, nay!--Cruel tidings who can gently break? If to stab be inevitable; then instant be the dagger! Those curtains are close drawn upon her; so let me upon her sweet image draw the curtains of my soul. Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, thou angel!--wake no more to Pierre, nor to thyself, my Lucy!" Passing on now hurriedly and blindly, he jostled against some oppositely-going wayfarer. The man paused amazed; and looking up, Pierre recognized a domestic of the Mansion. That instantaneousness which now impelled him in all his actions, again seized the ascendency in him. Ignoring the dismayed expression of the man at thus encountering his young master, Pierre commanded him to follow him. Going straight to the "Black Swan," the little village Inn, he entered the first vacant room, and bidding the man be seated, sought the keeper of the house, and ordered pen and paper. If fit opportunity offer in the hour of unusual affliction, minds of a certain temperament find a strange, hysterical relief, in a wild, perverse humorousness, the more alluring from its entire unsuitableness to the occasion; although they seldom manifest this trait toward those individuals more immediately involved in the cause or the effect of their suffering. The cool censoriousness of the mere philosopher would denominate such conduct as nothing short of temporary madness; and perhaps it is, since, in the inexorable and inhuman eye of mere undiluted reason, all grief, whether on our own account, or that of others, is the sheerest unreason and insanity. The note now written was the following: "_For that Fine Old Fellow, Dates._ "Dates, my old boy, bestir thyself now. Go to my room, Dates, and bring me down my mahogany strong-box and lock-up, the thing covered with blue chintz; strap it very carefully, my sweet Dates, it is rather heavy, and set it just without the postern. Then back and bring me down my writing-desk, and set that, too, just without the postern. Then back yet again, and bring me down the old camp-bed (see that all the parts be there), and bind the case well with a cord. Then go to the left corner little drawer in my wardrobe, and thou wilt find my visiting-cards. Tack one on the chest, and the desk, and the camp-bed case. Then get all my clothes together, and pack them in trunks (not forgetting the two old military cloaks, my boy), and tack cards on them also, my good Dates. Then fly round three times indefinitely, my good Dates, and wipe a little of the perspiration off. And then--let me see--then, my good Dates--why what then? Why, this much. Pick up all papers of all sorts that may be lying round my chamber, and see them burned. And then--have old White Hoof put to the lightest farm-wagon, and send the chest, and the desk, and the camp-bed, and the trunks to the 'Black Swan,' where I shall call for them, when I am ready, and not before, sweet Dates. So God bless thee, my fine, old, imperturbable Dates, and adieu! "Thy old young master, PIERRE. "_Nota bene_--Mark well, though, Dates. Should my mother possibly interrupt thee, say that it is my orders, and mention what it is I send for; but on no account show this to thy mistress--D'ye hear? PIERRE again." Folding this scrawl into a grotesque shape, Pierre ordered the man to take it forthwith to Dates. But the man, all perplexed, hesitated, turning the billet over in his hand; till Pierre loudly and violently bade him begone; but as the man was then rapidly departing in a panic, Pierre called him back and retracted his rude words; but as the servant now lingered again, perhaps thinking to avail himself of this repentant mood in Pierre, to say something in sympathy or remonstrance to him, Pierre ordered him off with augmented violence, and stamped for him to begone. Apprising the equally perplexed old landlord that certain things would in the course of that forenoon be left for him, (Pierre,) at the Inn; and also desiring him to prepare a chamber for himself and wife that night; some chamber with a commodious connecting room, which might answer for a dressing-room; and likewise still another chamber for a servant; Pierre departed the place, leaving the old landlord staring vacantly at him, and dumbly marveling what horrible thing had happened to turn the brain of his fine young favorite and old shooting comrade, Master Pierre. Soon the short old man went out bare-headed upon the low porch of the Inn, descended its one step, and crossed over to the middle of the road, gazing after Pierre. And only as Pierre turned up a distant lane, did his amazement and his solicitude find utterance. "I taught him--yes, old Casks;--the best shot in all the country round is Master Pierre;--pray God he hits not now the bull's eye in himself.--Married? married? and coming here?--This is pesky strange!" BOOK XII. ISABEL: MRS. GLENDINNING: THE PORTRAIT: AND LUCY. I. When on the previous night Pierre had left the farm-house where Isabel harbored, it will be remembered that no hour, either of night or day, no special time at all had been assigned for a succeeding interview. It was Isabel, who for some doubtlessly sufficient reason of her own, had, for the first meeting, assigned the early hour of darkness. As now, when the full sun was well up the heavens, Pierre drew near the farm-house of the Ulvers, he descried Isabel, standing without the little dairy-wing, occupied in vertically arranging numerous glittering shield-like milk-pans on a long shelf, where they might purifyingly meet the sun. Her back was toward him. As Pierre passed through the open wicket and crossed the short soft green sward, he unconsciously muffled his footsteps, and now standing close behind his sister, touched her shoulder and stood still. She started, trembled, turned upon him swiftly, made a low, strange cry, and then gazed rivetedly and imploringly upon him. "I look rather queerish, sweet Isabel, do I not?" said Pierre at last with a writhed and painful smile. "My brother, my blessed brother!--speak--tell me--what has happened--what hast thou done? Oh! Oh! I should have warned thee before, Pierre, Pierre; it is my fault--mine, mine!" "_What_ is thy fault, sweet Isabel?" "Thou hast revealed Isabel to thy mother, Pierre." "I have not, Isabel. Mrs. Glendinning knows not thy secret at all." "Mrs. Glendinning?--that's,--that's thine own mother, Pierre! In heaven's name, my brother, explain thyself. Knows not my secret, and yet thou here so suddenly, and with such a fatal aspect? Come, come with me into the house. Quick, Pierre, why dost thou not stir? Oh, my God! if mad myself sometimes, I am to make mad him who loves me best, and who, I fear, has in some way ruined himself for me;--then, let me no more stand upright on this sod, but fall prone beneath it, that I may be hidden! Tell me!" catching Pierre's arms in both her frantic hands--"tell me, do I blast where I look? is my face Gorgon's?" "Nay, sweet Isabel; but it hath a more sovereign power; that turned to stone; thine might turn white marble into mother's milk." "Come with me--come quickly." They passed into the dairy, and sat down on a bench by the honey-suckled casement. "Pierre, forever fatal and accursed be the day my longing heart called thee to me, if now, in the very spring-time of our related love, thou art minded to play deceivingly with me, even though thou should'st fancy it for my good. Speak to me; oh speak to me, my brother!" "Thou hintest of deceiving one for one's good. Now supposing, sweet Isabel, that in no case would I affirmatively deceive thee;--in no case whatever;--would'st thou then be willing for thee and me to piously deceive others, for both their and our united good?--Thou sayest nothing. Now, then, is it _my_ turn, sweet Isabel, to bid thee speak to me, oh speak to me!" "That unknown, approaching thing, seemeth ever ill, my brother, which must have unfrank heralds to go before. Oh, Pierre, dear, dear Pierre; be very careful with me! This strange, mysterious, unexampled love between us, makes me all plastic in thy hand. Be very careful with me. I know little out of me. The world seems all one unknown India to me. Look up, look on me, Pierre; say now, thou wilt be very careful; say so, say so, Pierre!" "If the most exquisite, and fragile filagree of Genoa be carefully handled by its artisan; if sacred nature carefully folds, and warms, and by inconceivable attentivenesses eggs round and round her minute and marvelous embryoes; then, Isabel, do I most carefully and most tenderly egg thee, gentlest one, and the fate of thee! Short of the great God, Isabel, there lives none who will be more careful with thee, more infinitely considerate and delicate with thee." "From my deepest heart, do I believe thee, Pierre. Yet thou mayest be very delicate in some point, where delicateness is not all essential, and in some quick impulsive hour, omit thy fullest heedfulness somewhere where heedlessness were most fatal. Nay, nay, my brother; bleach these locks snow-white, thou sun! if I have any thought to reproach thee, Pierre, or betray distrust of thee. But earnestness must sometimes seem suspicious, else it is none. Pierre, Pierre, all thy aspect speaks eloquently of some already executed resolution, born in suddenness. Since I last saw thee, Pierre, some deed irrevocable has been done by thee. My soul is stiff and starched to it; now tell me what it is?" "Thou, and I, and Delly Ulver, to-morrow morning depart this whole neighborhood, and go to the distant city.--That is it." "No more?" "Is it not enough?" "There is something more, Pierre." "Thou hast not yet answered a question I put to thee but just now. Bethink thee, Isabel. The deceiving of others by thee and me, in a thing wholly pertaining to ourselves, for their and our united good. Wouldst thou?" "I would do any thing that does not tend to the marring of thy best lasting fortunes, Pierre. What is it thou wouldst have thee and me to do together? I wait; I wait!" "Let us go into the room of the double casement, my sister," said Pierre, rising. "Nay, then; if it can not be said here, then can I not do it anywhere, my brother; for it would harm thee." "Girl!" cried Pierre, sternly, "if for thee I have lost"--but he checked himself. "Lost? for me? Now does the very worst blacken on me. Pierre! Pierre!" "I was foolish, and sought but to frighten thee, my sister. It was very foolish. Do thou now go on with thine innocent work here, and I will come again a few hours hence. Let me go now." He was turning from her, when Isabel sprang forward to him, caught him with both her arms round him, and held him so convulsively, that her hair sideways swept over him, and half concealed him. "Pierre, if indeed my soul hath cast on thee the same black shadow that my hair now flings on thee; if thou hast lost aught for me; then eternally is Isabel lost to Isabel, and Isabel will not outlive this night. If I am indeed an accursing thing, I will not act the given part, but cheat the air, and die from it. See; I let thee go, lest some poison I know not of distill upon thee from me." She slowly drooped, and trembled from him. But Pierre caught her, and supported her. "Foolish, foolish one! Behold, in the very bodily act of loosing hold of me, thou dost reel and fall;--unanswerable emblem of the indispensable heart-stay, I am to thee, my sweet, sweet Isabel! Prate not then of parting." "What hast thou lost for me? Tell me!" "A gainful loss, my sister!" "'Tis mere rhetoric! What hast thou lost?" "Nothing that my inmost heart would now recall. I have bought inner love and glory by a price, which, large or small, I would not now have paid me back, so I must return the thing I bought." "Is love then cold, and glory white? Thy cheek is snowy, Pierre." "It should be, for I believe to God that I am pure, let the world think how it may." "What hast thou lost?" "Not thee, nor the pride and glory of ever loving thee, and being a continual brother to thee, my best sister. Nay, why dost thou now turn thy face from me?" "With fine words he wheedles me, and coaxes me, not to know some secret thing. Go, go, Pierre, come to me when thou wilt. I am steeled now to the worst, and to the last. Again I tell thee, I will do any thing--yes, any thing that Pierre commands--for, though outer ill do lower upon us, still, deep within, thou wilt be careful, very careful with me, Pierre?" "Thou art made of that fine, unshared stuff of which God makes his seraphim. But thy divine devotedness to me, is met by mine to thee. Well mayest thou trust me, Isabel; and whatever strangest thing I may yet propose to thee, thy confidence,--will it not bear me out? Surely thou will not hesitate to plunge, when I plunge first;--already have I plunged! now thou canst not stay upon the bank. Hearken, hearken to me.--I seek not now to gain thy prior assent to a thing as yet undone; but I call to thee now, Isabel, from the depth of a foregone act, to ratify it, backward, by thy consent. Look not so hard upon me. Listen. I will tell all. Isabel, though thou art all fearfulness to injure any living thing, least of all, thy brother; still thy true heart foreknoweth not the myriad alliances and criss-crossings among mankind, the infinite entanglements of all social things, which forbids that one thread should fly the general fabric, on some new line of duty, without tearing itself and tearing others. Listen. All that has happened up to this moment, and all that may be yet to happen, some sudden inspiration now assures me, inevitably proceeded from the first hour I saw thee. Not possibly could it, or can it, be otherwise. Therefore feel I, that I have some patience. Listen. Whatever outer things might possibly be mine; whatever seeming brightest blessings; yet now to live uncomforting and unloving to thee, Isabel; now to dwell domestically away from thee; so that only by stealth, and base connivances of the night, I could come to thee as thy related brother; this would be, and is, unutterably impossible. In my bosom a secret adder of self-reproach and self-infamy would never leave off its sting. Listen. But without gratuitous dishonor to a memory which--for right cause or wrong--is ever sacred and inviolate to me, I can not be an open brother to thee, Isabel. But thou wantest not the openness; for thou dost not pine for empty nominalness, but for vital realness; what thou wantest, is not the occasional openness of my brotherly love; but its continual domestic confidence. Do I not speak thine own hidden heart to thee? say, Isabel? Well, then, still listen to me. One only way presents to this; a most strange way, Isabel; to the world, that never throbbed for thee in love, a most deceitful way; but to all a harmless way; so harmless in its essence, Isabel, that, seems to me, Pierre hath consulted heaven itself upon it, and heaven itself did not say Nay. Still, listen to me; mark me. As thou knowest that thou wouldst now droop and die without me; so would I without thee. We are equal there; mark _that_, too, Isabel. I do not stoop to thee, nor thou to me; but we both reach up alike to a glorious ideal! Now the continualness, the secretness, yet the always present domesticness of our love; how may we best compass that, without jeopardizing the ever-sacred memory I hinted of? One way--one way--only one! A strange way, but most pure. Listen. Brace thyself: here, let me hold thee now; and then whisper it to thee, Isabel. Come, I holding thee, thou canst not fall." He held her tremblingly; she bent over toward him; his mouth wet her ear; he whispered it. The girl moved not; was done with all her tremblings; leaned closer to him, with an inexpressible strangeness of an intense love, new and inexplicable. Over the face of Pierre there shot a terrible self-revelation; he imprinted repeated burning kisses upon her; pressed hard her hand; would not let go her sweet and awful passiveness. Then they changed; they coiled together, and entangledly stood mute. II. Mrs. Glendinning walked her chamber; her dress loosened. "That such accursed vileness should proceed from me! Now will the tongued world say--See the vile boy of Mary Glendinning!--Deceitful! thick with guilt, where I thought it was all guilelessness and gentlest docility to me. It has not happened! It is not day! Were this thing so, I should go mad, and be shut up, and not walk here where every door is open to me.--My own only son married to an unknown--thing! My own only son, false to his holiest plighted public vow--and the wide world knowing to it! He bears my name--Glendinning. I will disown it; were it like this dress, I would tear my name off from me, and burn it till it shriveled to a crisp!--Pierre! Pierre! come back, come back, and swear it is not so! It can not be! Wait: I will ring the bell, and see if it be so." She rung the bell with violence, and soon heard a responsive knock. "Come in!--Nay, falter not;" (throwing a shawl over her) "come in. Stand there and tell me if thou darest, that my son was in this house this morning and met me on the stairs. Darest thou say that?" Dates looked confounded at her most unwonted aspect. "Say it! find thy tongue! Or I will root mine out and fling it at thee! Say it!" "My dear mistress!" "I am not thy mistress! but thou my master; for, if thou sayest it, thou commandest me to madness.--Oh, vile boy!--Begone from me!" She locked the door upon him, and swiftly and distractedly walked her chamber. She paused, and tossing down the curtains, shut out the sun from the two windows. Another, but an unsummoned knock, was at the door. She opened it. "My mistress, his Reverence is below. I would not call you, but he insisted." "Let him come up." "Here? Immediately?" "Didst thou hear me? Let Mr. Falsgrave come up." As if suddenly and admonishingly made aware, by Dates, of the ungovernable mood of Mrs. Glendinning, the clergyman entered the open door of her chamber with a most deprecating but honest reluctance, and apprehensiveness of he knew not what. "Be seated, sir; stay, shut the door and lock it." "Madam!" "_I_ will do it. Be seated. Hast thou seen him?" "Whom, Madam?--Master Pierre?" "Him!--quick!" "It was to speak of him I came, Madam. He made a most extraordinary call upon me last night--midnight." "And thou marriedst him?--Damn thee!" "Nay, nay, nay, Madam; there is something here I know not of--I came to tell thee news, but thou hast some o'erwhelming tidings to reveal to me." "I beg no pardons; but I may be sorry. Mr. Falsgrave, my son, standing publicly plighted to Lucy Tartan, has privately wedded some other girl--some slut!" "Impossible!" "True as thou art there. Thou knowest nothing of it then?" "Nothing, nothing--not one grain till now. Who is it he has wedded?" "Some _slut_, I tell thee!--I am no lady now, but something deeper,--a woman!--an outraged and pride-poisoned woman!" She turned from him swiftly, and again paced the room, as frantic and entirely regardless of any presence. Waiting for her to pause, but in vain, Mr. Falsgrave advanced toward her cautiously, and with the profoundest deference, which was almost a cringing, spoke:-- "It is the hour of woe to thee; and I confess my cloth hath no consolation for thee yet awhile. Permit me to withdraw from thee, leaving my best prayers for thee, that thou mayst know some peace, ere this now shut-out sun goes down. Send for me whenever thou desirest me.--May I go now?" "Begone! and let me not hear thy soft, mincing voice, which is an infamy to a man! Begone, thou helpless, and unhelping one!" She swiftly paced the room again, swiftly muttering to herself. "Now, now, now, now I see it clearer, clearer--clear now as day! My first dim suspicions pointed right!--too right! Ay--the sewing! it was the sewing!--The shriek!--I saw him gazing rooted at her. He would not speak going home with me. I charged him with his silence; he put me off with lies, lies, lies! Ay, ay, he is married to her, to her;--to her!--perhaps was then. And yet,--and yet,--how can it be?--Lucy, Lucy--I saw him, after that, look on her as if he would be glad to die for her, and go to hell for her, whither he deserves to go!--Oh! oh! oh! Thus ruthlessly to cut off, at one gross sensual dash, the fair succession of an honorable race! Mixing the choicest wine with filthy water from the plebeian pool, and so turning all to undistinguishable rankness!--Oh viper! had I thee now in me, I would be a suicide and a murderer with one blow!" A third knock was at the door. She opened it. "My mistress, I thought it would disturb you,--it is so just overhead,--so I have not removed them yet." "Unravel thy gibberish!--what is it?" "Pardon, my mistress, I somehow thought you knew it, but you can not." "What is that writing crumpling in thy hand? Give it me." "I have promised my young master not to, my mistress." "I will snatch it, then, and so leave thee blameless.--What? what? what?--He's mad sure!--'Fine old fellow Dates'--what? what?--mad and merry!--chest?--clothes?--trunks?--he wants them?--Tumble them out of his window!--and if he stand right beneath, tumble them out! Dismantle that whole room. Tear up the carpet. I swear, he shall leave no smallest vestige in this house.--Here! this very spot--here, here, where I stand, he may have stood upon;--yes, he tied my shoe-string here; it's slippery! Dates!" "My mistress." "Do his bidding. By reflection he has made me infamous to the world; and I will make him infamous to it. Listen, and do not delude thyself that I am crazy. Go up to yonder room" (pointing upward), "and remove every article in it, and where he bid thee set down the chest and trunks, there set down all the contents of that room." "'Twas before the house--this house!" "And if it had not been there, I would not order thee to put them there. Dunce! I would have the world know that I disown and scorn him! Do my bidding!--Stay. Let the room stand; but take him what he asks for." "I will, my mistress." As Dates left the chamber, Mrs. Glendinning again paced it swiftly, and again swiftly muttered: "Now, if I were less a strong and haughty woman, the fit would have gone by ere now. But deep volcanoes long burn, ere they burn out.--Oh, that the world were made of such malleable stuff, that we could recklessly do our fieriest heart's-wish before it, and not falter. Accursed be those four syllables of sound which make up that vile word Propriety. It is a chain and bell to drag;--drag? what sound is that? there's dragging--his trunks--the traveler's--dragging out. Oh would I could so drag my heart, as fishers for the drowned do, as that I might drag up my sunken happiness! Boy! boy! worse than brought in dripping drowned to me,--drowned in icy infamy! Oh! oh! oh!" She threw herself upon the bed, covered her face, and lay motionless. But suddenly rose again, and hurriedly rang the bell. "Open that desk, and draw the stand to me. Now wait and take this to Miss Lucy." With a pencil she rapidly traced these lines:-- "My heart bleeds for thee, sweet Lucy. I can not speak--I know it all. Look for me the first hour I regain myself." Again she threw herself upon the bed, and lay motionless. III. Toward sundown that evening, Pierre stood in one of the three bespoken chambers in the Black Swan Inn; the blue chintz-covered chest and the writing-desk before him. His hands were eagerly searching through his pockets. "The key! the key! Nay, then, I must force it open. It bodes ill, too. Yet lucky is it, some bankers can break into their own vaults, when other means do fail. Not so, ever. Let me see:--yes, the tongs there. Now then for the sweet sight of gold and silver. I never loved it till this day. How long it has been hoarded;--little token pieces, of years ago, from aunts, uncles, cousins innumerable, and from--but I won't mention _them_; dead henceforth to me! Sure there'll be a premium on such ancient gold. There's some broad bits, token pieces to my--I name him not--more than half a century ago. Well, well, I never thought to cast them back into the sordid circulations whence they came. But if they must be spent, now is the time, in this last necessity, and in this sacred cause. 'Tis a most stupid, dunderheaded crowbar. Hoy! so! ah, now for it:--snake's nest!" Forced suddenly back, the chest-lid had as suddenly revealed to him the chair-portrait lying on top of all the rest, where he had secreted it some days before. Face up, it met him with its noiseless, ever-nameless, and ambiguous, unchanging smile. Now his first repugnance was augmented by an emotion altogether new. That certain lurking lineament in the portrait, whose strange transfer blended with far other, and sweeter, and nobler characteristics, was visible in the countenance of Isabel; that lineament in the portrait was somehow now detestable; nay, altogether loathsome, ineffably so, to Pierre. He argued not with himself why this was so; he only felt it, and most keenly. Omitting more subtile inquisition into this deftly-winding theme, it will be enough to hint, perhaps, that possibly one source of this new hatefulness had its primary and unconscious rise in one of those profound ideas, which at times atmospherically, as it were, do insinuate themselves even into very ordinary minds. In the strange relativeness, reciprocalness, and transmittedness, between the long-dead father's portrait, and the living daughter's face, Pierre might have seemed to see reflected to him, by visible and uncontradictable symbols, the tyranny of Time and Fate. Painted before the daughter was conceived or born, like a dumb seer, the portrait still seemed leveling its prophetic finger at that empty air, from which Isabel did finally emerge. There seemed to lurk some mystical intelligence and vitality in the picture; because, since in his own memory of his father, Pierre could not recall any distinct lineament transmitted to Isabel, but vaguely saw such in the portrait; therefore, not Pierre's parent, as any way rememberable by him, but the portrait's painted _self_ seemed the real father of Isabel; for, so far as all sense went, Isabel had inherited one peculiar trait no-whither traceable but to it. And as his father was now sought to be banished from his mind, as a most bitter presence there, but Isabel was become a thing of intense and fearful love for him; therefore, it was loathsome to him, that in the smiling and ambiguous portrait, her sweet mournful image should be so sinisterly becrooked, bemixed, and mutilated to him. When, the first shock, and then the pause were over, he lifted the portrait in his two hands, and held it averted from him. "It shall not live. Hitherto I have hoarded up mementoes and monuments of the past; been a worshiper of all heirlooms; a fond filer away of letters, locks of hair, bits of ribbon, flowers, and the thousand-and-one minutenesses which love and memory think they sanctify:--but it is forever over now! If to me any memory shall henceforth be dear, I will not mummy it in a visible memorial for every passing beggar's dust to gather on. Love's museum is vain and foolish as the Catacombs, where grinning apes and abject lizards are embalmed, as, forsooth, significant of some imagined charm. It speaks merely of decay and death, and nothing more; decay and death of endless innumerable generations; it makes of earth one mold. How can lifelessness be fit memorial of life?--So far, for mementoes of the sweetest. As for the rest--now I know this, that in commonest memorials, the twilight fact of death first discloses in some secret way, all the ambiguities of that departed thing or person; obliquely it casts hints, and insinuates surmises base, and eternally incapable of being cleared. Decreed by God Omnipotent it is, that Death should be the last scene of the last act of man's play;--a play, which begin how it may, in farce or comedy, ever hath its tragic end; the curtain inevitably falls upon a corpse. Therefore, never more will I play the vile pigmy, and by small memorials after death, attempt to reverse the decree of death, by essaying the poor perpetuating of the image of the original. Let all die, and mix again! As for this--this!--why longer should I preserve it? Why preserve that on which one can not patient look? If I am resolved to hold his public memory inviolate,--destroy this thing; for here is the one great, condemning, and unsuborned proof, whose mysticalness drives me half mad.--Of old Greek times, before man's brain went into doting bondage, and bleached and beaten in Baconian fulling-mills, his four limbs lost their barbaric tan and beauty; when the round world was fresh, and rosy, and spicy, as a new-plucked apple;--all's wilted now!--in those bold times, the great dead were not, turkey-like, dished in trenchers, and set down all garnished in the ground, to glut the damned Cyclop like a cannibal; but nobly envious Life cheated the glutton worm, and gloriously burned the corpse; so that the spirit up-pointed, and visibly forked to heaven! "So now will I serve thee. Though that solidity of which thou art the unsolid duplicate, hath long gone to its hideous church-yard account;--and though, God knows! but for one part of thee it may have been fit auditing;--yet will I now a second time see thy obsequies performed, and by now burning thee, urn thee in the great vase of air! Come now!" A small wood-fire had been kindled on the hearth to purify the long-closed room; it was now diminished to a small pointed heap of glowing embers. Detaching and dismembering the gilded but tarnished frame, Pierre laid the four pieces on the coals; as their dryness soon caught the sparks, he rolled the reversed canvas into a scroll, and tied it, and committed it to the now crackling, clamorous flames. Steadfastly Pierre watched the first crispings and blackenings of the painted scroll, but started as suddenly unwinding from the burnt string that had tied it, for one swift instant, seen through the flame and smoke, the upwrithing portrait tormentedly stared at him in beseeching horror, and then, wrapped in one broad sheet of oily fire, disappeared forever. Yielding to a sudden ungovernable impulse, Pierre darted his hand among the flames, to rescue the imploring face; but as swiftly drew back his scorched and bootless grasp. His hand was burnt and blackened, but he did not heed it. He ran back to the chest, and seizing repeated packages of family letters, and all sorts of miscellaneous memorials in paper, he threw them one after the other upon the fire. "Thus, and thus, and thus! on thy manes I fling fresh spoils; pour out all my memory in one libation!--so, so, so--lower, lower, lower; now all is done, and all is ashes! Henceforth, cast-out Pierre hath no paternity, and no past; and since the Future is one blank to all; therefore, twice-disinherited Pierre stands untrammeledly his ever-present self!--free to do his own self-will and present fancy to whatever end!" IV. That same sunset Lucy lay in her chamber. A knock was heard at its door, and the responding Martha was met by the now self-controlled and resolute face of Mrs. Glendinning. "How is your young mistress, Martha? May I come in?" But waiting for no answer, with the same breath she passed the maid, and determinately entered the room. She sat down by the bed, and met the open eye, but closed and pallid mouth of Lucy. She gazed rivetedly and inquisitively a moment; then turned a quick aghast look toward Martha, as if seeking warrant for some shuddering thought. "Miss Lucy"--said Martha--"it is your--it is Mrs. Glendinning. Speak to her, Miss Lucy." As if left in the last helpless attitude of some spent contortion of her grief, Lucy was not lying in the ordinary posture of one in bed, but lay half crosswise upon it, with the pale pillows propping her hueless form, and but a single sheet thrown over her, as though she were so heart overladen, that her white body could not bear one added feather. And as in any snowy marble statue, the drapery clings to the limbs; so as one found drowned, the thin, defining sheet invested Lucy. "It is Mrs. Glendinning. Will you speak to her, Miss Lucy?" The thin lips moved and trembled for a moment, and then were still again, and augmented pallor shrouded her. Martha brought restoratives; and when all was as before, she made a gesture for the lady to depart, and in a whisper, said, "She will not speak to any; she does not speak to me. The doctor has just left--he has been here five times since morning--and says she must be kept entirely quiet." Then pointing to the stand, added, "You see what he has left--mere restoratives. Quiet is her best medicine now, he says. Quiet, quiet, quiet! Oh, sweet quiet, wilt thou now ever come?" "Has Mrs. Tartan been written to?" whispered the lady. Martha nodded. So the lady moved to quit the room, saying that once every two hours she would send to know how Lucy fared. "But where, where is her aunt, Martha?" she exclaimed, lowly, pausing at the door, and glancing in sudden astonishment about the room; "surely, surely, Mrs. Lanyllyn--" "Poor, poor old lady," weepingly whispered Martha, "she hath caught infection from sweet Lucy's woe; she hurried hither, caught one glimpse of that bed, and fell like dead upon the floor. The Doctor hath two patients now, lady"--glancing at the bed, and tenderly feeling Lucy's bosom, to mark if yet it heaved; "Alack! Alack! oh, reptile! reptile! that could sting so sweet a breast! fire would be too cold for him--accursed!" "Thy own tongue blister the roof of thy mouth!" cried Mrs. Glendinning, in a half-stifled, whispering scream. "'Tis not for thee, hired one, to rail at my son, though he were Lucifer, simmering in Hell! Mend thy manners, minx!" And she left the chamber, dilated with her unconquerable pride, leaving Martha aghast at such venom in such beauty. BOOK XIII. THEY DEPART THE MEADOWS. I. It was just dusk when Pierre approached the Ulver farm-house, in a wagon belonging to the Black Swan Inn. He met his sister shawled and bonneted in the porch. "Now then, Isabel, is all ready? Where is Delly? I see two most small and inconsiderable portmanteaux. Wee is the chest that holds the goods of the disowned! The wagon waits, Isabel. Now is all ready? and nothing left?" "Nothing, Pierre; unless in going hence--but I'll not think of that; all's fated." "Delly! where is she? Let us go in for her," said Pierre, catching the hand of Isabel, and turning rapidly. As he thus half dragged her into the little lighted entry, and then dropping her hand, placed his touch on the catch of the inner door, Isabel stayed his arm, as if to keep him back, till she should forewarn him against something concerning Delly; but suddenly she started herself; and for one instant, eagerly pointing at his right hand, seemed almost to half shrink from Pierre. "'Tis nothing. I am not hurt; a slight burn--the merest accidental scorch this morning. But what's this?" he added, lifting his hand higher; "smoke! soot! this comes of going in the dark; sunlight, and I had seen it. But I have not touched thee, Isabel?" Isabel lifted her hand and showed the marks.--"But it came from thee, my brother; and I would catch the plague from thee, so that it should make me share thee. Do thou clean thy hand; let mine alone." "Delly! Delly!"--cried Pierre--"why may I not go to her, to bring her forth?" Placing her finger upon her lip, Isabel softly opened the door, and showed the object of his inquiry avertedly seated, muffled, on a chair. "Do not speak to her, my brother," whispered Isabel, "and do not seek to behold her face, as yet. It will pass over now, ere long, I trust. Come, shall we go now? Take Delly forth, but do not speak to her. I have bidden all good-by; the old people are in yonder room in the rear; I am glad that they chose not to come out, to attend our going forth. Come now, be very quick, Pierre; this is an hour I like not; be it swiftly past." Soon all three alighted at the inn. Ordering lights, Pierre led the way above-stairs, and ushered his two companions into one of the two outermost rooms of the three adjoining chambers prepared for all. "See," said he, to the mute and still self-averting figure of Delly;--"see, this is thy room, Miss Ulver; Isabel has told thee all; thou know'st our till now secret marriage; she will stay with thee now, till I return from a little business down the street. To-morrow, thou know'st, very early, we take the stage. I may not see thee again till then, so, be steadfast, and cheer up a very little, Miss Ulver, and good-night. All will be well." II. Next morning, by break of day, at four o'clock, the four swift hours were personified in four impatient horses, which shook their trappings beneath the windows of the inn. Three figures emerged into the cool dim air and took their places in the coach. The old landlord had silently and despondently shaken Pierre by the hand; the vainglorious driver was on his box, threadingly adjusting the four reins among the fingers of his buck-skin gloves; the usual thin company of admiring ostlers and other early on-lookers were gathered about the porch; when--on his companions' account--all eager to cut short any vain delay, at such a painful crisis, Pierre impetuously shouted for the coach to move. In a moment, the four meadow-fed young horses leaped forward their own generous lengths, and the four responsive wheels rolled their complete circles; while making vast rearward flourishes with his whip, the elated driver seemed as a bravado-hero signing his ostentatious farewell signature in the empty air. And so, in the dim of the dawn--and to the defiant crackings of that long and sharp-resounding whip, the three forever fled the sweet fields of Saddle Meadows. The short old landlord gazed after the coach awhile, and then re-entering the inn, stroked his gray beard and muttered to himself:--"I have kept this house, now, three-and-thirty years, and have had plenty of bridal-parties come and go; in their long train of wagons, break-downs, buggies, gigs--a gay and giggling train--Ha!--there's a pun! popt out like a cork--ay, and once in ox-carts, all garlanded; ay, and once, the merry bride was bedded on a load of sweet-scented new-cut clover. But such a bridal-party as this morning's--why, it's as sad as funerals. And brave Master Pierre Glendinning is the groom! Well, well, wonders is all the go. I thought I had done with wondering when I passed fifty; but I keep wondering still. Ah, somehow, now, I feel as though I had just come from lowering some old friend beneath the sod, and yet felt the grating cord-marks in my palms.--'Tis early, but I'll drink. Let's see; cider,--a mug of cider;--'tis sharp, and pricks like a game-cock's spur,--cider's the drink for grief. Oh, Lord! that fat men should be so thin-skinned, and suffer in pure sympathy on others' account. A thin-skinned, thin man, he don't suffer so, because there ain't so much stuff in him for his thin skin to cover. Well, well, well, well, well; of all colics, save me from the melloncholics; green melons is the greenest thing!" BOOK XIV. THE JOURNEY AND THE PAMPHLET. I. All profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence. What a silence is that with which the pale bride precedes the responsive _I will_, to the priest's solemn question, _Wilt thou have this man for thy husband?_ In silence, too, the wedded hands are clasped. Yea, in silence the child Christ was born into the world. Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff's hands upon the world. Silence is at once the most harmless and the most awful thing in all nature. It speaks of the Reserved Forces of Fate. Silence is the only Voice of our God. Nor is this so august Silence confined to things simply touching or grand. Like the air, Silence permeates all things, and produces its magical power, as well during that peculiar mood which prevails at a solitary traveler's first setting forth on a journey, as at the unimaginable time when before the world was, Silence brooded on the face of the waters. No word was spoken by its inmates, as the coach bearing our young Enthusiast, Pierre, and his mournful party, sped forth through the dim dawn into the deep midnight, which still occupied, unrepulsed, the hearts of the old woods through which the road wound, very shortly after quitting the village. When first entering the coach, Pierre had pressed his hand upon the cushioned seat to steady his way, some crumpled leaves of paper had met his fingers. He had instinctively clutched them; and the same strange clutching mood of his soul which had prompted that instinctive act, did also prevail in causing him now to retain the crumpled paper in his hand for an hour or more of that wonderful intense silence, which the rapid coach bore through the heart of the general stirless morning silence of the fields and the woods. His thoughts were very dark and wild; for a space there was rebellion and horrid anarchy and infidelity in his soul. This temporary mood may best be likened to that, which--according to a singular story once told in the pulpit by a reverend man of God--invaded the heart of an excellent priest. In the midst of a solemn cathedral, upon a cloudy Sunday afternoon, this priest was in the act of publicly administering the bread at the Holy Sacrament of the Supper, when the Evil One suddenly propounded to him the possibility of the mere moonshine of the Christian Religion. Just such now was the mood of Pierre; to him the Evil One propounded the possibility of the mere moonshine of all his self-renouncing Enthusiasm. The Evil One hooted at him, and called him a fool. But by instant and earnest prayer--closing his two eyes, with his two hands still holding the sacramental bread--the devout priest had vanquished the impious Devil. Not so with Pierre. The imperishable monument of his holy Catholic Church; the imperishable record of his Holy Bible; the imperishable intuition of the innate truth of Christianity;--these were the indestructible anchors which still held the priest to his firm Faith's rock, when the sudden storm raised by the Evil One assailed him. But Pierre--where could _he_ find the Church, the monument, the Bible, which unequivocally said to him--"Go on; thou art in the Right; I endorse thee all over; go on."--So the difference between the Priest and Pierre was herein:--with the priest it was a matter, whether certain bodiless thoughts of his were true or not true; but with Pierre it was a question whether certain vital acts of his were right or wrong. In this little nut lie germ-like the possible solution of some puzzling problems; and also the discovery of additional, and still more profound problems ensuing upon the solution of the former. For so true is this last, that some men refuse to solve any present problem, for fear of making still more work for themselves in that way. Now, Pierre thought of the magical, mournful letter of Isabel, he recalled the divine inspiration of that hour when the heroic words burst from his heart--"Comfort thee, and stand by thee, and fight for thee, will thy leapingly-acknowledging brother!" These remembrances unfurled themselves in proud exultations in his soul; and from before such glorious banners of Virtue, the club-footed Evil One limped away in dismay. But now the dread, fateful parting look of his mother came over him; anew he heard the heart-proscribing words--"Beneath my roof and at my table, he who was once Pierre Glendinning no more puts himself;"--swooning in her snow-white bed, the lifeless Lucy lay before him, wrapt as in the reverberating echoings of her own agonizing shriek: "My heart! my heart!" Then how swift the recurrence to Isabel, and the nameless awfulness of his still imperfectly conscious, incipient, new-mingled emotion toward this mysterious being. "Lo! I leave corpses wherever I go!" groaned Pierre to himself--"Can then my conduct be right? Lo! by my conduct I seem threatened by the possibility of a sin anomalous and accursed, so anomalous, it may well be the one for which Scripture says, there is never forgiveness. Corpses behind me, and the last sin before, how then can my conduct be right?" In this mood, the silence accompanied him, and the first visible rays of the morning sun in this same mood found him and saluted him. The excitement and the sleepless night just passed, and the strange narcotic of a quiet, steady anguish, and the sweet quiescence of the air, and the monotonous cradle-like motion of the coach over a road made firm and smooth by a refreshing shower over night; these had wrought their wonted effect upon Isabel and Delly; with hidden faces they leaned fast asleep in Pierre's sight. Fast asleep--thus unconscious, oh sweet Isabel, oh forlorn Delly, your swift destinies I bear in my own! Suddenly, as his sad eye fell lower and lower from scanning their magically quiescent persons, his glance lit upon his own clutched hand, which rested on his knee. Some paper protruded from that clutch. He knew not how it had got there, or whence it had come, though himself had closed his own gripe upon it. He lifted his hand and slowly unfingered and unbolted the paper, and unrolled it, and carefully smoothed it, to see what it might be. It was a thin, tattered, dried-fish-like thing; printed with blurred ink upon mean, sleazy paper. It seemed the opening pages of some ruinous old pamphlet--a pamphlet containing a chapter or so of some very voluminous disquisition. The conclusion was gone. It must have been accidentally left there by some previous traveler, who perhaps in drawing out his handkerchief, had ignorantly extracted his waste paper. There is a singular infatuation in most men, which leads them in odd moments, intermitting between their regular occupations, and when they find themselves all alone in some quiet corner or nook, to fasten with unaccountable fondness upon the merest rag of old printed paper--some shred of a long-exploded advertisement perhaps--and read it, and study it, and reread it, and pore over it, and fairly agonize themselves over this miserable, sleazy paper-rag, which at any other time, or in any other place, they would hardly touch with St. Dunstan's long tongs. So now, in a degree, with Pierre. But notwithstanding that he, with most other human beings, shared in the strange hallucination above mentioned, yet the first glimpse of the title of the dried-fish-like, pamphlet-shaped rag, did almost tempt him to pitch it out of the window. For, be a man's mood what it may, what sensible and ordinary mortal could have patience for any considerable period, to knowingly hold in his conscious hand a printed document (and that too a very blurred one as to ink, and a very sleazy one as to paper), so metaphysically and insufferably entitled as this:--"Chronometricals & Horologicals?" Doubtless, it was something vastly profound; but it is to be observed, that when a man is in a really profound mood, then all merely verbal or written profundities are unspeakably repulsive, and seem downright childish to him. Nevertheless, the silence still continued; the road ran through an almost unplowed and uninhabited region; the slumberers still slumbered before him; the evil mood was becoming well nigh insupportable to him; so, more to force his mind away from the dark realities of things than from any other motive, Pierre finally tried his best to plunge himself into the pamphlet. II. Sooner or later in this life, the earnest, or enthusiastic youth comes to know, and more or less appreciate this startling solecism:--That while, as the grand condition of acceptance to God, Christianity calls upon all men to renounce this world; yet by all odds the most Mammonish part of this world--Europe and America--are owned by none but professed Christian nations, who glory in the owning, and seem to have some reason therefor. This solecism once vividly and practically apparent; then comes the earnest reperusal of the Gospels: the intense self-absorption into that greatest real miracle of all religions, the Sermon on the Mount. From that divine mount, to all earnest loving youths, flows an inexhaustible soul-melting stream of tenderness and loving-kindness; and they leap exulting to their feet, to think that the founder of their holy religion gave utterance to sentences so infinitely sweet and soothing as these sentences which embody all the love of the Past, and all the love which can be imagined in any conceivable Future. Such emotions as that Sermon raises in the enthusiastic heart; such emotions all youthful hearts refuse to ascribe to humanity as their origin. This is of God! cries the heart, and in that cry ceases all inquisition. Now, with this fresh-read sermon in his soul, the youth again gazes abroad upon the world. Instantly, in aggravation of the former solecism, an overpowering sense of the world's downright positive falsity comes over him; the world seems to lie saturated and soaking with lies. The sense of this thing is so overpowering, that at first the youth is apt to refuse the evidence of his own senses; even as he does that same evidence in the matter of the movement of the visible sun in the heavens, which with his own eyes he plainly sees to go round the world, but nevertheless on the authority of other persons,--the Copernican astronomers, whom he never saw--he believes it _not_ to go round the world, but the world round it. Just so, too, he hears good and wise people sincerely say: This world only _seems_ to be saturated and soaking with lies; but in reality it does not so lie soaking and saturate; along with some lies, there is much truth in this world. But again he refers to his Bible, and there he reads most explicitly, that this world is unconditionally depraved and accursed; and that at all hazards men must come out of it. But why come out of it, if it be a True World and not a Lying World? Assuredly, then, this world is a lie. Hereupon then in the soul of the enthusiast youth two armies come to the shock; and unless he prove recreant, or unless he prove gullible, or unless he can find the talismanic secret, to reconcile this world with his own soul, then there is no peace for him, no slightest truce for him in this life. Now without doubt this Talismanic Secret has never yet been found; and in the nature of human things it seems as though it never can be. Certain philosophers have time and again pretended to have found it; but if they do not in the end discover their own delusion, other people soon discover it for themselves, and so those philosophers and their vain philosophy are let glide away into practical oblivion. Plato, and Spinoza, and Goethe, and many more belong to this guild of self-impostors, with a preposterous rabble of Muggletonian Scots and Yankees, whose vile brogue still the more bestreaks the stripedness of their Greek or German Neoplatonical originals. That profound Silence, that only Voice of our God, which I before spoke of; from that divine thing without a name, those impostor philosophers pretend somehow to have got an answer; which is as absurd, as though they should say they had got water out of stone; for how can a man get a Voice out of Silence? Certainly, all must admit, that if for any one this problem of the possible reconcilement of this world with our own souls possessed a peculiar and potential interest, that one was Pierre Glendinning at the period we now write of. For in obedience to the loftiest behest of his soul, he had done certain vital acts, which had already lost him his worldly felicity, and which he felt must in the end indirectly work him some still additional and not-to-be-thought-of woe. Soon then, as after his first distaste at the mystical title, and after his then reading on, merely to drown himself, Pierre at last began to obtain a glimmering into the profound intent of the writer of the sleazy rag pamphlet, he felt a great interest awakened in him. The more he read and re-read, the more this interest deepened, but still the more likewise did his failure to comprehend the writer increase. He seemed somehow to derive some general vague inkling concerning it, but the central conceit refused to become clear to him. The reason whereof is not so easy to be laid down; seeing that the reason-originating heart and mind of man, these organic things themselves are not so easily to be expounded. Something, however, more or less to the point, may be adventured here. If a man be in any vague latent doubt about the intrinsic correctness and excellence of his general life-theory and practical course of life; then, if that man chance to light on any other man, or any little treatise, or sermon, which unintendingly, as it were, yet very palpably illustrates to him the intrinsic incorrectness and non-excellence of both the theory and the practice of his life; then that man will--more or less unconsciously--try hard to hold himself back from the self-admitted comprehension of a matter which thus condemns him. For in this case, to comprehend, is himself to condemn himself, which is always highly inconvenient and uncomfortable to a man. Again. If a man be told a thing wholly new, then--during the time of its first announcement to him--it is entirely impossible for him to comprehend it. For--absurd as it may seem--men are only made to comprehend things which they comprehended before (though but in the embryo, as it were). Things new it is impossible to make them comprehend, by merely talking to them about it. True, sometimes they pretend to comprehend; in their own hearts they really believe they do comprehend; outwardly look as though they _did_ comprehend; wag their bushy tails comprehendingly; but for all that, they do not comprehend. Possibly, they may afterward come, of themselves, to inhale this new idea from the circumambient air, and so come to comprehend it; but not otherwise at all. It will be observed, that, neither points of the above speculations do we, in set terms, attribute to Pierre in connection with the rag pamphlet. Possibly both might be applicable; possibly neither. Certain it is, however, that at the time, in his own heart, he seemed to think that he did not fully comprehend the strange writer's conceit in all its bearings. Yet was this conceit apparently one of the plainest in the world; so natural, a child might almost have originated it. Nevertheless, again so profound, that scarce Juggularius himself could be the author; and still again so exceedingly trivial, that Juggularius' smallest child might well have been ashamed of it. Seeing then that this curious paper rag so puzzled Pierre; foreseeing, too, that Pierre may not in the end be entirely uninfluenced in his conduct by the torn pamphlet, when afterwards perhaps by other means he shall come to understand it; or, peradventure, come to know that he, in the first place, did--seeing too that the author thereof came to be made known to him by reputation, and though Pierre never spoke to him, yet exerted a surprising sorcery upon his spirit by the mere distant glimpse of his countenance;--all these reasons I account sufficient apology for inserting in the following chapters the initial part of what seems to me a very fanciful and mystical, rather than philosophical Lecture, from which, I confess, that I myself can derive no conclusion which permanently satisfies those peculiar motions in my soul, to which that Lecture seems more particularly addressed. For to me it seems more the excellently illustrated re-statement of a problem, than the solution of the problem itself. But as such mere illustrations are almost universally taken for solutions (and perhaps they are the only possible human solutions), therefore it may help to the temporary quiet of some inquiring mind; and so not be wholly without use. At the worst, each person can now skip, or read and rail for himself. III. "_EI_," BY PLOTINUS PLINLIMMON, (_In Three Hundred and Thirty-three Lectures._) LECTURE FIRST. CHRONOMETRICALS AND HOROLOGICALS, (_Being not to much the Portal, as part of the temporary Scaffold to the Portal of this new Philosophy._) "Few of us doubt, gentlemen, that human life on this earth is but a state of probation; which among other things implies, that here below, we mortals have only to do with things provisional. Accordingly, I hold that all our so-called wisdom is likewise but provisional. "This preamble laid down, I begin. "It seems to me, in my visions, that there is a certain most rare order of human souls, which if carefully carried in the body will almost always and everywhere give Heaven's own Truth, with some small grains of variance. For peculiarly coming from God, the sole source of that heavenly truth, and the great Greenwich hill and tower from which the universal meridians are far out into infinity reckoned; such souls seem as London sea-chronometers (_Greek_, time-namers) which as the London ship floats past Greenwich down the Thames, are accurately adjusted by Greenwich time, and if heedfully kept, will still give that same time, even though carried to the Azores. True, in nearly all cases of long, remote voyages--to China, say--chronometers of the best make, and the most carefully treated, will gradually more or less vary from Greenwich time, without the possibility of the error being corrected by direct comparison with their great standard; but skillful and devout observations of the stars by the sextant will serve materially to lessen such errors. And besides, there is such a thing as _rating_ a chronometer; that is, having ascertained its degree of organic inaccuracy, however small, then in all subsequent chronometrical calculations, that ascertained loss or gain can be readily added or deducted, as the case may be. Then again, on these long voyages, the chronometer may be corrected by comparing it with the chronometer of some other ship at sea, more recently from home. "Now in an artificial world like ours, the soul of man is further removed from its God and the Heavenly Truth, than the chronometer carried to China, is from Greenwich. And, as that chronometer, if at all accurate, will pronounce it to be 12 o'clock high-noon, when the China local watches say, perhaps, it is 12 o'clock midnight; so the chronometric soul, if in this world true to its great Greenwich in the other, will always, in its so-called intuitions of right and wrong, be contradicting the mere local standards and watch-maker's brains of this earth. "Bacon's brains were mere watch-maker's brains; but Christ was a chronometer; and the most exquisitely adjusted and exact one, and the least affected by all terrestrial jarrings, of any that have ever come to us. And the reason why his teachings seemed folly to the Jews, was because he carried that Heaven's time in Jerusalem, while the Jews carried Jerusalem time there. Did he not expressly say--My wisdom (time) is not of this world? But whatever is really peculiar in the wisdom of Christ seems precisely the same folly to-day as it did 1850 years ago. Because, in all that interval his bequeathed chronometer has still preserved its original Heaven's time, and the general Jerusalem of this world has likewise carefully preserved its own. "But though the chronometer carried from Greenwich to China, should truly exhibit in China what the time may be at Greenwich at any moment; yet, though thereby it must necessarily contradict China time, it does by no means thence follow, that with respect to China, the China watches are at all out of the way. Precisely the reverse. For the fact of that variance is a presumption that, with respect to China, the Chinese watches must be all right; and consequently as the China watches are right as to China, so the Greenwich chronometers must be wrong as to China. Besides, of what use to the Chinaman would a Greenwich chronometer, keeping Greenwich time, be? Were he thereby to regulate his daily actions, he would be guilty of all manner of absurdities:--going to bed at noon, say, when his neighbors would be sitting down to dinner. And thus, though the earthly wisdom of man be heavenly folly to God; so also, conversely, is the heavenly wisdom of God an earthly folly to man. Literally speaking, this is so. Nor does the God at the heavenly Greenwich expect common men to keep Greenwich wisdom in this remote Chinese world of ours; because such a thing were unprofitable for them here, and, indeed, a falsification of Himself, inasmuch as in that case, China time would be identical with Greenwich time, which would make Greenwich time wrong. "But why then does God now and then send a heavenly chronometer (as a meteoric stone) into the world, uselessly as it would seem, to give the lie to all the world's time-keepers? Because he is unwilling to leave man without some occasional testimony to this:--that though man's Chinese notions of things may answer well enough here, they are by no means universally applicable, and that the central Greenwich in which He dwells goes by a somewhat different method from this world. And yet it follows not from this, that God's truth is one thing and man's truth another; but--as above hinted, and as will be further elucidated in subsequent lectures--by their very contradictions they are made to correspond. "By inference it follows, also, that he who finding in himself a chronometrical soul, seeks practically to force that heavenly time upon the earth; in such an attempt he can never succeed, with an absolute and essential success. And as for himself, if he seek to regulate his own daily conduct by it, he will but array all men's earthly time-keepers against him, and thereby work himself woe and death. Both these things are plainly evinced in the character and fate of Christ, and the past and present condition of the religion he taught. But here one thing is to be especially observed. Though Christ encountered woe in both the precept and the practice of his chronometricals, yet did he remain throughout entirely without folly or sin. Whereas, almost invariably, with inferior beings, the absolute effort to live in this world according to the strict letter of the chronometricals is, somehow, apt to involve those inferior beings eventually in strange, _unique_ follies and sins, unimagined before. It is the story of the Ephesian matron, allegorized. "To any earnest man of insight, a faithful contemplation of these ideas concerning Chronometricals and Horologicals, will serve to render provisionally far less dark some few of the otherwise obscurest things which have hitherto tormented the honest-thinking men of all ages. What man who carries a heavenly soul in him, has not groaned to perceive, that unless he committed a sort of suicide as to the practical things of this world, he never can hope to regulate his earthly conduct by that same heavenly soul? And yet by an infallible instinct he knows, that that monitor can not be wrong in itself. "And where is the earnest and righteous philosopher, gentlemen, who looking right and left, and up and down, through all the ages of the world, the present included; where is there such an one who has not a thousand times been struck with a sort of infidel idea, that whatever other worlds God may be Lord of, he is not the Lord of this; for else this world would seem to give the lie to Him; so utterly repugnant seem its ways to the instinctively known ways of Heaven. But it is not, and can not be so; nor will he who regards this chronometrical conceit aright, ever more be conscious of that horrible idea. For he will then see, or seem to see, that this world's seeming incompatibility with God, absolutely results from its meridianal correspondence with him. * * * * * "This chronometrical conceit does by no means involve the justification of all the acts which wicked men may perform. For in their wickedness downright wicked men sin as much against their own horologes, as against the heavenly chronometer. That this is so, their spontaneous liability to remorse does plainly evince. No, this conceit merely goes to show, that for the mass of men, the highest abstract heavenly righteousness is not only impossible, but would be entirely out of place, and positively wrong in a world like this. To turn the left cheek if the right be smitten, is chronometrical; hence, no average son of man ever did such a thing. To give _all_ that thou hast to the poor, this too is chronometrical; hence no average son of man ever did such a thing. Nevertheless, if a man gives with a certain self-considerate generosity to the poor; abstains from doing downright ill to any man; does his convenient best in a general way to do good to his whole race; takes watchful loving care of his wife and children, relatives, and friends; is perfectly tolerant to all other men's opinions, whatever they may be; is an honest dealer, an honest citizen, and all that; and more especially if he believe that there is a God for infidels, as well as for believers, and acts upon that belief; then, though such a man falls infinitely short of the chronometrical standard, though all his actions are entirely horologic;--yet such a man need never lastingly despond, because he is sometimes guilty of some minor offense:--hasty words, impulsively returning a blow, fits of domestic petulance, selfish enjoyment of a glass of wine while he knows there are those around him who lack a loaf of bread. I say he need never lastingly despond on account of his perpetual liability to these things; because _not_ to do them, and their like, would be to be an angel, a chronometer; whereas, he is a man and a horologe. "Yet does the horologe itself teach, that all liabilities to these things should be checked as much as possible, though it is certain they can never be utterly eradicated. They are only to be checked, then, because, if entirely unrestrained, they would finally run into utter selfishness and human demonism, which, as before hinted, are not by any means justified by the horologe. "In short, this Chronometrical and Horological conceit, in sum, seems to teach this:--That in things terrestrial (horological) a man must not be governed by ideas celestial (chronometrical); that certain minor self-renunciations in this life his own mere instinct for his own every-day general well-being will teach him to make, but he must by no means make a complete unconditional sacrifice of himself in behalf of any other being, or any cause, or any conceit. (For, does aught else completely and unconditionally sacrifice itself for him? God's own sun does not abate one tittle of its heat in July, however you swoon with that heat in the sun. And if it _did_ abate its heat on your behalf, then the wheat and the rye would not ripen; and so, for the incidental benefit of one, a whole population would suffer.) "A virtuous expediency, then, seems the highest desirable or attainable earthly excellence for the mass of men, and is the only earthly excellence that their Creator intended for them. When they go to heaven, it will be quite another thing. There, they can freely turn the left cheek, because there the right cheek will never be smitten. There they can freely give all to the poor, for _there_ there will be no poor to give to. A due appreciation of this matter will do good to man. For, hitherto, being authoritatively taught by his dogmatical teachers that he must, while on earth, aim at heaven, and attain it, too, in all his earthly acts, on pain of eternal wrath; and finding by experience that this is utterly impossible; in his despair, he is too apt to run clean away into all manner of moral abandonment, self-deceit, and hypocrisy (cloaked, however, mostly under an aspect of the most respectable devotion); or else he openly runs, like a mad dog, into atheism. Whereas, let men be taught those Chronometricals and Horologicals, and while still retaining every common-sense incentive to whatever of virtue be practicable and desirable, and having these incentives strengthened, too, by the consciousness of powers to attain their mark; then there would be an end to that fatal despair of becoming at all good, which has too often proved the vice-producing result in many minds of the undiluted chronometrical doctrines hitherto taught to mankind. But if any man say, that such a doctrine as this I lay down is false, is impious; I would charitably refer that man to the history of Christendom for the last 1800 years; and ask him, whether, in spite of all the maxims of Christ, that history is not just as full of blood, violence, wrong, and iniquity of every kind, as any previous portion of the world's story? Therefore, it follows, that so far as practical results are concerned--regarded in a purely earthly light--the only great original moral doctrine of Christianity (_i. e._ the chronometrical gratuitous return of good for evil, as distinguished from the horological forgiveness of injuries taught by some of the Pagan philosophers), has been found (horologically) a false one; because after 1800 years' inculcation from tens of thousands of pulpits, it has proved entirely impracticable. "I but lay down, then, what the best mortal men do daily practice; and what all really wicked men are very far removed from. I present consolation to the earnest man, who, among all his human frailties, is still agonizingly conscious of the beauty of chronometrical excellence. I hold up a practicable virtue to the vicious; and interfere not with the eternal truth, that, sooner or later, in all cases, downright vice is downright woe. "Moreover: if----" But here the pamphlet was torn, and came to a most untidy termination. BOOK XV. THE COUSINS. I. Though resolved to face all out to the last, at whatever desperate hazard, Pierre had not started for the city without some reasonable plans, both with reference to his more immediate circumstances, and his ulterior condition. There resided in the city a cousin of his, Glendinning Stanly, better known in the general family as Glen Stanly, and by Pierre, as Cousin Glen. Like Pierre, he was an only son; his parents had died in his early childhood; and within the present year he had returned from a protracted sojourn in Europe, to enter, at the age of twenty-one, into the untrammeled possession of a noble property, which in the hands of faithful guardians, had largely accumulated. In their boyhood and earlier adolescence, Pierre and Glen had cherished a much more than cousinly attachment. At the age of ten, they had furnished an example of the truth, that the friendship of fine-hearted, generous boys, nurtured amid the romance-engendering comforts and elegancies of life, sometimes transcends the bounds of mere boyishness, and revels for a while in the empyrean of a love which only comes short, by one degree, of the sweetest sentiment entertained between the sexes. Nor is this boy-love without the occasional fillips and spicinesses, which at times, by an apparent abatement, enhance the permanent delights of those more advanced lovers who love beneath the cestus of Venus. Jealousies are felt. The sight of another lad too much consorting with the boy's beloved object, shall fill him with emotions akin to those of Othello's; a fancied slight, or lessening of the every-day indications of warm feelings, shall prompt him to bitter upbraidings and reproaches; or shall plunge him into evil moods, for which grim solitude only is congenial. Nor are the letters of Aphroditean devotees more charged with headlong vows and protestations, more cross-written and crammed with discursive sentimentalities, more undeviating in their semi-weekliness, or dayliness, as the case may be, than are the love-friendship missives of boys. Among those bundles of papers which Pierre, in an ill hour, so frantically destroyed in the chamber of the inn, were two large packages of letters, densely written, and in many cases inscribed crosswise throughout with red ink upon black; so that the love in those letters was two layers deep, and one pen and one pigment were insufficient to paint it. The first package contained the letters of Glen to Pierre, the other those of Pierre to Glen, which, just prior to Glen's departure for Europe, Pierre had obtained from him, in order to re-read them in his absence, and so fortify himself the more in his affection, by reviving reference to the young, ardent hours of its earliest manifestations. But as the advancing fruit itself extrudes the beautiful blossom, so in many cases, does the eventual love for the other sex forever dismiss the preliminary love-friendship of boys. The mere outer friendship may in some degree--greater or less--survive; but the singular love in it has perishingly dropped away. If in the eye of unyielding reality and truth, the earthly heart of man do indeed ever fix upon some one woman, to whom alone, thenceforth eternally to be a devotee, without a single shadow of the misgiving of its faith; and who, to him, does perfectly embody his finest, loftiest dream of feminine loveliness, if this indeed be so--and may Heaven grant that it be--nevertheless, in metropolitan cases, the love of the most single-eyed lover, almost invariably, is nothing more than the ultimate settling of innumerable wandering glances upon some one specific object; as admonished, that the wonderful scope and variety of female loveliness, if too long suffered to sway us without decision, shall finally confound all power of selection. The confirmed bachelor is, in America, at least, quite as often the victim of a too profound appreciation of the infinite charmingness of woman, as made solitary for life by the legitimate empire of a cold and tasteless temperament. Though the peculiar heart-longings pertaining to his age, had at last found their glowing response in the bosom of Lucy; yet for some period prior to that, Pierre had not been insensible to the miscellaneous promptings of the passion. So that even before he became a declarative lover, Love had yet made him her general votary; and so already there had gradually come a cooling over that ardent sentiment which in earlier years he had cherished for Glen. All round and round does the world lie as in a sharp-shooter's ambush, to pick off the beautiful illusions of youth, by the pitiless cracking rifles of the realities of the age. If the general love for women, had in Pierre sensibly modified his particular sentiment toward Glen; neither had the thousand nameless fascinations of the then brilliant paradises of France and Italy, failed to exert their seductive influence on many of the previous feelings of Glen. For as the very best advantages of life are not without some envious drawback, so it is among the evils of enlarged foreign travel, that in young and unsolid minds, it dislodges some of the finest feelings of the home-born nature; replacing them with a fastidious superciliousness, which like the alledged bigoted Federalism of old times would not--according to a political legend--grind its daily coffee in any mill save of European manufacture, and was satirically said to have thought of importing European air for domestic consumption. The mutually curtailed, lessening, long-postponed, and at last altogether ceasing letters of Pierre and Glen were the melancholy attestations of a fact, which perhaps neither of them took very severely to heart, as certainly, concerning it, neither took the other to task. In the earlier periods of that strange transition from the generous impulsiveness of youth to the provident circumspectness of age, there generally intervenes a brief pause of unpleasant reconsidering; when finding itself all wide of its former spontaneous self, the soul hesitates to commit itself wholly to selfishness; more than repents its wanderings;--yet all this is but transient; and again hurried on by the swift current of life, the prompt-hearted boy scarce longer is to be recognized in matured man,--very slow to feel, deliberate even in love, and statistical even in piety. During the sway of this peculiar period, the boy shall still make some strenuous efforts to retrieve his departing spontaneities; but so alloyed are all such endeavors with the incipiencies of selfishness, that they were best not made at all; since too often they seem but empty and self-deceptive sallies, or still worse, the merest hypocritical assumptions. Upon the return of Glen from abroad, the commonest courtesy, not to say the blood-relation between them, prompted Pierre to welcome him home, with a letter, which though not over-long, and little enthusiastic, still breathed a spirit of cousinly consideration and kindness, pervadingly touched by the then naturally frank and all-attractive spirit of Pierre. To this, the less earnest and now Europeanized Glen had replied in a letter all sudden suavity; and in a strain of artistic artlessness, mourned the apparent decline of their friendship; yet fondly trusted that now, notwithstanding their long separation, it would revive with added sincerity. Yet upon accidentally fixing his glance upon the opening salutation of this delicate missive, Pierre thought he perceived certain, not wholly disguisable chirographic tokens, that the "My very dear Pierre," with which the letter seemed to have been begun, had originally been written "Dear Pierre;" but that when all was concluded, and Glen's signature put to it, then the ardent words "My very" had been prefixed to the reconsidered "Dear Pierre;" a casual supposition, which possibly, however unfounded, materially retarded any answering warmth in Pierre, lest his generous flame should only embrace a flaunted feather. Nor was this idea altogether unreinforced, when on the reception of a second, and now half-business letter (of which mixed sort nearly all the subsequent ones were), from Glen, he found that the "My very dear Pierre" had already retreated into "My dear Pierre;" and on a third occasion, into "Dear Pierre;" and on a fourth, had made a forced and very spirited advanced march up to "My dearest Pierre." All of which fluctuations augured ill for the determinateness of that love, which, however immensely devoted to one cause, could yet hoist and sail under the flags of all nations. Nor could he but now applaud a still subsequent letter from Glen, which abruptly, and almost with apparent indecorousness, under the circumstances, commenced the strain of friendship without any overture of salutation whatever; as if at last, owing to its infinite delicateness, entirely hopeless of precisely defining the nature of their mystical love, Glen chose rather to leave that precise definition to the sympathetical heart and imagination of Pierre; while he himself would go on to celebrate the general relation, by many a sugared sentence of miscellaneous devotion. It was a little curious and rather sardonically diverting, to compare these masterly, yet not wholly successful, and indeterminate tactics of the accomplished Glen, with the unfaltering stream of _Beloved Pierres_, which not only flowed along the top margin of all his earlier letters, but here and there, from their subterranean channel, flashed out in bright intervals, through all the succeeding lines. Nor had the chance recollection of these things at all restrained the reckless hand of Pierre, when he threw the whole package of letters, both new and old, into that most honest and summary of all elements, which is neither a respecter of persons, nor a finical critic of what manner of writings it burns; but like ultimate Truth itself, of which it is the eloquent symbol, consumes all, and only consumes. When the betrothment of Pierre to Lucy had become an acknowledged thing, the courtly Glen, besides the customary felicitations upon that event, had not omitted so fit an opportunity to re-tender to his cousin all his previous jars of honey and treacle, accompanied by additional boxes of candied citron and plums. Pierre thanked him kindly; but in certain little roguish ambiguities begged leave, on the ground of cloying, to return him inclosed by far the greater portion of his present; whose non-substantialness was allegorically typified in the containing letter itself, prepaid with only the usual postage. True love, as every one knows, will still withstand many repulses, even though rude. But whether it was the love or the politeness of Glen, which on this occasion proved invincible, is a matter we will not discuss. Certain it was, that quite undaunted, Glen nobly returned to the charge, and in a very prompt and unexpected answer, extended to Pierre all the courtesies of the general city, and all the hospitalities of five sumptuous chambers, which he and his luxurious environments contrived nominally to occupy in the most fashionable private hotel of a very opulent town. Nor did Glen rest here; but like Napoleon, now seemed bent upon gaining the battle by throwing all his regiments upon one point of attack, and gaining that point at all hazards. Hearing of some rumor at the tables of his relatives that the day was being fixed for the positive nuptials of Pierre; Glen called all his Parisian portfolios for his rosiest sheet, and with scented ink, and a pen of gold, indited a most burnished and redolent letter, which, after invoking all the blessings of Apollo and Venus, and the Nine Muses, and the Cardinal Virtues upon the coming event; concluded at last with a really magnificent testimonial to his love. According to this letter, among his other real estate in the city, Glen had inherited a very charming, little, old house, completely furnished in the style of the last century, in a quarter of the city which, though now not so garishly fashionable as of yore, still in its quiet secludedness, possessed great attractions for the retired billings and cooings of a honeymoon. Indeed he begged leave now to christen it the Cooery, and if after his wedding jaunt, Pierre would deign to visit the city with his bride for a month or two's sojourn, then the Cooery would be but too happy in affording him a harbor. His sweet cousin need be under no apprehension. Owing to the absence of any fit applicant for it, the house had now long been without a tenant, save an old, confidential, bachelor clerk of his father's, who on a nominal rent, and more by way of safe-keeping to the house than any thing else, was now hanging up his well-furbished hat in its hall. This accommodating old clerk would quickly unpeg his beaver at the first hint of new occupants. Glen would charge himself with supplying the house in advance with a proper retinue of servants; fires would be made in the long-unoccupied chambers; the venerable, grotesque, old mahoganies, and marbles, and mirror-frames, and moldings could be very soon dusted and burnished; the kitchen was amply provided with the necessary utensils for cooking; the strong box of old silver immemorially pertaining to the mansion, could be readily carted round from the vaults of the neighboring Bank; while the hampers of old china, still retained in the house, needed but little trouble to unpack; so that silver and china would soon stand assorted in their appropriate closets; at the turning of a faucet in the cellar, the best of the city's water would not fail to contribute its ingredient to the concocting of a welcoming glass of negus before retiring on the first night of their arrival. The over-fastidiousness of some unhealthily critical minds, as well as the moral pusillanimity of others, equally bars the acceptance of effectually substantial favors from persons whose motive in proffering them, is not altogether clear and unimpeachable; and toward whom, perhaps, some prior coolness or indifference has been shown. But when the acceptance of such a favor would be really convenient and desirable to the one party, and completely unattended with any serious distress to the other; there would seem to be no sensible objection to an immediate embrace of the offer. And when the acceptor is in rank and fortune the general equal of the profferer, and perhaps his superior, so that any courtesy he receives, can be amply returned in the natural course of future events, then all motives to decline are very materially lessened. And as for the thousand inconceivable finicalnesses of small pros and cons about imaginary fitnesses, and proprieties, and self-consistencies; thank heaven, in the hour of heart-health, none such shilly-shallying sail-trimmers ever balk the onward course of a bluff-minded man. He takes the world as it is; and carelessly accommodates himself to its whimsical humors; nor ever feels any compunction at receiving the greatest possible favors from those who are as able to grant, as free to bestow. He himself bestows upon occasion; so that, at bottom, common charity steps in to dictate a favorable consideration for all possible profferings; seeing that the acceptance shall only the more enrich him, indirectly, for new and larger beneficences of his own. And as for those who noways pretend with themselves to regulate their deportment by considerations of genuine benevolence, and to whom such courteous profferings hypocritically come from persons whom they suspect for secret enemies; then to such minds not only will their own worldly tactics at once forbid the uncivil blank repulse of such offers; but if they are secretly malicious as well as frigid, or if they are at all capable of being fully gratified by the sense of concealed superiority and mastership (which precious few men are) then how delightful for such persons under the guise of mere acquiescence in his own voluntary civilities, to make genteel use of their foe. For one would like to know, what were foes made for except to be used? In the rude ages men hunted and javelined the tiger, because they hated him for a mischief-minded wild-beast; but in these enlightened times, though we love the tiger as little as ever, still we mostly hunt him for the sake of his skin. A wise man then will wear his tiger; every morning put on his tiger for a robe to keep him warm and adorn him. In this view, foes are far more desirable than friends; for who would hunt and kill his own faithful affectionate dog for the sake of his skin? and is a dog's skin as valuable as a tiger's? Cases there are where it becomes soberly advisable, by direct arts to convert some well-wishers into foes. It is false that in point of policy a man should never make enemies. As well-wishers some men may not only be nugatory but positive obstacles in your peculiar plans; but as foes you may subordinately cement them into your general design. But into these ulterior refinements of cool Tuscan policy, Pierre as yet had never become initiated; his experiences hitherto not having been varied and ripe enough for that; besides, he had altogether too much generous blood in his heart. Nevertheless, thereafter, in a less immature hour, though still he shall not have the heart to practice upon such maxims as the above, yet shall he have the brain thoroughly to comprehend their practicability; which is not always the case. And generally, in worldly wisdom, men will deny to one the possession of all insight, which one does not by his every-day outward life practically reveal. It is a very common error of some unscrupulously infidel-minded, selfish, unprincipled, or downright knavish men, to suppose that believing men, or benevolent-hearted men, or good men, do not know enough to be unscrupulously selfish, do not know enough to be unscrupulous knaves. And thus--thanks to the world!--are there many spies in the world's camp, who are mistaken for strolling simpletons. And these strolling simpletons seem to act upon the principle, that in certain things, we do not so much learn, by showing that already we know a vast deal, as by negatively seeming rather ignorant. But here we press upon the frontiers of that sort of wisdom, which it is very well to possess, but not sagacious to show that you possess. Still, men there are, who having quite done with the world, all its mere worldly contents are become so far indifferent, that they care little of what mere worldly imprudence they may be guilty. Now, if it were not conscious considerations like the really benevolent or neutral ones first mentioned above, it was certainly something akin to them, which had induced Pierre to return a straightforward, manly, and entire acceptance to his cousin of the offer of the house; thanking him, over and over, for his most supererogatory kindness concerning the pre-engagement of servants and so forth, and the setting in order of the silver and china; but reminding him, nevertheless, that he had overlooked all special mention of wines, and begged him to store the bins with a few of the very best brands. He would likewise be obliged, if he would personally purchase at a certain celebrated grocer's, a small bag of undoubted Mocha coffee; but Glen need not order it to be roasted or ground, because Pierre preferred that both those highly important and flavor-deciding operations should be performed instantaneously previous to the final boiling and serving. Nor did he say that he would pay for the wines and the Mocha; he contented himself with merely stating the remissness on the part of his cousin, and pointing out the best way of remedying it. He concluded his letter by intimating that though the rumor of a set day, and a near one, for his nuptials, was unhappily but ill-founded, yet he would not hold Glen's generous offer as merely based upon that presumption, and consequently falling with it; but on the contrary, would consider it entirely good for whatever time it might prove available to Pierre. He was betrothed beyond a peradventure; and hoped to be married ere death. Meanwhile, Glen would further oblige him by giving the confidential clerk a standing notice to quit. Though at first quite amazed at this letter,--for indeed, his offer might possibly have proceeded as much from ostentation as any thing else, nor had he dreamed of so unhesitating an acceptance,--Pierre's cousin was too much of a precocious young man of the world, disclosedly to take it in any other than a very friendly, and cousinly, and humorous, and yet practical way; which he plainly evinced by a reply far more sincere and every way creditable, apparently, both to his heart and head, than any letter he had written to Pierre since the days of their boyhood. And thus, by the bluffness and, in some sort, uncompunctuousness of Pierre, this very artificial youth was well betrayed into an act of effective kindness; being forced now to drop the empty mask of ostentation, and put on the solid hearty features of a genuine face. And just so, are some people in the world to be joked into occasional effective goodness, when all coyness, and coolness, all resentments, and all solemn preaching, would fail. II. But little would we comprehend the peculiar relation between Pierre and Glen--a relation involving in the end the most serious results--were there not here thrown over the whole equivocal, preceding account of it, another and more comprehensive equivocalness, which shall absorb all minor ones in itself; and so make one pervading ambiguity the only possible explanation for all the ambiguous details. It had long been imagined by Pierre, that prior to his own special devotion to Lucy, the splendid Glen had not been entirely insensible to her surprising charms. Yet this conceit in its incipiency, he knew not how to account for. Assuredly his cousin had never in the slightest conceivable hint betrayed it; and as for Lucy, the same intuitive delicacy which forever forbade Pierre to question her on the subject, did equally close her own voluntary lips. Between Pierre and Lucy, delicateness put her sacred signet on this chest of secrecy; which like the wax of an executor upon a desk, though capable of being melted into nothing by the smallest candle, for all this, still possesses to the reverent the prohibitive virtue of inexorable bars and bolts. If Pierre superficially considered the deportment of Glen toward him, therein he could find no possible warrant for indulging the suspicious idea. Doth jealousy smile so benignantly and offer its house to the bride? Still, on the other hand, to quit the mere surface of the deportment of Glen, and penetrate beneath its brocaded vesture; there Pierre sometimes seemed to see the long-lurking and yet unhealed wound of all a rejected lover's most rankling detestation of a supplanting rival, only intensified by their former friendship, and the unimpairable blood-relation between them. Now, viewed by the light of this master-solution, all the singular enigmas in Glen; his capriciousness in the matter of the epistolary--"Dear Pierres" and "Dearest Pierres;" the mercurial fall from the fever-heat of cordiality, to below the Zero of indifference; then the contrary rise to fever-heat; and, above all, his emphatic redundancy of devotion so soon as the positive espousals of Pierre seemed on the point of consummation; thus read, all these riddles apparently found their cunning solution. For the deeper that some men feel a secret and poignant feeling, the higher they pile the belying surfaces. The friendly deportment of Glen then was to be considered as in direct proportion to his hoarded hate; and the climax of that hate was evinced in throwing open his house to the bride. Yet if hate was the abstract cause, hate could not be the immediate motive of the conduct of Glen. Is hate so hospitable? The immediate motive of Glen then must be the intense desire to disguise from the wide world, a fact unspeakably humiliating to his gold-laced and haughty soul: the fact that in the profoundest desire of his heart, Pierre had so victoriously supplanted him. Yet was it that very artful deportment in Glen, which Glen profoundly assumed to this grand end; that consummately artful deportment it was, which first obtruded upon Pierre the surmise, which by that identical method his cousin was so absorbedly intent upon rendering impossible to him. Hence we here see that as in the negative way the secrecy of any strong emotion is exceedingly difficult to be kept lastingly private to one's own bosom by any human being; so it is one of the most fruitless undertakings in the world, to attempt by affirmative assumptions to tender to men, the precisely opposite emotion as yours. Therefore the final wisdom decrees, that if you have aught which you desire to keep a secret to yourself, be a Quietist there, and do and say nothing at all about it. For among all the poor chances, this is the least poor. Pretensions and substitutions are only the recourse of under-graduates in the science of the world; in which science, on his own ground, my Lord Chesterfield, is the poorest possible preceptor. The earliest instinct of the child, and the ripest experience of age, unite in affirming simplicity to be the truest and profoundest part for man. Likewise this simplicity is so universal and all-containing as a rule for human life, that the subtlest bad man, and the purest good man, as well as the profoundest wise man, do all alike present it on that side which they socially turn to the inquisitive and unscrupulous world. III. Now the matter of the house had remained in precisely the above-stated awaiting predicament, down to the time of Pierre's great life-revolution, the receipt of Isabel's letter. And though, indeed, Pierre could not but naturally hesitate at still accepting the use of the dwelling, under the widely different circumstances in which he now found himself; and though at first the strongest possible spontaneous objections on the ground of personal independence, pride, and general scorn, all clamorously declared in his breast against such a course; yet, finally, the same uncompunctuous, ever-adaptive sort of motive which had induced his original acceptation, prompted him, in the end, still to maintain it unrevoked. It would at once set him at rest from all immediate tribulations of mere bed and board; and by affording him a shelter, for an indefinite term, enable him the better to look about him, and consider what could best be done to further the permanent comfort of those whom Fate had intrusted to his charge. Irrespective, it would seem, of that wide general awaking of his profounder being, consequent upon the extraordinary trials he had so aggregatively encountered of late; the thought was indignantly suggested to him, that the world must indeed be organically despicable, if it held that an offer, superfluously accepted in the hour of his abundance, should now, be rejected in that of his utmost need. And without at all imputing any singularity of benevolent-mindedness to his cousin, he did not for a moment question, that under the changed aspect of affairs, Glen would at least pretend the more eagerly to welcome him to the house, now that the mere thing of apparent courtesy had become transformed into something like a thing of positive and urgent necessity. When Pierre also considered that not himself only was concerned, but likewise two peculiarly helpless fellow-beings, one of them bound to him from the first by the most sacred ties, and lately inspiring an emotion which passed all human precedent in its mixed and mystical import; these added considerations completely overthrew in Pierre all remaining dictates of his vague pride and false independence, if such indeed had ever been his. Though the interval elapsing between his decision to depart with his companions for the city, and his actual start in the coach, had not enabled him to receive any replying word from his cousin; and though Pierre knew better than to expect it; yet a preparative letter to him he had sent; and did not doubt that this proceeding would prove well-advised in the end. In naturally strong-minded men, however young and inexperienced in some things, those great and sudden emergencies, which but confound the timid and the weak, only serve to call forth all their generous latentness, and teach them, as by inspiration, extraordinary maxims of conduct, whose counterpart, in other men, is only the result of a long, variously-tried and pains-taking life. One of those maxims is, that when, through whatever cause, we are suddenly translated from opulence to need, or from a fair fame to a foul; and straightway it becomes necessary not to contradict the thing--so far at least as the mere imputation goes,--to some one previously entertaining high conventional regard for us, and from whom we would now solicit some genuine helping offices; then, all explanation or palation should be scorned; promptness, boldness, utter gladiatorianism, and a defiant non-humility should mark every syllable we breathe, and every line we trace. The preparative letter of Pierre to Glen, plunged at once into the very heart of the matter, and was perhaps the briefest letter he had ever written him. Though by no means are such characteristics invariable exponents of the predominant mood or general disposition of a man (since so accidental a thing as a numb finger, or a bad quill, or poor ink, or squalid paper, or a rickety desk may produce all sorts of modifications), yet in the present instance, the handwriting of Pierre happened plainly to attest and corroborate the spirit of his communication. The sheet was large; but the words were placarded upon it in heavy though rapid lines, only six or eight to the page. And as the footman of a haughty visitor--some Count or Duke--announces the chariot of his lord by a thunderous knock on the portal; so to Glen did Pierre, in the broad, sweeping, and prodigious superscription of his letter, forewarn him what manner of man was on the road. In the moment of strong feeling a wonderful condensativeness points the tongue and pen; so that ideas, then enunciated sharp and quick as minute-guns, in some other hour of unruffledness or unstimulatedness, require considerable time and trouble to verbally recall. Not here and now can we set down the precise contents of Pierre's letter, without a tautology illy doing justice to the ideas themselves. And though indeed the dread of tautology be the continual torment of some earnest minds, and, as such, is surely a weakness in them; and though no wise man will wonder at conscientious Virgil all eager at death to burn his �niad for a monstrous heap of inefficient superfluity; yet not to dread tautology at times only belongs to those enviable dunces, whom the partial God hath blessed, over all the earth, with the inexhaustible self-riches of vanity, and folly, and a blind self-complacency. Some rumor of the discontinuance of his betrothment to Lucy Tartan; of his already consummated marriage with a poor and friendless orphan; of his mother's disowning him consequent upon these events; such rumors, Pierre now wrote to his cousin, would very probably, in the parlors of his city-relatives and acquaintances, precede his arrival in town. But he hinted no word of any possible commentary on these things. He simply went on to say, that now, through the fortune of life--which was but the proverbially unreliable fortune of war--he was, for the present, thrown entirely upon his own resources, both for his own support and that of his wife, as well as for the temporary maintenance of a girl, whom he had lately had excellent reason for taking under his especial protection. He proposed a permanent residence in the city; not without some nearly quite settled plans as to the procuring of a competent income, without any ulterior reference to any member of their wealthy and widely ramified family. The house, whose temporary occupancy Glen had before so handsomely proffered him, would now be doubly and trebly desirable to him. But the pre-engaged servants, and the old china, and the old silver, and the old wines, and the Mocha, were now become altogether unnecessary. Pierre would merely take the place--for a short interval--of the worthy old clerk; and, so far as Glen was concerned, simply stand guardian of the dwelling, till his plans were matured. His cousin had originally made his most bounteous overture, to welcome the coming of the presumed bride of Pierre; and though another lady had now taken her place at the altar, yet Pierre would still regard the offer of Glen as impersonal in that respect, and bearing equal reference to any young lady, who should prove her claim to the possessed hand of Pierre. Since there was no universal law of opinion in such matters, Glen, on general worldly grounds, might not consider the real Mrs. Glendinning altogether so suitable a match for Pierre, as he possibly might have held numerous other young ladies in his eye: nevertheless, Glen would find her ready to return with sincerity all his cousinly regard and attention. In conclusion, Pierre said, that he and his party meditated an immediate departure, and would very probably arrive in town in eight-and-forty hours after the mailing of the present letter. He therefore begged Glen to see the more indispensable domestic appliances of the house set in some little order against their arrival; to have the rooms aired and lighted; and also forewarn the confidential clerk of what he might soon expect. Then, without any tapering sequel of--"_Yours, very truly and faithfully, my dear Cousin Glen_," he finished the letter with the abrupt and isolated signature of--"PIERRE." BOOK XVI. FIRST NIGHT OF THEIR ARRIVAL IN THE CITY. I. The stage was belated. The country road they traveled entered the city by a remarkably wide and winding street, a great thoroughfare for its less opulent inhabitants. There was no moon and few stars. It was that preluding hour of the night when the shops are just closing, and the aspect of almost every wayfarer, as he passes through the unequal light reflected from the windows, speaks of one hurrying not abroad, but homeward. Though the thoroughfare was winding, yet no sweep that it made greatly obstructed its long and imposing vista; so that when the coach gained the top of the long and very gradual slope running toward the obscure heart of the town, and the twinkling perspective of two long and parallel rows of lamps was revealed--lamps which seemed not so much intended to dispel the general gloom, as to show some dim path leading through it, into some gloom still deeper beyond--when the coach gained this critical point, the whole vast triangular town, for a moment, seemed dimly and despondently to capitulate to the eye. And now, ere descending the gradually-sloping declivity, and just on its summit as it were, the inmates of the coach, by numerous hard, painful joltings, and ponderous, dragging trundlings, are suddenly made sensible of some great change in the character of the road. The coach seems rolling over cannon-balls of all calibers. Grasping Pierre's arm, Isabel eagerly and forebodingly demands what is the cause of this most strange and unpleasant transition. "The pavements, Isabel; this is the town." Isabel was silent. But, the first time for many weeks, Delly voluntarily spoke: "It feels not so soft as the green sward, Master Pierre." "No, Miss Ulver," said Pierre, very bitterly, "the buried hearts of some dead citizens have perhaps come to the surface." "Sir?" said Delly. "And are they so hard-hearted here?" asked Isabel. "Ask yonder pavements, Isabel. Milk dropt from the milkman's can in December, freezes not more quickly on those stones, than does snow-white innocence, if in poverty, it chance to fall in these streets." "Then God help my hard fate, Master Pierre," sobbed Delly. "Why didst thou drag hither a poor outcast like me?" "Forgive me, Miss Ulver," exclaimed Pierre, with sudden warmth, and yet most marked respect; "forgive me; never yet have I entered the city by night, but, somehow, it made me feel both bitter and sad. Come, be cheerful, we shall soon be comfortably housed, and have our comfort all to ourselves; the old clerk I spoke to you about, is now doubtless ruefully eying his hat on the peg. Come, cheer up, Isabel;--'tis a long ride, but here we are, at last. Come! 'Tis not very far now to our welcome." "I hear a strange shuffling and clattering," said Delly, with a shudder. "It does not seem so light as just now," said Isabel. "Yes," returned Pierre, "it is the shop-shutters being put on; it is the locking, and bolting, and barring of windows and doors; the town's-people are going to their rest." "Please God they may find it!" sighed Delly. "They lock and bar out, then, when they rest, do they, Pierre?" said Isabel. "Yes, and you were thinking that does not bode well for the welcome I spoke of." "Thou read'st all my soul; yes, I was thinking of that. But whither lead these long, narrow, dismal side-glooms we pass every now and then? What are they? They seem terribly still. I see scarce any body in them;--there's another, now. See how haggardly look its criss-cross, far-separate lamps.--What are these side-glooms, dear Pierre; whither lead they?" "They are the thin tributaries, sweet Isabel, to the great Oronoco thoroughfare we are in; and like true tributaries, they come from the far-hidden places; from under dark beetling secrecies of mortar and stone; through the long marsh-grasses of villainy, and by many a transplanted bough-beam, where the wretched have hung." "I know nothing of these things, Pierre. But I like not the town. Think'st thou, Pierre, the time will ever come when all the earth shall be paved?" "Thank God, that never can be!" "These silent side-glooms are horrible;--look! Methinks, not for the world would I turn into one." That moment the nigh fore-wheel sharply grated under the body of the coach. "Courage!" cried Pierre, "we are in it!--Not so very solitary either; here comes a traveler." "Hark, what is that?" said Delly, "that keen iron-ringing sound? It passed us just now." "The keen traveler," said Pierre, "he has steel plates to his boot-heels;--some tender-souled elder son, I suppose." "Pierre," said Isabel, "this silence is unnatural, is fearful. The forests are never so still." "Because brick and mortar have deeper secrets than wood or fell, sweet Isabel. But here we turn again; now if I guess right, two more turns will bring us to the door. Courage, all will be well; doubtless he has prepared a famous supper. Courage, Isabel. Come, shall it be tea or coffee? Some bread, or crisp toast? We'll have eggs, too; and some cold chicken, perhaps."--Then muttering to himself--"I hope not that, either; no cold collations! there's too much of that in these paving-stones here, set out for the famishing beggars to eat. No. I won't have the cold chicken." Then aloud--"But here we turn again; yes, just as I thought. Ho, driver!" (thrusting his head out of the window) "to the right! to the right! it should be on the right! the first house with a light on the right!" "No lights yet but the street's," answered the surly voice of the driver. "Stupid! he has passed it--yes, yes--he has! Ho! ho! stop; turn back. Have you not passed lighted windows?" "No lights but the street's," was the rough reply. "What's the number? the number? Don't keep me beating about here all night! The number, I say!" "I do not know it," returned Pierre; "but I well know the house; you must have passed it, I repeat. You must turn back. Surely you have passed lighted windows?" "Then them lights must burn black; there's no lighted windows in the street; I knows the city; old maids lives here, and they are all to bed; rest is warehouses." "Will you stop the coach, or not?" cried Pierre, now incensed at his surliness in continuing to drive on. "I obeys orders: the first house with a light; and 'cording to my reck'ning--though to be sure, I don't know nothing of the city where I was born and bred all my life--no, I knows nothing at all about it--'cording to my reck'ning, the first light in this here street will be the watch-house of the ward--yes, there it is--all right! cheap lodgings ye've engaged--nothing to pay, and wictuals in." To certain temperaments, especially when previously agitated by any deep feeling, there is perhaps nothing more exasperating, and which sooner explodes all self-command, than the coarse, jeering insolence of a porter, cabman, or hack-driver. Fetchers and carriers of the worst city infamy as many of them are; professionally familiar with the most abandoned haunts; in the heart of misery, they drive one of the most mercenary of all the trades of guilt. Day-dozers and sluggards on their lazy boxes in the sunlight, and felinely wakeful and cat-eyed in the dark; most habituated to midnight streets, only trod by sneaking burglars, wantons, and debauchees; often in actual pandering league with the most abhorrent sinks; so that they are equally solicitous and suspectful that every customer they encounter in the dark, will prove a profligate or a knave; this hideous tribe of ogres, and Charon ferry-men to corruption and death, naturally slide into the most practically Calvinistical view of humanity, and hold every man at bottom a fit subject for the coarsest ribaldry and jest; only fine coats and full pockets can whip such mangy hounds into decency. The least impatience, any quickness of temper, a sharp remonstrating word from a customer in a seedy coat, or betraying any other evidence of poverty, however minute and indirect (for in that pecuniary respect they are the most piercing and infallible of all the judgers of men), will be almost sure to provoke, in such cases, their least endurable disdain. Perhaps it was the unconscious transfer to the stage-driver of some such ideas as these, which now prompted the highly irritated Pierre to an act, which, in a more benignant hour, his better reason would have restrained him from. He did not see the light to which the driver had referred; and was heedless, in his sudden wrath, that the coach was now going slower in approaching it. Ere Isabel could prevent him, he burst open the door, and leaping to the pavement, sprang ahead of the horses, and violently reined back the leaders by their heads. The driver seized his four-in-hand whip, and with a volley of oaths was about striking out its long, coiling lash at Pierre, when his arm was arrested by a policeman, who suddenly leaping on the stayed coach, commanded him to keep the peace. "Speak! what is the difficulty here? Be quiet, ladies, nothing serious has happened. Speak you!" "Pierre! Pierre!" cried the alarmed Isabel. In an instant Pierre was at her side by the window; and now turning to the officer, explained to him that the driver had persisted in passing the house at which he was ordered to stop. "Then he shall turn to the right about with you, sir;--in double quick time too; do ye hear? I know you rascals well enough. Turn about, you sir, and take the gentleman where he directed." The cowed driver was beginning a long string of criminating explanations, when turning to Pierre, the policeman calmly desired him to re-enter the coach; he would see him safely at his destination; and then seating himself beside the driver on the box, commanded him to tell the number given him by the gentleman. "He don't know no numbers--didn't I say he didn't--that's what I got mad about." "Be still"--said the officer. "Sir"--turning round and addressing Pierre within; "where do you wish to go?" "I do not know the number, but it is a house in this street; we have passed it; it is, I think, the fourth or fifth house this side of the last corner we turned. It must be lighted up too. It is the small old-fashioned dwelling with stone lion-heads above the windows. But make him turn round, and drive slowly, and I will soon point it out." "Can't see lions in the dark"--growled the driver--"lions; ha! ha! jackasses more likely!" "Look you," said the officer, "I shall see you tightly housed this night, my fine fellow, if you don't cease your jabber. Sir," he added, resuming with Pierre, "I am sure there is some mistake here. I perfectly well know now the house you mean. I passed it within the last half-hour; all as quiet there as ever. No one lives there, I think; I never saw a light in it. Are you not mistaken in something, then?" Pierre paused in perplexity and foreboding. Was it possible that Glen had willfully and utterly neglected his letter? Not possible. But it might not have come to his hand; the mails sometimes delayed. Then again, it was not wholly out of the question, that the house was prepared for them after all, even though it showed no outward sign. But that was not probable. At any rate, as the driver protested, that his four horses and lumbering vehicle could not turn short round in that street; and that if he must go back, it could only be done by driving on, and going round the block, and so retracing his road; and as after such a procedure, on his part, then in case of a confirmed disappointment respecting the house, the driver would seem warranted, at least in some of his unmannerliness; and as Pierre loathed the villain altogether, therefore, in order to run no such risks, he came to a sudden determination on the spot. "I owe you very much, my good friend," said he to the officer, "for your timely assistance. To be frank, what you have just told me has indeed perplexed me not a little concerning the place where I proposed to stop. Is there no hotel in this neighborhood, where I could leave these ladies while I seek my friend?" Wonted to all manner of deceitfulness, and engaged in a calling which unavoidably makes one distrustful of mere appearances, however specious, however honest; the really good-hearted officer, now eyed Pierre in the dubious light with a most unpleasant scrutiny; and he abandoned the "Sir," and the tone of his voice sensibly changed, as he replied:--"There is no hotel in this neighborhood; it is too off the thoroughfares." "Come! come!"--cried the driver, now growing bold again--"though you're an officer, I'm a citizen for all that. You haven't any further right to keep me out of my bed now. He don't know where he wants to go to, cause he haint got no place at all to go to; so I'll just dump him here, and you dar'n't stay me." "Don't be impertinent now," said the officer, but not so sternly as before. "I'll have my rights though, I tell you that! Leave go of my arm; damn ye, get off the box; I've the law now. I say mister, come tramp, here goes your luggage," and so saying he dragged toward him a light trunk on the top of the stage. "Keep a clean tongue in ye now"--said the officer--"and don't be in quite so great a hurry," then addressing Pierre, who had now re-alighted from the coach--"Well, this can't continue; what do you intend to do?" "Not to ride further with that man, at any rate," said Pierre; "I will stop right here for the present." "He! he!" laughed the driver; "he! he! 'mazing 'commodating now--we hitches now, we do--stops right afore the watch-house--he! he!--that's funny!" "Off with the luggage then, driver," said the policeman--"here hand the small trunk, and now away and unlash there behind." During all this scene, Delly had remained perfectly silent in her trembling and rustic alarm; while Isabel, by occasional cries to Pierre, had vainly besought some explanation. But though their complete ignorance of city life had caused Pierre's two companions to regard the scene thus far with too much trepidation; yet now, when in the obscurity of night, and in the heart of a strange town, Pierre handed them out of the coach into the naked street, and they saw their luggage piled so near the white light of a watch-house, the same ignorance, in some sort, reversed its effects on them; for they little fancied in what really untoward and wretched circumstances they first touched the flagging of the city. As the coach lumbered off, and went rolling into the wide murkiness beyond, Pierre spoke to the officer. "It is a rather strange accident, I confess, my friend, but strange accidents will sometimes happen." "In the best of families," rejoined the other, a little ironically. Now, I must not quarrel with this man, thought Pierre to himself, stung at the officer's tone. Then said:--"Is there any one in your--office?" "No one as yet--not late enough." "Will you have the kindness then to house these ladies there for the present, while I make haste to provide them with better lodgment? Lead on, if you please." The man seemed to hesitate a moment, but finally acquiesced; and soon they passed under the white light, and entered a large, plain, and most forbidding-looking room, with hacked wooden benches and bunks ranged along the sides, and a railing before a desk in one corner. The permanent keeper of the place was quietly reading a paper by the long central double bat's-wing gas-light; and three officers off duty were nodding on a bench. "Not very liberal accommodations"--said the officer, quietly; "nor always the best of company, but we try to be civil. Be seated, ladies," politely drawing a small bench toward them. "Hallo, my friends," said Pierre, approaching the nodding three beyond, and tapping them on the shoulder--"Hallo, I say! Will you do me a little favor? Will you help bring some trunks in from the street? I will satisfy you for your trouble, and be much obliged into the bargain." Instantly the three noddies, used to sudden awakenings, opened their eyes, and stared hard; and being further enlightened by the bat's-wings and first officer, promptly brought in the luggage as desired. Pierre hurriedly sat down by Isabel, and in a few words gave her to understand, that she was now in a perfectly secure place, however unwelcoming; that the officers would take every care of her, while he made all possible speed in running to the house, and indubitably ascertaining how matters stood there. He hoped to be back in less than ten minutes with good tidings. Explaining his intention to the first officer, and begging him not to leave the girls till he should return, he forthwith sallied into the street. He quickly came to the house, and immediately identified it. But all was profoundly silent and dark. He rang the bell, but no answer; and waiting long enough to be certain, that either the house was indeed deserted, or else the old clerk was unawakeable or absent; and at all events, certain that no slightest preparation had been made for their arrival; Pierre, bitterly disappointed, returned to Isabel with this most unpleasant information. Nevertheless something must be done, and quickly. Turning to one of the officers, he begged him to go and seek a hack, that the whole party might be taken to some respectable lodging. But the man, as well as his comrades, declined the errand on the score, that there was no stand on their beat, and they could not, on any account, leave their beat. So Pierre himself must go. He by no means liked to leave Isabel and Delly again, on an expedition which might occupy some time. But there seemed no resource, and time now imperiously pressed. Communicating his intention therefore to Isabel, and again entreating the officer's particular services as before, and promising not to leave him unrequited; Pierre again sallied out. He looked up and down the street, and listened; but no sound of any approaching vehicle was audible. He ran on, and turning the first corner, bent his rapid steps toward the greatest and most central avenue of the city, assured that there, if anywhere, he would find what he wanted. It was some distance off; and he was not without hope that an empty hack would meet him ere he arrived there. But the few stray ones he encountered had all muffled fares. He continued on, and at last gained the great avenue. Not habitually used to such scenes, Pierre for a moment was surprised, that the instant he turned out of the narrow, and dark, and death-like bye-street, he should find himself suddenly precipitated into the not-yet-repressed noise and contention, and all the garish night-life of a vast thoroughfare, crowded and wedged by day, and even now, at this late hour, brilliant with occasional illuminations, and echoing to very many swift wheels and footfalls. II. "I say, my pretty one! Dear! Dear! young man! Oh, love, you are in a vast hurry, aint you? Can't you stop a bit, now, my dear: do--there's a sweet fellow." Pierre turned; and in the flashing, sinister, evil cross-lights of a druggist's window, his eye caught the person of a wonderfully beautifully-featured girl; scarlet-cheeked, glaringly-arrayed, and of a figure all natural grace but unnatural vivacity. Her whole form, however, was horribly lit by the green and yellow rays from the druggist's. "My God!" shuddered Pierre, hurrying forward, "the town's first welcome to youth!" He was just crossing over to where a line of hacks were drawn up against the opposite curb, when his eye was arrested by a short, gilded name, rather reservedly and aristocratically denominating a large and very handsome house, the second story of which was profusely lighted. He looked up, and was very certain that in this house were the apartments of Glen. Yielding to a sudden impulse, he mounted the single step toward the door, and rang the bell, which was quickly responded to by a very civil black. As the door opened, he heard the distant interior sound of dancing-music and merriment. "Is Mr. Stanly in?" "Mr. Stanly? Yes, but he's engaged." "How?" "He is somewhere in the drawing rooms. My mistress is giving a party to the lodgers." "Ay? Tell Mr. Stanly I wish to see him for one moment if you please; only one moment." "I dare not call him, sir. He said that possibly some one might call for him to-night--they are calling every night for Mr. Stanly--but I must admit no one, on the plea of the party." A dark and bitter suspicion now darted through the mind of Pierre; and ungovernably yielding to it, and resolved to prove or falsify it without delay, he said to the black: "My business is pressing. I must see Mr. Stanly." "I am sorry, sir, but orders are orders: I am his particular servant here--the one that sees his silver every holyday. I can't disobey him. May I shut the door, sir? for as it is, I can not admit you." "The drawing-rooms are on the second floor, are they not?" said Pierre quietly. "Yes," said the black pausing in surprise, and holding the door. "Yonder are the stairs, I think?" "That way, sir; but this is yours;" and the now suspicious black was just on the point of closing the portal violently upon him, when Pierre thrust him suddenly aside, and springing up the long stairs, found himself facing an open door, from whence proceeded a burst of combined brilliancy and melody, doubly confusing to one just emerged from the street. But bewildered and all demented as he momentarily felt, he instantly stalked in, and confounded the amazed company with his unremoved slouched hat, pale cheek, and whole dusty, travel-stained, and ferocious aspect. "Mr. Stanly! where is Mr. Stanly?" he cried, advancing straight through a startled quadrille, while all the music suddenly hushed, and every eye was fixed in vague affright upon him. "Mr. Stanly! Mr. Stanly!" cried several bladish voices, toward the further end of the further drawing-room, into which the first one widely opened, "Here is a most peculiar fellow after you; who the devil is he?" "I think I see him," replied a singularly cool, deliberate, and rather drawling voice, yet a very silvery one, and at bottom perhaps a very resolute one; "I think I see him; stand aside, my good fellow, will you; ladies, remove, remove from between me and yonder hat." The polite compliance of the company thus addressed, now revealed to the advancing Pierre, the tall, robust figure of a remarkably splendid-looking, and brown-bearded young man, dressed with surprising plainness, almost demureness, for such an occasion; but this plainness of his dress was not so obvious at first, the material was so fine, and admirably fitted. He was carelessly lounging in a half side-long attitude upon a large sofa, and appeared as if but just interrupted in some very agreeable chat with a diminutive but vivacious brunette, occupying the other end. The dandy and the man; strength and effeminacy; courage and indolence, were so strangely blended in this superb-eyed youth, that at first sight, it seemed impossible to decide whether there was any genuine mettle in him, or not. Some years had gone by since the cousins had met; years peculiarly productive of the greatest conceivable changes in the general personal aspect of human beings. Nevertheless, the eye seldom alters. The instant their eyes met, they mutually recognized each other. But both did not betray the recognition. "Glen!" cried Pierre, and paused a few steps from him. But the superb-eyed only settled himself lower down in his lounging attitude, and slowly withdrawing a small, unpretending, and unribboned glass from his vest pocket, steadily, yet not entirely insultingly, notwithstanding the circumstances, scrutinized Pierre. Then, dropping his glass, turned slowly round upon the gentlemen near him, saying in the same peculiar, mixed, and musical voice as before: "I do not know him; it is an entire mistake; why don't the servants take him out, and the music go on?---- As I was saying, Miss Clara, the statues you saw in the Louvre are not to be mentioned with those in Florence and Rome. Why, there now is that vaunted _chef d'oeuvre_, the Fighting Gladiator of the Louvre----" "Fighting Gladiator it is!" yelled Pierre, leaping toward him like Spartacus. But the savage impulse in him was restrained by the alarmed female shrieks and wild gestures around him. As he paused, several gentlemen made motions to pinion him; but shaking them off fiercely, he stood erect, and isolated for an instant, and fastening his glance upon his still reclining, and apparently unmoved cousin, thus spoke:-- "Glendinning Stanly, thou disown'st Pierre not so abhorrently as Pierre does thee. By Heaven, had I a knife, Glen, I could prick thee on the spot; let out all thy Glendinning blood, and then sew up the vile remainder. Hound, and base blot upon the general humanity!" "This is very extraordinary:--remarkable case of combined imposture and insanity; but where are the servants? why don't that black advance? Lead him out, my good Doc, lead him out. Carefully, carefully! stay"--putting his hand in his pocket--"there, take that, and have the poor fellow driven off somewhere." Bolting his rage in him, as impossible to be sated by any conduct, in such a place, Pierre now turned, sprang down the stairs, and fled the house. III. "Hack, sir? Hack, sir? Hack, sir?" "Cab, sir? Cab, sir? Cab, sir?" "This way, sir! This way, sir! This way, sir!" "He's a rogue! Not him! he's a rogue!" Pierre was surrounded by a crowd of contending hackmen, all holding long whips in their hands; while others eagerly beckoned to him from their boxes, where they sat elevated between their two coach-lamps like shabby, discarded saints. The whip-stalks thickened around him, and several reports of the cracking lashes sharply sounded in his ears. Just bursting from a scene so goading as his interview with the scornful Glen in the dazzling drawing-room, to Pierre, this sudden tumultuous surrounding of him by whip-stalks and lashes, seemed like the onset of the chastising fiends upon Orestes. But, breaking away from them, he seized the first plated door-handle near him, and, leaping into the hack, shouted for whoever was the keeper of it, to mount his box forthwith and drive off in a given direction. The vehicle had proceeded some way down the great avenue when it paused, and the driver demanded whither now; what place? "The Watch-house of the---- Ward," cried Pierre. "Hi! hi! Goin' to deliver himself up, hey!" grinned the fellow to himself--"Well, that's a sort of honest, any way:--g'lang, you dogs!--whist! whee! wha!--g'lang!" The sights and sounds which met the eye of Pierre on re-entering the watch-house, filled him with inexpressible horror and fury. The before decent, drowsy place, now fairly reeked with all things unseemly. Hardly possible was it to tell what conceivable cause or occasion had, in the comparatively short absence of Pierre, collected such a base congregation. In indescribable disorder, frantic, diseased-looking men and women of all colors, and in all imaginable flaunting, immodest, grotesque, and shattered dresses, were leaping, yelling, and cursing around him. The torn Madras handkerchiefs of negresses, and the red gowns of yellow girls, hanging in tatters from their naked bosoms, mixed with the rent dresses of deep-rouged white women, and the split coats, checkered vests, and protruding shirts of pale, or whiskered, or haggard, or mustached fellows of all nations, some of whom seemed scared from their beds, and others seemingly arrested in the midst of some crazy and wanton dance. On all sides, were heard drunken male and female voices, in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, interlarded now and then, with the foulest of all human lingoes, that dialect of sin and death, known as the Cant language, or the Flash. Running among this combined babel of persons and voices, several of the police were vainly striving to still the tumult; while others were busy handcuffing the more desperate; and here and there the distracted wretches, both men and women, gave downright battle to the officers; and still others already handcuffed struck out at them with their joined ironed arms. Meanwhile, words and phrases unrepeatable in God's sunlight, and whose very existence was utterly unknown, and undreamed of by tens of thousands of the decent people of the city; syllables obscene and accursed were shouted forth in tones plainly evincing that they were the common household breath of their utterers. The thieves'-quarters, and all the brothels, Lock-and-Sin hospitals for incurables, and infirmaries and infernoes of hell seemed to have made one combined sortie, and poured out upon earth through the vile vomitory of some unmentionable cellar. Though the hitherto imperfect and casual city experiences of Pierre illy fitted him entirely to comprehend the specific purport of this terrific spectacle; still he knew enough by hearsay of the more infamous life of the town, to imagine from whence, and who, were the objects before him. But all his consciousness at the time was absorbed by the one horrified thought of Isabel and Delly, forced to witness a sight hardly endurable for Pierre himself; or, possibly, sucked into the tumult, and in close personal contact with its loathsomeness. Rushing into the crowd, regardless of the random blows and curses he encountered, he wildly sought for Isabel, and soon descried her struggling from the delirious reaching arms of a half-clad reeling whiskerando. With an immense blow of his mailed fist, he sent the wretch humming, and seizing Isabel, cried out to two officers near, to clear a path for him to the door. They did so. And in a few minutes the panting Isabel was safe in the open air. He would have stayed by her, but she conjured him to return for Delly, exposed to worse insults than herself. An additional posse of officers now approaching, Pierre committing her to the care of one of them, and summoning two others to join himself, now re-entered the room. In another quarter of it, he saw Delly seized on each hand by two bleared and half-bloody women, who with fiendish grimaces were ironically twitting her upon her close-necked dress, and had already stript her handkerchief from her. She uttered a cry of mixed anguish and joy at the sight of him; and Pierre soon succeeded in returning with her to Isabel. During the absence of Pierre in quest of the hack, and while Isabel and Delly were quietly awaiting his return, the door had suddenly burst open, and a detachment of the police drove in, and caged, the entire miscellaneous night-occupants of a notorious stew, which they had stormed and carried during the height of some outrageous orgie. The first sight of the interior of the watch-house, and their being so quickly huddled together within its four blank walls, had suddenly lashed the mob into frenzy; so that for the time, oblivious of all other considerations, the entire force of the police was directed to the quelling of the in-door riot; and consequently, abandoned to their own protection, Isabel and Delly had been temporarily left to its mercy. It was no time for Pierre to manifest his indignation at the officer--even if he could now find him--who had thus falsified his individual pledge concerning the precious charge committed to him. Nor was it any time to distress himself about his luggage, still somewhere within. Quitting all, he thrust the bewildered and half-lifeless girls into the waiting hack, which, by his orders, drove back in the direction of the stand, where Pierre had first taken it up. When the coach had rolled them well away from the tumult, Pierre stopped it, and said to the man, that he desired to be taken to the nearest respectable hotel or boarding-house of any kind, that he knew of. The fellow--maliciously diverted by what had happened thus far--made some ambiguous and rudely merry rejoinder. But warned by his previous rash quarrel with the stage-driver, Pierre passed this unnoticed, and in a controlled, calm, decided manner repeated his directions. The issue was, that after a rather roundabout drive they drew up in a very respectable side-street, before a large respectable-looking house, illuminated by two tall white lights flanking its portico. Pierre was glad to notice some little remaining stir within, spite of the comparative lateness of the hour. A bare-headed, tidily-dressed, and very intelligent-looking man, with a broom clothes-brush in his hand, appearing, scrutinized him rather sharply at first; but as Pierre advanced further into the light, and his countenance became visible, the man, assuming a respectful but still slightly perplexed air, invited the whole party into a closely adjoining parlor, whose disordered chairs and general dustiness, evinced that after a day's activity it now awaited the morning offices of the housemaids. "Baggage, sir?" "I have left my baggage at another place," said Pierre, "I shall send for it to-morrow." "Ah!" exclaimed the very intelligent-looking man, rather dubiously, "shall I discharge the hack, then?" "Stay," said Pierre, bethinking him, that it would be well not to let the man know from whence they had last come, "I will discharge it myself, thank you." So returning to the sidewalk, without debate, he paid the hackman an exorbitant fare, who, anxious to secure such illegal gains beyond all hope of recovery, quickly mounted his box and drove off at a gallop. "Will you step into the office, sir, now?" said the man, slightly flourishing with his brush--"this way, sir, if you please." Pierre followed him, into an almost deserted, dimly lit room with a stand in it. Going behind the stand, the man turned round to him a large ledger-like book, thickly inscribed with names, like any directory, and offered him a pen ready dipped in ink. Understanding the general hint, though secretly irritated at something in the manner of the man, Pierre drew the book to him, and wrote in a firm hand, at the bottom of the last-named column,-- "Mr. and Mrs. Pierre Glendinning, and Miss Ulver." The man glanced at the writing inquiringly, and then said--"The other column, sir--where from." "True," said Pierre, and wrote "Saddle Meadows." The very intelligent-looking man re-examined the page, and then slowly stroking his shaven chin, with a fork, made of his thumb for one tine, and his united four fingers for the other, said softly and whisperingly--"Anywheres in this country, sir?" "Yes, in the country," said Pierre, evasively, and bridling his ire. "But now show me to two chambers, will you; the one for myself and wife, I desire to have opening into another, a third one, never mind how small; but I must have a dressing-room." "Dressing-room," repeated the man, in an ironically deliberative voice--"Dressing-room;--Hem!--You will have your luggage taken into the dressing-room, then, I suppose.--Oh, I forgot--your luggage aint come yet--ah, yes, yes, yes--luggage is coming to-morrow--Oh, yes, yes,--certainly--to-morrow--of course. By the way, sir; I dislike to seem at all uncivil, and I am sure you will not deem me so; but--" "Well," said Pierre, mustering all his self-command for the coming impertinence. "When stranger gentlemen come to this house without luggage, we think ourselves bound to ask them to pay their bills in advance, sir; that is all, sir." "I shall stay here to-night and the whole of to-morrow, at any rate," rejoined Pierre, thankful that this was all; "how much will it be?" and he drew out his purse. The man's eyes fastened with eagerness on the purse; he looked from it to the face of him who held it; then seemed half hesitating an instant; then brightening up, said, with sudden suavity--"Never mind, sir, never mind, sir; though rogues sometimes be gentlemanly; gentlemen that are gentlemen never go abroad without their diplomas. Their diplomas are their friends; and their only friends are their dollars; you have a purse-full of friends.--We have chambers, sir, that will exactly suit you, I think. Bring your ladies and I will show you up to them immediately." So saying, dropping his brush, the very intelligent-looking man lighted one lamp, and taking two unlighted ones in his other hand, led the way down the dusky lead-sheeted hall, Pierre following him with Isabel and Delly. BOOK XVII. YOUNG AMERICA IN LITERATURE. I. Among the various conflicting modes of writing history, there would seem to be two grand practical distinctions, under which all the rest must subordinately range. By the one mode, all contemporaneous circumstances, facts, and events must be set down contemporaneously; by the other, they are only to be set down as the general stream of the narrative shall dictate; for matters which are kindred in time, may be very irrelative in themselves. I elect neither of these; I am careless of either; both are well enough in their way; I write precisely as I please. In the earlier chapters of this volume, it has somewhere been passingly intimated, that Pierre was not only a reader of the poets and other fine writers, but likewise--and what is a very different thing from the other--a thorough allegorical understander of them, a profound emotional sympathizer with them; in other words, Pierre himself possessed the poetic nature; in himself absolutely, though but latently and floatingly, possessed every whit of the imaginative wealth which he so admired, when by vast pains-takings, and all manner of unrecompensed agonies, systematized on the printed page. Not that as yet his young and immature soul had been accosted by the Wonderful Mutes, and through the vast halls of Silent Truth, had been ushered into the full, secret, eternally inviolable Sanhedrim, where the Poetic Magi discuss, in glorious gibberish, the Alpha and Omega of the Universe. But among the beautiful imaginings of the second and third degree of poets, he freely and comprehendingly ranged. But it still remains to be said, that Pierre himself had written many a fugitive thing, which had brought him, not only vast credit and compliments from his more immediate acquaintances, but the less partial applauses of the always intelligent, and extremely discriminating public. In short, Pierre had frequently done that, which many other boys have done--published. Not in the imposing form of a book, but in the more modest and becoming way of occasional contributions to magazines and other polite periodicals. His magnificent and victorious _debut_ had been made in that delightful love-sonnet, entitled "The Tropical Summer." Not only the public had applauded his gemmed little sketches of thought and fancy, whether in poetry or prose; but the high and mighty Campbell clan of editors of all sorts had bestowed upon him those generous commendations, which, with one instantaneous glance, they had immediately perceived was his due. They spoke in high terms of his surprising command of language; they begged to express their wonder at his euphonious construction of sentences; they regarded with reverence the pervading symmetry of his general style. But transcending even this profound insight into the deep merits of Pierre, they looked infinitely beyond, and confessed their complete inability to restrain their unqualified admiration for the highly judicious smoothness and genteelness of the sentiments and fancies expressed. "This writer," said one,--in an ungovernable burst of admiring fury--"is characterized throughout by Perfect Taste." Another, after endorsingly quoting that sapient, suppressed maxim of Dr. Goldsmith's, which asserts that whatever is new is false, went on to apply it to the excellent productions before him; concluding with this: "He has translated the unruffled gentleman from the drawing-room into the general levee of letters; he never permits himself to astonish; is never betrayed into any thing coarse or new; as assured that whatever astonishes is vulgar, and whatever is new must be crude. Yes, it is the glory of this admirable young author, that vulgarity and vigor--two inseparable adjuncts--are equally removed from him." A third, perorated a long and beautifully written review, by the bold and startling announcement--"This writer is unquestionably a highly respectable youth." Nor had the editors of various moral and religious periodicals failed to render the tribute of their severer appreciation, and more enviable, because more chary applause. A renowned clerical and philological conductor of a weekly publication of this kind, whose surprising proficiency in the Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldaic, to which he had devoted by far the greater part of his life, peculiarly fitted him to pronounce unerring judgment upon works of taste in the English, had unhesitatingly delivered himself thus:--"He is blameless in morals, and harmless throughout." Another, had unhesitatingly recommended his effusions to the family-circle. A third, had no reserve in saying, that the predominant end and aim of this author was evangelical piety. A mind less naturally strong than Pierre's might well have been hurried into vast self-complacency, by such eulogy as this, especially as there could be no possible doubt, that the primitive verdict pronounced by the editors was irreversible, except in the highly improbable event of the near approach of the Millennium, which might establish a different dynasty of taste, and possibly eject the editors. It is true, that in view of the general practical vagueness of these panegyrics, and the circumstance that, in essence, they were all somehow of the prudently indecisive sort; and, considering that they were panegyrics, and nothing but panegyrics, without any thing analytical about them; an elderly friend of a literary turn, had made bold to say to our hero--"Pierre, this is very high praise, I grant, and you are a surprisingly young author to receive it; but I do not see any criticisms as yet." "Criticisms?" cried Pierre, in amazement; "why, sir, they are all criticisms! I am the idol of the critics!" "Ah!" sighed the elderly friend, as if suddenly reminded that that was true after all--"Ah!" and went on with his inoffensive, non-committal cigar. Nevertheless, thanks to the editors, such at last became the popular literary enthusiasm in behalf of Pierre, that two young men, recently abandoning the ignoble pursuit of tailoring for the more honorable trade of the publisher (probably with an economical view of working up in books, the linen and cotton shreds of the cutter's counter, after having been subjected to the action of the paper-mill), had on the daintiest scolloped-edged paper, and in the neatest possible, and fine-needle-work hand, addressed him a letter, couched in the following terms; the general style of which letter will sufficiently evince that, though--thanks to the manufacturer--their linen and cotton shreds may have been very completely transmuted into paper, yet the cutters themselves were not yet entirely out of the metamorphosing mill. "Hon. Pierre Glendinning, "Revered Sir, "The fine cut, the judicious fit of your productions fill us with amazement. The fabric is excellent--the finest broadcloth of genius. We have just started in business. Your pantaloons--productions, we mean--have never yet been collected. They should be published in the Library form. The tailors--we mean the librarians, demand it. Your fame is now in its finest nap. Now--before the gloss is off--now is the time for the library form. We have recently received an invoice of Chamois---- Russia leather. The library form should be a durable form. We respectfully offer to dress your amazing productions in the library form. If you please, we will transmit you a sample of the cloth---- we mean a sample-page, with a pattern of the leather. We are ready to give you one tenth of the profits (less discount) for the privilege of arraying your wonderful productions in the library form:--you cashing the seamstresses'---- printer's and binder's bills on the day of publication. An answer at your earliest convenience will greatly oblige,-- "Sir, your most obsequious servants, "WONDER & WEN." "P. S.--We respectfully submit the enclosed block---- sheet, as some earnest of our intentions to do every thing in your behalf possible to any firm in the trade. "N. B.--If the list does not comprise all your illustrious wardrobe---- works, we mean----, we shall exceedingly regret it. We have hunted through all the drawers---- magazines. "Sample of a coat---- title for the works of Glendinning: THE COMPLETE WORKS OF GLENDINNING, AUTHOR OF _That world-famed production_, "_The Tropical Summer: a Sonnet._" "_The Weather: a Thought._" "_Life: an Impromptu._" "_The late Reverend Mark Graceman: an Obituary._" "_Honor: a Stanza._" "_Beauty: an Acrostic._" "_Edgar: an Anagram._" "_The Pippin: a Paragraph._" _&c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c._" P From a designer, Pierre had received the following: "Sir: I approach you with unfeigned trepidation. For though you are young in age, you are old in fame and ability. I can not express to you my ardent admiration of your works; nor can I but deeply regret that the productions of such graphic descriptive power, should be unaccompanied by the humbler illustrative labors of the designer. My services in this line are entirely at your command. I need not say how proud I should be, if this hint, on my part, however presuming, should induce you to reply in terms upon which I could found the hope of honoring myself and my profession by a few designs for the works of the illustrious Glendinning. But the cursory mention of your name here fills me with such swelling emotions, that I can say nothing more. I would only add, however, that not being at all connected with the Trade, my business situation unpleasantly forces me to make cash down on delivery of each design, the basis of all my professional arrangements. Your noble soul, however, would disdain to suppose, that this sordid necessity, in my merely business concerns, could ever impair---- "That profound private veneration and admiration With which I unmercenarily am, Great and good Glendinning, Yours most humbly, PETER PENCE." II. These were stirring letters. The Library Form! an Illustrated Edition! His whole heart swelled. But unfortunately it occurred to Pierre, that as all his writings were not only fugitive, but if put together could not possibly fill more than a very small duodecimo; therefore the Library Edition seemed a little premature, perhaps; possibly, in a slight degree, preposterous. Then, as they were chiefly made up of little sonnets, brief meditative poems, and moral essays, the matter for the designer ran some small risk of being but meager. In his inexperience, he did not know that such was the great height of invention to which the designer's art had been carried, that certain gentlemen of that profession had gone to an eminent publishing-house with overtures for an illustrated edition of "Coke upon Lyttleton." Even the City Directory was beautifully illustrated with exquisite engravings of bricks, tongs, and flat-irons. Concerning the draught for the title-page, it must be confessed, that on seeing the imposing enumeration of his titles--long and magnificent as those preceding the proclamations of some German Prince ("_Hereditary Lord of the back-yard of Crantz Jacobi; Undoubted Proprietor by Seizure of the bedstead of the late Widow Van Lorn; Heir Apparent to the Bankrupt Bakery of Fletz and Flitz; Residuary Legatee of the Confiscated Pin-Money of the Late Dowager Dunker; &c. &c. &c._") Pierre could not entirely repress a momentary feeling of elation. Yet did he also bow low under the weight of his own ponderosity, as the author of such a vast load of literature. It occasioned him some slight misgivings, however, when he considered, that already in his eighteenth year, his title-page should so immensely surpass in voluminous statisticals the simple page, which in his father's edition prefixed the vast speculations of Plato. Still, he comforted himself with the thought, that as he could not presume to interfere with the bill-stickers of the Gazelle Magazine, who every month covered the walls of the city with gigantic announcements of his name among the other contributors; so neither could he now--in the highly improbable event of closing with the offer of Messrs. Wonder and Wen--presume to interfere with the bill-sticking department of their business concern; for it was plain that they esteemed one's title-page but another unwindowed wall, infinitely more available than most walls, since here was at least one spot in the city where no rival bill-stickers dared to encroach. Nevertheless, resolved as he was to let all such bill-sticking matters take care of themselves, he was sensible of some coy inclination toward that modest method of certain kid-gloved and dainty authors, who scorning the vulgarity of a sounding parade, contented themselves with simply subscribing their name to the title-page; as confident, that that was sufficient guarantee to the notice of all true gentlemen of taste. It was for petty German princes to sound their prolonged titular flourishes. The Czar of Russia contented himself with putting the simple word "NICHOLAS" to his loftiest decrees. This train of thought terminated at last in various considerations upon the subject of anonymousness in authorship. He regretted that he had not started his literary career under that mask. At present, it might be too late; already the whole universe knew him, and it was in vain at this late day to attempt to hood himself. But when he considered the essential dignity and propriety at all points, of the inviolably anonymous method, he could not but feel the sincerest sympathy for those unfortunate fellows, who, not only naturally averse to any sort of publicity, but progressively ashamed of their own successive productions--written chiefly for the merest cash--were yet cruelly coerced into sounding title-pages by sundry baker's and butcher's bills, and other financial considerations; inasmuch as the placard of the title-page indubitably must assist the publisher in his sales. But perhaps the ruling, though not altogether conscious motive of Pierre in finally declining--as he did--the services of Messrs. Wonder and Wen, those eager applicants for the privilege of extending and solidifying his fame, arose from the idea that being at this time not very far advanced in years, the probability was, that his future productions might at least equal, if not surpass, in some small degree, those already given to the world. He resolved to wait for his literary canonization until he should at least have outgrown the sophomorean insinuation of the Law; which, with a singular affectation of benignity, pronounced him an "infant." His modesty obscured from him the circumstance, that the greatest lettered celebrities of the time, had, by the divine power of genius, become full graduates in the University of Fame, while yet as legal minors forced to go to their mammas for pennies wherewith to keep them in peanuts. Not seldom Pierre's social placidity was ruffled by polite entreaties from the young ladies that he would be pleased to grace their Albums with some nice little song. We say that here his social placidity was ruffled; for the true charm of agreeable parlor society is, that there you lose your own sharp individuality and become delightfully merged in that soft social Pantheism, as it were, that rosy melting of all into one, ever prevailing in those drawing-rooms, which pacifically and deliciously belie their own name; inasmuch as there no one draws the sword of his own individuality, but all such ugly weapons are left--as of old--with your hat and cane in the hall. It was very awkward to decline the albums; but somehow it was still worse, and peculiarly distasteful for Pierre to comply. With equal justice apparently, you might either have called this his weakness or his idiosyncrasy. He summoned all his suavity, and refused. And the refusal of Pierre--according to Miss Angelica Amabilia of Ambleside--was sweeter than the compliance of others. But then--prior to the proffer of her album--in a copse at Ambleside, Pierre in a gallant whim had in the lady's own presence voluntarily carved Miss Angelica's initials upon the bark of a beautiful maple. But all young ladies are not Miss Angelicas. Blandly denied in the parlor, they courted repulse in the study. In lovely envelopes they dispatched their albums to Pierre, not omitting to drop a little attar-of-rose in the palm of the domestic who carried them. While now Pierre--pushed to the wall in his gallantry--shilly-shallied as to what he must do, the awaiting albums multiplied upon him; and by-and-by monopolized an entire shelf in his chamber; so that while their combined ornate bindings fairly dazzled his eyes, their excessive redolence all but made him to faint, though indeed, in moderation, he was very partial to perfumes. So that of really chilly afternoons, he was still obliged to drop the upper sashes a few inches. The simplest of all things it is to write in a lady's album. But Cui Bono? Is there such a dearth of printed reading, that the monkish times must be revived, and ladies books be in manuscript? What could Pierre write of his own on Love or any thing else, that would surpass what divine Hafiz wrote so many long centuries ago? Was there not Anacreon too, and Catullus, and Ovid--all translated, and readily accessible? And then--bless all their souls!--had the dear creatures forgotten Tom Moore? But the handwriting, Pierre,--they want the sight of your hand. Well, thought Pierre, actual feeling is better than transmitted sight, any day. I will give them the actual feeling of my hand, as much as they want. And lips are still better than hands. Let them send their sweet faces to me, and I will kiss _lipographs_ upon them forever and a day. This was a felicitous idea. He called Dates, and had the albums carried down by the basket-full into the dining-room. He opened and spread them all out upon the extension-table there; then, modeling himself by the Pope, when His Holiness collectively blesses long crates of rosaries--he waved one devout kiss to the albums; and summoning three servants sent the albums all home, with his best compliments, accompanied with a confectioner's _kiss_ for each album, rolled up in the most ethereal tissue. From various quarters of the land, both town and country, and especially during the preliminary season of autumn, Pierre received various pressing invitations to lecture before Lyceums, Young Men's Associations, and other Literary and Scientific Societies. The letters conveying these invitations possessed quite an imposing and most flattering aspect to the unsophisticated Pierre. One was as follows:-- "_Urquhartian Club for the Immediate Extension of the Limits of all Knowledge, both Human and Divine._ "ZADOCKPRATTSVILLE, "_June 11th, 18--_. "_Author of the 'Tropical Summer,' &c._ "HONORED AND DEAR SIR:-- "Official duty and private inclination in this present case most delightfully blend. What was the ardent desire of my heart, has now by the action of the _Committee on Lectures_ become professionally obligatory upon me. As Chairman of our _Committee on Lectures_, I hereby beg the privilege of entreating that you will honor this Society by lecturing before it on any subject you may choose, and at any day most convenient to yourself. The subject of Human Destiny we would respectfully suggest, without however at all wishing to impede you in your own unbiased selection. "If you honor us by complying with this invitation, be assured, sir, that the Committee on Lectures will take the best care of you throughout your stay, and endeavor to make Zadockprattsville agreeable to you. A carriage will be in attendance at the Stage-house to convey yourself and luggage to the Inn, under full escort of the _Committee on Lectures_, with the Chairman at their head. "Permit me to join my private homage To my high official consideration for you, And to subscribe myself Very humbly your servant, DONALD DUNDONALD." III. But it was more especially the Lecture invitations coming from venerable, gray-headed metropolitan Societies, and indited by venerable gray-headed Secretaries, which far from elating filled the youthful Pierre with the sincerest sense of humility. Lecture? lecture? such a stripling as I lecture to fifty benches, with ten gray heads on each? five hundred gray heads in all! Shall my one, poor, inexperienced brain presume to lay down the law in a lecture to five hundred life-ripened understandings? It seemed too absurd for thought. Yet the five hundred, through their spokesman, had voluntarily extended this identical invitation to him. Then how could it be otherwise, than that an incipient Timonism should slide into Pierre, when he considered all the disgraceful inferences to be derived from such a fact. He called to mind, how that once upon a time, during a visit of his to the city, the police were called out to quell a portentous riot, occasioned by the vast press and contention for seats at the first lecture of an illustrious lad of nineteen, the author of "A Week at Coney Island." It is needless to say that Pierre most conscientiously and respectfully declined all polite overtures of this sort. Similar disenchantments of his cooler judgment did likewise deprive of their full lusciousness several other equally marked demonstrations of his literary celebrity. Applications for autographs showered in upon him; but in sometimes humorously gratifying the more urgent requests of these singular people Pierre could not but feel a pang of regret, that owing to the very youthful and quite unformed character of his handwriting, his signature did not possess that inflexible uniformity, which--for mere prudential reasons, if nothing more--should always mark the hand of illustrious men. His heart thrilled with sympathetic anguish for posterity, which would be certain to stand hopelessly perplexed before so many contradictory signatures of one supereminent name. Alas! posterity would be sure to conclude that they were forgeries all; that no chirographic relic of the sublime poet Glendinning survived to their miserable times. From the proprietors of the Magazines whose pages were honored by his effusions, he received very pressing epistolary solicitations for the loan of his portrait in oil, in order to take an engraving therefrom, for a frontispiece to their periodicals. But here again the most melancholy considerations obtruded. It had always been one of the lesser ambitions of Pierre, to sport a flowing beard, which he deemed the most noble corporeal badge of the man, not to speak of the illustrious author. But as yet he was beardless; and no cunning compound of Rowland and Son could force a beard which should arrive at maturity in any reasonable time for the frontispiece. Besides, his boyish features and whole expression were daily changing. Would he lend his authority to this unprincipled imposture upon Posterity? Honor forbade. These epistolary petitions were generally couched in an elaborately respectful style; thereby intimating with what deep reverence his portrait would be handled, while unavoidably subjected to the discipline indispensable to obtain from it the engraved copy they prayed for. But one or two of the persons who made occasional oral requisitions upon him in this matter of his engraved portrait, seemed less regardful of the inherent respect due to every man's portrait, much more, to that of a genius so celebrated as Pierre. They did not even seem to remember that the portrait of any man generally receives, and indeed is entitled to more reverence than the original man himself; since one may freely clap a celebrated friend on the shoulder, yet would by no means tweak his nose in his portrait. The reason whereof may be this: that the portrait is better entitled to reverence than the man; inasmuch as nothing belittling can be imagined concerning the portrait, whereas many unavoidably belittling things can be fancied as touching the man. Upon one occasion, happening suddenly to encounter a literary acquaintance--a joint editor of the "Captain Kidd Monthly"--who suddenly popped upon him round a corner, Pierre was startled by a rapid--"Good-morning, good-morning;--just the man I wanted:--come, step round now with me, and have your Daguerreotype taken;--get it engraved then in no time;--want it for the next issue." So saying, this chief mate of Captain Kidd seized Pierre's arm, and in the most vigorous manner was walking him off, like an officer a pickpocket, when Pierre civilly said--"Pray, sir, hold, if you please, I shall do no such thing."--"Pooh, pooh--must have it--public property--come along--only a door or two now."--"Public property!" rejoined Pierre, "that may do very well for the 'Captain Kidd Monthly;'--it's very Captain Kiddish to say so. But I beg to repeat that I do not intend to accede."--"Don't? Really?" cried the other, amazedly staring Pierre full in the countenance;--"why bless your soul, _my_ portrait is published--long ago published!"--"Can't help that, sir"--said Pierre. "Oh! come along, come along," and the chief mate seized him again with the most uncompunctious familiarity by the arm. Though the sweetest-tempered youth in the world when but decently treated, Pierre had an ugly devil in him sometimes, very apt to be evoked by the personal profaneness of gentlemen of the Captain Kidd school of literature. "Look you, my good fellow," said he, submitting to his impartial inspection a determinately double fist,--"drop my arm now--or I'll drop you. To the devil with you and your Daguerreotype!" This incident, suggestive as it was at the time, in the sequel had a surprising effect upon Pierre. For he considered with what infinite readiness now, the most faithful portrait of any one could be taken by the Daguerreotype, whereas in former times a faithful portrait was only within the power of the moneyed, or mental aristocrats of the earth. How natural then the inference, that instead, as in old times, immortalizing a genius, a portrait now only _dayalized_ a dunce. Besides, when every body has his portrait published, true distinction lies in not having yours published at all. For if you are published along with Tom, Dick, and Harry, and wear a coat of their cut, how then are you distinct from Tom, Dick, and Harry? Therefore, even so miserable a motive as downright personal vanity helped to operate in this matter with Pierre. Some zealous lovers of the general literature of the age, as well as declared devotees to his own great genius, frequently petitioned him for the materials wherewith to frame his biography. They assured him, that life of all things was most insecure. He might feel many years in him yet; time might go lightly by him; but in any sudden and fatal sickness, how would his last hours be embittered by the thought, that he was about to depart forever, leaving the world utterly unprovided with the knowledge of what were the precise texture and hue of the first trowsers he wore. These representations did certainly touch him in a very tender spot, not previously unknown to the schoolmaster. But when Pierre considered, that owing to his extreme youth, his own recollections of the past soon merged into all manner of half-memories and a general vagueness, he could not find it in his conscience to present such materials to the impatient biographers, especially as his chief verifying authority in these matters of his past career, was now eternally departed beyond all human appeal. His excellent nurse Clarissa had been dead four years and more. In vain a young literary friend, the well-known author of two Indexes and one Epic, to whom the subject happened to be mentioned, warmly espoused the cause of the distressed biographers; saying that however unpleasant, one must needs pay the penalty of celebrity; it was no use to stand back; and concluded by taking from the crown of his hat the proof-sheets of his own biography, which, with the most thoughtful consideration for the masses, was shortly to be published in the pamphlet form, price only a shilling. It only the more bewildered and pained him, when still other and less delicate applicants sent him their regularly printed _Biographico-Solicito Circulars_, with his name written in ink; begging him to honor them and the world with a neat draft of his life, including criticisms on his own writings; the printed circular indiscriminately protesting, that undoubtedly he knew more of his own life than any other living man; and that only he who had put together the great works of Glendinning could be fully qualified thoroughly to analyze them, and cast the ultimate judgment upon their remarkable construction. Now, it was under the influence of the humiliating emotions engendered by things like the above; it was when thus haunted by publishers, engravers, editors, critics, autograph-collectors, portrait-fanciers, biographers, and petitioning and remonstrating literary friends of all sorts; it was then, that there stole into the youthful soul of Pierre, melancholy forebodings of the utter unsatisfactoriness of all human fame; since the most ardent profferings of the most martyrizing demonstrations in his behalf,--these he was sorrowfully obliged to turn away. And it may well be believed, that after the wonderful vital world-revelation so suddenly made to Pierre at the Meadows--a revelation which, at moments, in some certain things, fairly Timonized him--he had not failed to clutch with peculiar nervous detestation and contempt that ample parcel, containing the letters of his Biographico and other silly correspondents, which, in a less ferocious hour, he had filed away as curiosities. It was with an almost infernal grin, that he saw that particular heap of rubbish eternally quenched in the fire, and felt that as it was consumed before his eyes, so in his soul was forever killed the last and minutest undeveloped microscopic germ of that most despicable vanity to which those absurd correspondents thought to appeal. BOOK XVIII. PIERRE, AS A JUVENILE AUTHOR, RECONSIDERED. I. Inasmuch as by various indirect intimations much more than ordinary natural genius has been imputed to Pierre, it may have seemed an inconsistency, that only the merest magazine papers should have been thus far the sole productions of his mind. Nor need it be added, that, in the soberest earnest, those papers contained nothing uncommon; indeed--entirely now to drop all irony, if hitherto any thing like that has been indulged in--those fugitive things of Master Pierre's were the veriest common-place. It is true, as I long before said, that Nature at Saddle Meadows had very early been as a benediction to Pierre;--had blown her wind-clarion to him from the blue hills, and murmured melodious secrecies to him by her streams and her woods. But while nature thus very early and very abundantly feeds us, she is very late in tutoring us as to the proper methodization of our diet. Or,--to change the metaphor,--there are immense quarries of fine marble; but how to get it out; how to chisel it; how to construct any temple? Youth must wholly quit, then, the quarry, for awhile; and not only go forth, and get tools to use in the quarry, but must go and thoroughly study architecture. Now the quarry-discoverer is long before the stone-cutter; and the stone-cutter is long before the architect; and the architect is long before the temple; for the temple is the crown of the world. Yes; Pierre was not only very unarchitectural at that time, but Pierre was very young, indeed, at that time. And it is often to be observed, that as in digging for precious metals in the mines, much earthy rubbish has first to be troublesomely handled and thrown out; so, in digging in one's soul for the fine gold of genius, much dullness and common-place is first brought to light. Happy would it be, if the man possessed in himself some receptacle for his own rubbish of this sort: but he is like the occupant of a dwelling, whose refuse can not be clapped into his own cellar, but must be deposited in the street before his own door, for the public functionaries to take care of. No common-place is ever effectually got rid of, except by essentially emptying one's self of it into a book; for once trapped in a book, then the book can be put into the fire, and all will be well. But they are not always put into the fire; and this accounts for the vast majority of miserable books over those of positive merit. Nor will any thoroughly sincere man, who is an author, ever be rash in precisely defining the period, when he has completely ridded himself of his rubbish, and come to the latent gold in his mine. It holds true, in every case, that the wiser a man is, the more misgivings he has on certain points. It is well enough known, that the best productions of the best human intellects, are generally regarded by those intellects as mere immature freshman exercises, wholly worthless in themselves, except as initiatives for entering the great University of God after death. Certain it is, that if any inferences can be drawn from observations of the familiar lives of men of the greatest mark, their finest things, those which become the foolish glory of the world, are not only very poor and inconsiderable to themselves, but often positively distasteful; they would rather not have the book in the room. In minds comparatively inferior as compared with the above, these surmising considerations so sadden and unfit, that they become careless of what they write; go to their desks with discontent, and only remain there--victims to headache, and pain in the back--by the hard constraint of some social necessity. Equally paltry and despicable to them, are the works thus composed; born of unwillingness and the bill of the baker; the rickety offspring of a parent, careless of life herself, and reckless of the germ-life she contains. Let not the short-sighted world for a moment imagine, that any vanity lurks in such minds; only hired to appear on the stage, not voluntarily claiming the public attention; their utmost life-redness and glow is but rouge, washed off in private with bitterest tears; their laugh only rings because it is hollow; and the answering laugh is no laughter to them. There is nothing so slipperily alluring as sadness; we become sad in the first place by having nothing stirring to do; we continue in it, because we have found a snug sofa at last. Even so, it may possibly be, that arrived at this quiet retrospective little episode in the career of my hero--this shallowly expansive embayed Tappan Zee of my otherwise deep-heady Hudson--I too begin to loungingly expand, and wax harmlessly sad and sentimental. Now, what has been hitherto presented in reference to Pierre, concerning rubbish, as in some cases the unavoidable first-fruits of genius, is in no wise contradicted by the fact, that the first published works of many meritorious authors have given mature token of genius; for we do not know how many they previously published to the flames; or privately published in their own brains, and suppressed there as quickly. And in the inferior instances of an immediate literary success, in very young writers, it will be almost invariably observable, that for that instant success they were chiefly indebted to some rich and peculiar experience in life, embodied in a book, which because, for that cause, containing original matter, the author himself, forsooth, is to be considered original; in this way, many very original books, being the product of very unoriginal minds. Indeed, man has only to be but a little circumspect, and away flies the last rag of his vanity. The world is forever babbling of originality; but there never yet was an original man, in the sense intended by the world; the first man himself--who according to the Rabbins was also the first author--not being an original; the only original author being God. Had Milton's been the lot of Caspar Hauser, Milton would have been vacant as he. For though the naked soul of man doth assuredly contain one latent element of intellectual productiveness; yet never was there a child born solely from one parent; the visible world of experience being that procreative thing which impregnates the muses; self-reciprocally efficient hermaphrodites being but a fable. There is infinite nonsense in the world on all of these matters; hence blame me not if I contribute my mite. It is impossible to talk or to write without apparently throwing oneself helplessly open; the Invulnerable Knight wears his visor down. Still, it is pleasant to chat; for it passes the time ere we go to our beds; and speech is farther incited, when like strolling improvisatores of Italy, we are paid for our breath. And we are only too thankful when the gapes of the audience dismiss us with the few ducats we earn. II. It may have been already inferred, that the pecuniary plans of Pierre touching his independent means of support in the city were based upon his presumed literary capabilities. For what else could he do? He knew no profession, no trade. Glad now perhaps might he have been, if Fate had made him a blacksmith, and not a gentleman, a Glendinning, and a genius. But here he would have been unpardonably rash, had he not already, in some degree, actually tested the fact, in his own personal experience, that it is not altogether impossible for a magazine contributor to Juvenile American literature to receive a few pence in exchange for his ditties. Such cases stand upon imperishable record, and it were both folly and ingratitude to disown them. But since the fine social position and noble patrimony of Pierre, had thus far rendered it altogether unnecessary for him to earn the least farthing of his own in the world, whether by hand or by brain; it may seem desirable to explain a little here as we go. We shall do so, but always including, the preamble. Sometimes every possible maxim or thought seems an old one; yet it is among the elder of the things in that unaugmentable stock, that never mind what one's situation may be, however prosperous and happy, he will still be impatient of it; he will still reach out of himself, and beyond every present condition. So, while many a poor be-inked galley-slave, toiling with the heavy oar of a quill, to gain something wherewithal to stave off the cravings of nature; and in his hours of morbid self-reproach, regarding his paltry wages, at all events, as an unavoidable disgrace to him; while this galley-slave of letters would have leaped with delight--reckless of the feeble seams of his pantaloons--at the most distant prospect of inheriting the broad farms of Saddle Meadows, lord of an all-sufficing income, and forever exempt from wearing on his hands those treacherous plague-spots of indigence--videlicet, blots from the inkstand;--Pierre himself, the undoubted and actual possessor of the things only longingly and hopelessly imagined by the other; the then top of Pierre's worldly ambition, was the being able to boast that he had written such matters as publishers would pay something for in the way of a mere business transaction, which they thought would prove profitable. Yet altogether weak and silly as this may seem in Pierre, let us preambillically examine a little further, and see if it be so indeed. Pierre was proud; and a proud man--proud with the sort of pride now meant--ever holds but lightly those things, however beneficent, which he did not for himself procure. Were such pride carried out to its legitimate end, the man would eat no bread, the seeds whereof he had not himself put into the soil, not entirely without humiliation, that even that seed must be borrowed from some previous planter. A proud man likes to feel himself in himself, and not by reflection in others. He likes to be not only his own Alpha and Omega, but to be distinctly all the intermediate gradations, and then to slope off on his own spine either way, into the endless impalpable ether. What a glory it was then to Pierre, when first in his two gentlemanly hands he jingled the wages of labor! Talk of drums and the fife; the echo of coin of one's own earning is more inspiring than all the trumpets of Sparta. How disdainfully now he eyed the sumptuousness of his hereditary halls--the hangings, and the pictures, and the bragging historic armorials and the banners of the Glendinning renown; confident, that if need should come, he would not be forced to turn resurrectionist, and dig up his grandfather's Indian-chief grave for the ancestral sword and shield, ignominiously to pawn them for a living! He could live on himself. Oh, twice-blessed now, in the feeling of practical capacity, was Pierre. The mechanic, the day-laborer, has but one way to live; his body must provide for his body. But not only could Pierre in some sort, do that; he could do the other; and letting his body stay lazily at home, send off his soul to labor, and his soul would come faithfully back and pay his body her wages. So, some unprofessional gentlemen of the aristocratic South, who happen to own slaves, give those slaves liberty to go and seek work, and every night return with their wages, which constitute those idle gentlemen's income. Both ambidexter and quadruple-armed is that man, who in a day-laborer's body, possesses a day-laboring soul. Yet let not such an one be over-confident. Our God is a jealous God; He wills not that any man should permanently possess the least shadow of His own self-sufficient attributes. Yoke the body to the soul, and put both to the plough, and the one or the other must in the end assuredly drop in the furrow. Keep, then, thy body effeminate for labor, and thy soul laboriously robust; or else thy soul effeminate for labor, and thy body laboriously robust. Elect! the two will not lastingly abide in one yoke. Thus over the most vigorous and soaring conceits, doth the cloud of Truth come stealing; thus doth the shot, even of a sixty-two-pounder pointed upward, light at last on the earth; for strive we how we may, we can not overshoot the earth's orbit, to receive the attractions of other planets; Earth's law of gravitation extends far beyond her own atmosphere. In the operative opinion of this world, he who is already fully provided with what is necessary for him, that man shall have more; while he who is deplorably destitute of the same, he shall have taken away from him even that which he hath. Yet the world vows it is a very plain, downright matter-of-fact, plodding, humane sort of world. It is governed only by the simplest principles, and scorns all ambiguities, all transcendentals, and all manner of juggling. Now some imaginatively heterodoxical men are often surprisingly twitted upon their willful inverting of all common-sense notions, their absurd and all-displacing transcendentals, which say three is four, and two and two make ten. But if the eminent Jugglarius himself ever advocated in mere words a doctrine one thousandth part so ridiculous and subversive of all practical sense, as that doctrine which the world actually and eternally practices, of giving unto him who already hath more than enough, still more of the superfluous article, and taking away from him who hath nothing at all, even that which he hath,--then is the truest book in the world a lie. Wherefore we see that the so-called Transcendentalists are not the only people who deal in Transcendentals. On the contrary, we seem to see that the Utilitarians,--the every-day world's people themselves, far transcend those inferior Transcendentalists by their own incomprehensible worldly maxims. And--what is vastly more--with the one party, their Transcendentals are but theoretic and inactive, and therefore harmless; whereas with the other, they are actually clothed in living deeds. The highly graveling doctrine and practice of the world, above cited, had in some small degree been manifested in the case of Pierre. He prospectively possessed the fee of several hundred farms scattered over part of two adjoining counties; and now the proprietor of that popular periodical, the Gazelle Magazine, sent him several additional dollars for his sonnets. That proprietor (though in sooth, he never read the sonnets, but referred them to his professional adviser; and was so ignorant, that, for a long time previous to the periodical's actually being started, he insisted upon spelling the Gazelle with a _g_ for the _z_, as thus: _Gagelle_; maintaining, that in the Gazelle connection, the _z_ was a mere impostor, and that the _g_ was soft; for he was a judge of softness, and could speak from experience); that proprietor was undoubtedly a Transcendentalist; for did he not act upon the Transcendental doctrine previously set forth? Now, the dollars derived from his ditties, these Pierre had always invested in cigars; so that the puffs which indirectly brought him his dollars were again returned, but as perfumed puffs; perfumed with the sweet leaf of Havanna. So that this highly-celebrated and world-renowned Pierre--the great author--whose likeness the world had never seen (for had he not repeatedly refused the world his likeness?), this famous poet, and philosopher, author of "_The Tropical Summer: a Sonnet_;" against whose very life several desperadoes were darkly plotting (for had not the biographers sworn they would have it!); this towering celebrity--there he would sit smoking, and smoking, mild and self-festooned as a vapory mountain. It was very involuntarily and satisfactorily reciprocal. His cigars were lighted in two ways: lighted by the sale of his sonnets, and lighted by the printed sonnets themselves. For even at that early time in his authorial life, Pierre, however vain of his fame, was not at all proud of his paper. Not only did he make allumettes of his sonnets when published, but was very careless about his discarded manuscripts; they were to be found lying all round the house; gave a great deal of trouble to the housemaids in sweeping; went for kindlings to the fires; and were forever flitting out of the windows, and under the door-sills, into the faces of people passing the manorial mansion. In this reckless, indifferent way of his, Pierre himself was a sort of publisher. It is true his more familiar admirers often earnestly remonstrated with him, against this irreverence to the primitive vestments of his immortal productions; saying, that whatever had once felt the nib of his mighty pen, was thenceforth sacred as the lips which had but once saluted the great toe of the Pope. But hardened as he was to these friendly censurings, Pierre never forbade that ardent appreciation of "The Tear," who, finding a small fragment of the original manuscript containing a dot (_tear_), over an _i_ (_eye_), esteemed the significant event providential; and begged the distinguished favor of being permitted to have it for a brooch; and ousted a cameo-head of Homer, to replace it with the more invaluable gem. He became inconsolable, when being caught in a rain, the dot (_tear_) disappeared from over the _i_ (_eye_); so that the strangeness and wonderfulness of the sonnet was still conspicuous; in that though the least fragment of it could weep in a drought, yet did it become all tearless in a shower. But this indifferent and supercilious amateur--deaf to the admiration of the world; the enigmatically merry and renowned author of "The Tear;" the pride of the Gazelle Magazine, on whose flaunting cover his name figured at the head of all contributors--(no small men either; for their lives had all been fraternally written by each other, and they had clubbed, and had their likenesses all taken by the aggregate job, and published on paper, all bought at one shop) this high-prestiged Pierre--whose future popularity and voluminousness had become so startlingly announced by what he had already written, that certain speculators came to the Meadows to survey its water-power, if any, with a view to start a paper-mill expressly for the great author, and so monopolize his stationery dealings;--this vast being,--spoken of with awe by all merely youthful aspirants for fame; this age-neutralizing Pierre;--before whom an old gentleman of sixty-five, formerly librarian to Congress, on being introduced to him at the Magazine publishers', devoutly took off his hat, and kept it so, and remained standing, though Pierre was socially seated with his hat on;--this wonderful, disdainful genius--but only life-amateur as yet--is now soon to appear in a far different guise. He shall now learn, and very bitterly learn, that though the world worship Mediocrity and Common Place, yet hath it fire and sword for all cotemporary Grandeur; that though it swears that it fiercely assails all Hypocrisy, yet hath it not always an ear for Earnestness. And though this state of things, united with the ever multiplying freshets of new books, seems inevitably to point to a coming time, when the mass of humanity reduced to one level of dotage, authors shall be scarce as alchymists are to-day, and the printing-press be reckoned a small invention:--yet even now, in the foretaste of this let us hug ourselves, oh, my Aurelian! that though the age of authors be passing, the hours of earnestness shall remain! BOOK XIX. THE CHURCH OF THE APOSTLES. I. In the lower old-fashioned part of the city, in a narrow street--almost a lane--once filled with demure-looking dwellings, but now chiefly with immense lofty warehouses of foreign importers; and not far from the corner where the lane intersected with a very considerable but contracted thoroughfare for merchants and their clerks, and their carmen and porters; stood at this period a rather singular and ancient edifice, a relic of the more primitive time. The material was a grayish stone, rudely cut and masoned into walls of surprising thickness and strength; along two of which walls--the side ones--were distributed as many rows of arched and stately windows. A capacious, square, and wholly unornamented tower rose in front to twice the height of the body of the church; three sides of this tower were pierced with small and narrow apertures. Thus far, in its external aspect, the building--now more than a century old,--sufficiently attested for what purpose it had originally been founded. In its rear, was a large and lofty plain brick structure, with its front to the rearward street, but its back presented to the back of the church, leaving a small, flagged, and quadrangular vacancy between. At the sides of this quadrangle, three stories of homely brick colonnades afforded covered communication between the ancient church, and its less elderly adjunct. A dismantled, rusted, and forlorn old railing of iron fencing in a small courtyard in front of the rearward building, seemed to hint, that the latter had usurped an unoccupied space formerly sacred as the old church's burial inclosure. Such a fancy would have been entirely true. Built when that part of the city was devoted to private residences, and not to warehouses and offices as now, the old Church of the Apostles had had its days of sanctification and grace; but the tide of change and progress had rolled clean through its broad-aisle and side-aisles, and swept by far the greater part of its congregation two or three miles up town. Some stubborn and elderly old merchants and accountants, lingered awhile among its dusty pews, listening to the exhortations of a faithful old pastor, who, sticking to his post in this flight of his congregation, still propped his half-palsied form in the worm-eaten pulpit, and occasionally pounded--though now with less vigorous hand--the moth-eaten covering of its desk. But it came to pass, that this good old clergyman died; and when the gray-headed and bald-headed remaining merchants and accountants followed his coffin out of the broad-aisle to see it reverently interred; then that was the last time that ever the old edifice witnessed the departure of a regular worshiping assembly from its walls. The venerable merchants and accountants held a meeting, at which it was finally decided, that, hard and unwelcome as the necessity might be, yet it was now no use to disguise the fact, that the building could no longer be efficiently devoted to its primitive purpose. It must be divided into stores; cut into offices; and given for a roost to the gregarious lawyers. This intention was executed, even to the making offices high up in the tower; and so well did the thing succeed, that ultimately the church-yard was invaded for a supplemental edifice, likewise to be promiscuously rented to the legal crowd. But this new building very much exceeded the body of the church in height. It was some seven stories; a fearful pile of Titanic bricks, lifting its tiled roof almost to a level with the top of the sacred tower. In this ambitious erection the proprietors went a few steps, or rather a few stories, too far. For as people would seldom willingly fall into legal altercations unless the lawyers were always very handy to help them; so it is ever an object with lawyers to have their offices as convenient as feasible to the street; on the ground-floor, if possible, without a single acclivity of a step; but at any rate not in the seventh story of any house, where their clients might be deterred from employing them at all, if they were compelled to mount seven long flights of stairs, one over the other, with very brief landings, in order even to pay their preliminary retaining fees. So, from some time after its throwing open, the upper stories of the less ancient attached edifice remained almost wholly without occupants; and by the forlorn echoes of their vacuities, right over the head of the business-thriving legal gentlemen below, must--to some few of them at least--have suggested unwelcome similitudes, having reference to the crowded state of their basement-pockets, as compared with the melancholy condition of their attics;--alas! full purses and empty heads! This dreary posture of affairs, however, was at last much altered for the better, by the gradual filling up of the vacant chambers on high, by scores of those miscellaneous, bread-and-cheese adventurers, and ambiguously professional nondescripts in very genteel but shabby black, and unaccountable foreign-looking fellows in blue spectacles; who, previously issuing from unknown parts of the world, like storks in Holland, light on the eaves, and in the attics of lofty old buildings in most large sea-port towns. Here they sit and talk like magpies; or descending in quest of improbable dinners, are to be seen drawn up along the curb in front of the eating-houses, like lean rows of broken-hearted pelicans on a beach; their pockets loose, hanging down and flabby, like the pelican's pouches when fish are hard to be caught. But these poor, penniless devils still strive to make ample amends for their physical forlornness, by resolutely reveling in the region of blissful ideals. They are mostly artists of various sorts; painters, or sculptors, or indigent students, or teachers of languages, or poets, or fugitive French politicians, or German philosophers. Their mental tendencies, however heterodox at times, are still very fine and spiritual upon the whole; since the vacuity of their exchequers leads them to reject the coarse materialism of Hobbs, and incline to the airy exaltations of the Berkelyan philosophy. Often groping in vain in their pockets, they can not but give in to the Descartian vortices; while the abundance of leisure in their attics (physical and figurative), unite with the leisure in their stomachs, to fit them in an eminent degree for that undivided attention indispensable to the proper digesting of the sublimated Categories of Kant; especially as Kant (can't) is the one great palpable fact in their pervadingly impalpable lives. These are the glorious paupers, from whom I learn the profoundest mysteries of things; since their very existence in the midst of such a terrible precariousness of the commonest means of support, affords a problem on which many speculative nutcrackers have been vainly employed. Yet let me here offer up three locks of my hair, to the memory of all such glorious paupers who have lived and died in this world. Surely, and truly I honor them--noble men often at bottom--and for that very reason I make bold to be gamesome about them; for where fundamental nobleness is, and fundamental honor is due, merriment is never accounted irreverent. The fools and pretenders of humanity, and the impostors and baboons among the gods, these only are offended with raillery; since both those gods and men whose titles to eminence are secure, seldom worry themselves about the seditious gossip of old apple-women, and the skylarkings of funny little boys in the street. When the substance is gone, men cling to the shadow. Places once set apart to lofty purposes, still retain the name of that loftiness, even when converted to the meanest uses. It would seem, as if forced by imperative Fate to renounce the reality of the romantic and lofty, the people of the present would fain make a compromise by retaining some purely imaginative remainder. The curious effects of this tendency is oftenest evinced in those venerable countries of the old transatlantic world; where still over the Thames one bridge yet retains the monastic tide of Blackfriars; though not a single Black Friar, but many a pickpocket, has stood on that bank since a good ways beyond the days of Queen Bess; where still innumerable other historic anomalies sweetly and sadly remind the present man of the wonderful procession that preceded him in his new generation. Nor--though the comparative recentness of our own foundation upon these Columbian shores, excludes any considerable participation in these attractive anomalies,--yet are we not altogether, in our more elderly towns, wholly without some touch of them, here and there. It was thus with the ancient Church of the Apostles--better known, even in its primitive day, under the abbreviative of The Apostles--which, though now converted from its original purpose to one so widely contrasting, yet still retained its majestical name. The lawyer or artist tenanting its chambers, whether in the new building or the old, when asked where he was to be found, invariably replied,--_At the Apostles'_. But because now, at last, in the course of the inevitable transplantations of the more notable localities of the various professions in a thriving and amplifying town, the venerable spot offered not such inducements as before to the legal gentlemen; and as the strange nondescript adventurers and artists, and indigent philosophers of all sorts, crowded in as fast as the others left; therefore, in reference to the metaphysical strangeness of these curious inhabitants, and owing in some sort to the circumstance, that several of them were well-known Teleological Theorists, and Social Reformers, and political propagandists of all manner of heterodoxical tenets; therefore, I say, and partly, peradventure, from some slight waggishness in the public; the immemorial popular name of the ancient church itself was participatingly transferred to the dwellers therein. So it came to pass, that in the general fashion of the day, he who had chambers in the old church was familiarly styled an _Apostle_. But as every effect is but the cause of another and a subsequent one, so it now happened that finding themselves thus clannishly, and not altogether infelicitously entitled, the occupants of the venerable church began to come together out of their various dens, in more social communion; attracted toward each other by a title common to all. By-and-by, from this, they went further; and insensibly, at last became organized in a peculiar society, which, though exceedingly inconspicuous, and hardly perceptible in its public demonstrations, was still secretly suspected to have some mysterious ulterior object, vaguely connected with the absolute overturning of Church and State, and the hasty and premature advance of some unknown great political and religious Millennium. Still, though some zealous conservatives and devotees of morals, several times left warning at the police-office, to keep a wary eye on the old church; and though, indeed, sometimes an officer would look up inquiringly at the suspicious narrow window-slits in the lofty tower; yet, to say the truth, was the place, to all appearance, a very quiet and decorous one, and its occupants a company of harmless people, whose greatest reproach was efflorescent coats and crack-crowned hats all podding in the sun. Though in the middle of the day many bales and boxes would be trundled along the stores in front of the Apostles'; and along its critically narrow sidewalk, the merchants would now and then hurry to meet their checks ere the banks should close: yet the street, being mostly devoted to mere warehousing purposes, and not used as a general thoroughfare, it was at all times a rather secluded and silent place. But from an hour or two before sundown to ten or eleven o'clock the next morning, it was remarkably silent and depopulated, except by the Apostles themselves; while every Sunday it presented an aspect of surprising and startling quiescence; showing nothing but one long vista of six or seven stories of inexorable iron shutters on both sides of the way. It was pretty much the same with the other street, which, as before said, intersected with the warehousing lane, not very far from the Apostles'. For though that street was indeed a different one from the latter, being full of cheap refectories for clerks, foreign restaurants, and other places of commercial resort; yet the only hum in it was restricted to business hours; by night it was deserted of every occupant but the lamp-posts; and on Sunday, to walk through it, was like walking through an avenue of sphinxes. Such, then, was the present condition of the ancient Church of the Apostles; buzzing with a few lingering, equivocal lawyers in the basement, and populous with all sorts of poets, painters, paupers and philosophers above. A mysterious professor of the flute was perched in one of the upper stories of the tower; and often, of silent, moonlight nights, his lofty, melodious notes would be warbled forth over the roofs of the ten thousand warehouses around him--as of yore, the bell had pealed over the domestic gables of a long-departed generation. II. On the third night following the arrival of the party in the city, Pierre sat at twilight by a lofty window in the rear building of the Apostles'. The chamber was meager even to meanness. No carpet on the floor, no picture on the wall; nothing but a low, long, and very curious-looking single bedstead, that might possibly serve for an indigent bachelor's pallet, a large, blue, chintz-covered chest, a rickety, rheumatic, and most ancient mahogany chair, and a wide board of the toughest live-oak, about six feet long, laid upon two upright empty flour-barrels, and loaded with a large bottle of ink, an unfastened bundle of quills, a pen-knife, a folder, and a still unbound ream of foolscap paper, significantly stamped, "Ruled; Blue." There, on the third night, at twilight, sat Pierre by that lofty window of a beggarly room in the rear-building of the Apostles'. He was entirely idle, apparently; there was nothing in his hands; but there might have been something on his heart. Now and then he fixedly gazes at the curious-looking, rusty old bedstead. It seemed powerfully symbolical to him; and most symbolical it was. For it was the ancient dismemberable and portable camp-bedstead of his grandfather, the defiant defender of the Fort, the valiant captain in many an unsuccumbing campaign. On that very camp-bedstead, there, beneath his tent on the field, the glorious old mild-eyed and warrior-hearted general had slept, and but waked to buckle his knight-making sword by his side; for it was noble knighthood to be slain by grand Pierre; in the other world his foes' ghosts bragged of the hand that had given them their passports. But has that hard bed of War, descended for an inheritance to the soft body of Peace? In the peaceful time of full barns, and when the noise of the peaceful flail is abroad, and the hum of peaceful commerce resounds, is the grandson of two Generals a warrior too? Oh, not for naught, in the time of this seeming peace, are warrior grandsires given to Pierre! For Pierre is a warrior too; Life his campaign, and three fierce allies, Woe and Scorn and Want, his foes. The wide world is banded against him; for lo you! he holds up the standard of Right, and swears by the Eternal and True! But ah, Pierre, Pierre, when thou goest to that bed, how humbling the thought, that thy most extended length measures not the proud six feet four of thy grand John of Gaunt sire! The stature of the warrior is cut down to the dwindled glory of the fight. For more glorious in real tented field to strike down your valiant foe, than in the conflicts of a noble soul with a dastardly world to chase a vile enemy who ne'er will show front. There, then, on the third night, at twilight, by the lofty window of that beggarly room, sat Pierre in the rear building of the Apostles'. He is gazing out from the window now. But except the donjon form of the old gray tower, seemingly there is nothing to see but a wilderness of tiles, slate, shingles, and tin;--the desolate hanging wildernesses of tiles, slate, shingles and tin, wherewith we modern Babylonians replace the fair hanging-gardens of the fine old Asiatic times when the excellent Nebuchadnezzar was king. There he sits, a strange exotic, transplanted from the delectable alcoves of the old manorial mansion, to take root in this niggard soil. No more do the sweet purple airs of the hills round about the green fields of Saddle Meadows come revivingly wafted to his cheek. Like a flower he feels the change; his bloom is gone from his cheek; his cheek is wilted and pale. From the lofty window of that beggarly room, what is it that Pierre is so intently eying? There is no street at his feet; like a profound black gulf the open area of the quadrangle gapes beneath him. But across it, and at the further end of the steep roof of the ancient church, there looms the gray and grand old tower; emblem to Pierre of an unshakable fortitude, which, deep-rooted in the heart of the earth, defied all the howls of the air. There is a door in Pierre's room opposite the window of Pierre: and now a soft knock is heard in that direction, accompanied by gentle words, asking whether the speaker might enter. "Yes, always, sweet Isabel"--answered Pierre, rising and approaching the door;--"here: let us drag out the old camp-bed for a sofa; come, sit down now, my sister, and let us fancy ourselves anywhere thou wilt." "Then, my brother, let us fancy ourselves in realms of everlasting twilight and peace, where no bright sun shall rise, because the black night is always its follower. Twilight and peace, my brother, twilight and peace!" "It is twilight now, my sister; and surely, this part of the city at least seems still." "Twilight now, but night soon; then a brief sun, and then another long night. Peace now, but sleep and nothingness soon, and then hard work for thee, my brother, till the sweet twilight come again." "Let us light a candle, my sister; the evening is deepening." "For what light a candle, dear Pierre?--Sit close to me, my brother." He moved nearer to her, and stole one arm around her; her sweet head leaned against his breast; each felt the other's throbbing. "Oh, my dear Pierre, why should we always be longing for peace, and then be impatient of peace when it comes? Tell me, my brother! Not two hours ago, thou wert wishing for twilight, and now thou wantest a candle to hurry the twilight's last lingering away." But Pierre did not seem to hear her; his arm embraced her tighter; his whole frame was invisibly trembling. Then suddenly in a low tone of wonderful intensity he breathed: "Isabel! Isabel!" She caught one arm around him, as his was around herself; the tremor ran from him to her; both sat dumb. He rose, and paced the room. "Well, Pierre; thou camest in here to arrange thy matters, thou saidst. Now what hast thou done? Come, we will light a candle now." The candle was lighted, and their talk went on. "How about the papers, my brother? Dost thou find every thing right? Hast thou decided upon what to publish first, while thou art writing the new thing thou didst hint of?" "Look at that chest, my sister. Seest thou not that the cords are yet untied?" "Then thou hast not been into it at all as yet?" "Not at all, Isabel. In ten days I have lived ten thousand years. Forewarned now of the rubbish in that chest, I can not summon the heart to open it. Trash! Dross! Dirt!" "Pierre! Pierre! what change is this? Didst thou not tell me, ere we came hither, that thy chest not only contained some silver and gold, but likewise far more precious things, readily convertible into silver and gold? Ah, Pierre, thou didst swear we had naught to fear!" "If I have ever willfully deceived thee, Isabel, may the high gods prove Benedict Arnolds to me, and go over to the devils to reinforce them against me! But to have ignorantly deceived myself and thee together, Isabel; that is a very different thing. Oh, what a vile juggler and cheat is man! Isabel, in that chest are things which in the hour of composition, I thought the very heavens looked in from the windows in astonishment at their beauty and power. Then, afterward, when days cooled me down, and again I took them up and scanned them, some underlying suspicions intruded; but when in the open air, I recalled the fresh, unwritten images of the bunglingly written things; then I felt buoyant and triumphant again; as if by that act of ideal recalling, I had, forsooth, transferred the perfect ideal to the miserable written attempt at embodying it. This mood remained. So that afterward how I talked to thee about the wonderful things I had done; the gold and the silver mine I had long before sprung for thee and for me, who never were to come to want in body or mind. Yet all this time, there was the latent suspicion of folly; but I would not admit it; I shut my soul's door in its face. Yet now, the ten thousand universal revealings brand me on the forehead with fool! and like protested notes at the Bankers, all those written things of mine, are jaggingly cut through and through with the protesting hammer of Truth!--Oh, I am sick, sick, sick!" "Let the arms that never were filled but by thee, lure thee back again, Pierre, to the peace of the twilight, even though it be of the dimmest!" She blew out the light, and made Pierre sit down by her; and their hands were placed in each other's. "Say, are not thy torments now gone, my brother?" "But replaced by--by--by--Oh God, Isabel, unhand me!" cried Pierre, starting up. "Ye heavens, that have hidden yourselves in the black hood of the night, I call to ye! If to follow Virtue to her uttermost vista, where common souls never go; if by that I take hold on hell, and the uttermost virtue, after all, prove but a betraying pander to the monstrousest vice,--then close in and crush me, ye stony walls, and into one gulf let all things tumble together!" "My brother! this is some incomprehensible raving," pealed Isabel, throwing both arms around him;--"my brother, my brother!" "Hark thee to thy furthest inland soul"--thrilled Pierre in a steeled and quivering voice. "Call me brother no more! How knowest thou I am thy brother? Did thy mother tell thee? Did my father say so to me?--I am Pierre, and thou Isabel, wide brother and sister in the common humanity,--no more. For the rest, let the gods look after their own combustibles. If they have put powder-casks in me--let them look to it! let them look to it! Ah! now I catch glimpses, and seem to half-see, somehow, that the uttermost ideal of moral perfection in man is wide of the mark. The demigods trample on trash, and Virtue and Vice are trash! Isabel, I will write such things--I will gospelize the world anew, and show them deeper secrets than the Apocalypse!--I will write it, I will write it!" "Pierre, I am a poor girl, born in the midst of a mystery, bred in mystery, and still surviving to mystery. So mysterious myself, the air and the earth are unutterable to me; no word have I to express them. But these are the circumambient mysteries; thy words, thy thoughts, open other wonder-worlds to me, whither by myself I might fear to go. But trust to me, Pierre. With thee, with thee, I would boldly swim a starless sea, and be buoy to thee, there, when thou the strong swimmer shouldst faint. Thou, Pierre, speakest of Virtue and Vice; life-secluded Isabel knows neither the one nor the other, but by hearsay. What are they, in their real selves, Pierre? Tell me first what is Virtue:--begin!" "If on that point the gods are dumb, shall a pigmy speak? Ask the air!" "Then Virtue is nothing." "Not that!" "Then Vice?" "Look: a nothing is the substance, it casts one shadow one way, and another the other way; and these two shadows cast from one nothing; these, seems to me, are Virtue and Vice." "Then why torment thyself so, dearest Pierre?" "It is the law." "What?" "That a nothing should torment a nothing; for I am a nothing. It is all a dream--we dream that we dreamed we dream." "Pierre, when thou just hovered on the verge, thou wert a riddle to me; but now, that thou art deep down in the gulf of the soul,--now, when thou wouldst be lunatic to wise men, perhaps--now doth poor ignorant Isabel begin to comprehend thee. Thy feeling hath long been mine, Pierre. Long loneliness and anguish have opened miracles to me. Yes, it is all a dream!" Swiftly he caught her in his arms:--"From nothing proceeds nothing, Isabel! How can one sin in a dream?" "First what is sin, Pierre?" "Another name for the other name, Isabel." "For Virtue, Pierre?" "No, for Vice." "Let us sit down again, my brother." "I am Pierre." "Let us sit down again, Pierre; sit close; thy arm!" And so, on the third night, when the twilight was gone, and no lamp was lit, within the lofty window of that beggarly room, sat Pierre and Isabel hushed. BOOK XX. CHARLIE MILLTHORPE. I. Pierre had been induced to take chambers at the Apostles', by one of the Apostles themselves, an old acquaintance of his, and a native of Saddle Meadows. Millthorpe was the son of a very respectable farmer--now dead--of more than common intelligence, and whose bowed shoulders and homely garb had still been surmounted by a head fit for a Greek philosopher, and features so fine and regular that they would have well graced an opulent gentleman. The political and social levelings and confoundings of all manner of human elements in America, produce many striking individual anomalies unknown in other lands. Pierre well remembered old farmer Millthorpe:--the handsome, melancholy, calm-tempered, mute, old man; in whose countenance--refinedly ennobled by nature, and yet coarsely tanned and attenuated by many a prolonged day's work in the harvest--rusticity and classicalness were strangely united. The delicate profile of his face, bespoke the loftiest aristocracy; his knobbed and bony hands resembled a beggar's. Though for several generations the Millthorpes had lived on the Glendinning lands, they loosely and unostentatiously traced their origin to an emigrating English Knight, who had crossed the sea in the time of the elder Charles. But that indigence which had prompted the knight to forsake his courtly country for the howling wilderness, was the only remaining hereditament left to his bedwindled descendants in the fourth and fifth remove. At the time that Pierre first recollected this interesting man, he had, a year or two previous, abandoned an ample farm on account of absolute inability to meet the manorial rent, and was become the occupant of a very poor and contracted little place, on which was a small and half-ruinous house. There, he then harbored with his wife,--a very gentle and retiring person,--his three little daughters, and his only son, a lad of Pierre's own age. The hereditary beauty and youthful bloom of this boy; his sweetness of temper, and something of natural refinement as contrasted with the unrelieved rudeness, and oftentimes sordidness, of his neighbors; these things had early attracted the sympathetic, spontaneous friendliness of Pierre. They were often wont to take their boyish rambles together; and even the severely critical Mrs. Glendinning, always fastidiously cautious as to the companions of Pierre, had never objected to his intimacy with so prepossessing and handsome a rustic as Charles. Boys are often very swiftly acute in forming a judgment on character. The lads had not long companioned, ere Pierre concluded, that however fine his face, and sweet his temper, young Millthorpe was but little vigorous in mind; besides possessing a certain constitutional, sophomorean presumption and egotism; which, however, having nothing to feed on but his father's meal and potatoes, and his own essentially timid and humane disposition, merely presented an amusing and harmless, though incurable, anomalous feature in his character, not at all impairing the good-will and companionableness of Pierre; for even in his boyhood, Pierre possessed a sterling charity, which could cheerfully overlook all minor blemishes in his inferiors, whether in fortune or mind; content and glad to embrace the good whenever presented, or with whatever conjoined. So, in youth, do we unconsciously act upon those peculiar principles, which in conscious and verbalized maxims shall systematically regulate our maturer lives;--a fact, which forcibly illustrates the necessitarian dependence of our lives, and their subordination, not to ourselves, but to Fate. If the grown man of taste, possess not only some eye to detect the picturesque in the natural landscape, so also, has he as keen a perception of what may not unfitly be here styled, the _povertiresque_ in the social landscape. To such an one, not more picturesquely conspicuous is the dismantled thatch in a painted cottage of Gainsborough, than the time-tangled and want-thinned locks of a beggar, _povertiresquely_ diversifying those snug little cabinet-pictures of the world, which, exquisitely varnished and framed, are hung up in the drawing-room minds of humane men of taste, and amiable philosophers of either the "Compensation," or "Optimist" school. They deny that any misery is in the world, except for the purpose of throwing the fine _povertiresque_ element into its general picture. Go to! God hath deposited cash in the Bank subject to our gentlemanly order; he hath bounteously blessed the world with a summer carpet of green. Begone, Heraclitus! The lamentations of the rain are but to make us our rainbows! Not that in equivocal reference to the _povertiresque_ old farmer Millthorpe, Pierre is here intended to be hinted at. Still, man can not wholly escape his surroundings. Unconsciously Mrs. Glendinning had always been one of these curious Optimists; and in his boyish life Pierre had not wholly escaped the maternal contagion. Yet often, in calling at the old farmer's for Charles of some early winter mornings, and meeting the painfully embarrassed, thin, feeble features of Mrs. Millthorpe, and the sadly inquisitive and hopelessly half-envious glances of the three little girls; and standing on the threshold, Pierre would catch low, aged, life-weary groans from a recess out of sight from the door; then would Pierre have some boyish inklings of something else than the pure _povertiresque_ in poverty: some inklings of what it might be, to be old, and poor, and worn, and rheumatic, with shivering death drawing nigh, and present life itself but a dull and a chill! some inklings of what it might be, for him who in youth had vivaciously leaped from his bed, impatient to meet the earliest sun, and lose no sweet drop of his life, now hating the beams he once so dearly loved; turning round in his bed to the wall to avoid them; and still postponing the foot which should bring him back to the dismal day; when the sun is not gold, but copper; and the sky is not blue, but gray; and the blood, like Rhenish wine, too long unquaffed by Death, grows thin and sour in the veins. Pierre had not forgotten that the augmented penury of the Millthorpe's was, at the time we now retrospectively treat of, gravely imputed by the gossiping frequenters of the Black Swan Inn, to certain insinuated moral derelictions of the farmer. "The old man tipped his elbow too often," once said in Pierre's hearing an old bottle-necked fellow, performing the identical same act with a half-emptied glass in his hand. But though the form of old Millthorpe was broken, his countenance, however sad and thin, betrayed no slightest sign of the sot, either past or present. He never was publicly known to frequent the inn, and seldom quitted the few acres he cultivated with his son. And though, alas, indigent enough, yet was he most punctually honest in paying his little debts of shillings and pence for his groceries. And though, heaven knows, he had plenty of occasion for all the money he could possibly earn, yet Pierre remembered, that when, one autumn, a hog was bought of him for the servants' hall at the Mansion, the old man never called for his money till the midwinter following; and then, as with trembling fingers he eagerly clutched the silver, he unsteadily said, "I have no use for it now; it might just as well have stood over." It was then, that chancing to overhear this, Mrs. Glendinning had looked at the old man, with a kindly and benignantly interested eye to the _povertiresque_; and murmured, "Ah! the old English Knight is not yet out of his blood. Bravo, old man!" One day, in Pierre's sight, nine silent figures emerged from the door of old Millthorpe; a coffin was put into a neighbor's farm-wagon; and a procession, some thirty feet long, including the elongated pole and box of the wagon, wound along Saddle Meadows to a hill, where, at last, old Millthorpe was laid down in a bed, where the rising sun should affront him no more. Oh, softest and daintiest of Holland linen is the motherly earth! There, beneath the sublime tester of the infinite sky, like emperors and kings, sleep, in grand state, the beggars and paupers of earth! I joy that Death is this Democrat; and hopeless of all other real and permanent democracies, still hug the thought, that though in life some heads are crowned with gold, and some bound round with thorns, yet chisel them how they will, head-stones are all alike. This somewhat particular account of the father of young Millthorpe, will better set forth the less immature condition and character of the son, on whom had now descended the maintenance of his mother and sisters. But, though the son of a farmer, Charles was peculiarly averse to hard labor. It was not impossible that by resolute hard labor he might eventually have succeeded in placing his family in a far more comfortable situation than he had ever remembered them. But it was not so fated; the benevolent State had in its great wisdom decreed otherwise. In the village of Saddle Meadows there was an institution, half common-school and half academy, but mainly supported by a general ordinance and financial provision of the government Here, not only were the rudiments of an English education taught, but likewise some touch of belles lettres, and composition, and that great American bulwark and bore--elocution. On the high-raised, stage platform of the Saddle Meadows Academy, the sons of the most indigent day-laborers were wont to drawl out the fiery revolutionary rhetoric of Patrick Henry, or gesticulate impetuously through the soft cadences of Drake's "Culprit Fay." What wonder, then, that of Saturdays, when there was no elocution and poesy, these boys should grow melancholy and disdainful over the heavy, plodding handles of dung-forks and hoes? At the age of fifteen, the ambition of Charles Millthorpe was to be either an orator, or a poet; at any rate, a great genius of one sort or other. He recalled the ancestral Knight, and indignantly spurned the plow. Detecting in him the first germ of this inclination, old Millthorpe had very seriously reasoned with his son; warning him against the evils of his vagrant ambition. Ambition of that sort was either for undoubted genius, rich boys, or poor boys, standing entirely alone in the world, with no one relying upon them. Charles had better consider the case; his father was old and infirm; he could not last very long; he had nothing to leave behind him but his plow and his hoe; his mother was sickly; his sisters pale and delicate; and finally, life was a fact, and the winters in that part of the country exceedingly bitter and long. Seven months out of the twelve the pastures bore nothing, and all cattle must be fed in the barns. But Charles was a boy; advice often seems the most wantonly wasted of all human breath; man will not take wisdom on trust; may be, it is well; for such wisdom is worthless; we must find the true gem for ourselves; and so we go groping and groping for many and many a day. Yet was Charles Millthorpe as affectionate and dutiful a boy as ever boasted of his brain, and knew not that he possessed a far more excellent and angelical thing in the possession of a generous heart. His father died; to his family he resolved to be a second father, and a careful provider now. But not by hard toil of his hand; but by gentler practices of his mind. Already he had read many books--history, poetry, romance, essays, and all. The manorial book-shelves had often been honored by his visits, and Pierre had kindly been his librarian. Not to lengthen the tale, at the age of seventeen, Charles sold the horse, the cow, the pig, the plow, the hoe, and almost every movable thing on the premises; and, converting all into cash, departed with his mother and sisters for the city; chiefly basing his expectations of success on some vague representations of an apothecary relative there resident. How he and his mother and sisters battled it out; how they pined and half-starved for a while; how they took in sewing; and Charles took in copying; and all but scantily sufficed for a livelihood; all this may be easily imagined. But some mysterious latent good-will of Fate toward him, had not only thus far kept Charles from the Poor-House, but had really advanced his fortunes in a degree. At any rate, that certain harmless presumption and innocent egotism which have been previously adverted to as sharing in his general character, these had by no means retarded him; for it is often to be observed of the shallower men, that they are the very last to despond. It is the glory of the bladder that nothing can sink it; it is the reproach of a box of treasure, that once overboard it must down. II. When arrived in the city, and discovering the heartless neglect of Glen, Pierre,--looking about him for whom to apply to in this strait,--bethought him of his old boy-companion Charlie, and went out to seek him, and found him at last; he saw before him, a tall, well-grown, but rather thin and pale yet strikingly handsome young man of two-and-twenty; occupying a small dusty law-office on the third floor of the older building of the Apostles; assuming to be doing a very large, and hourly increasing business among empty pigeon-holes, and directly under the eye of an unopened bottle of ink; his mother and sisters dwelling in a chamber overhead; and himself, not only following the law for a corporeal living, but likewise inter-linked with the peculiar secret, theologico-politico-social schemes of the masonic order of the seedy-coated Apostles; and pursuing some crude, transcendental Philosophy, for both a contributory means of support, as well as for his complete intellectual aliment. Pierre was at first somewhat startled by his exceedingly frank and familiar manner; all old manorial deference for Pierre was clean gone and departed; though at the first shock of their encounter, Charlie could not possibly have known that Pierre was cast off. "Ha, Pierre! glad to see you, my boy! Hark ye, next month I am to deliver an address before the Omega order of the Apostles. The Grand Master, Plinlimmon, will be there. I have heard on the best authority that he once said of me--'That youth has the Primitive Categories in him; he is destined to astonish the world.' Why, lad, I have received propositions from the Editors of the Spinozaist to contribute a weekly column to their paper, and you know how very few can understand the Spinozaist; nothing is admitted there but the Ultimate Transcendentals. Hark now, in your ear; I think of throwing off the Apostolic disguise and coming boldly out; Pierre! I think of stumping the State, and preaching our philosophy to the masses.--When did you arrive in town?" Spite of all his tribulations, Pierre could not restrain a smile at this highly diverting reception; but well knowing the youth, he did not conclude from this audacious burst of enthusiastic egotism that his heart had at all corroded; for egotism is one thing, and selfishness another. No sooner did Pierre intimate his condition to him, than immediately, Charlie was all earnest and practical kindness; recommended the Apostles as the best possible lodgment for him,--cheap, snug, and convenient to most public places; he offered to procure a cart and see himself to the transport of Pierre's luggage; but finally thought it best to mount the stairs and show him the vacant rooms. But when these at last were decided upon; and Charlie, all cheerfulness and alacrity, started with Pierre for the hotel, to assist him in the removal; grasping his arm the moment they emerged from the great arched door under the tower of the Apostles; he instantly launched into his amusing heroics, and continued the strain till the trunks were fairly in sight. "Lord! my law-business overwhelms me! I must drive away some of my clients; I must have my exercise, and this ever-growing business denies it to me. Besides, I owe something to the sublime cause of the general humanity; I must displace some of my briefs for my metaphysical treatises. I can not waste all my oil over bonds and mortgages.--You said you were married, I think?" But without stopping for any reply, he rattled on. "Well, I suppose it is wise after all. It settles, centralizes, and confirms a man, I have heard.--No, I didn't; it is a random thought of my own, that!--Yes, it makes the world definite to him; it removes his morbid _sub_jectiveness, and makes all things _ob_jective; nine small children, for instance, may be considered _ob_jective. Marriage, hey!--A fine thing, no doubt, no doubt:--domestic--pretty--nice, all round. But I owe something to the world, my boy! By marriage, I might contribute to the population of men, but not to the census of mind. The great men are all bachelors, you know. Their family is the universe: I should say the planet Saturn was their elder son; and Plato their uncle.--So you are married?" But again, reckless of answers, Charlie went on. "Pierre, a thought, my boy;--a thought for you! You do not say it, but you hint of a low purse. Now I shall help you to fill it--Stump the State on the Kantian Philosophy! A dollar a head, my boy! Pass round your beaver, and you'll get it. I have every confidence in the penetration and magnanimousness of the people! Pierre, hark in your ear;--it's my opinion the world is all wrong. Hist, I say--an entire mistake. Society demands an Avatar,--a Curtius, my boy! to leap into the fiery gulf, and by perishing himself, save the whole empire of men! Pierre, I have long renounced the allurements of life and fashion. Look at my coat, and see how I spurn them! Pierre! but, stop, have you ever a shilling! let's take a cold cut here--it's a cheap place; I go here sometimes. Come, let's in." BOOK XXI. PIERRE IMMATURELY ATTEMPTS A MATURE WORK. TIDINGS FROM THE MEADOWS. PLINLIMMON. I. We are now to behold Pierre permanently lodged in three lofty adjoining chambers of the Apostles. And passing on a little further in time, and overlooking the hundred and one domestic details, of how their internal arrangements were finally put into steady working order; how poor Delly, now giving over the sharper pangs of her grief, found in the lighter occupations of a handmaid and familiar companion to Isabel, the only practical relief from the memories of her miserable past; how Isabel herself in the otherwise occupied hours of Pierre, passed some of her time in mastering the chirographical incoherencies of his manuscripts, with a view to eventually copying them out in a legible hand for the printer; or went below stairs to the rooms of the Millthorpes, and in the modest and amiable society of the three young ladies and their excellent mother, found some little solace for the absence of Pierre; or, when his day's work was done, sat by him in the twilight, and played her mystic guitar till Pierre felt chapter after chapter born of its wondrous suggestiveness; but alas! eternally incapable of being translated into words; for where the deepest words end, there music begins with its supersensuous and all-confounding intimations. Disowning now all previous exertions of his mind, and burning in scorn even those fine fruits of a care-free fancy, which, written at Saddle Meadows in the sweet legendary time of Lucy and her love, he had jealously kept from the publishers, as too true and good to be published; renouncing all his foregone self, Pierre was now engaged in a comprehensive compacted work, to whose speedy completion two tremendous motives unitedly impelled;--the burning desire to deliver what he thought to be new, or at least miserably neglected Truth to the world; and the prospective menace of being absolutely penniless, unless by the sale of his book, he could realize money. Swayed to universality of thought by the widely-explosive mental tendencies of the profound events which had lately befallen him, and the unprecedented situation in which he now found himself; and perceiving, by presentiment, that most grand productions of the best human intellects ever are built round a circle, as atolls (_i. e._ the primitive coral islets which, raising themselves in the depths of profoundest seas, rise funnel-like to the surface, and present there a hoop of white rock, which though on the outside everywhere lashed by the ocean, yet excludes all tempests from the quiet lagoon within), digestively including the whole range of all that can be known or dreamed; Pierre was resolved to give the world a book, which the world should hail with surprise and delight. A varied scope of reading, little suspected by his friends, and randomly acquired by a random but lynx-eyed mind, in the course of the multifarious, incidental, bibliographic encounterings of almost any civilized young inquirer after Truth; this poured one considerable contributary stream into that bottomless spring of original thought which the occasion and time had caused to burst out in himself. Now he congratulated himself upon all his cursory acquisitions of this sort; ignorant that in reality to a mind bent on producing some thoughtful thing of absolute Truth, all mere reading is apt to prove but an obstacle hard to overcome; and not an accelerator helpingly pushing him along. While Pierre was thinking that he was entirely transplanted into a new and wonderful element of Beauty and Power, he was, in fact, but in one of the stages of the transition. That ultimate element once fairly gained, then books no more are needed for buoys to our souls; our own strong limbs support us, and we float over all bottomlessnesses with a jeering impunity. He did not see,--or if he did, he could not yet name the true cause for it,--that already, in the incipiency of his work, the heavy unmalleable element of mere book-knowledge would not congenially weld with the wide fluidness and ethereal airiness of spontaneous creative thought. He would climb Parnassus with a pile of folios on his back. He did not see, that it was nothing at all to him, what other men had written; that though Plato was indeed a transcendently great man in himself, yet Plato must not be transcendently great to him (Pierre), so long as he (Pierre himself) would also do something transcendently great. He did not see that there is no such thing as a standard for the creative spirit; that no one great book must ever be separately regarded, and permitted to domineer with its own uniqueness upon the creative mind; but that all existing great works must be federated in the fancy; and so regarded as a miscellaneous and Pantheistic whole; and then,--without at all dictating to his own mind, or unduly biasing it any way,--thus combined, they would prove simply an exhilarative and provocative to him. He did not see, that even when thus combined, all was but one small mite, compared to the latent infiniteness and inexhaustibility in himself; that all the great books in the world are but the mutilated shadowings-forth of invisible and eternally unembodied images in the soul; so that they are but the mirrors, distortedly reflecting to us our own things; and never mind what the mirror may be, if we would see the object, we must look at the object itself, and not at its reflection. But, as to the resolute traveler in Switzerland, the Alps do never in one wide and comprehensive sweep, instantaneously reveal their full awfulness of amplitude--their overawing extent of peak crowded on peak, and spur sloping on spur, and chain jammed behind chain, and all their wonderful battalionings of might; so hath heaven wisely ordained, that on first entering into the Switzerland of his soul, man shall not at once perceive its tremendous immensity; lest illy prepared for such an encounter, his spirit should sink and perish in the lowermost snows. Only by judicious degrees, appointed of God, does man come at last to gain his Mont Blanc and take an overtopping view of these Alps; and even then, the tithe is not shown; and far over the invisible Atlantic, the Rocky Mountains and the Andes are yet unbeheld. Appalling is the soul of a man! Better might one be pushed off into the material spaces beyond the uttermost orbit of our sun, than once feel himself fairly afloat in himself! But not now to consider these ulterior things, Pierre, though strangely and very newly alive to many before unregarded wonders in the general world; still, had he not as yet procured for himself that enchanter's wand of the soul, which but touching the humblest experiences in one's life, straightway it starts up all eyes, in every one of which are endless significancies. Not yet had he dropped his angle into the well of his childhood, to find what fish might be there; for who dreams to find fish in a well? the running stream of the outer world, there doubtless swim the golden perch and the pickerel! Ten million things were as yet uncovered to Pierre. The old mummy lies buried in cloth on cloth; it takes time to unwrap this Egyptian king. Yet now, forsooth, because Pierre began to see through the first superficiality of the world, he fondly weens he has come to the unlayered substance. But, far as any geologist has yet gone down into the world, it is found to consist of nothing but surface stratified on surface. To its axis, the world being nothing but superinduced superficies. By vast pains we mine into the pyramid; by horrible gropings we come to the central room; with joy we espy the sarcophagus; but we lift the lid--and no body is there!--appallingly vacant as vast is the soul of a man! II. He had been engaged some weeks upon his book--in pursuance of his settled plan avoiding all contact with any of his city-connections or friends, even as in his social downfall they sedulously avoided seeking him out--nor ever once going or sending to the post-office, though it was but a little round the corner from where he was, since having dispatched no letters himself, he expected none; thus isolated from the world, and intent upon his literary enterprise, Pierre had passed some weeks, when verbal tidings came to him, of three most momentous events. First: his mother was dead. Second: all Saddle Meadows was become Glen Stanly's. Third: Glen Stanly was believed to be the suitor of Lucy; who, convalescent from an almost mortal illness, was now dwelling at her mother's house in town. It was chiefly the first-mentioned of these events which darted a sharp natural anguish into Pierre. No letter had come to him; no smallest ring or memorial been sent him; no slightest mention made of him in the will; and yet it was reported that an inconsolable grief had induced his mother's mortal malady, and driven her at length into insanity, which suddenly terminated in death; and when he first heard of that event, she had been cold in the ground for twenty-five days. How plainly did all this speak of the equally immense pride and grief of his once magnificent mother; and how agonizedly now did it hint of her mortally-wounded love for her only and best-beloved Pierre! In vain he reasoned with himself; in vain remonstrated with himself; in vain sought to parade all his stoic arguments to drive off the onslaught of natural passion. Nature prevailed; and with tears that like acid burned and scorched as they flowed, he wept, he raved, at the bitter loss of his parent; whose eyes had been closed by unrelated hands that were hired; but whose heart had been broken, and whose very reason been ruined, by the related hands of her son. For some interval it almost seemed as if his own heart would snap; his own reason go down. Unendurable grief of a man, when Death itself gives the stab, and then snatches all availments to solacement away. For in the grave is no help, no prayer thither may go, no forgiveness thence come; so that the penitent whose sad victim lies in the ground, for that useless penitent his doom is eternal, and though it be Christmas-day with all Christendom, with him it is Hell-day and an eaten liver forever. With what marvelous precision and exactitude he now went over in his mind all the minutest details of his old joyous life with his mother at Saddle Meadows. He began with his own toilet in the morning; then his mild stroll into the fields; then his cheerful return to call his mother in her chamber; then the gay breakfast--and so on, and on, all through the sweet day, till mother and son kissed, and with light, loving hearts separated to their beds, to prepare themselves for still another day of affectionate delight. This recalling of innocence and joy in the hour of remorsefulness and woe; this is as heating red-hot the pincers that tear us. But in this delirium of his soul, Pierre could not define where that line was, which separated the natural grief for the loss of a parent from that other one which was born of compunction. He strove hard to define it, but could not. He tried to cozen himself into believing that all his grief was but natural, or if there existed any other, that must spring--not from the consciousness of having done any possible wrong--but from the pang at what terrible cost the more exalted virtues are gained. Nor did he wholly fail in this endeavor. At last he dismissed his mother's memory into that same profound vault where hitherto had reposed the swooned form of his Lucy. But, as sometimes men are coffined in a trance, being thereby mistaken for dead; so it is possible to bury a tranced grief in the soul, erroneously supposing that it hath no more vitality of suffering. Now, immortal things only can beget immortality. It would almost seem one presumptive argument for the endless duration of the human soul, that it is impossible in time and space to kill any compunction arising from having cruelly injured a departed fellow-being. Ere he finally committed his mother to the profoundest vault of his soul, fain would he have drawn one poor alleviation from a circumstance, which nevertheless, impartially viewed, seemed equally capable either of soothing or intensifying his grief. His mother's will, which without the least mention of his own name, bequeathed several legacies to her friends, and concluded by leaving all Saddle Meadows and its rent-rolls to Glendinning Stanly; this will bore the date of the day immediately succeeding his fatal announcement on the landing of the stairs, of his assumed nuptials with Isabel. It plausibly pressed upon him, that as all the evidences of his mother's dying unrelentingness toward him were negative; and the only positive evidence--so to speak--of even that negativeness, was the will which omitted all mention of Pierre; therefore, as that will bore so significant a date, it must needs be most reasonable to conclude, that it was dictated in the not yet subsided transports of his mother's first indignation. But small consolation was this, when he considered the final insanity of his mother; for whence that insanity but from a hate-grief unrelenting, even as his father must have become insane from a sin-grief irreparable? Nor did this remarkable double-doom of his parents wholly fail to impress his mind with presentiments concerning his own fate--his own hereditary liability to madness. Presentiment, I say; but what is a presentiment? how shall you coherently define a presentiment, or how make any thing out of it which is at all lucid, unless you say that a presentiment is but a judgment in disguise? And if a judgment in disguise, and yet possessing this preternaturalness of prophecy, how then shall you escape the fateful conclusion, that you are helplessly held in the six hands of the Sisters? For while still dreading your doom, you foreknow it. Yet how foreknow and dread in one breath, unless with this divine seeming power of prescience, you blend the actual slimy powerlessness of defense? That his cousin, Glen Stanly, had been chosen by his mother to inherit the domain of the Meadows, was not entirely surprising to Pierre. Not only had Glen always been a favorite with his mother by reason of his superb person and his congeniality of worldly views with herself, but excepting only Pierre, he was her nearest surviving blood relation; and moreover, in his christian name, bore the hereditary syllables, Glendinning. So that if to any one but Pierre the Meadows must descend, Glen, on these general grounds, seemed the appropriate heir. But it is not natural for a man, never mind who he may be, to see a noble patrimony, rightfully his, go over to a soul-alien, and that alien once his rival in love, and now his heartless, sneering foe; for so Pierre could not but now argue of Glen; it is not natural for a man to see this without singular emotions of discomfort and hate. Nor in Pierre were these feelings at all soothed by the report of Glen's renewed attentions to Lucy. For there is something in the breast of almost every man, which at bottom takes offense at the attentions of any other man offered to a woman, the hope of whose nuptial love he himself may have discarded. Fain would a man selfishly appropriate all the hearts which have ever in any way confessed themselves his. Besides, in Pierre's case, this resentment was heightened by Glen's previous hypocritical demeanor. For now all his suspicions seemed abundantly verified; and comparing all dates, he inferred that Glen's visit to Europe had only been undertaken to wear off the pang of his rejection by Lucy, a rejection tacitly consequent upon her not denying her affianced relation to Pierre. But now, under the mask of profound sympathy--in time, ripening into love--for a most beautiful girl, ruffianly deserted by her betrothed, Glen could afford to be entirely open in his new suit, without at all exposing his old scar to the world. So at least it now seemed to Pierre. Moreover, Glen could now approach Lucy under the most favorable possible auspices. He could approach her as a deeply sympathizing friend, all wishful to assuage her sorrow, but hinting nothing, at present, of any selfish matrimonial intent; by enacting this prudent and unclamorous part, the mere sight of such tranquil, disinterested, but indestructible devotedness, could not but suggest in Lucy's mind, very natural comparisons between Glen and Pierre, most deplorably abasing to the latter. Then, no woman--as it would sometimes seem--no woman is utterly free from the influence of a princely social position in her suitor, especially if he be handsome and young. And Glen would come to her now the master of two immense fortunes, and the heir, by voluntary election, no less than by blood propinquity, to the ancestral bannered hall, and the broad manorial meadows of the Glendinnings. And thus, too, the spirit of Pierre's own mother would seem to press Glen's suit. Indeed, situated now as he was Glen would seem all the finest part of Pierre, without any of Pierre's shame; would almost seem Pierre himself--what Pierre had once been to Lucy. And as in the case of a man who has lost a sweet wife, and who long refuses the least consolation; as this man at last finds a singular solace in the companionship of his wife's sister, who happens to bear a peculiar family resemblance to the dead; and as he, in the end, proposes marriage to this sister, merely from the force of such magical associative influences; so it did not seem wholly out of reason to suppose, that the great manly beauty of Glen, possessing a strong related similitude to Pierre's, might raise in Lucy's heart associations, which would lead her at least to seek--if she could not find--solace for one now regarded as dead and gone to her forever, in the devotedness of another, who would notwithstanding almost seem as that dead one brought back to life. Deep, deep, and still deep and deeper must we go, if we would find out the heart of a man; descending into which is as descending a spiral stair in a shaft, without any end, and where that endlessness is only concealed by the spiralness of the stair, and the blackness of the shaft. As Pierre conjured up this phantom of Glen transformed into the seeming semblance of himself; as he figured it advancing toward Lucy and raising her hand in devotion; an infinite quenchless rage and malice possessed him. Many commingled emotions combined to provoke this storm. But chief of all was something strangely akin to that indefinable detestation which one feels for any impostor who has dared to assume one's own name and aspect in any equivocal or dishonorable affair; an emotion greatly intensified if this impostor be known for a mean villain at bottom, and also, by the freak of nature to be almost the personal duplicate of the man whose identity he assumes. All these and a host of other distressful and resentful fancies now ran through the breast of Pierre. All his Faith-born, enthusiastic, high-wrought, stoic, and philosophic defenses, were now beaten down by this sudden storm of nature in his soul. For there is no faith, and no stoicism, and no philosophy, that a mortal man can possibly evoke, which will stand the final test of a real impassioned onset of Life and Passion upon him. Then all the fair philosophic or Faith-phantoms that he raised from the mist, slide away and disappear as ghosts at cock-crow. For Faith and philosophy are air, but events are brass. Amidst his gray philosophizings, Life breaks upon a man like a morning. While this mood was on him, Pierre cursed himself for a heartless villain and an idiot fool;--heartless villain, as the murderer of his mother--idiot fool, because he had thrown away all his felicity; because he had himself, as it were, resigned his noble birthright to a cunning kinsman for a mess of pottage, which now proved all but ashes in his mouth. Resolved to hide these new, and--as it latently seemed to him--unworthy pangs, from Isabel, as also their cause, he quitted his chamber, intending a long vagabond stroll in the suburbs of the town, to wear off his sharper grief, ere he should again return into her sight. III. As Pierre, now hurrying from his chamber, was rapidly passing through one of the higher brick colonnades connecting the ancient building with the modern, there advanced toward him from the direction of the latter, a very plain, composed, manly figure, with a countenance rather pale if any thing, but quite clear and without wrinkle. Though the brow and the beard, and the steadiness of the head and settledness of the step indicated mature age, yet the blue, bright, but still quiescent eye offered a very striking contrast. In that eye, the gay immortal youth Apollo, seemed enshrined; while on that ivory-throned brow, old Saturn cross-legged sat. The whole countenance of this man, the whole air and look of this man, expressed a cheerful content. Cheerful is the adjective, for it was the contrary of gloom; content--perhaps acquiescence--is the substantive, for it was not Happiness or Delight. But while the personal look and air of this man were thus winning, there was still something latently visible in him which repelled. That something may best be characterized as non-Benevolence. Non-Benevolence seems the best word, for it was neither Malice nor Ill-will; but something passive. To crown all, a certain floating atmosphere seemed to invest and go along with this man. That atmosphere seems only renderable in words by the term Inscrutableness. Though the clothes worn by this man were strictly in accordance with the general style of any unobtrusive gentleman's dress, yet his clothes seemed to disguise this man. One would almost have said, his very face, the apparently natural glance of his very eye disguised this man. Now, as this person deliberately passed by Pierre, he lifted his hat, gracefully bowed, smiled gently, and passed on. But Pierre was all confusion; he flushed, looked askance, stammered with his hand at his hat to return the courtesy of the other; he seemed thoroughly upset by the mere sight of this hat-lifting, gracefully bowing, gently-smiling, and most miraculously self-possessed, non-benevolent man. Now who was this man? This man was Plotinus Plinlimmon. Pierre had read a treatise of his in a stage-coach coming to the city, and had heard him often spoken of by Millthorpe and others as the Grand Master of a certain mystic Society among the Apostles. Whence he came, no one could tell. His surname was Welsh, but he was a Tennesseean by birth. He seemed to have no family or blood ties of any sort. He never was known to work with his hands; never to write with his hands (he would not even write a letter); he never was known to open a book. There were no books in his chamber. Nevertheless, some day or other he must have read books, but that time seemed gone now; as for the sleazy works that went under his name, they were nothing more than his verbal things, taken down at random, and bunglingly methodized by his young disciples. Finding Plinlimmon thus unfurnished either with books or pen and paper, and imputing it to something like indigence, a foreign scholar, a rich nobleman, who chanced to meet him once, sent him a fine supply of stationery, with a very fine set of volumes,--Cardan, Epictetus, the Book of Mormon, Abraham Tucker, Condorcet and the Zenda-Vesta. But this noble foreign scholar calling next day--perhaps in expectation of some compliment for his great kindness--started aghast at his own package deposited just without the door of Plinlimmon, and with all fastenings untouched. "Missent," said Plotinus Plinlimmon placidly: "if any thing, I looked for some choice Curaçoa from a nobleman like you. I should be very happy, my dear Count, to accept a few jugs of choice Curaçoa." "I thought that the society of which you are the head, excluded all things of that sort"--replied the Count. "Dear Count, so they do; but Mohammed hath his own dispensation." "Ah! I see," said the noble scholar archly. "I am afraid you do not see, dear Count"--said Plinlimmon; and instantly before the eyes of the Count, the inscrutable atmosphere eddied and eddied roundabout this Plotinus Plinlimmon. His chance brushing encounter in the corridor was the first time that ever Pierre had without medium beheld the form or the face of Plinlimmon. Very early after taking chambers at the Apostles', he had been struck by a steady observant blue-eyed countenance at one of the loftiest windows of the old gray tower, which on the opposite side of the quadrangular space, rose prominently before his own chamber. Only through two panes of glass--his own and the stranger's--had Pierre hitherto beheld that remarkable face of repose,--repose neither divine nor human, nor any thing made up of either or both--but a repose separate and apart--a repose of a face by itself. One adequate look at that face conveyed to most philosophical observers a notion of something not before included in their scheme of the Universe. Now as to the mild sun, glass is no hindrance at all, but he transmits his light and life through the glass; even so through Pierre's panes did the tower face transmit its strange mystery. Becoming more and more interested in this face, he had questioned Millthorpe concerning it "Bless your soul"--replied Millthorpe--"that is Plotinus Plinlimmon! our Grand Master, Plotinus Plinlimmon! By gad, you must know Plotinus thoroughly, as I have long done. Come away with me, now, and let me introduce you instanter to Plotinus Plinlimmon." But Pierre declined; and could not help thinking, that though in all human probability Plotinus well understood Millthorpe, yet Millthorpe could hardly yet have wound himself into Plotinus;--though indeed Plotinus--who at times was capable of assuming a very off-hand, confidential, and simple, sophomorean air--might, for reasons best known to himself, have tacitly pretended to Millthorpe, that he (Millthorpe) had thoroughly wriggled himself into his (Plotinus') innermost soul. A man will be given a book, and when the donor's back is turned, will carelessly drop it in the first corner; he is not over-anxious to be bothered with the book. But now personally point out to him the author, and ten to one he goes back to the corner, picks up the book, dusts the cover, and very carefully reads that invaluable work. One does not vitally believe in a man till one's own two eyes have beheld him. If then, by the force of peculiar circumstances, Pierre while in the stage, had formerly been drawn into an attentive perusal of the work on "Chronometricals and Horologicals;" how then was his original interest heightened by catching a subsequent glimpse of the author. But at the first reading, not being able--as he thought--to master the pivot-idea of the pamphlet; and as every incomprehended idea is not only a perplexity but a taunting reproach to one's mind, Pierre had at last ceased studying it altogether; nor consciously troubled himself further about it during the remainder of the journey. But still thinking now it might possibly have been mechanically retained by him, he searched all the pockets of his clothes, but without success. He begged Millthorpe to do his best toward procuring him another copy; but it proved impossible to find one. Plotinus himself could not furnish it. Among other efforts, Pierre in person had accosted a limping half-deaf old book-stall man, not very far from the Apostles'. "Have you the '_Chronometrics_,' my friend?" forgetting the exact title. "Very bad, very bad!" said the old man, rubbing his back;--"has had the _chronic-rheumatics_ ever so long; what's good for 'em?" Perceiving his mistake, Pierre replied that he did not know what was the infallible remedy. "Whist! let me tell ye, then, young 'un," said the old cripple, limping close up to him, and putting his mouth in Pierre's ear--"Never catch 'em!--now's the time, while you're young:--never catch 'em!" By-and-by the blue-eyed, mystic-mild face in the upper window of the old gray tower began to domineer in a very remarkable manner upon Pierre. When in his moods of peculiar depression and despair; when dark thoughts of his miserable condition would steal over him; and black doubts as to the integrity of his unprecedented course in life would most malignantly suggest themselves; when a thought of the vanity of his deep book would glidingly intrude; if glancing at his closet-window that mystic-mild face met Pierre's; under any of these influences the effect was surprising, and not to be adequately detailed in any possible words. Vain! vain! vain! said the face to him. Fool! fool! fool! said the face to him. Quit! quit! quit! said the face to him. But when he mentally interrogated the face as to why it thrice said Vain! Fool! Quit! to him; here there was no response. For that face did not respond to any thing. Did I not say before that that face was something separate, and apart; a face by itself? Now, any thing which is thus a thing by itself never responds to any other thing. If to affirm, be to expand one's isolated self; and if to deny, be to contract one's isolated self; then to respond is a suspension of all isolation. Though this face in the tower was so clear and so mild; though the gay youth Apollo was enshrined in that eye, and paternal old Saturn sat cross-legged on that ivory brow; yet somehow to Pierre the face at last wore a sort of malicious leer to him. But the Kantists might say, that this was a _subjective_ sort of leer in Pierre. Any way, the face seemed to leer upon Pierre. And now it said to him--_Ass! ass! ass!_ This expression was insufferable. He procured some muslin for his closet-window; and the face became curtained like any portrait. But this did not mend the leer. Pierre knew that still the face leered behind the muslin. What was most terrible was the idea that by some magical means or other the face had got hold of his secret. "Ay," shuddered Pierre, "the face knows that Isabel is not my wife! And that seems the reason it leers." Then would all manner of wild fancyings float through his soul, and detached sentences of the "Chronometrics" would vividly recur to him--sentences before but imperfectly comprehended, but now shedding a strange, baleful light upon his peculiar condition, and emphatically denouncing it. Again he tried his best to procure the pamphlet, to read it now by the commentary of the mystic-mild face; again he searched through the pockets of his clothes for the stage-coach copy, but in vain. And when--at the critical moment of quitting his chambers that morning of the receipt of the fatal tidings--the face itself--the man himself--this inscrutable Plotinus Plinlimmon himself--did visibly brush by him in the brick corridor, and all the trepidation he had ever before felt at the mild-mystic aspect in the tower window, now redoubled upon him, so that, as before said, he flushed, looked askance, and stammered with his saluting hand to his hat;--then anew did there burn in him the desire of procuring the pamphlet. "Cursed fate that I should have lost it"--he cried;--"more cursed, that when I did have it, and did read it, I was such a ninny as not to comprehend; and now it is all too late!" Yet--to anticipate here--when years after, an old Jew Clothesman rummaged over a surtout of Pierre's--which by some means had come into his hands--his lynx-like fingers happened to feel something foreign between the cloth and the heavy quilted bombazine lining. He ripped open the skirt, and found several old pamphlet pages, soft and worn almost to tissue, but still legible enough to reveal the title--"Chronometricals and Horologicals." Pierre must have ignorantly thrust it into his pocket, in the stage, and it had worked through a rent there, and worked its way clean down into the skirt, and there helped pad the padding. So that all the time he was hunting for this pamphlet, he himself was wearing the pamphlet. When he brushed past Plinlimmon in the brick corridor, and felt that renewed intense longing for the pamphlet, then his right hand was not two inches from the pamphlet. Possibly this curious circumstance may in some sort illustrate his self-supposed non-understanding of the pamphlet, as first read by him in the stage. Could he likewise have carried about with him in his mind the thorough understanding of the book, and yet not be aware that he so understood it? I think that--regarded in one light--the final career of Pierre will seem to show, that he _did_ understand it. And here it may be randomly suggested, by way of bagatelle, whether some things that men think they do not know, are not for all that thoroughly comprehended by them; and yet, so to speak, though contained in themselves, are kept a secret from themselves? The idea of Death seems such a thing. BOOK XXII. THE FLOWER-CURTAIN LIFTED FROM BEFORE A TROPICAL AUTHOR, WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE TRANSCENDENTAL FLESH-BRUSH PHILOSOPHY. I. Some days passed after the fatal tidings from the Meadows, and at length, somewhat mastering his emotions, Pierre again sits down in his chamber; for grieve how he will, yet work he must. And now day succeeds day, and week follows week, and Pierre still sits in his chamber. The long rows of cooled brick-kilns around him scarce know of the change; but from the fair fields of his great-great-great-grandfather's manor, Summer hath flown like a swallow-guest; the perfidious wight, Autumn, hath peeped in at the groves of the maple, and under pretense of clothing them in rich russet and gold, hath stript them at last of the slightest rag, and then ran away laughing; prophetic icicles depend from the arbors round about the old manorial mansion--now locked up and abandoned; and the little, round, marble table in the viny summer-house where, of July mornings, he had sat chatting and drinking negus with his gay mother, is now spread with a shivering napkin of frost; sleety varnish hath encrusted that once gay mother's grave, preparing it for its final cerements of wrapping snow upon snow; wild howl the winds in the woods: it is Winter. Sweet Summer is done; and Autumn is done; but the book, like the bitter winter, is yet to be finished. That season's wheat is long garnered, Pierre; that season's ripe apples and grapes are in; no crop, no plant, no fruit is out; the whole harvest is done. Oh, woe to that belated winter-overtaken plant, which the summer could not bring to maturity! The drifting winter snows shall whelm it. Think, Pierre, doth not thy plant belong to some other and tropical clime? Though transplanted to northern Maine, the orange-tree of the Floridas will put forth leaves in that parsimonious summer, and show some few tokens of fruitage; yet November will find no golden globes thereon; and the passionate old lumber-man, December, shall peel the whole tree, wrench it off at the ground, and toss it for a fagot to some lime-kiln. Ah, Pierre, Pierre, make haste! make haste! force thy fruitage, lest the winter force thee. Watch yon little toddler, how long it is learning to stand by itself! First it shrieks and implores, and will not try to stand at all, unless both father and mother uphold it; then a little more bold, it must, at least, feel one parental hand, else again the cry and the tremble; long time is it ere by degrees this child comes to stand without any support. But, by-and-by, grown up to man's estate, it shall leave the very mother that bore it, and the father that begot it, and cross the seas, perhaps, or settle in far Oregon lands. There now, do you see the soul. In its germ on all sides it is closely folded by the world, as the husk folds the tenderest fruit; then it is born from the world-husk, but still now outwardly clings to it;--still clamors for the support of its mother the world, and its father the Deity. But it shall yet learn to stand independent, though not without many a bitter wail, and many a miserable fall. That hour of the life of a man when first the help of humanity fails him, and he learns that in his obscurity and indigence humanity holds him a dog and no man: that hour is a hard one, but not the hardest. There is still another hour which follows, when he learns that in his infinite comparative minuteness and abjectness, the gods do likewise despise him, and own him not of their clan. Divinity and humanity then are equally willing that he should starve in the street for all that either will do for him. Now cruel father and mother have both let go his hand, and the little soul-toddler, now you shall hear his shriek and his wail, and often his fall. When at Saddle Meadows, Pierre had wavered and trembled in those first wretched hours ensuing upon the receipt of Isabel's letter; then humanity had let go the hand of Pierre, and therefore his cry; but when at last inured to this, Pierre was seated at his book, willing that humanity should desert him, so long as he thought he felt a far higher support; then, ere long, he began to feel the utter loss of that other support, too; ay, even the paternal gods themselves did now desert Pierre; the toddler was toddling entirely alone, and not without shrieks. If man must wrestle, perhaps it is well that it should be on the nakedest possible plain. The three chambers of Pierre at the Apostles' were connecting ones. The first--having a little retreat where Delly slept--was used for the more exacting domestic purposes: here also their meals were taken; the second was the chamber of Isabel; the third was the closet of Pierre. In the first--the dining room, as they called it--there was a stove which boiled the water for their coffee and tea, and where Delly concocted their light repasts. This was their only fire; for, warned again and again to economize to the uttermost, Pierre did not dare to purchase any additional warmth. But by prudent management, a very little warmth may go a great way. In the present case, it went some forty feet or more. A horizontal pipe, after elbowing away from above the stove in the dining-room, pierced the partition wall, and passing straight through Isabel's chamber, entered the closet of Pierre at one corner, and then abruptly disappeared into the wall, where all further caloric--if any--went up through the chimney into the air, to help warm the December sun. Now, the great distance of Pierre's calorical stream from its fountain, sadly impaired it, and weakened it. It hardly had the flavor of heat. It would have had but very inconsiderable influence in raising the depressed spirits of the most mercurial thermometer; certainly it was not very elevating to the spirits of Pierre. Besides, this calorical stream, small as it was, did not flow through the room, but only entered it, to elbow right out of it, as some coquettish maidens enter the heart; moreover, it was in the furthest corner from the only place where, with a judicious view to the light, Pierre's desk-barrels and board could advantageously stand. Often, Isabel insisted upon his having a separate stove to himself; but Pierre would not listen to such a thing. Then Isabel would offer her own room to him; saying it was of no indispensable use to her by day; she could easily spend her time in the dining-room; but Pierre would not listen to such a thing; he would not deprive her of the comfort of a continually accessible privacy; besides, he was now used to his own room, and must sit by that particular window there, and no other. Then Isabel would insist upon keeping her connecting door open while Pierre was employed at his desk, that so the heat of her room might bodily go into his; but Pierre would not listen to such a thing: because he must be religiously locked up while at work; outer love and hate must alike be excluded then. In vain Isabel said she would make not the slightest noise, and muffle the point of the very needle she used. All in vain. Pierre was inflexible here. Yes, he was resolved to battle it out in his own solitary closet; though a strange, transcendental conceit of one of the more erratic and non-conforming Apostles,--who was also at this time engaged upon a profound work above stairs, and who denied himself his full sufficiency of food, in order to insure an abundant fire;--the strange conceit of this Apostle, I say,--accidentally communicated to Pierre,--that, through all the kingdoms of Nature, caloric was the great universal producer and vivifyer, and could not be prudently excluded from the spot where great books were in the act of creation; and therefore, he (the Apostle) for one, was resolved to plant his head in a hot-bed of stove-warmed air, and so force his brain to germinate and blossom, and bud, and put forth the eventual, crowning, victorious flower;--though indeed this conceit rather staggered Pierre--for in truth, there was no small smack of plausible analogy in it--yet one thought of his purse would wholly expel the unwelcome intrusion, and reinforce his own previous resolve. However lofty and magnificent the movements of the stars; whatever celestial melodies they may thereby beget; yet the astronomers assure us that they are the most rigidly methodical of all the things that exist. No old housewife goes her daily domestic round with one millionth part the precision of the great planet Jupiter in his stated and unalterable revolutions. He has found his orbit, and stays in it; he has timed himself, and adheres to his periods. So, in some degree with Pierre, now revolving in the troubled orbit of his book. Pierre rose moderately early; and the better to inure himself to the permanent chill of his room, and to defy and beard to its face, the cruelest cold of the outer air; he would--behind the curtain--throw down the upper sash of his window; and on a square of old painted canvas, formerly wrapping some bale of goods in the neighborhood, treat his limbs, of those early December mornings, to a copious ablution, in water thickened with incipient ice. Nor, in this stoic performance, was he at all without company,--not present, but adjoiningly sympathetic; for scarce an Apostle in all those scores and scores of chambers, but undeviatingly took his daily December bath. Pierre had only to peep out of his pane and glance round the multi-windowed, inclosing walls of the quadrangle, to catch plentiful half-glimpses, all round him, of many a lean, philosophical nudity, refreshing his meager bones with crash-towel and cold water. "Quick be the play," was their motto: "Lively our elbows, and nimble all our tenuities." Oh, the dismal echoings of the raspings of flesh-brushes, perverted to the filing and polishing of the merest ribs! Oh, the shuddersome splashings of pails of ice-water over feverish heads, not unfamiliar with aches! Oh, the rheumatical cracklings of rusted joints, in that defied air of December! for every thick-frosted sash was down, and every lean nudity courted the zephyr! Among all the innate, hyena-like repellants to the reception of any set form of a spiritually-minded and pure archetypical faith, there is nothing so potent in its skeptical tendencies, as that inevitable perverse ridiculousness, which so often bestreaks some of the essentially finest and noblest aspirations of those men, who disgusted with the common conventional quackeries, strive, in their clogged terrestrial humanities, after some imperfectly discerned, but heavenly ideals: ideals, not only imperfectly discerned in themselves, but the path to them so little traceable, that no two minds will entirely agree upon it. Hardly a new-light Apostle, but who, in superaddition to his revolutionary scheme for the minds and philosophies of men, entertains some insane, heterodoxical notions about the economy of his body. His soul, introduced by the gentlemanly gods, into the supernal society,--practically rejects that most sensible maxim of men of the world, who chancing to gain the friendship of any great character, never make that the ground of boring him with the supplemental acquaintance of their next friend, who perhaps, is some miserable ninny. Love me, love my dog, is only an adage for the old country-women who affectionately kiss their cows. The gods love the soul of a man; often, they will frankly accost it; but they abominate his body; and will forever cut it dead, both here and hereafter. So, if thou wouldst go to the gods, leave thy dog of a body behind thee. And most impotently thou strivest with thy purifying cold baths, and thy diligent scrubbings with flesh-brushes, to prepare it as a meet offering for their altar. Nor shall all thy Pythagorean and Shellian dietings on apple-parings, dried prunes, and crumbs of oat-meal cracker, ever fit thy body for heaven. Feed all things with food convenient for them,--that is, if the food be procurable. The food of thy soul is light and space; feed it then on light and space. But the food of thy body is champagne and oysters; feed it then on champagne and oysters; and so shall it merit a joyful resurrection, if there is any to be. Say, wouldst thou rise with a lantern jaw and a spavined knee? Rise with brawn on thee, and a most royal corporation before thee; so shalt thou in that day claim respectful attention. Know this: that while many a consumptive dietarian has but produced the merest literary flatulencies to the world; convivial authors have alike given utterance to the sublimest wisdom, and created the least gross and most ethereal forms. And for men of demonstrative muscle and action, consider that right royal epitaph which Cyrus the Great caused to be engraved on his tomb--"I could drink a great deal of wine, and it did me a great deal of good." Ah, foolish! to think that by starving thy body, thou shalt fatten thy soul! Is yonder ox fatted because yonder lean fox starves in the winter wood? And prate not of despising thy body, while still thou flourisheth thy flesh-brush! The finest houses are most cared for within; the outer walls are freely left to the dust and the soot. Put venison in thee, and so wit shall come out of thee. It is one thing in the mill, but another in the sack. Now it was the continual, quadrangular example of those forlorn fellows, the Apostles, who, in this period of his half-developments and transitions, had deluded Pierre into the Flesh-Brush Philosophy, and had almost tempted him into the Apple-Parings Dialectics. For all the long wards, corridors, and multitudinous chambers of the Apostles' were scattered with the stems of apples, the stones of prunes, and the shells of peanuts. They went about huskily muttering the Kantian Categories through teeth and lips dry and dusty as any miller's, with the crumbs of Graham crackers. A tumbler of cold water was the utmost welcome to their reception rooms; at the grand supposed Sanhedrim presided over by one of the deputies of Plotinus Plinlimmon, a huge jug of Adam's Ale, and a bushel-basket of Graham crackers were the only convivials. Continually bits of cheese were dropping from their pockets, and old shiny apple parchments were ignorantly exhibited every time they drew out a manuscript to read you. Some were curious in the vintages of waters; and in three glass decanters set before you, Fairmount, Croton, and Cochituate; they held that Croton was the most potent, Fairmount a gentle tonic, and Cochituate the mildest and least inebriating of all. Take some more of the Croton, my dear sir! Be brisk with the Fairmount! Why stops that Cochituate? So on their philosophical tables went round their Port, their Sherry, and their Claret. Some, further advanced, rejected mere water in the bath, as altogether too coarse an element; and so, took to the Vapor-baths, and steamed their lean ribs every morning. The smoke which issued from their heads, and overspread their pages, was prefigured in the mists that issued from under their door-sills and out of their windows. Some could not sit down of a morning until after first applying the Vapor-bath outside and then thoroughly rinsing out their interiors with five cups of cold Croton. They were as faithfully replenished fire-buckets; and could they, standing in one cordon, have consecutively pumped themselves into each other, then the great fire of 1835 had been far less wide-spread and disastrous. Ah! ye poor lean ones! ye wretched Soakites and Vaporites! have not your niggardly fortunes enough rinsed ye out, and wizened ye, but ye must still be dragging the hose-pipe, and throwing still more cold Croton on yourselves and the world? Ah! attach the screw of your hose-pipe to some fine old butt of Madeira! pump us some sparkling wine into the world! see, see, already, from all eternity, two-thirds of it have lain helplessly soaking! II. With cheek rather pale, then, and lips rather blue, Pierre sits down to his plank. But is Pierre packed in the mail for St. Petersburg this morning? Over his boots are his moccasins; over his ordinary coat is his surtout; and over that, a cloak of Isabel's. Now he is squared to his plank; and at his hint, the affectionate Isabel gently pushes his chair closer to it, for he is so muffled, he can hardly move of himself. Now Delly comes in with bricks hot from the stove; and now Isabel and she with devoted solicitude pack away these comforting stones in the folds of an old blue cloak, a military garment of the grandfather of Pierre, and tenderly arrange it both over and under his feet; but putting the warm flagging beneath. Then Delly brings still another hot brick to put under his inkstand, to prevent the ink from thickening. Then Isabel drags the camp-bedstead nearer to him, on which are the two or three books he may possibly have occasion to refer to that day, with a biscuit or two, and some water, and a clean towel, and a basin. Then she leans against the plank by the elbow of Pierre, a crook-ended stick. Is Pierre a shepherd, or a bishop, or a cripple? No, but he has in effect, reduced himself to the miserable condition of the last. With the crook-ended cane, Pierre--unable to rise without sadly impairing his manifold intrenchments, and admitting the cold air into their innermost nooks,--Pierre, if in his solitude, he should chance to need any thing beyond the reach of his arm, then the crook-ended cane drags it to his immediate vicinity. Pierre glances slowly all round him; every thing seems to be right; he looks up with a grateful, melancholy satisfaction at Isabel; a tear gathers in her eye; but she conceals it from him by coming very close to him, stooping over, and kissing his brow. 'Tis her lips that leave the warm moisture there; not her tears, she says. "I suppose I must go now, Pierre. Now don't, don't be so long to-day. I will call thee at half-past four. Thou shalt not strain thine eyes in the twilight." "We will _see_ about that," says Pierre, with an unobserved attempt at a very sad pun. "Come, thou must go. Leave me." And there he is left. Pierre is young; heaven gave him the divinest, freshest form of a man; put light into his eye, and fire into his blood, and brawn into his arm, and a joyous, jubilant, overflowing, upbubbling, universal life in him everywhere. Now look around in that most miserable room, and at that most miserable of all the pursuits of a man, and say if here be the place, and this be the trade, that God intended him for. A rickety chair, two hollow barrels, a plank, paper, pens, and infernally black ink, four leprously dingy white walls, no carpet, a cup of water, and a dry biscuit or two. Oh, I hear the leap of the Texan Camanche, as at this moment he goes crashing like a wild deer through the green underbrush; I hear his glorious whoop of savage and untamable health; and then I look in at Pierre. If physical, practical unreason make the savage, which is he? Civilization, Philosophy, Ideal Virtue! behold your victim! III. Some hours pass. Let us peep over the shoulder of Pierre, and see what it is he is writing there, in that most melancholy closet. Here, topping the reeking pile by his side, is the last sheet from his hand, the frenzied ink not yet entirely dry. It is much to our purpose; for in this sheet, he seems to have directly plagiarized from his own experiences, to fill out the mood of his apparent author-hero, Vivia, who thus soliloquizes: "A deep-down, unutterable mournfulness is in me. Now I drop all humorous or indifferent disguises, and all philosophical pretensions. I own myself a brother of the clod, a child of the Primeval Gloom. Hopelessness and despair are over me, as pall on pall. Away, ye chattering apes of a sophomorean Spinoza and Plato, who once didst all but delude me that the night was day, and pain only a tickle. Explain this darkness, exorcise this devil, ye can not. Tell me not, thou inconceivable coxcomb of a Goethe, that the universe can not spare thee and thy immortality, so long as--like a hired waiter--thou makest thyself 'generally useful.' Already the universe gets on without thee, and could still spare a million more of the same identical kidney. Corporations have no souls, and thy Pantheism, what was that? Thou wert but the pretensious, heartless part of a man. Lo! I hold thee in this hand, and thou art crushed in it like an egg from which the meat hath been sucked." Here is a slip from the floor. "Whence flow the panegyrical melodies that precede the march of these heroes? From what but from a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal!" And here is a second. "Cast thy eye in there on Vivia; tell me why those four limbs should be clapt in a dismal jail--day out, day in--week out, week in--month out, month in--and himself the voluntary jailer! Is this the end of philosophy? This the larger, and spiritual life? This your boasted empyrean? Is it for this that a man should grow wise, and leave off his most excellent and calumniated folly?" And here is a third. "Cast thy eye in there on Vivia; he, who in the pursuit of the highest health of virtue and truth, shows but a pallid cheek! Weigh his heart in thy hand, oh, thou gold-laced, virtuoso Goethe! and tell me whether it does not exceed thy standard weight!" And here is a fourth. "Oh God, that man should spoil and rust on the stalk, and be wilted and threshed ere the harvest hath come! And oh God, that men that call themselves men should still insist on a laugh! I hate the world, and could trample all lungs of mankind as grapes, and heel them out of their breath, to think of the woe and the cant,--to think of the Truth and the Lie! Oh! blessed be the twenty-first day of December, and cursed be the twenty-first day of June!" From these random slips, it would seem, that Pierre is quite conscious of much that is so anomalously hard and bitter in his lot, of much that is so black and terrific in his soul. Yet that knowing his fatal condition does not one whit enable him to change or better his condition. Conclusive proof that he has no power over his condition. For in tremendous extremities human souls are like drowning men; well enough they know they are in peril; well enough they know the causes of that peril;--nevertheless, the sea is the sea, and these drowning men do drown. IV. From eight o'clock in the morning till half-past four in the evening, Pierre sits there in his room;--eight hours and a half! From throbbing neck-bands, and swinging belly-bands of gay-hearted horses, the sleigh-bells chimingly jingle;--but Pierre sits there in his room; Thanksgiving comes, with its glad thanks, and crisp turkeys;--but Pierre sits there in his room; soft through the snows, on tinted Indian moccasin, Merry Christmas comes stealing;--but Pierre sits there in his room; it is New-Year's, and like a great flagon, the vast city overbrims at all curb-stones, wharves, and piers, with bubbling jubilations;--but Pierre sits there in his room:--Nor jingling sleigh-bells at throbbing neck-band, or swinging belly-band; nor glad thanks, and crisp turkeys of Thanksgiving; nor tinted Indian moccasin of Merry Christmas softly stealing through the snows; nor New-Year's curb-stones, wharves, and piers, over-brimming with bubbling jubilations:--Nor jingling sleigh-bells, nor glad Thanksgiving, nor Merry Christmas, nor jubilating New Year's:--Nor Bell, Thank, Christ, Year;--none of these are for Pierre. In the midst of the merriments of the mutations of Time, Pierre hath ringed himself in with the grief of Eternity. Pierre is a peak inflexible in the heart of Time, as the isle-peak, Piko, stands unassaultable in the midst of waves. He will not be called to; he will not be stirred. Sometimes the intent ear of Isabel in the next room, overhears the alternate silence, and then the long lonely scratch of his pen. It is, as if she heard the busy claw of some midnight mole in the ground. Sometimes, she hears a low cough, and sometimes the scrape of his crook-handled cane. Here surely is a wonderful stillness of eight hours and a half, repeated day after day. In the heart of such silence, surely something is at work. Is it creation, or destruction? Builds Pierre the noble world of a new book? or does the Pale Haggardness unbuild the lungs and the life in him?--Unutterable, that a man should be thus! When in the meridian flush of the day, we recall the black apex of night; then night seems impossible; this sun can never go down. Oh that the memory of the uttermost gloom as an already tasted thing to the dregs, should be no security against its return. One may be passibly well one day, but the next, he may sup at black broth with Pluto. Is there then all this work to one book, which shall be read in a very few hours; and, far more frequently, utterly skipped in one second; and which, in the end, whatever it be, must undoubtedly go to the worms? Not so; that which now absorbs the time and the life of Pierre, is not the book, but the primitive elementalizing of the strange stuff, which in the act of attempting that book, have upheaved and upgushed in his soul. Two books are being writ; of which the world shall only see one, and that the bungled one. The larger book, and the infinitely better, is for Pierre's own private shelf. That it is, whose unfathomable cravings drink his blood; the other only demands his ink. But circumstances have so decreed, that the one can not be composed on the paper, but only as the other is writ down in his soul. And the one of the soul is elephantinely sluggish, and will not budge at a breath. Thus Pierre is fastened on by two leeches;--how then can the life of Pierre last? Lo! he is fitting himself for the highest life, by thinning his blood and collapsing his heart. He is learning how to live, by rehearsing the part of death. Who shall tell all the thoughts and feelings of Pierre in that desolate and shivering room, when at last the idea obtruded, that the wiser and the profounder he should grow, the more and the more he lessened the chances for bread; that could he now hurl his deep book out of the window, and fall to on some shallow nothing of a novel, composable in a month at the longest, then could he reasonably hope for both appreciation and cash. But the devouring profundities, now opened up in him, consume all his vigor; would he, he could not now be entertainingly and profitably shallow in some pellucid and merry romance. Now he sees, that with every accession of the personal divine to him, some great land-slide of the general surrounding divineness slips from him, and falls crashing away. Said I not that the gods, as well as mankind, had unhanded themselves from this Pierre? So now in him you behold the baby toddler I spoke of; forced now to stand and toddle alone. Now and then he turns to the camp-bed, and wetting his towel in the basin, presses it against his brow. Now he leans back in his chair, as if to give up; but again bends over and plods. Twilight draws on, the summons of Isabel is heard from the door; the poor, frozen, blue-lipped, soul-shivering traveler for St. Petersburg is unpacked; and for a moment stands toddling on the floor. Then his hat, and his cane, and out he sallies for fresh air. A most comfortless staggering of a stroll! People gaze at him passing, as at some imprudent sick man, willfully burst from his bed. If an acquaintance is met, and would say a pleasant newsmonger's word in his ear, that acquaintance turns from him, affronted at his hard aspect of icy discourtesy. "Bad-hearted," mutters the man, and goes on. He comes back to his chambers, and sits down at the neat table of Delly; and Isabel soothingly eyes him, and presses him to eat and be strong. But his is the famishing which loathes all food. He can not eat but by force. He has assassinated the natural day; how then can he eat with an appetite? If he lays him down, he can not sleep; he has waked the infinite wakefulness in him; then how can he slumber? Still his book, like a vast lumbering planet, revolves in his aching head. He can not command the thing out of its orbit; fain would he behead himself, to gain one night's repose. At last the heavy hours move on; and sheer exhaustion overtakes him, and he lies still--not asleep as children and day-laborers sleep--but he lies still from his throbbings, and for that interval holdingly sheaths the beak of the vulture in his hand, and lets it not enter his heart. Morning comes; again the dropt sash, the icy water, the flesh-brush, the breakfast, the hot bricks, the ink, the pen, the from-eight-o'clock-to-half-past-four, and the whole general inclusive hell of the same departed day. Ah! shivering thus day after day in his wrappers and cloaks, is this the warm lad that once sung to the world of the Tropical Summer? BOOK XXIII. A LETTER FOR PIERRE. ISABEL. ARRIVAL OF LUCY'S EASEL AND TRUNKS AT THE APOSTLES'. I. If a frontier man be seized by wild Indians, and carried far and deep into the wilderness, and there held a captive, with no slightest probability of eventual deliverance; then the wisest thing for that man is to exclude from his memory by every possible method, the least images of those beloved objects now forever reft from him. For the more delicious they were to him in the now departed possession, so much the more agonizing shall they be in the present recalling. And though a strong man may sometimes succeed in strangling such tormenting memories; yet, if in the beginning permitted to encroach upon him unchecked, the same man shall, in the end, become as an idiot. With a continent and an ocean between him and his wife--thus sundered from her, by whatever imperative cause, for a term of long years;--the husband, if passionately devoted to her, and by nature broodingly sensitive of soul, is wise to forget her till he embrace her again;--is wise never to remember her if he hear of her death. And though such complete suicidal forgettings prove practically impossible, yet is it the shallow and ostentatious affections alone which are bustling in the offices of obituarian memories. _The love deep as death_--what mean those five words, but that such love can not live, and be continually remembering that the loved one is no more? If it be thus then in cases where entire unremorsefulness as regards the beloved absent objects is presumed, how much more intolerable, when the knowledge of their hopeless wretchedness occurs, attended by the visitations of before latent upbraidings in the rememberer as having been any way--even unwillingly--the producers of their sufferings. There seems no other sane recourse for some moody organizations on whom such things, under such circumstances intrude, but right and left to flee them, whatever betide. If little or nothing hitherto has been said of Lucy Tartan in reference to the condition of Pierre after his departure from the Meadows, it has only been because her image did not willingly occupy his soul. He had striven his utmost to banish it thence; and only once--on receiving the tidings of Glen's renewed attentions--did he remit the intensity of those strivings, or rather feel them, as impotent in him in that hour of his manifold and overwhelming prostration. Not that the pale form of Lucy, swooning on her snow-white bed; not that the inexpressible anguish of the shriek--"My heart! my heart!" would not now at times force themselves upon him, and cause his whole being to thrill with a nameless horror and terror. But the very thrillingness of the phantom made him to shun it, with all remaining might of his spirit. Nor were there wanting still other, and far more wonderful, though but dimly conscious influences in the breast of Pierre, to meet as repellants the imploring form. Not to speak of his being devoured by the all-exacting theme of his book, there were sinister preoccupations in him of a still subtler and more fearful sort, of which some inklings have already been given. It was while seated solitary in his room one morning; his flagging faculties seeking a momentary respite; his head sideways turned toward the naked floor, following the seams in it, which, as wires, led straight from where he sat to the connecting door, and disappeared beneath it into the chamber of Isabel; that he started at a tap at that very door, followed by the wonted, low, sweet voice,-- "Pierre! a letter for thee--dost thou hear? a letter,--may I come in?" At once he felt a dart of surprise and apprehension; for he was precisely in that general condition with respect to the outer world, that he could not reasonably look for any tidings but disastrous, or at least, unwelcome ones. He assented; and Isabel entered, holding out the billet in her hand. "'Tis from some lady, Pierre; who can it be?--not thy mother though, of that I am certain;--the expression of her face, as seen by me, not at all answering to the expression of this handwriting here." "My mother? from my mother?" muttered Pierre, in wild vacancy--"no! no! it can scarce be from her.--Oh, she writes no more, even in her own private tablets now! Death hath stolen the last leaf, and rubbed all out, to scribble his own ineffaceable _hic jacet_ there!" "Pierre!" cried Isabel, in affright. "Give it me!" he shouted, vehemently, extending his hand. "Forgive me, sweet, sweet Isabel, I have wandered in my mind; this book makes me mad. There; I have it now"--in a tone of indifference--"now, leave me again. It is from some pretty aunt, or cousin, I suppose," carelessly balancing the letter in his hand. Isabel quitted the room; the moment the door closed upon her, Pierre eagerly split open the letter, and read:-- II. "This morning I vowed it, my own dearest, dearest Pierre I feel stronger to-day; for to-day I have still more thought of thine own superhuman, angelical strength; which so, has a very little been transferred to me. Oh, Pierre, Pierre, with what words shall I write thee now;--now, when still knowing nothing, yet something of thy secret I, as a seer, suspect. Grief,--deep, unspeakable grief, hath made me this seer. I could murder myself, Pierre, when I think of my previous blindness; but that only came from my swoon. It was horrible and most murdersome; but now I see thou wert right in being so instantaneous with me, and in never afterward writing to me, Pierre; yes, now I see it, and adore thee the more. "Ah! thou too noble and angelical Pierre, now I feel that a being like thee, can possibly have no love as other men love; but thou lovest as angels do; not for thyself, but wholly for others. But still are we one, Pierre; thou art sacrificing thyself, and I hasten to re-tie myself to thee, that so I may catch thy fire, and all the ardent multitudinous arms of our common flames may embrace. I will ask of thee nothing, Pierre; thou shalt tell me no secret. Very right wert thou, Pierre, when, in that ride to the hills, thou wouldst not swear the fond, foolish oath I demanded. Very right, very right; now I see it. "If then I solemnly vow, never to seek from thee any slightest thing which thou wouldst not willingly have me know; if ever I, in all outward actions, shall recognize, just as thou dost, the peculiar position of that mysterious, and ever-sacred being;--then, may I not come and live with thee? I will be no encumbrance to thee. I know just where thou art, and how thou art living; and only just there, Pierre, and only just so, is any further life endurable, or possible for me. She will never know--for thus far I am sure thou thyself hast never disclosed it to her what I once was to thee. Let it seem, as though I were some nun-like cousin immovably vowed to dwell with thee in thy strange exile. Show not to me,--never show more any visible conscious token of love. I will never to thee. Our mortal lives, oh, my heavenly Pierre, shall henceforth be one mute wooing of each other; with no declaration; no bridal; till we meet in the pure realms of God's final blessedness for us;--till we meet where the ever-interrupting and ever-marring world can not and shall not come; where all thy hidden, glorious unselfishness shall be gloriously revealed in the full splendor of that heavenly light; where, no more forced to these cruelest disguises, she, _she_ too shall assume her own glorious place, nor take it hard, but rather feel the more blessed, when, there, thy sweet heart, shall be openly and unreservedly mine. Pierre, Pierre, my Pierre!--only this thought, this hope, this sublime faith now supports me. Well was it, that the swoon, in which thou didst leave me, that long eternity ago--well was it, dear Pierre, that though I came out of it to stare and grope, yet it was only to stare and grope, and then I swooned again, and then groped again, and then again swooned. But all this was vacancy; little I clutched; nothing I knew; 'twas less than a dream, my Pierre, I had no conscious thought of thee, love; but felt an utter blank, a vacancy;--for wert thou not then utterly gone from me? and what could there then be left of poor Lucy?--But now, this long, long swoon is past; I come out again into life and light; but how could I come out, how could I any way _be_, my Pierre, if not in thee? So the moment I came out of the long, long swoon, straightway came to me the immortal faith in thee, which though it could offer no one slightest possible argument of mere sense in thy behalf, yet was it only the more mysteriously imperative for that, my Pierre. Know then, dearest Pierre, that with every most glaring earthly reason to disbelieve in thy love; I do yet wholly give myself up to the unshakable belief in it. For I feel, that always is love love, and can not know change, Pierre; I feel that heaven hath called me to a wonderful office toward thee. By throwing me into that long, long swoon,--during which, Martha tells me, I hardly ate altogether, three ordinary meals,--by that, heaven, I feel now, was preparing me for the superhuman office I speak of; was wholly estranging me from this earth, even while I yet lingered in it; was fitting me for a celestial mission in terrestrial elements. Oh, give to me of thine own dear strength! I am but a poor weak girl, dear Pierre; one that didst once love thee but too fondly, and with earthly frailty. But now I shall be wafted far upward from that; shall soar up to thee, where thou sittest in thine own calm, sublime heaven of heroism. "Oh seek not to dissuade me, Pierre. Wouldst thou slay me, and slay me a million times more? and never have done with murdering me? I must come! I must come! God himself can not stay me, for it is He that commands me.--I know all that will follow my flight to thee;--my amazed mother, my enraged brothers, the whole taunting and despising world.--But thou art my mother and my brothers, and all the world, and all heaven, and all the universe to me--thou _art_ my Pierre. One only being does this soul in me serve--and that is thee, Pierre.--So I am coming to thee, Pierre, and quickly;--to-morrow it shall be, and never more will I quit thee, Pierre. Speak thou immediately to her about me; thou shalt know best what to say. Is there not some connection between our families, Pierre? I have heard my mother sometimes trace such a thing out,--some indirect cousinship. If thou approvest then, thou shalt say to her, I am thy cousin, Pierre;--thy resolved and immovable nun-like cousin; vowed to dwell with thee forever; to serve thee and her, to guard thee and her without end. Prepare some little corner for me somewhere; but let it be very near. Ere I come, I shall send a few little things,--the tools I shall work by, Pierre, and so contribute to the welfare of all. Look for me then. I am coming! I am coming, my Pierre; for a deep, deep voice assures me, that all noble as thou art, Pierre, some terrible jeopardy involves thee, which my continual presence only can drive away. I am coming! I am coming!" LUCY. III. When surrounded by the base and mercenary crew, man, too long wonted to eye his race with a suspicious disdain, suddenly is brushed by some angelical plume of humanity, and the human accents of superhuman love, and the human eyes of superhuman beauty and glory, suddenly burst on his being; then how wonderful and fearful the shock! It is as if the sky-cope were rent, and from the black valley of Jehoshaphat, he caught upper glimpses of the seraphim in the visible act of adoring. He held the artless, angelical letter in his unrealizing hand; he started, and gazed round his room, and out at the window, commanding the bare, desolate, all-forbidding quadrangle, and then asked himself whether this was the place that an angel should choose for its visit to earth. Then he felt a vast, out-swelling triumphantness, that the girl whose rare merits his intuitive soul had once so clearly and passionately discerned, should indeed, in this most tremendous of all trials, have acquitted herself with such infinite majesty. Then again, he sunk utterly down from her, as in a bottomless gulf, and ran shuddering through hideous galleries of despair, in pursuit of some vague, white shape, and lo! two unfathomable dark eyes met his, and Isabel stood mutely and mournfully, yet all-ravishingly before him. He started up from his plank; cast off his manifold wrappings, and crossed the floor to remove himself from the spot, where such sweet, such sublime, such terrific revelations had been made him. Then a timid little rap was heard at the door. "Pierre, Pierre; now that thou art risen, may I not come in--just for a moment, Pierre." "Come in, Isabel." She was approaching him in her wonted most strange and sweetly mournful manner, when he retreated a step from her, and held out his arm, not seemingly to invite, but rather as if to warn. She looked fixedly in his face, and stood rooted. "Isabel, another is coming to me. Thou dost not speak, Isabel. She is coming to dwell with us so long as we live, Isabel. Wilt thou not speak?" The girl still stood rooted; the eyes, which she had first fixed on him, still remained wide-openly riveted. "Wilt thou not speak, Isabel?" said Pierre, terrified at her frozen, immovable aspect, yet too terrified to manifest his own terror to her; and still coming slowly near her. She slightly raised one arm, as if to grasp some support; then turned her head slowly sideways toward the door by which she had entered; then her dry lips slowly parted--"My bed; lay me; lay me!" The verbal effort broke her stiffening enchantment of frost; her thawed form sloped sidelong into the air; but Pierre caught her, and bore her into her own chamber, and laid her there on the bed. "Fan me; fan me!" He fanned the fainting flame of her life; by-and-by she turned slowly toward him. "Oh! that feminine word from thy mouth, dear Pierre:--that _she_, that _she_!" Pierre sat silent, fanning her. "Oh, I want none in the world but thee, my brother--but thee, but thee! and, oh God! am _I_ not enough for thee? Bare earth with my brother were all heaven for me; but all my life, all my full soul, contents not my brother." Pierre spoke not; he but listened; a terrible, burning curiosity was in him, that made him as heartless. But still all that she had said thus far was ambiguous. "Had I known--had I but known it before! Oh bitterly cruel to reveal it now. That _she_! That _she_!" She raised herself suddenly, and almost fiercely confronted him. "Either thou hast told thy secret, or she is not worthy the commonest love of man! Speak Pierre,--which?" "The secret is still a secret, Isabel." "Then is she worthless, Pierre, whoever she be--foolishly, madly fond!--Doth not the world know me for thy wife?--She shall not come! 'Twere a foul blot on thee and me. She shall not come! One look from me shall murder her, Pierre!" "This is madness, Isabel. Look: now reason with me. Did I not before opening the letter, say to thee, that doubtless it was from some pretty young aunt or cousin?" "Speak quick!--a cousin?" "A cousin, Isabel." "Yet, yet, that is not wholly out of the degree, I have heard. Tell me more, and quicker! more! more!" "A very strange cousin, Isabel; almost a nun in her notions. Hearing of our mysterious exile, she, without knowing the cause, hath yet as mysteriously vowed herself ours--not so much mine, Isabel, as ours, _ours_--to serve _us_; and by some sweet heavenly fancying, to guide us and guard us here." "Then, possibly, it may be all very well, Pierre, my brother--my _brother_--I can say that now?" "Any,--all words are thine, Isabel; words and worlds with all their containings, shall be slaves to thee, Isabel." She looked eagerly and inquiringly at him; then dropped her eyes, and touched his hand; then gazed again. "Speak so more to me, Pierre! Thou art my brother; art thou not my brother?--But tell me now more of--her; it is all newness, and utter strangeness to me, Pierre." "I have said, my sweetest sister, that she has this wild, nun-like notion in her. She is willful in it; in this letter she vows she must and will come, and nothing on earth shall stay her. Do not have any sisterly jealousy, then, my sister. Thou wilt find her a most gentle, unobtrusive, ministering girl, Isabel. She will never name the not-to-be-named things to thee; nor hint of them; because she knows them not. Still, without knowing the secret, she yet hath the vague, unspecializing sensation of the secret--the mystical presentiment, somehow, of the secret. And her divineness hath drowned all womanly curiosity in her; so that she desires not, in any way, to verify the presentiment; content with the vague presentiment only; for in that, she thinks, the heavenly summons to come to us, lies;--even there, in that, Isabel. Dost thou now comprehend me?" "I comprehend nothing, Pierre; there is nothing these eyes have ever looked upon, Pierre, that this soul comprehended. Ever, as now, do I go all a-grope amid the wide mysteriousness of things. Yes, she shall come; it is only one mystery the more. Doth she talk in her sleep, Pierre? Would it be well, if I slept with her, my brother?" "On thy account; wishful for thy sake; to leave thee incommoded; and--and--not knowing precisely how things really are;--she probably anticipates and desires otherwise, my sister." She gazed steadfastly at his outwardly firm, but not interiorly unfaltering aspect; and then dropped her glance in silence. "Yes, she shall come, my brother; she shall come. But it weaves its thread into the general riddle, my brother.--Hath she that which they call the memory, Pierre; the memory? Hath she that?" "We all have the memory, my sister." "Not all! not all!--poor Bell hath but very little. Pierre! I have seen her in some dream. She is fair-haired--blue eyes--she is not quite so tall as I, yet a very little slighter." Pierre started. "Thou hast seen Lucy Tartan, at Saddle Meadows?" "Is Lucy Tartan the name?--Perhaps, perhaps;--but also, in the dream, Pierre; she came, with her blue eyes turned beseechingly on me; she seemed as if persuading me from thee;--methought she was then more than thy cousin;--methought she was that good angel, which some say, hovers over every human soul; and methought--oh, methought that I was thy other,--thy other angel, Pierre. Look: see these eyes,--this hair--nay, this cheek;--all dark, dark, dark,--and she--the blue-eyed--the fair-haired--oh, once the red-cheeked!" She tossed her ebon tresses over her; she fixed her ebon eyes on him. "Say, Pierre; doth not a funerealness invest me? Was ever hearse so plumed?--Oh, God! that I had been born with blue eyes, and fair hair! Those make the livery of heaven! Heard ye ever yet of a good angel with dark eyes, Pierre?--no, no, no--all blue, blue, blue--heaven's own blue--the clear, vivid, unspeakable blue, which we see in June skies, when all clouds are swept by.--But the good angel shall come to thee, Pierre. Then both will be close by thee, my brother; and thou mayest perhaps elect,--elect!--She shall come; she shall come.--When is it to be, dear Pierre?" "To-morrow, Isabel. So it is here written." She fixed her eye on the crumpled billet in his hand. "It were vile to ask, but not wrong to suppose the asking.--Pierre,--no, I need not say it,--wouldst thou?" "No; I would not let thee read it, my sister; I would not; because I have no right to--no right--no right;--that is it; no: I have no right. I will burn it this instant, Isabel." He stepped from her into the adjoining room; threw the billet into the stove, and watching its last ashes, returned to Isabel. She looked with endless intimations upon him. "It is burnt, but not consumed; it is gone, but not lost. Through stove, pipe, and flue, it hath mounted in flame, and gone as a scroll to heaven! It shall appear again, my brother.--Woe is me--woe, woe!--woe is me, oh, woe! Do not speak to me, Pierre; leave me now. She shall come. The Bad angel shall tend the Good; she shall dwell with us, Pierre. Mistrust me not; her considerateness to me, shall be outdone by mine to her.--Let me be alone now, my brother." IV. Though by the unexpected petition to enter his privacy--a petition he could scarce ever deny to Isabel, since she so religiously abstained from preferring it, unless for some very reasonable cause, Pierre, in the midst of those conflicting, secondary emotions, immediately following the first wonderful effect of Lucy's strange letter, had been forced to put on, toward Isabel, some air of assurance and understanding concerning its contents; yet at bottom, he was still a prey to all manner of devouring mysteries. Soon, now, as he left the chamber of Isabel, these mysteriousnesses re-mastered him completely; and as he mechanically sat down in the dining-room chair, gently offered him by Delly--for the silent girl saw that some strangeness that sought stillness was in him;--Pierre's mind was revolving how it was possible, or any way conceivable, that Lucy should have been inspired with such seemingly wonderful presentiments of something assumed, or disguising, or non-substantial, somewhere and somehow, in his present most singular apparent position in the eye of world. The wild words of Isabel yet rang in his ears. It were an outrage upon all womanhood to imagine that Lucy, however yet devoted to him in her hidden heart, should be willing to come to him, so long as she supposed, with the rest of the world, that Pierre was an ordinarily married man. But how--what possible reason--what possible intimation could she have had to suspect the contrary, or to suspect any thing unsound? For neither at this present time, nor at any subsequent period, did Pierre, or could Pierre, possibly imagine that in her marvelous presentiments of Love she had any definite conceit of the precise nature of the secret which so unrevealingly and enchantedly wrapt him. But a peculiar thought passingly recurred to him here. Within his social recollections there was a very remarkable case of a youth, who, while all but affianced to a beautiful girl--one returning his own throbbings with incipient passion--became somehow casually and momentarily betrayed into an imprudent manifested tenderness toward a second lady; or else, that second lady's deeply-concerned friends caused it to be made known to the poor youth, that such committal tenderness toward her he had displayed, nor had it failed to exert its natural effect upon her; certain it is, this second lady drooped and drooped, and came nigh to dying, all the while raving of the cruel infidelity of her supposed lover; so that those agonizing appeals, from so really lovely a girl, that seemed dying of grief for him, at last so moved the youth, that--morbidly disregardful of the fact, that inasmuch as two ladies claimed him, the prior lady had the best title to his hand--his conscience insanely upbraided him concerning the second lady; he thought that eternal woe would surely overtake him both here and hereafter if he did not renounce his first love--terrible as the effort would be both to him and her--and wed with the second lady; which he accordingly did; while, through his whole subsequent life, delicacy and honor toward his thus wedded wife, forbade that by explaining to his first love how it was with him in this matter, he should tranquilize her heart; and, therefore, in her complete ignorance, she believed that he was willfully and heartlessly false to her; and so came to a lunatic's death on his account. This strange story of real life, Pierre knew to be also familiar to Lucy; for they had several times conversed upon it; and the first love of the demented youth had been a school-mate of Lucy's, and Lucy had counted upon standing up with her as bridesmaid. Now, the passing idea was self-suggested to Pierre, whether into Lucy's mind some such conceit as this, concerning himself and Isabel, might not possibly have stolen. But then again such a supposition proved wholly untenable in the end; for it did by no means suffice for a satisfactory solution of the absolute motive of the extraordinary proposed step of Lucy; nor indeed by any ordinary law of propriety, did it at all seem to justify that step. Therefore, he know not what to think; hardly what to dream. Wonders, nay, downright miracles and no less were sung about Love; but here was the absolute miracle itself--the out-acted miracle. For infallibly certain he inwardly felt, that whatever her strange conceit; whatever her enigmatical delusion; whatever her most secret and inexplicable motive; still Lucy in her own virgin heart remained transparently immaculate, without shadow of flaw or vein. Nevertheless, what inconceivable conduct this was in her, which she in her letter so passionately proposed! Altogether, it amazed him; it confounded him. Now, that vague, fearful feeling stole into him, that, rail as all atheists will, there is a mysterious, inscrutable divineness in the world--a God--a Being positively present everywhere;--nay, He is now in this room; the air did part when I here sat down. I displaced the Spirit then--condensed it a little off from this spot. He looked apprehensively around him; he felt overjoyed at the sight of the humanness of Delly. While he was thus plunged into this mysteriousness, a knock was heard at the door. Delly hesitatingly rose--"Shall I let any one in, sir?--I think it is Mr. Millthorpe's knock." "Go and see--go and see"--said Pierre, vacantly. The moment the door was opened, Millthorpe--for it was he--catching a glimpse of Pierre's seated form, brushed past Delly, and loudly entered the room. "Ha, ha! well, my boy, how comes on the Inferno? That is it you are writing; one is apt to look black while writing Infernoes; you always loved Dante. My lad! I have finished ten metaphysical treatises; argued five cases before the court; attended all our society's meetings; accompanied our great Professor, Monsieur Volvoon, the lecturer, through his circuit in the philosophical saloons, sharing all the honors of his illustrious triumph; and by the way, let me tell you, Volvoon secretly gives me even more credit than is my due; for 'pon my soul, I did not help write more than one half, at most, of his Lectures; edited--anonymously, though--a learned, scientific work on 'The Precise Cause of the Modifications in the Undulatory Motion in Waves,' a posthumous work of a poor fellow--fine lad he was, too--a friend of mine. Yes, here I have been doing all this, while you still are hammering away at that one poor plaguy Inferno! Oh, there's a secret in dispatching these things; patience! patience! you will yet learn the secret. Time! time! I can't teach it to you, my boy, but Time can: I wish I could, but I can't." There was another knock at the door. "Oh!" cried Millthorpe, suddenly turning round to it, "I forgot, my boy. I came to tell you that there is a porter, with some queer things, inquiring for you. I happened to meet him down stairs in the corridors, and I told him to follow me up--I would show him the road; here he is; let him in, let him in, good Delly, my girl." Thus far, the rattlings of Millthorpe, if producing any effect at all, had but stunned the averted Pierre. But now he started to his feet. A man with his hat on, stood in the door, holding an easel before him. "Is this Mr. Glendinning's room, gentlemen?" "Oh, come in, come in," cried Millthorpe, "all right." "Oh! is that _you_, sir? well, well, then;" and the man set down the easel. "Well, my boy," exclaimed Millthorpe to Pierre; "you are in the Inferno dream yet. Look; that's what people call an _easel_, my boy. An _easel_, an _easel_--not a _weasel_; you look at it as though you thought it a weasel. Come; wake up, wake up! You ordered it, I suppose, and here it is. Going to paint and illustrate the Inferno, as you go along, I suppose. Well, my friends tell me it is a great pity my own things aint illustrated. But I can't afford it. There now is that Hymn to the Niger, which I threw into a pigeon-hole, a year or two ago--that would be fine for illustrations." "Is it for Mr. Glendinning you inquire?" said Pierre now, in a slow, icy tone, to the porter. "Mr. Glendinning, sir; all right, aint it?" "Perfectly," said Pierre mechanically, and casting another strange, rapt, bewildered glance at the easel. "But something seems strangely wanting here. Ay, now I see, I see it:--Villain!--the vines! Thou hast torn the green heart-strings! Thou hast but left the cold skeleton of the sweet arbor wherein she once nestled! Thou besotted, heartless hind and fiend, dost thou so much as dream in thy shriveled liver of the eternal mischief thou hast done? Restore thou the green vines! untrample them, thou accursed!--Oh my God, my God, trampled vines pounded and crushed in all fibers, how can they live over again, even though they be replanted! Curse thee, thou!--Nay, nay," he added moodily--"I was but wandering to myself." Then rapidly and mockingly--"Pardon, pardon!--porter; I most humbly crave thy most haughty pardon." Then imperiously--"Come, stir thyself, man; thou hast more below: bring all up." As the astounded porter turned, he whispered to Millthorpe--"Is he safe?--shall I bring 'em?" "Oh certainly," smiled Millthorpe: "I'll look out for him; he's never really dangerous when I'm present; there, go!" Two trunks now followed, with "L. T." blurredly marked upon the ends. "Is that all, my man?" said Pierre, as the trunks were being put down before him; "well, how much?"--that moment his eyes first caught the blurred letters. "Prepaid, sir; but no objection to more." Pierre stood mute and unmindful, still fixedly eying the blurred letters; his body contorted, and one side drooping, as though that moment half-way down-stricken with a paralysis, and yet unconscious of the stroke. His two companions, momentarily stood motionless in those respective attitudes, in which they had first caught sight of the remarkable change that had come over him. But, as if ashamed of having been thus affected, Millthorpe summoning a loud, merry voice, advanced toward Pierre, and, tapping his shoulder, cried, "Wake up, wake up, my boy!--He says he is prepaid, but no objection to more." "Prepaid;--what's that? Go, go, and jabber to apes!" "A curious young gentleman, is he not?" said Millthorpe lightly to the porter;--"Look you, my boy, I'll repeat:--He says he's prepaid, but no objection to more." "Ah?--take that then," said Pierre, vacantly putting something into the porter's hand. "And what shall I do with this, sir?" said the porter, staring. "Drink a health; but not mine; that were mockery!" "With a key, sir? This is a key you gave me." "Ah!--well, you at least shall not have the thing that unlocks me. Give me the key, and take this." "Ay, ay!--here's the chink! Thank'ee sir, thank'ee. This'll drink. I aint called a porter for nothing; Stout's the word; 2151 is my number; any jobs, call on me." "Do you ever cart a coffin, my man?" said Pierre. "'Pon my soul!" cried Millthorpe, gayly laughing, "if you aint writing an Inferno, then--but never mind. Porter! this gentleman is under medical treatment at present. You had better--ab'--you understand--'squatulate, porter! There, my boy, he is gone; I understand how to manage these fellows; there's a trick in it, my boy--an off-handed sort of what d'ye call it?--you understand--the trick! the trick!--the whole world's a trick. Know the trick of it, all's right; don't know, all's wrong. Ha! ha!" "The porter is gone then?" said Pierre, calmly. "Well, Mr. Millthorpe, you will have the goodness to follow him." "Rare joke! admirable!--Good morning, sir. Ha, ha!" And with his unruffleable hilariousness, Millthorpe quitted the room. But hardly had the door closed upon him, nor had he yet removed his hand from its outer knob, when suddenly it swung half open again, and thrusting his fair curly head within, Millthorpe cried: "By the way, my boy, I have a word for you. You know that greasy fellow who has been dunning you so of late. Well, be at rest there; he's paid. I was suddenly made flush yesterday:--regular flood-tide. You can return it any day, you know--no hurry; that's all.--But, by the way,--as you look as though you were going to have company here--just send for me in case you want to use me--any bedstead to put up, or heavy things to be lifted about. Don't you and the women do it, now, mind! That's all again. Addios, my boy. Take care of yourself!" "Stay!" cried Pierre, reaching forth one hand, but moving neither foot--"Stay!"--in the midst of all his prior emotions struck by these singular traits in Millthorpe. But the door was abruptly closed; and singing Fa, la, la: Millthorpe in his seedy coat went tripping down the corridor. "Plus heart, minus head," muttered Pierre, his eyes fixed on the door. "Now, by heaven! the god that made Millthorpe was both a better and a greater than the god that made Napoleon or Byron.--Plus head, minus heart--Pah! the brains grow maggoty without a heart; but the heart's the preserving salt itself, and can keep sweet without the head.--Delly!" "Sir?" "My cousin Miss Tartan is coming here to live with us, Delly. That easel,--those trunks are hers." "Good heavens!--coming here?--your cousin?--Miss Tartan?" "Yes, I thought you must have heard of her and me;--but it was broken off; Delly." "Sir? Sir?" "I have no explanation, Delly; and from you, I must have no amazement. My cousin,--mind, my _cousin_, Miss Tartan, is coming to live with us. The next room to this, on the other side there, is unoccupied. That room shall be hers. You must wait upon her, too, Delly." "Certainly sir, certainly; I will do any thing;" said Delly trembling; "but,--but--does Mrs. Glendin-din--does my mistress know this?" "My wife knows all"--said Pierre sternly. "I will go down and get the key of the room; and you must sweep it out." "What is to be put into it, sir?" said Delly. "Miss Tartan--why, she is used to all sorts of fine things,--rich carpets--wardrobes--mirrors--curtains;--why, why, why!" "Look," said Pierre, touching an old rug with his foot;--"here is a bit of carpet; drag that into her room; here is a chair, put that in; and for a bed,--ay, ay," he muttered to himself; "I have made it for her, and she ignorantly lies on it now!--as made--so lie. Oh God!" "Hark! my mistress is calling"--cried Delly, moving toward the opposite room. "Stay!"--cried Pierre, grasping her shoulder; "if both called at one time from these opposite chambers, and both were swooning, which door would you first fly to?" The girl gazed at him uncomprehendingly and affrighted a moment; and then said,--"This one, sir"--out of mere confusion perhaps, putting her hand on Isabel's latch. "It is well. Now go." He stood in an intent unchanged attitude till Delly returned. "How is my wife, now?" Again startled by the peculiar emphasis placed on the magical word _wife_, Delly, who had long before this, been occasionally struck with the infrequency of his using that term; she looked at him perplexedly, and said half-unconsciously-- "Your wife, sir?" "Ay, is she not?" "God grant that she be--Oh, 'tis most cruel to ask that of poor, poor Delly, sir!" "Tut for thy tears! Never deny it again then!--I swear to heaven, she is!" With these wild words, Pierre seized his hat, and departed the room, muttering something about bringing the key of the additional chamber. As the door closed on him, Delly dropped on her knees. She lifted her head toward the ceiling, but dropped it again, as if tyrannically awed downward, and bent it low over, till her whole form tremulously cringed to the floor. "God that made me, and that wast not so hard to me as wicked Delly deserved,--God that made me, I pray to thee! ward it off from me, if it be coming to me. Be not deaf to me; these stony walls--Thou canst hear through them. Pity! pity!--mercy, my God!--If they are not married; if I, penitentially seeking to be pure, am now but the servant to a greater sin, than I myself committed: then, pity! pity! pity! pity! pity! Oh God that made me,--See me, see me here--what can Delly do? If I go hence, none will take me in but villains. If I stay, then--for stay I must--and they be not married,--then pity, pity, pity, pity, pity!" BOOK XXIV. LUCY AT THE APOSTLES. I. Next morning, the recently appropriated room adjoining on the other side of the dining-room, presented a different aspect from that which met the eye of Delly upon first unlocking it with Pierre on the previous evening. Two squares of faded carpeting of different patterns, covered the middle of the floor, leaving, toward the surbase, a wide, blank margin around them. A small glass hung in the pier; beneath that, a little stand, with a foot or two of carpet before it. In one corner was a cot, neatly equipped with bedding. At the outer side of the cot, another strip of carpeting was placed. Lucy's delicate feet should not shiver on the naked floor. Pierre, Isabel, and Delly were standing in the room; Isabel's eyes were fixed on the cot. "I think it will be pretty cosy now," said Delly, palely glancing all round, and then adjusting the pillow anew. "There is no warmth, though," said Isabel. "Pierre, there is no stove in the room. She will be very cold. The pipe--can we not send it this way?" And she looked more intently at him, than the question seemed to warrant. "Let the pipe stay where it is, Isabel," said Pierre, answering her own pointed gaze. "The dining-room door can stand open. She never liked sleeping in a heated room. Let all be; it is well. Eh! but there is a grate here, I see. I will buy coals. Yes, yes--that can be easily done; a little fire of a morning--the expense will be nothing. Stay, we will have a little fire here now for a welcome. She shall always have fire." "Better change the pipe, Pierre," said Isabel, "that will be permanent, and save the coals." "It shall not be done, Isabel. Doth not that pipe and that warmth go into thy room? Shall I rob my wife, good Delly, even to benefit my most devoted and true-hearted cousin?" "Oh! I should say not, sir; not at all," said Delly hysterically. A triumphant fire flashed in Isabel's eye; her full bosom arched out; but she was silent. "She may be here, now, at any moment, Isabel," said Pierre; "come, we will meet her in the dining-room; that is our reception-place, thou knowest." So the three went into the dining-room. II. They had not been there long, when Pierre, who had been pacing up and down, suddenly paused, as if struck by some laggard thought, which had just occurred to him at the eleventh hour. First he looked toward Delly, as if about to bid her quit the apartment, while he should say something private to Isabel; but as if, on a second thought, holding the contrary of this procedure most advisable, he, without preface, at once addressed Isabel, in his ordinary conversational tone, so that Delly could not but plainly hear him, whether she would or no. "My dear Isabel, though, as I said to thee before, my cousin, Miss Tartan, that strange, and willful, nun-like girl, is at all hazards, mystically resolved to come and live with us, yet it must be quite impossible that her friends can approve in her such a singular step; a step even more singular, Isabel, than thou, in thy unsophisticatedness, can'st at all imagine. I shall be immensely deceived if they do not, to their very utmost, strive against it. Now what I am going to add may be quite unnecessary, but I can not avoid speaking it, for all that." Isabel with empty hands sat silent, but intently and expectantly eying him; while behind her chair, Delly was bending her face low over her knitting--which she had seized so soon as Pierre had begun speaking--and with trembling fingers was nervously twitching the points of her long needles. It was plain that she awaited Pierre's accents with hardly much less eagerness than Isabel. Marking well this expression in Delly, and apparently not unpleased with it, Pierre continued; but by no slightest outward tone or look seemed addressing his remarks to any one but Isabel. "Now what I mean, dear Isabel, is this: if that very probable hostility on the part of Miss Tartan's friends to her fulfilling her strange resolution--if any of that hostility should chance to be manifested under thine eye, then thou certainly wilt know how to account for it; and as certainly wilt draw no inference from it in the minutest conceivable degree involving any thing sinister in me. No, I am sure thou wilt not, my dearest Isabel. For, understand me, regarding this strange mood in my cousin as a thing wholly above my comprehension, and indeed regarding my poor cousin herself as a rapt enthusiast in some wild mystery utterly unknown to me; and unwilling ignorantly to interfere in what almost seems some supernatural thing, I shall not repulse her coming, however violently her friends may seek to stay it. I shall not repulse, as certainly as I have not invited. But a neutral attitude sometimes seems a suspicious one. Now what I mean is this: let all such vague suspicions of me, if any, be confined to Lucy's friends; but let not such absurd misgivings come near my dearest Isabel, to give the least uneasiness. Isabel! tell me; have I not now said enough to make plain what I mean? Or, indeed, is not all I have said wholly unnecessary; seeing that when one feels deeply conscientious, one is often apt to seem superfluously, and indeed unpleasantly and unbeseemingly scrupulous? Speak, my own Isabel,"--and he stept nearer to her, reaching forth his arm. "Thy hand is the caster's ladle, Pierre, which holds me entirely fluid. Into thy forms and slightest moods of thought, thou pourest me; and I there solidify to that form, and take it on, and thenceforth wear it, till once more thou moldest me anew. If what thou tellest me be thy thought, then how can I help its being mine, my Pierre?" "The gods made thee of a holyday, when all the common world was done, and shaped thee leisurely in elaborate hours, thou paragon!" So saying, in a burst of admiring love and wonder, Pierre paced the room; while Isabel sat silent, leaning on her hand, and half-vailed with her hair. Delly's nervous stitches became less convulsive. She seemed soothed; some dark and vague conceit seemed driven out of her by something either directly expressed by Pierre, or inferred from his expressions. III. "Pierre! Pierre!--Quick! Quick!--They are dragging me back!--oh, quick, dear Pierre!" "What is that?" swiftly cried Isabel, rising to her feet, and amazedly glancing toward the door leading into the corridor. But Pierre darted from the room, prohibiting any one from following him. Half-way down the stairs, a slight, airy, almost unearthly figure was clinging to the balluster; and two young men, one in naval uniform, were vainly seeking to remove the two thin white hands without hurting them. They were Glen Stanly, and Frederic, the elder brother of Lucy. In a moment, Pierre's hands were among the rest. "Villain!--Damn thee!" cried Frederic; and letting go the hand of his sister, he struck fiercely at Pierre. But the blow was intercepted by Pierre. "Thou hast bewitched, thou damned juggler, the sweetest angel! Defend thyself!" "Nay, nay," cried Glen, catching the drawn rapier of the frantic brother, and holding him in his powerful grasp; "he is unarmed; this is no time or place to settle our feud with him. Thy sister,--sweet Lucy--let us save her first, and then what thou wilt. Pierre Glendinning--if thou art but the little finger of a man--begone with thee from hence! Thy depravity, thy pollutedness, is that of a fiend!--Thou canst not desire this thing:--the sweet girl is mad!" Pierre stepped back a little, and looked palely and haggardly at all three. "I render no accounts: I am what I am. This sweet girl--this angel whom ye two defile by your touches--she is of age by the law:--she is her own mistress by the law. And now, I swear she shall have her will! Unhand the girl! Let her stand alone. See; she will faint; let her go, I say!" And again his hands were among them. Suddenly, as they all, for the one instant vaguely struggled, the pale girl drooped, and fell sideways toward Pierre; and, unprepared for this, the two opposite champions, unconsciously relinquished their hold, tripped, and stumbled against each other, and both fell on the stairs. Snatching Lucy in his arms, Pierre darted from them; gained the door; drove before him Isabel and Delly,--who, affrighted, had been lingering there;--and bursting into the prepared chamber, laid Lucy on her cot; then swiftly turned out of the room, and locked them all three in: and so swiftly--like lightning--was this whole thing done, that not till the lock clicked, did he find Glen and Frederic fiercely fronting him. "Gentlemen, it is all over. This door is locked. She is in women's hands.--Stand back!" As the two infuriated young men now caught at him to hurl him aside, several of the Apostles rapidly entered, having been attracted by the noise. "Drag them off from me!" cried Pierre. "They are trespassers! drag them off!" Immediately Glen and Frederic were pinioned by twenty hands; and, in obedience to a sign from Pierre, were dragged out of the room, and dragged down stairs; and given into the custody of a passing officer, as two disorderly youths invading the sanctuary of a private retreat. In vain they fiercely expostulated; but at last, as if now aware that nothing farther could be done without some previous legal action, they most reluctantly and chafingly declared themselves ready to depart. Accordingly they were let go; but not without a terrible menace of swift retribution directed to Pierre. IV. Happy is the dumb man in the hour of passion. He makes no impulsive threats, and therefore seldom falsifies himself in the transition from choler to calm. Proceeding into the thoroughfare, after leaving the Apostles', it was not very long ere Glen and Frederic concluded between themselves, that Lucy could not so easily be rescued by threat or force. The pale, inscrutable determinateness, and flinchless intrepidity of Pierre, now began to domineer upon them; for any social unusualness or greatness is sometimes most impressive in the retrospect. What Pierre had said concerning Lucy's being her own mistress in the eye of the law; this now recurred to them. After much tribulation of thought, the more collected Glen proposed, that Frederic's mother should visit the rooms of Pierre; he imagined, that though insensible to their own united intimidations, Lucy might not prove deaf to the maternal prayers. Had Mrs. Tartan been a different woman than she was; had she indeed any disinterested agonies of a generous heart, and not mere match-making mortifications, however poignant; then the hope of Frederic and Glen might have had more likelihood in it. Nevertheless, the experiment was tried, but signally failed. In the combined presence of her mother, Pierre, Isabel, and Delly; and addressing Pierre and Isabel as Mr. and Mrs. Glendinning; Lucy took the most solemn vows upon herself, to reside with her present host and hostess until they should cast her off. In vain her by turns suppliant, and exasperated mother went down on her knees to her, or seemed almost on the point of smiting her; in vain she painted all the scorn and the loathing; sideways hinted of the handsome and gallant Glen; threatened her that in case she persisted, her entire family would renounce her; and though she should be starving, would not bestow one morsel upon such a recreant, and infinitely worse than dishonorable girl. To all this, Lucy--now entirely unmenaced in person--replied in the gentlest and most heavenly manner; yet with a collectedness, and steadfastness, from which there was nothing to hope. What she was doing was not of herself; she had been moved to it by all-encompassing influences above, around, and beneath. She felt no pain for her own condition; her only suffering was sympathetic. She looked for no reward; the essence of well-doing was the consciousness of having done well without the least hope of reward. Concerning the loss of worldly wealth and sumptuousness, and all the brocaded applauses of drawing-rooms; these were no loss to her, for they had always been valueless. Nothing was she now renouncing; but in acting upon her present inspiration she was inheriting every thing. Indifferent to scorn, she craved no pity. As to the question of her sanity, that matter she referred to the verdict of angels, and not to the sordid opinions of man. If any one protested that she was defying the sacred counsels of her mother, she had nothing to answer but this: that her mother possessed all her daughterly deference, but her unconditional obedience was elsewhere due. Let all hope of moving her be immediately, and once for all, abandoned. One only thing could move her; and that would only move her, to make her forever immovable;--that thing was death. Such wonderful strength in such wonderful sweetness; such inflexibility in one so fragile, would have been matter for marvel to any observer. But to her mother it was very much more; for, like many other superficial observers, forming her previous opinion of Lucy upon the slightness of her person, and the dulcetness of her temper, Mrs. Tartan had always imagined that her daughter was quite incapable of any such daring act. As if sterling heavenliness were incompatible with heroicness. These two are never found apart. Nor, though Pierre knew more of Lucy than any one else, did this most singular behavior in her fail to amaze him. Seldom even had the mystery of Isabel fascinated him more, with a fascination partaking of the terrible. The mere bodily aspect of Lucy, as changed by her more recent life, filled him with the most powerful and novel emotions. That unsullied complexion of bloom was now entirely gone, without being any way replaced by sallowness, as is usual in similar instances. And as if her body indeed were the temple of God, and marble indeed were the only fit material for so holy a shrine, a brilliant, supernatural whiteness now gleamed in her cheek. Her head sat on her shoulders as a chiseled statue's head; and the soft, firm light in her eye seemed as much a prodigy, as though a chiseled statue should give token of vision and intelligence. Isabel also was most strangely moved by this sweet unearthliness in the aspect of Lucy. But it did not so much persuade her by any common appeals to her heart, as irrespectively commend her by the very signet of heaven. In the deference with which she ministered to Lucy's little occasional wants, there was more of blank spontaneousness than compassionate voluntariness. And when it so chanced, that--owing perhaps to some momentary jarring of the distant and lonely guitar--as Lucy was so mildly speaking in the presence of her mother, a sudden, just audible, submissively answering musical, stringed tone, came through the open door from the adjoining chamber; then Isabel, as if seized by some spiritual awe, fell on her knees before Lucy, and made a rapid gesture of homage; yet still, somehow, as it were, without evidence of voluntary will. Finding all her most ardent efforts ineffectual, Mrs. Tartan now distressedly motioned to Pierre and Isabel to quit the chamber, that she might urge her entreaties and menaces in private. But Lucy gently waved them to stay; and then turned to her mother. Henceforth she had no secrets but those which would also be secrets in heaven. Whatever was publicly known in heaven, should be publicly known on earth. There was no slightest secret between her and her mother. Wholly confounded by this inscrutableness of her so alienated and infatuated daughter, Mrs. Tartan turned inflamedly upon Pierre, and bade him follow her forth. But again Lucy said nay, there were no secrets between her mother and Pierre. She would anticipate every thing there. Calling for pen and paper, and a book to hold on her knee and write, she traced the following lines, and reached them to her mother: "I am Lucy Tartan. I have come to dwell during their pleasure with Mr. and Mrs. Pierre Glendinning, of my own unsolicited free-will. If they desire it, I shall go; but no other power shall remove me, except by violence; and against any violence I have the ordinary appeal to the law." "Read this, madam," said Mrs. Tartan, tremblingly handing it to Isabel, and eying her with a passionate and disdainful significance. "I have read it," said Isabel, quietly, after a glance, and handing it to Pierre, as if by that act to show, that she had no separate decision in the matter. "And do you, sir, too, indirectly connive?" said Mrs. Tartan to Pierre, when he had read it. "I render no accounts, madam. This seems to be the written and final calm will of your daughter. As such, you had best respect it, and depart." Mrs. Tartan glanced despairingly and incensedly about her; then fixing her eyes on her daughter, spoke. "Girl! here where I stand, I forever cast thee off. Never more shalt thou be vexed by my maternal entreaties. I shall instruct thy brothers to disown thee; I shall instruct Glen Stanly to banish thy worthless image from his heart, if banished thence it be not already by thine own incredible folly and depravity. For thee, Mr. Monster! the judgment of God will overtake thee for this. And for thee, madam, I have no words for the woman who will connivingly permit her own husband's paramour to dwell beneath her roof. For thee, frail one," (to Delly), "thou needest no amplification.--A nest of vileness! And now, surely, whom God himself hath abandoned forever, a mother may quit, never more to revisit." This parting maternal malediction seemed to work no visibly corresponding effect upon Lucy; already she was so marble-white, that fear could no more blanch her, if indeed fear was then at all within her heart. For as the highest, and purest, and thinnest ether remains unvexed by all the tumults of the inferior air; so that transparent ether of her cheek, that clear mild azure of her eye, showed no sign of passion, as her terrestrial mother stormed below. Helpings she had from unstirring arms; glimpses she caught of aid invisible; sustained she was by those high powers of immortal Love, that once siding with the weakest reed which the utmost tempest tosses; then that utmost tempest shall be broken down before the irresistible resistings of that weakest reed. BOOK XXV. LUCY, ISABEL, AND PIERRE. PIERRE AT HIS BOOK. ENCELADUS. I. A day or two after the arrival of Lucy, when she had quite recovered from any possible ill-effects of recent events,--events conveying such a shock to both Pierre and Isabel,--though to each in a quite different way,--but not, apparently, at least, moving Lucy so intensely--as they were all three sitting at coffee, Lucy expressed her intention to practice her crayon art professionally. It would be so pleasant an employment for her, besides contributing to their common fund. Pierre well knew her expertness in catching likenesses, and judiciously and truthfully beautifying them; not by altering the features so much, as by steeping them in a beautifying atmosphere. For even so, said Lucy, thrown into the Lagoon, and there beheld--as I have heard--the roughest stones, without transformation, put on the softest aspects. If Pierre would only take a little trouble to bring sitters to her room, she doubted not a fine harvest of heads might easily be secured. Certainly, among the numerous inmates of the old Church, Pierre must know many who would have no objections to being sketched. Moreover, though as yet she had had small opportunity to see them; yet among such a remarkable company of poets, philosophers, and mystics of all sorts, there must be some striking heads. In conclusion, she expressed her satisfaction at the chamber prepared for her, inasmuch as having been formerly the studio of an artist, one window had been considerably elevated, while by a singular arrangement of the interior shutters, the light could in any direction be thrown about at will. Already Pierre had anticipated something of this sort; the first sight of the easel having suggested it to him. His reply was therefore not wholly unconsidered. He said, that so far as she herself was concerned, the systematic practice of her art at present would certainly be a great advantage in supplying her with a very delightful occupation. But since she could hardly hope for any patronage from her mother's fashionable and wealthy associates; indeed, as such a thing must be very far from her own desires; and as it was only from the Apostles she could--for some time to come, at least--reasonably anticipate sitters; and as those Apostles were almost universally a very forlorn and penniless set--though in truth there were some wonderfully rich-looking heads among them--therefore, Lucy must not look for much immediate pecuniary emolument. Ere long she might indeed do something very handsome; but at the outset, it was well to be moderate in her expectations. This admonishment came, modifiedly, from that certain stoic, dogged mood of Pierre, born of his recent life, which taught him never to expect any good from any thing; but always to anticipate ill; however not in unreadiness to meet the contrary; and then, if good came, so much the better. He added that he would that very morning go among the rooms and corridors of the Apostles, familiarly announcing that his cousin, a lady-artist in crayons, occupied a room adjoining his, where she would be very happy to receive any sitters. "And now, Lucy, what shall be the terms? That is a very important point, thou knowest." "I suppose, Pierre, they must be very low," said Lucy, looking at him meditatively. "Very low, Lucy; very low, indeed." "Well, ten dollars, then." "Ten Banks of England, Lucy!" exclaimed Pierre. "Why, Lucy, that were almost a quarter's income for some of the Apostles!" "Four dollars, Pierre." "I will tell thee now, Lucy--but first, how long does it take to complete one portrait?" "Two sittings; and two mornings' work by myself, Pierre." "And let me see; what are thy materials? They are not very costly, I believe. 'Tis not like cutting glass,--thy tools must not be pointed with diamonds, Lucy?" "See, Pierre!" said Lucy, holding out her little palm, "see; this handful of charcoal, a bit of bread, a crayon or two, and a square of paper:--that is all." "Well, then, thou shalt charge one-seventy-five for a portrait." "Only one-seventy-five, Pierre?" "I am half afraid now we have set it far too high, Lucy. Thou must not be extravagant. Look: if thy terms were ten dollars, and thou didst crayon on trust; then thou wouldst have plenty of sitters, but small returns. But if thou puttest thy terms right-down, and also sayest thou must have thy cash right-down too--don't start so at that _cash_--then not so many sitters to be sure, but more returns. Thou understandest." "It shall be just as thou say'st, Pierre." "Well, then, I will write a card for thee, stating thy terms; and put it up conspicuously in thy room, so that every Apostle may know what he has to expect." "Thank thee, thank thee, cousin Pierre," said Lucy, rising. "I rejoice at thy pleasant and not entirely unhopeful view of my poor little plan. But I must be doing something; I must be earning money. See, I have eaten ever so much bread this morning, but have not earned one penny." With a humorous sadness Pierre measured the large remainder of the one only piece she had touched, and then would have spoken banteringly to her; but she had slid away into her own room. He was presently roused from the strange revery into which the conclusion of this scene had thrown him, by the touch of Isabel's hand upon his knee, and her large expressive glance upon his face. During all the foregoing colloquy, she had remained entirely silent; but an unoccupied observer would perhaps have noticed, that some new and very strong emotions were restrainedly stirring within her. "Pierre!" she said, intently bending over toward him. "Well, well, Isabel," stammeringly replied Pierre; while a mysterious color suffused itself over his whole face, neck, and brow; and involuntarily he started a little back from her self-proffering form. Arrested by this movement Isabel eyed him fixedly; then slowly rose, and with immense mournful stateliness, drew herself up, and said: "If thy sister can ever come too nigh to thee, Pierre, tell thy sister so, beforehand; for the September sun draws not up the valley-vapor more jealously from the disdainful earth, than my secret god shall draw me up from thee, if ever I can come too nigh to thee." Thus speaking, one hand was on her bosom, as if resolutely feeling of something deadly there concealed; but, riveted by her general manner more than by her particular gesture, Pierre, at the instant, did not so particularly note the all-significant movement of the hand upon her bosom, though afterward he recalled it, and darkly and thoroughly comprehended its meaning. "Too nigh to me, Isabel? Sun or dew, thou fertilizest me! Can sunbeams or drops of dew come too nigh the thing they warm and water? Then sit down by me, Isabel, and sit close; wind in within my ribs,--if so thou canst,--that my one frame may be the continent of two." "Fine feathers make fine birds, so I have heard," said Isabel, most bitterly--"but do fine sayings always make fine deeds? Pierre, thou didst but just now draw away from me!" "When we would most dearly embrace, we first throw back our arms, Isabel; I but drew away, to draw so much the closer to thee." "Well; all words are arrant skirmishers; deeds are the army's self! be it as thou sayest. I yet trust to thee.--Pierre." "My breath waits thine; what is it, Isabel?" "I have been more blockish than a block; I am mad to think of it! More mad, that her great sweetness should first remind me of mine own stupidity. But she shall not get the start of me! Pierre, some way I must work for thee! See, I will sell this hair; have these teeth pulled out; but some way I will earn money for thee!" Pierre now eyed her startledly. Touches of a determinate meaning shone in her; some hidden thing was deeply wounded in her. An affectionate soothing syllable was on his tongue; his arm was out; when shifting his expression, he whisperingly and alarmedly exclaimed--"Hark! she is coming.--Be still." But rising boldly, Isabel threw open the connecting door, exclaiming half-hysterically--"Look, Lucy; here is the strangest husband; fearful of being caught speaking to his wife!" With an artist's little box before her--whose rattling, perhaps, had startled Pierre--Lucy was sitting midway in her room, opposite the opened door; so that at that moment, both Pierre and Isabel were plainly visible to her. The singular tone of Isabel's voice instantly caused her to look up intently. At once, a sudden irradiation of some subtile intelligence--but whether welcome to her, or otherwise, could not be determined--shot over her whole aspect. She murmured some vague random reply; and then bent low over her box, saying she was very busy. Isabel closed the door, and sat down again by Pierre. Her countenance wore a mixed and writhing, impatient look. She seemed as one in whom the most powerful emotion of life is caught in inextricable toils of circumstances, and while longing to disengage itself, still knows that all struggles will prove worse than vain; and so, for the moment, grows madly reckless and defiant of all obstacles. Pierre trembled as he gazed upon her. But soon the mood passed from her; her old, sweet mournfulness returned; again the clear unfathomableness was in her mystic eye. "Pierre, ere now,--ere I ever knew thee--I have done mad things, which I have never been conscious of, but in the dim recalling. I hold such things no things of mine. What I now remember, as just now done, was one of them." "Thou hast done nothing but shown thy strength, while I have shown my weakness, Isabel;--yes, to the whole world thou art my wife--to her, too, thou art my wife. Have I not told her so, myself? I was weaker than a kitten, Isabel; and thou, strong as those high things angelical, from which utmost beauty takes not strength." "Pierre, once such syllables from thee, were all refreshing, and bedewing to me; now, though they drop as warmly and as fluidly from thee, yet falling through another and an intercepting zone, they freeze on the way, and clatter on my heart like hail, Pierre.---- Thou didst not speak thus to her!" "She is not Isabel." The girl gazed at him with a quick and piercing scrutiny; then looked quite calm, and spoke. "My guitar, Pierre: thou know'st how complete a mistress I am of it; now, before thou gettest sitters for the portrait-sketcher, thou shalt get pupils for the music-teacher. Wilt thou?" and she looked at him with a persuasiveness and touchingness, which to Pierre, seemed more than mortal. "My poor poor, Isabel!" cried Pierre; "thou art the mistress of the natural sweetness of the guitar, not of its invented regulated artifices; and these are all that the silly pupil will pay for learning. And what thou hast can not be taught. Ah, thy sweet ignorance is all transporting to me! my sweet, my sweet!--dear, divine girl!" And impulsively he caught her in his arms. While the first fire of his feeling plainly glowed upon him, but ere he had yet caught her to him, Isabel had backward glided close to the connecting door; which, at the instant of his embrace, suddenly opened, as by its own volition. Before the eyes of seated Lucy, Pierre and Isabel stood locked; Pierre's lips upon her cheek. II. Notwithstanding the maternal visit of Mrs. Tartan, and the peremptoriness with which it had been closed by her declared departure never to return, and her vow to teach all Lucy's relatives and friends, and Lucy's own brothers, and her suitor, to disown her, and forget her; yet Pierre fancied that he knew too much in general of the human heart, and too much in particular of the character of both Glen and Frederic, to remain entirely untouched by disquietude, concerning what those two fiery youths might now be plotting against him, as the imagined monster, by whose infernal tricks Lucy Tartan was supposed to have been seduced from every earthly seemliness. Not happily, but only so much the more gloomily, did he augur from the fact, that Mrs. Tartan had come to Lucy unattended; and that Glen and Frederic had let eight-and-forty hours and more go by, without giving the slightest hostile or neutral sign. At first he thought, that bridling their impulsive fierceness, they were resolved to take the slower, but perhaps the surer method, to wrest Lucy back to them, by instituting some legal process. But this idea was repulsed by more than one consideration. Not only was Frederic of that sort of temper, peculiar to military men, which would prompt him, in so closely personal and intensely private and family a matter, to scorn the hireling publicity of the law's lingering arm; and impel him, as by the furiousness of fire, to be his own righter and avenger; for, in him, it was perhaps quite as much the feeling of an outrageous family affront to himself, through Lucy, as her own presumed separate wrong, however black, which stung him to the quick: not only were these things so respecting Frederic; but concerning Glen, Pierre well knew, that be Glen heartless as he might, to do a deed of love, Glen was not heartless to do a deed of hate; that though, on that memorable night of his arrival in the city, Glen had heartlessly closed his door upon him, yet now Glen might heartfully burst Pierre's open, if by that he at all believed, that permanent success would crown the fray. Besides, Pierre knew this;--that so invincible is the natural, untamable, latent spirit of a courageous manliness in man, that though now socially educated for thousands of years in an arbitrary homage to the Law, as the one only appointed redress for every injured person; yet immemorially and universally, among all gentlemen of spirit, once to have uttered independent personal threats of personal vengeance against your foe, and then, after that, to fall back slinking into a court, and hire with sops a pack of yelping pettifoggers to fight the battle so valiantly proclaimed; this, on the surface, is ever deemed very decorous, and very prudent--a most wise second thought; but, at bottom, a miserably ignoble thing. Frederic was not the watery man for that,--Glen had more grapey blood in him. Moreover, it seemed quite clear to Pierre, that only by making out Lucy absolutely mad, and striving to prove it by a thousand despicable little particulars, could the law succeed in tearing her from the refuge she had voluntarily sought; a course equally abhorrent to all the parties possibly to be concerned on either side. What then would those two boiling bloods do? Perhaps they would patrol the streets; and at the first glimpse of lonely Lucy, kidnap her home. Or if Pierre were with her, then, smite him down by hook or crook, fair play or foul; and then, away with Lucy! Or if Lucy systematically kept her room, then fall on Pierre in the most public way, fell him, and cover him from all decent recognition beneath heaps on heaps of hate and insult; so that broken on the wheel of such dishonor, Pierre might feel himself unstrung, and basely yield the prize. Not the gibbering of ghosts in any old haunted house; no sulphurous and portentous sign at night beheld in heaven, will so make the hair to stand, as when a proud and honorable man is revolving in his soul the possibilities of some gross public and corporeal disgrace. It is not fear; it is a pride-horror, which is more terrible than any fear. Then, by tremendous imagery, the murderer's mark of Cain is felt burning on the brow, and the already acquitted knife blood-rusts in the clutch of the anticipating hand. Certain that those two youths must be plotting something furious against him; with the echoes of their scorning curses on the stairs still ringing in his ears--curses, whose swift responses from himself, he, at the time, had had much ado to check;--thoroughly alive to the supernaturalism of that mad frothing hate which a spirited brother forks forth at the insulter of a sister's honor--beyond doubt the most uncompromising of all the social passions known to man--and not blind to the anomalous fact, that if such a brother stab his foe at his own mother's table, all people and all juries would bear him out, accounting every thing allowable to a noble soul made mad by a sweet sister's shame caused by a damned seducer;--imagining to himself his own feelings, if he were actually in the position which Frederic so vividly fancied to be his; remembering that in love matters jealousy is as an adder, and that the jealousy of Glen was double-addered by the extraordinary malice of the apparent circumstances under which Lucy had spurned Glen's arms, and fled to his always successful and now married rival, as if wantonly and shamelessly to nestle there;--remembering all these intense incitements of both those foes of his, Pierre could not but look forward to wild work very soon to come. Nor was the storm of passion in his soul unratified by the decision of his coolest possible hour. Storm and calm both said to him,--Look to thyself, oh Pierre! Murders are done by maniacs; but the earnest thoughts of murder, these are the collected desperadoes. Pierre was such; fate, or what you will, had made him such. But such he was. And when these things now swam before him; when he thought of all the ambiguities which hemmed him in; the stony walls all round that he could not overleap; the million aggravations of his most malicious lot; the last lingering hope of happiness licked up from him as by flames of fire, and his one only prospect a black, bottomless gulf of guilt, upon whose verge he imminently teetered every hour;--then the utmost hate of Glen and Frederic were jubilantly welcome to him; and murder, done in the act of warding off their ignominious public blow, seemed the one only congenial sequel to such a desperate career. III. As a statue, planted on a revolving pedestal, shows now this limb, now that; now front, now back, now side; continually changing, too, its general profile; so does the pivoted, statued soul of man, when turned by the hand of Truth. Lies only never vary; look for no invariableness in Pierre. Nor does any canting showman here stand by to announce his phases as he revolves. Catch his phases as your insight may. Another day passed on; Glen and Frederic still absenting themselves, and Pierre and Isabel and Lucy all dwelling together. The domestic presence of Lucy had begun to produce a remarkable effect upon Pierre. Sometimes, to the covertly watchful eye of Isabel, he would seem to look upon Lucy with an expression illy befitting their singular and so-supposed merely cousinly relation; and yet again, with another expression still more unaccountable to her,--one of fear and awe, not unmixed with impatience. But his general detailed manner toward Lucy was that of the most delicate and affectionate considerateness--nothing more. He was never alone with her; though, as before, at times alone with Isabel. Lucy seemed entirely undesirous of usurping any place about him; manifested no slightest unwelcome curiosity as to Pierre, and no painful embarrassment as to Isabel. Nevertheless, more and more did she seem, hour by hour, to be somehow inexplicably sliding between them, without touching them. Pierre felt that some strange heavenly influence was near him, to keep him from some uttermost harm; Isabel was alive to some untraceable displacing agency. Though when all three were together, the marvelous serenity, and sweetness, and utter unsuspectingness of Lucy obviated any thing like a common embarrassment: yet if there was any embarrassment at all beneath that roof, it was sometimes when Pierre was alone with Isabel, after Lucy would innocently quit them. Meantime Pierre was still going on with his book; every moment becoming still the more sensible of the intensely inauspicious circumstances of all sorts under which that labor was proceeding. And as the now advancing and concentring enterprise demanded more and more compacted vigor from him, he felt that he was having less and less to bring to it. For not only was it the signal misery of Pierre, to be invisibly--though but accidentally--goaded, in the hour of mental immaturity, to the attempt at a mature work,--a circumstance sufficiently lamentable in itself; but also, in the hour of his clamorous pennilessness, he was additionally goaded into an enterprise long and protracted in the execution, and of all things least calculated for pecuniary profit in the end. How these things were so, whence they originated, might be thoroughly and very beneficially explained; but space and time here forbid. At length, domestic matters--rent and bread--had come to such a pass with him, that whether or no, the first pages must go to the printer; and thus was added still another tribulation; because the printed pages now dictated to the following manuscript, and said to all subsequent thoughts and inventions of Pierre--_Thus and thus_; _so and so_; _else an ill match_. Therefore, was his book already limited, bound over, and committed to imperfection, even before it had come to any confirmed form or conclusion at all. Oh, who shall reveal the horrors of poverty in authorship that is high? While the silly Millthorpe was railing against his delay of a few weeks and months; how bitterly did unreplying Pierre feel in his heart, that to most of the great works of humanity, their authors had given, not weeks and months, not years and years, but their wholly surrendered and dedicated lives. On either hand clung to by a girl who would have laid down her life for him; Pierre, nevertheless, in his deepest, highest part, was utterly without sympathy from any thing divine, human, brute, or vegetable. One in a city of hundreds of thousands of human beings, Pierre was solitary as at the Pole. And the great woe of all was this: that all these things were unsuspected without, and undivulgible from within; the very daggers that stabbed him were joked at by Imbecility, Ignorance, Blockheadedness, Self-Complacency, and the universal Blearedness and Besottedness around him. Now he began to feel that in him, the thews of a Titan were forestallingly cut by the scissors of Fate. He felt as a moose, hamstrung. All things that think, or move, or lie still, seemed as created to mock and torment him. He seemed gifted with loftiness, merely that it might be dragged down to the mud. Still, the profound willfulness in him would not give up. Against the breaking heart, and the bursting head; against all the dismal lassitude, and deathful faintness and sleeplessness, and whirlingness, and craziness, still he like a demigod bore up. His soul's ship foresaw the inevitable rocks, but resolved to sail on, and make a courageous wreck. Now he gave jeer for jeer, and taunted the apes that jibed him. With the soul of an Atheist, he wrote down the godliest things; with the feeling of misery and death in him, he created forms of gladness and life. For the pangs in his heart, he put down hoots on the paper. And every thing else he disguised under the so conveniently adjustable drapery of all-stretchable Philosophy. For the more and the more that he wrote, and the deeper and the deeper that he dived, Pierre saw the everlasting elusiveness of Truth; the universal lurking insincerity of even the greatest and purest written thoughts. Like knavish cards, the leaves of all great books were covertly packed. He was but packing one set the more; and that a very poor jaded set and pack indeed. So that there was nothing he more spurned, than his own aspirations; nothing he more abhorred than the loftiest part of himself. The brightest success, now seemed intolerable to him, since he so plainly saw, that the brightest success could not be the sole offspring of Merit; but of Merit for the one thousandth part, and nine hundred and ninety-nine combining and dove-tailing accidents for the rest. So beforehand he despised those laurels which in the very nature of things, can never be impartially bestowed. But while thus all the earth was depopulated of ambition for him; still circumstances had put him in the attitude of an eager contender for renown. So beforehand he felt the unrevealable sting of receiving either plaudits or censures, equally unsought for, and equally loathed ere given. So, beforehand he felt the pyramidical scorn of the genuine loftiness for the whole infinite company of infinitesimal critics. His was the scorn which thinks it not worth the while to be scornful. Those he most scorned, never knew it. In that lonely little closet of his, Pierre foretasted all that this world hath either of praise or dispraise; and thus foretasting both goblets, anticipatingly hurled them both in its teeth. All panegyric, all denunciation, all criticism of any sort, would come too late for Pierre. But man does never give himself up thus, a doorless and shutterless house for the four loosened winds of heaven to howl through, without still additional dilapidations. Much oftener than before, Pierre laid back in his chair with the deadly feeling of faintness. Much oftener than before, came staggering home from his evening walk, and from sheer bodily exhaustion economized the breath that answered the anxious inquiries as to what might be done for him. And as if all the leagued spiritual inveteracies and malices, combined with his general bodily exhaustion, were not enough, a special corporeal affliction now descended like a sky-hawk upon him. His incessant application told upon his eyes. They became so affected, that some days he wrote with the lids nearly closed, fearful of opening them wide to the light. Through the lashes he peered upon the paper, which so seemed fretted with wires. Sometimes he blindly wrote with his eyes turned away from the paper;--thus unconsciously symbolizing the hostile necessity and distaste, the former whereof made of him this most unwilling states-prisoner of letters. As every evening, after his day's writing was done, the proofs of the beginning of his work came home for correction, Isabel would read them to him. They were replete with errors; but preoccupied by the thronging, and undiluted, pure imaginings of things, he became impatient of such minute, gnat-like torments; he randomly corrected the worst, and let the rest go; jeering with himself at the rich harvest thus furnished to the entomological critics. But at last he received a tremendous interior intimation, to hold off--to be still from his unnatural struggle. In the earlier progress of his book, he had found some relief in making his regular evening walk through the greatest thoroughfare of the city; that so, the utter isolation of his soul, might feel itself the more intensely from the incessant jogglings of his body against the bodies of the hurrying thousands. Then he began to be sensible of more fancying stormy nights, than pleasant ones; for then, the great thoroughfares were less thronged, and the innumerable shop-awnings flapped and beat like schooners' broad sails in a gale, and the shutters banged like lashed bulwarks; and the slates fell hurtling like displaced ship's blocks from aloft. Stemming such tempests through the deserted streets, Pierre felt a dark, triumphant joy; that while others had crawled in fear to their kennels, he alone defied the storm-admiral, whose most vindictive peltings of hail-stones,--striking his iron-framed fiery furnace of a body,--melted into soft dew, and so, harmlessly trickled from off him. By-and-by, of such howling, pelting nights, he began to bend his steps down the dark, narrow side-streets, in quest of the more secluded and mysterious tap-rooms. There he would feel a singular satisfaction, in sitting down all dripping in a chair, ordering his half-pint of ale before him, and drawing over his cap to protect his eyes from the light, eye the varied faces of the social castaways, who here had their haunts from the bitterest midnights. But at last he began to feel a distaste for even these; and now nothing but the utter night-desolation of the obscurest warehousing lanes would content him, or be at all sufferable to him. Among these he had now been accustomed to wind in and out every evening; till one night as he paused a moment previous to turning about for home, a sudden, unwonted, and all-pervading sensation seized him. He knew not where he was; he did not have any ordinary life-feeling at all. He could not see; though instinctively putting his hand to his eyes, he seemed to feel that the lids were open. Then he was sensible of a combined blindness, and vertigo, and staggering; before his eyes a million green meteors danced; he felt his foot tottering upon the curb, he put out his hands, and knew no more for the time. When he came to himself he found that he was lying crosswise in the gutter, dabbled with mud and slime. He raised himself to try if he could stand; but the fit was entirely gone. Immediately he quickened his steps homeward, forbearing to rest or pause at all on the way, lest that rush of blood to his head, consequent upon his sudden cessation from walking, should again smite him down. This circumstance warned him away from those desolate streets, lest the repetition of the fit should leave him there to perish by night in unknown and unsuspected loneliness. But if that terrible vertigo had been also intended for another and deeper warning, he regarded such added warning not at all; but again plied heart and brain as before. But now at last since the very blood in his body had in vain rebelled against his Titanic soul; now the only visible outward symbols of that soul--his eyes--did also turn downright traitors to him, and with more success than the rebellious blood. He had abused them so recklessly, that now they absolutely refused to look on paper. He turned them on paper, and they blinked and shut. The pupils of his eyes rolled away from him in their own orbits. He put his hand up to them, and sat back in his seat. Then, without saying one word, he continued there for his usual term, suspended, motionless, blank. But next morning--it was some few days after the arrival of Lucy--still feeling that a certain downright infatuation, and no less, is both unavoidable and indispensable in the composition of any great, deep book, or even any wholly unsuccessful attempt at any great, deep book; next morning he returned to the charge. But again the pupils of his eyes rolled away from him in their orbits: and now a general and nameless torpor--some horrible foretaste of death itself--seemed stealing upon him. IV. During this state of semi-unconsciousness, or rather trance, a remarkable dream or vision came to him. The actual artificial objects around him slid from him, and were replaced by a baseless yet most imposing spectacle of natural scenery. But though a baseless vision in itself, this airy spectacle assumed very familiar features to Pierre. It was the phantasmagoria of the Mount of the Titans, a singular height standing quite detached in a wide solitude not far from the grand range of dark blue hills encircling his ancestral manor. Say what some poets will, Nature is not so much her own ever-sweet interpreter, as the mere supplier of that cunning alphabet, whereby selecting and combining as he pleases, each man reads his own peculiar lesson according to his own peculiar mind and mood. Thus a high-aspiring, but most moody, disappointed bard, chancing once to visit the Meadows and beholding that fine eminence, christened it by the name it ever after bore; completely extinguishing its former title--The Delectable Mountain--one long ago bestowed by an old Baptist farmer, an hereditary admirer of Bunyan and his most marvelous book. From the spell of that name the mountain never afterward escaped; for now, gazing upon it by the light of those suggestive syllables, no poetical observer could resist the apparent felicity of the title. For as if indeed the immemorial mount would fain adapt itself to its so recent name, some people said that it had insensibly changed its pervading aspect within a score or two of winters. Nor was this strange conceit entirely without foundation, seeing that the annual displacements of huge rocks and gigantic trees were continually modifying its whole front and general contour. On the north side, where it fronted the old Manor-house, some fifteen miles distant, the height, viewed from the piazza of a soft haze-canopied summer's noon, presented a long and beautiful, but not entirely inaccessible-looking purple precipice, some two thousand feet in air, and on each hand sideways sloping down to lofty terraces of pastures. Those hill-side pastures, be it said, were thickly sown with a small white amaranthine flower, which, being irreconcilably distasteful to the cattle, and wholly rejected by them, and yet, continually multiplying on every hand, did by no means contribute to the agricultural value of those elevated lands. Insomuch, that for this cause, the disheartened dairy tenants of that part of the Manor, had petitioned their lady-landlord for some abatement in their annual tribute of upland grasses, in the Juny-load; rolls of butter in the October crock; and steers and heifers on the October hoof; with turkeys in the Christmas sleigh. "The small white flower, it is our bane!" the imploring tenants cried. "The aspiring amaranth, every year it climbs and adds new terraces to its sway! The immortal amaranth, it will not die, but last year's flowers survive to this! The terraced pastures grow glittering white, and in warm June still show like banks of snow:--fit token of the sterileness the amaranth begets! Then free us from the amaranth, good lady, or be pleased to abate our rent!" Now, on a somewhat nearer approach, the precipice did not belie its purple promise from the manorial piazza--that sweet imposing purple promise, which seemed fully to vindicate the Bunyanish old title originally bestowed;--but showed the profuse aerial foliage of a hanging forest. Nevertheless, coming still more nigh, long and frequent rents among the mass of leaves revealed horrible glimpses of dark-dripping rocks, and mysterious mouths of wolfish caves. Struck by this most unanticipated view, the tourist now quickened his impulsive steps to verify the change by coming into direct contact with so chameleon a height. As he would now speed on, the lower ground, which from the manor-house piazza seemed all a grassy level, suddenly merged into a very long and weary acclivity, slowly rising close up to the precipice's base; so that the efflorescent grasses rippled against it, as the efflorescent waves of some great swell or long rolling billow ripple against the water-line of a steep gigantic war-ship on the sea. And, as among the rolling sea-like sands of Egypt, disordered rows of broken Sphinxes lead to the Cheopian pyramid itself; so this long acclivity was thickly strewn with enormous rocky masses, grotesque in shape, and with wonderful features on them, which seemed to express that slumbering intelligence visible in some recumbent beasts--beasts whose intelligence seems struck dumb in them by some sorrowful and inexplicable spell. Nevertheless, round and round those still enchanted rocks, hard by their utmost rims, and in among their cunning crevices, the misanthropic hill-scaling goat nibbled his sweetest food; for the rocks, so barren in themselves, distilled a subtile moisture, which fed with greenness all things that grew about their igneous marge. Quitting those recumbent rocks, you still ascended toward the hanging forest, and piercing within its lowermost fringe, then suddenly you stood transfixed, as a marching soldier confounded at the sight of an impregnable redoubt, where he had fancied it a practicable vault to his courageous thews. Cunningly masked hitherto, by the green tapestry of the interlacing leaves, a terrific towering palisade of dark mossy massiness confronted you; and, trickling with unevaporable moisture, distilled upon you from its beetling brow slow thunder-showers of water-drops, chill as the last dews of death. Now you stood and shivered in that twilight, though it were high noon and burning August down the meads. All round and round, the grim scarred rocks rallied and re-rallied themselves; shot up, protruded, stretched, swelled, and eagerly reached forth; on every side bristlingly radiating with a hideous repellingness. Tossed, and piled, and indiscriminate among these, like bridging rifts of logs up-jammed in alluvial-rushing streams of far Arkansas: or, like great masts and yards of overwhelmed fleets hurled high and dashed amain, all splintering together, on hovering ridges of the Atlantic sea,--you saw the melancholy trophies which the North Wind, championing the unquenchable quarrel of the Winter, had wrested from the forests, and dismembered them on their own chosen battle-ground, in barbarous disdain. 'Mid this spectacle of wide and wanton spoil, insular noises of falling rocks would boomingly explode upon the silence and fright all the echoes, which ran shrieking in and out among the caves, as wailing women and children in some assaulted town. Stark desolation; ruin, merciless and ceaseless; chills and gloom,--all here lived a hidden life, curtained by that cunning purpleness, which, from the piazza of the manor house, so beautifully invested the mountain once called Delectable, but now styled Titanic. Beaten off by such undreamed-of glooms and steeps, you now sadly retraced your steps, and, mayhap, went skirting the inferior sideway terraces of pastures; where the multiple and most sterile inodorous immortalness of the small, white flower furnished no aliment for the mild cow's meditative cud. But here and there you still might smell from far the sweet aromaticness of clumps of catnip, that dear farm-house herb. Soon you would see the modest verdure of the plant itself; and wheresoever you saw that sight, old foundation stones and rotting timbers of log-houses long extinct would also meet your eye; their desolation illy hid by the green solicitudes of the unemigrating herb. Most fitly named the catnip; since, like the unrunagate cat, though all that's human forsake the place, that plant will long abide, long bask and bloom on the abandoned hearth. Illy hid; for every spring the amaranthine and celestial flower gained on the mortal household herb; for every autumn the catnip died, but never an autumn made the amaranth to wane. The catnip and the amaranth!--man's earthly household peace, and the ever-encroaching appetite for God. No more now you sideways followed the sad pasture's skirt, but took your way adown the long declivity, fronting the mystic height. In mid field again you paused among the recumbent sphinx-like shapes thrown off from the rocky steep. You paused; fixed by a form defiant, a form of awfulness. You saw Enceladus the Titan, the most potent of all the giants, writhing from out the imprisoning earth;--turbaned with upborn moss he writhed; still, though armless, resisting with his whole striving trunk, the Pelion and the Ossa hurled back at him;--turbaned with upborn moss he writhed; still turning his unconquerable front toward that majestic mount eternally in vain assailed by him, and which, when it had stormed him off, had heaved his undoffable incubus upon him, and deridingly left him there to bay out his ineffectual howl. To Pierre this wondrous shape had always been a thing of interest, though hitherto all its latent significance had never fully and intelligibly smitten him. In his earlier boyhood a strolling company of young collegian pedestrians had chanced to light upon the rock; and, struck with its remarkableness, had brought a score of picks and spades, and dug round it to unearth it, and find whether indeed it were a demoniac freak of nature, or some stern thing of antediluvian art. Accompanying this eager party, Pierre first beheld that deathless son of Terra. At that time, in its untouched natural state, the statue presented nothing but the turbaned head of igneous rock rising from out the soil, with its unabasable face turned upward toward the mountain, and the bull-like neck clearly defined. With distorted features, scarred and broken, and a black brow mocked by the upborn moss, Enceladus there subterraneously stood, fast frozen into the earth at the junction of the neck. Spades and picks soon heaved part of his Ossa from him, till at last a circular well was opened round him to the depth of some thirteen feet. At that point the wearied young collegians gave over their enterprise in despair. With all their toil, they had not yet come to the girdle of Enceladus. But they had bared good part of his mighty chest, and exposed his mutilated shoulders, and the stumps of his once audacious arms. Thus far uncovering his shame, in that cruel plight they had abandoned him, leaving stark naked his in vain indignant chest to the defilements of the birds, which for untold ages had cast their foulness on his vanquished crest. Not unworthy to be compared with that leaden Titan, wherewith the art of Marsy and the broad-flung pride of Bourbon enriched the enchanted gardens of Versailles;--and from whose still twisted mouth for sixty feet the waters yet upgush, in elemental rivalry with those Etna flames, of old asserted to be the malicious breath of the borne-down giant;--not unworthy to be compared with that leaden demi-god--piled with costly rocks, and with one bent wrenching knee protruding from the broken bronze;--not unworthy to be compared with that bold trophy of high art, this American Enceladus, wrought by the vigorous hand of Nature's self, it did go further than compare;--it did far surpass that fine figure molded by the inferior skill of man. Marsy gave arms to the eternally defenseless; but Nature, more truthful, performed an amputation, and left the impotent Titan without one serviceable ball-and-socket above the thigh. Such was the wild scenery--the Mount of Titans, and the repulsed group of heaven-assaulters, with Enceladus in their midst shamefully recumbent at its base;--such was the wild scenery, which now to Pierre, in his strange vision, displaced the four blank walls, the desk, and camp-bed, and domineered upon his trance. But no longer petrified in all their ignominious attitudes, the herded Titans now sprung to their feet; flung themselves up the slope; and anew battered at the precipice's unresounding wall. Foremost among them all, he saw a moss-turbaned, armless giant, who despairing of any other mode of wreaking his immitigable hate, turned his vast trunk into a battering-ram, and hurled his own arched-out ribs again and yet again against the invulnerable steep. "Enceladus! it is Enceladus!"--Pierre cried out in his sleep. That moment the phantom faced him; and Pierre saw Enceladus no more; but on the Titan's armless trunk, his own duplicate face and features magnifiedly gleamed upon him with prophetic discomfiture and woe. With trembling frame he started from his chair, and woke from that ideal horror to all his actual grief. V. Nor did Pierre's random knowledge of the ancient fables fail still further to elucidate the vision which so strangely had supplied a tongue to muteness. But that elucidation was most repulsively fateful and foreboding; possibly because Pierre did not leap the final barrier of gloom; possibly because Pierre did not willfully wrest some final comfort from the fable; did not flog this stubborn rock as Moses his, and force even aridity itself to quench his painful thirst. Thus smitten, the Mount of Titans seems to yield this following stream:-- Old Titan's self was the son of incestuous Coelus and Terra, the son of incestuous Heaven and Earth. And Titan married his mother Terra, another and accumulatively incestuous match. And thereof Enceladus was one issue. So Enceladus was both the son and grandson of an incest; and even thus, there had been born from the organic blended heavenliness and earthliness of Pierre, another mixed, uncertain, heaven-aspiring, but still not wholly earth-emancipated mood; which again, by its terrestrial taint held down to its terrestrial mother, generated there the present doubly incestuous Enceladus within him; so that the present mood of Pierre--that reckless sky-assaulting mood of his, was nevertheless on one side the grandson of the sky. For it is according to eternal fitness, that the precipitated Titan should still seek to regain his paternal birthright even by fierce escalade. Wherefore whoso storms the sky gives best proof he came from thither! But whatso crawls contented in the moat before that crystal fort, shows it was born within that slime, and there forever will abide. Recovered somewhat from the after-spell of this wild vision folded in his trance, Pierre composed his front as best he might, and straightway left his fatal closet. Concentrating all the remaining stuff in him, he resolved by an entire and violent change, and by a willful act against his own most habitual inclinations, to wrestle with the strange malady of his eyes, this new death-fiend of the trance, and this Inferno of his Titanic vision. And now, just as he crossed the threshold of the closet, he writhingly strove to assume an expression intended to be not uncheerful--though how indeed his countenance at all looked, he could not tell; for dreading some insupportably dark revealments in his glass, he had of late wholly abstained from appealing to it--and in his mind he rapidly conned over, what indifferent, disguising, or light-hearted gamesome things he should say, when proposing to his companions the little design he cherished. And even so, to grim Enceladus, the world the gods had chained for a ball to drag at his o'erfreighted feet;--even so that globe put forth a thousand flowers, whose fragile smiles disguised his ponderous load. BOOK XXVI. A WALK: A FOREIGN PORTRAIT: A SAIL: AND THE END. I. "Come, Isabel, come, Lucy; we have not had a single walk together yet. It is cold, but clear; and once out of the city, we shall find it sunny. Come: get ready now, and away for a stroll down to the wharf, and then for some of the steamers on the bay. No doubt, Lucy, you will find in the bay scenery some hints for that secret sketch you are so busily occupied with--ere real living sitters do come--and which you so devotedly work at, all alone and behind closed doors." Upon this, Lucy's original look of pale-rippling pleasantness and surprise--evoked by Pierre's unforeseen proposition to give himself some relaxation--changed into one of infinite, mute, but unrenderable meaning, while her swimming eyes gently, yet all-bewildered, fell to the floor. "It is finished, then," cried Isabel,--not unmindful of this by-scene, and passionately stepping forward so as to intercept Pierre's momentary rapt glance at the agitated Lucy,--"That vile book, it is finished!--Thank Heaven!" "Not so," said Pierre; and, displacing all disguisements, a hectic unsummoned expression suddenly came to his face;--"but ere that vile book be finished, I must get on some other element than earth. I have sat on earth's saddle till I am weary; I must now vault over to the other saddle awhile. Oh, seems to me, there should be two ceaseless steeds for a bold man to ride,--the Land and the Sea; and like circus-men we should never dismount, but only be steadied and rested by leaping from one to the other, while still, side by side, they both race round the sun. I have been on the Land steed so long, oh I am dizzy!" "Thou wilt never listen to me, Pierre," said Lucy lowly; "there is no need of this incessant straining. See, Isabel and I have both offered to be thy amanuenses;--not in mere copying, but in the original writing; I am sure that would greatly assist thee." "Impossible! I fight a duel in which all seconds are forbid." "Ah Pierre! Pierre!" cried Lucy, dropping the shawl in her hand, and gazing at him with unspeakable longings of some unfathomable emotion. Namelessly glancing at Lucy, Isabel slid near to him, seized his hand and spoke. "I would go blind for thee, Pierre; here, take out these eyes, and use them for glasses." So saying, she looked with a strange momentary haughtiness and defiance at Lucy. A general half involuntary movement was now made, as if they were about to depart. "Ye are ready; go ye before"--said Lucy meekly; "I will follow." "Nay, one on each arm"--said Pierre--"come!" As they passed through the low arched vestibule into the street, a cheek-burnt, gamesome sailor passing, exclaimed--"Steer small, my lad; 'tis a narrow strait thou art in!" "What says he?"--said Lucy gently. "Yes, it is a narrow strait of a street indeed." But Pierre felt a sudden tremble transferred to him from Isabel, who whispered something inarticulate in his ear. Gaining one of the thoroughfares, they drew near to a conspicuous placard over a door, announcing that above stairs was a gallery of paintings, recently imported from Europe, and now on free exhibition preparatory to their sale by auction. Though this encounter had been entirely unforeseen by Pierre, yet yielding to the sudden impulse, he at once proposed their visiting the pictures. The girls assented, and they ascended the stairs. In the anteroom, a catalogue was put into his hand. He paused to give one hurried, comprehensive glance at it. Among long columns of such names as Rubens, Raphael, Angelo, Domenichino, Da Vinci, all shamelessly prefaced with the words "undoubted," or "testified," Pierre met the following brief line:--"_No. 99. A stranger's head, by an unknown hand._" It seemed plain that the whole must be a collection of those wretched imported daubs, which with the incredible effrontery peculiar to some of the foreign picture-dealers in America, were christened by the loftiest names known to Art. But as the most mutilated torsoes of the perfections of antiquity are not unworthy the student's attention, neither are the most bungling modern incompletenesses: for both are torsoes; one of perished perfections in the past; the other, by anticipation, of yet unfulfilled perfections in the future. Still, as Pierre walked along by the thickly hung walls, and seemed to detect the infatuated vanity which must have prompted many of these utterly unknown artists in the attempted execution by feeble hand of vigorous themes; he could not repress the most melancholy foreboding concerning himself. All the walls of the world seemed thickly hung with the empty and impotent scope of pictures, grandly outlined, but miserably filled. The smaller and humbler pictures, representing little familiar things, were by far the best executed; but these, though touching him not unpleasingly, in one restricted sense, awoke no dormant majesties in his soul, and therefore, upon the whole, were contemptibly inadequate and unsatisfactory. At last Pierre and Isabel came to that painting of which Pierre was capriciously in search--No. 99. "My God! see! see!" cried Isabel, under strong excitement, "only my mirror has ever shown me that look before! See! see!" By some mere hocus-pocus of chance, or subtly designing knavery, a real Italian gem of art had found its way into this most hybrid collection of impostures. No one who has passed through the great galleries of Europe, unbewildered by their wonderful multitudinousness of surpassing excellence--a redundancy which neutralizes all discrimination or individualizing capacity in most ordinary minds--no calm, penetrative person can have victoriously run that painted gauntlet of the gods, without certain very special emotions, called forth by some one or more individual paintings, to which, however, both the catalogues and the criticisms of the greatest connoisseurs deny any all-transcending merit, at all answering to the effect thus casually produced. There is no time now to show fully how this is; suffice it, that in such instances, it is not the abstract excellence always, but often the accidental congeniality, which occasions this wonderful emotion. Still, the individual himself is apt to impute it to a different cause; hence, the headlong enthusiastic admiration of some one or two men for things not at all praised by--or at most, which are indifferent to--the rest of the world;--a matter so often considered inexplicable. But in this Stranger's Head by the Unknown Hand, the abstract general excellence united with the all-surprising, accidental congeniality in producing an accumulated impression of power upon both Pierre and Isabel. Nor was the strangeness of this at all impaired by the apparent uninterestedness of Lucy concerning that very picture. Indeed, Lucy--who, owing to the occasional jolting of the crowd, had loosened her arm from Pierre's, and so, gradually, had gone on along the pictured hall in advance--Lucy had thus passed the strange painting, without the least special pause, and had now wandered round to the precisely opposite side of the hall; where, at this present time, she was standing motionless before a very tolerable copy (the only other good thing in the collection) of that sweetest, most touching, but most awful of all feminine heads--The Cenci of Guido. The wonderfulness of which head consists chiefly, perhaps, in a striking, suggested contrast, half-identical with, and half-analogous to, that almost supernatural one--sometimes visible in the maidens of tropical nations--namely, soft and light blue eyes, with an extremely fair complexion; vailed by funereally jetty hair. But with blue eyes and fair complexion, the Cenci's hair is golden--physically, therefore, all is in strict, natural keeping; which, nevertheless, still the more intensifies the suggested fanciful anomaly of so sweetly and seraphically _blonde_ a being, being double-hooded, as it were, by the black crape of the two most horrible crimes (of one of which she is the object, and of the other the agent) possible to civilized humanity--incest and parricide. Now, this Cenci and "the Stranger" were hung at a good elevation in one of the upper tiers; and, from the opposite walls, exactly faced each other; so that in secret they seemed pantomimically talking over and across the heads of the living spectators below. With the aspect of the Cenci every one is familiar. "The Stranger" was a dark, comely, youthful man's head, portentously looking out of a dark, shaded ground, and ambiguously smiling. There was no discoverable drapery; the dark head, with its crisp, curly, jetty hair, seemed just disentangling itself from out of curtains and clouds. But to Isabel, in the eye and on the brow, were certain shadowy traces of her own unmistakable likeness; while to Pierre, this face was in part as the resurrection of the one he had burnt at the Inn. Not that the separate features were the same; but the pervading look of it, the subtler interior keeping of the entirety, was almost identical; still, for all this, there was an unequivocal aspect of foreignness, of Europeanism, about both the face itself and the general painting. "Is it? Is it? Can it be?" whispered Isabel, intensely. Now, Isabel knew nothing of the painting which Pierre had destroyed. But she solely referred to the living being who--under the designation of her father--had visited her at the cheerful house to which she had been removed during childhood from the large and unnamable one by the pleasant woman in the coach. Without doubt--though indeed she might not have been at all conscious of it in her own mystic mind--she must have somehow vaguely fancied, that this being had always through life worn the same aspect to every body else which he had to her, for so very brief an interval of his possible existence. Solely knowing him--or dreaming of him, it may have been--under that one aspect, she could not conceive of him under any other. Whether or not these considerations touching Isabel's ideas occurred to Pierre at this moment is very improbable. At any rate, he said nothing to her, either to deceive or undeceive, either to enlighten or obscure. For, indeed, he was too much riveted by his own far-interior emotions to analyze now the cotemporary ones of Isabel. So that there here came to pass a not unremarkable thing: for though both were intensely excited by one object, yet their two minds and memories were thereby directed to entirely different contemplations; while still each, for the time--however unreasonably--might have vaguely supposed the other occupied by one and the same contemplation. Pierre was thinking of the chair-portrait: Isabel, of the living face. Yet Isabel's fervid exclamations having reference to the living face, were now, as it were, mechanically responded to by Pierre, in syllables having reference to the chair-portrait. Nevertheless, so subtile and spontaneous was it all, that neither perhaps ever afterward discovered this contradiction; for, events whirled them so rapidly and peremptorily after this, that they had no time for those calm retrospective reveries indispensable perhaps to such a discovery. "Is it? is it? can it be?" was the intense whisper of Isabel. "No, it can not be, it is not," replied Pierre; "one of the wonderful coincidences, nothing more." "Oh, by that word, Pierre, we but vainly seek to explain the inexplicable. Tell me: it is! it must be! it is wonderful!" "Let us begone; and let us keep eternal silence," said Pierre, quickly; and, seeking Lucy, they abruptly left the place; as before, Pierre, seemingly unwilling to be accosted by any one he knew, or who knew his companions, unconsciously accelerating their steps while forced for a space to tread the thoroughfares. II. As they hurried on, Pierre was silent; but wild thoughts were hurrying and shouting in his heart. The most tremendous displacing and revolutionizing thoughts were upheaving in him, with reference to Isabel; nor--though at the time he was hardly conscious of such a thing--were these thoughts wholly unwelcome to him. How did he know that Isabel was his sister? Setting aside Aunt Dorothea's nebulous legend, to which, in some shadowy points, here and there Isabel's still more nebulous story seemed to fit on,--though but uncertainly enough--and both of which thus blurredly conjoining narrations, regarded in the unscrupulous light of real naked reason, were any thing but legitimately conclusive; and setting aside his own dim reminiscences of his wandering father's death-bed; (for though, in one point of view, those reminiscences might have afforded some degree of presumption as to his father's having been the parent of an unacknowledged daughter, yet were they entirely inconclusive as to that presumed daughter's identity; and the grand point now with Pierre was, not the general question whether his father had had a daughter, but whether, assuming that he had had, _Isabel_, rather than any other living being, _was that daughter_;)--and setting aside all his own manifold and inter-enfolding mystic and transcendental persuasions,--originally born, as he now seemed to feel, purely of an intense procreative enthusiasm:--an enthusiasm no longer so all-potential with him as of yore; setting all these aside, and coming to the plain, palpable facts,--how did he _know_ that Isabel was his sister? Nothing that he saw in her face could he remember as having seen in his father's. The chair-portrait, _that_ was the entire sum and substance of all possible, rakable, downright presumptive evidence, which peculiarly appealed to his own separate self. Yet here was another portrait of a complete stranger--a European; a portrait imported from across the seas, and to be sold at public auction, which was just as strong an evidence as the other. Then, the original of this second portrait was as much the father of Isabel as the original of the chair-portrait. But perhaps there was no original at all to this second portrait; it might have been a pure fancy piece; to which conceit, indeed, the uncharacterizing style of the filling-up seemed to furnish no small testimony. With such bewildering meditations as these in him, running up like clasping waves upon the strand of the most latent secrecies of his soul, and with both Isabel and Lucy bodily touching his sides as he walked; the feelings of Pierre were entirely untranslatable into any words that can be used. Of late to Pierre, much more vividly than ever before, the whole story of Isabel had seemed an enigma, a mystery, an imaginative delirium; especially since he had got so deep into the inventional mysteries of his book. For he who is most practically and deeply conversant with mysticisms and mysteries; he who professionally deals in mysticisms and mysteries himself; often that man, more than any body else, is disposed to regard such things in others as very deceptively bejuggling; and likewise is apt to be rather materialistic in all his own merely personal notions (as in their practical lives, with priests of Eleusinian religions), and more than any other man, is often inclined, at the bottom of his soul, to be uncompromisingly skeptical on all novel visionary hypotheses of any kind. It is only the no-mystics, or the half-mystics, who, properly speaking, are credulous. So that in Pierre, was presented the apparent anomaly of a mind, which by becoming really profound in itself, grew skeptical of all tendered profundities; whereas, the contrary is generally supposed. By some strange arts Isabel's wonderful story might have been, someway, and for some cause, forged for her, in her childhood, and craftily impressed upon her youthful mind; which so--like a slight mark in a young tree--had now enlargingly grown with her growth, till it had become this immense staring marvel. Tested by any thing real, practical, and reasonable, what less probable, for instance, than that fancied crossing of the sea in her childhood, when upon Pierre's subsequent questioning of her, she did not even know that the sea was salt. III. In the midst of all these mental confusions they arrived at the wharf; and selecting the most inviting of the various boats which lay about them in three or four adjacent ferry-slips, and one which was bound for a half-hour's sail across the wide beauty of that glorious bay; they soon found themselves afloat and in swift gliding motion. They stood leaning on the rail of the guard, as the sharp craft darted out from among the lofty pine-forests of ships'-masts, and the tangled underbrush and cane-brakes of the dwarfed sticks of sloops and scows. Soon, the spires of stone on the land, blent with the masts of wood on the water; the crotch of the twin-rivers pressed the great wedged city almost out of sight. They swept by two little islets distant from the shore; they wholly curved away from the domes of free-stone and marble, and gained the great sublime dome of the bay's wide-open waters. Small breeze had been felt in the pent city that day, but the fair breeze of naked nature now blew in their faces. The waves began to gather and roll; and just as they gained a point, where--still beyond--between high promontories of fortresses, the wide bay visibly sluiced into the Atlantic, Isabel convulsively grasped the arm of Pierre and convulsively spoke. "I feel it! I feel it! It is! It is!" "What feelest thou?--what is it?" "The motion! the motion!" "Dost thou not understand, Pierre?" said Lucy, eying with concern and wonder his pale, staring aspect--"The waves: it is the motion of the waves that Isabel speaks of. Look, they are rolling, direct from the sea now." Again Pierre lapsed into a still stranger silence and revery. It was impossible altogether to resist the force of this striking corroboration of by far the most surprising and improbable thing in the whole surprising and improbable story of Isabel. Well did he remember her vague reminiscence of the teetering sea, that did not slope exactly as the floors of the unknown, abandoned, old house among the French-like mountains. While plunged in these mutually neutralizing thoughts of the strange picture and the last exclamations of Isabel, the boat arrived at its destination--a little hamlet on the beach, not very far from the great blue sluice-way into the ocean, which was now yet more distinctly visible than before. "Don't let us stop here"--cried Isabel. "Look, let us go through there! Bell must go through there! See! see! out there upon the blue! yonder, yonder! far away--out, out!--far, far away, and away, and away, out there! where the two blues meet, and are nothing--Bell must go!" "Why, Isabel," murmured Lucy, "that would be to go to far England or France; thou wouldst find but few friends in far France, Isabel." "Friends in far France? And what friends have I here?--Art thou my friend? In thy secret heart dost thou wish me well? And for thee, Pierre, what am I but a vile clog to thee; dragging thee back from all thy felicity? Yes, I will go yonder--yonder; out there! I will, I will! Unhand me! Let me plunge!" For an instant, Lucy looked incoherently from one to the other. But both she and Pierre now mechanically again seized Isabel's frantic arms, as they were again thrown over the outer rail of the boat. They dragged her back; they spoke to her; they soothed her; but though less vehement, Isabel still looked deeply distrustfully at Lucy, and deeply reproachfully at Pierre. They did not leave the boat as intended; too glad were they all, when it unloosed from its fastenings, and turned about upon the backward trip. Stepping to shore, Pierre once more hurried his companions through the unavoidable publicity of the thoroughfares; but less rapidly proceeded, soon as they gained the more secluded streets. IV. Gaining the Apostles', and leaving his two companions to the privacy of their chambers, Pierre sat silent and intent by the stove in the dining-room for a time, and then was on the point of entering his closet from the corridor, when Delly, suddenly following him, said to him, that she had forgotten to mention it before, but he would find two letters in his room, which had been separately left at the door during the absence of the party. He passed into the closet, and slowly shooting the bolt--which, for want of something better, happened to be an old blunted dagger--walked, with his cap yet unmoved, slowly up to the table, and beheld the letters. They were lying with their sealed sides up; one in either hand, he lifted them; and held them straight out sideways from him. "I see not the writing; know not yet, by mine own eye, that they are meant for me; yet, in these hands I feel that I now hold the final poniards that shall stab me; and by stabbing me, make _me_ too a most swift stabber in the recoil. Which point first?--this!" He tore open the left-hand letter:-- "SIR:--You are a swindler. Upon the pretense of writing a popular novel for us, you have been receiving cash advances from us, while passing through our press the sheets of a blasphemous rhapsody, filched from the vile Atheists, Lucian and Voltaire. Our great press of publication has hitherto prevented our slightest inspection of our reader's proofs of your book. Send not another sheet to us. Our bill for printing thus far, and also for our cash advances, swindled out of us by you, is now in the hands of our lawyer, who is instructed to proceed with instant rigor. (_Signed_) STEEL, FLINT & ASBESTOS." He folded the left-hand letter, and put it beneath his left heel, and stood upon it so; and then opened the right-hand letter. "Thou, Pierre Glendinning, art a villainous and perjured liar. It is the sole object of this letter imprintedly to convey the point blank lie to thee; that taken in at thy heart, it may be thence pulsed with thy blood, throughout thy system. We have let some interval pass inactive, to confirm and solidify our hate. Separately, and together, we brand thee, in thy every lung-cell, a liar;--liar, because that is the scornfullest and loathsomest title for a man; which in itself is the compend of all infamous things. (_Signed_) GLENDINNING STANLY, FREDERIC TARTAN." He folded the right-hand letter, and put it beneath his right heel; then folding his two arms, stood upon both the letters. "These are most small circumstances; but happening just now to me, become indices to all immensities. For now am I hate-shod! On these I will skate to my acquittal! No longer do I hold terms with aught. World's bread of life, and world's breath of honor, both are snatched from me; but I defy all world's bread and breath. Here I step out before the drawn-up worlds in widest space, and challenge one and all of them to battle! Oh, Glen! oh, Fred! most fraternally do I leap to your rib-crushing hugs! Oh, how I love ye two, that yet can make me lively hate, in a world which elsewise only merits stagnant scorn!--Now, then, where is this swindler's, this coiner's book? Here, on this vile counter, over which the coiner thought to pass it to the world, here will I nail it fast, for a detected cheat! And thus nailed fast now, do I spit upon it, and so get the start of the wise world's worst abuse of it! Now I go out to meet my fate, walking toward me in the street." As with hat on, and Glen and Frederic's letter invisibly crumpled in his hand, he--as it were somnambulously--passed into the room of Isabel, she gave loose to a thin, long shriek, at his wondrous white and haggard plight; and then, without the power to stir toward him, sat petrified in her chair, as one embalmed and glazed with icy varnish. He heeded her not, but passed straight on through both intervening rooms, and without a knock unpremeditatedly entered Lucy's chamber. He would have passed out of that, also, into the corridor, without one word; but something stayed him. The marble girl sat before her easel; a small box of pointed charcoal, and some pencils by her side; her painter's wand held out against the frame; the charcoal-pencil suspended in two fingers, while with the same hand, holding a crust of bread, she was lightly brushing the portrait-paper, to efface some ill-considered stroke. The floor was scattered with the bread-crumbs and charcoal-dust; he looked behind the easel, and saw his own portrait, in the skeleton. At the first glimpse of him, Lucy started not, nor stirred; but as if her own wand had there enchanted her, sat tranced. "Dead embers of departed fires lie by thee, thou pale girl; with dead embers thou seekest to relume the flame of all extinguished love! Waste not so that bread; eat it--in bitterness!" He turned, and entered the corridor, and then, with outstretched arms, paused between the two outer doors of Isabel and Lucy. "For ye two, my most undiluted prayer is now, that from your here unseen and frozen chairs ye may never stir alive;--the fool of Truth, the fool of Virtue, the fool of Fate, now quits ye forever!" As he now sped down the long winding passage, some one eagerly hailed him from a stair. "What, what, my boy? where now in such a squally hurry? Hallo, I say!" But without heeding him at all, Pierre drove on. Millthorpe looked anxiously and alarmedly after him a moment, then made a movement in pursuit, but paused again. "There was ever a black vein in this Glendinning; and now that vein is swelled, as if it were just one peg above a tourniquet drawn over-tight. I scarce durst dog him now; yet my heart misgives me that I should.--Shall I go to his rooms and ask what black thing this is that hath befallen him?--No; not yet;--might be thought officious--they say I'm given to that. I'll wait; something may turn up soon. I'll into the front street, and saunter some; and then--we'll see." V. Pierre passed on to a remote quarter of the building, and abruptly entered the room of one of the Apostles whom he knew. There was no one in it. He hesitated an instant; then walked up to a book-case, with a chest of drawers in the lower part. "Here I saw him put them:--this,--no--here--ay--we'll try this." Wrenching open the locked drawer, a brace of pistols, a powder flask, a bullet-bag, and a round green box of percussion-caps lay before him. "Ha! what wondrous tools Prometheus used, who knows? but more wondrous these, that in an instant, can unmake the topmost three-score-years-and-ten of all Prometheus' makings. Come: here's two tubes that'll outroar the thousand pipes of Harlem.--Is the music in 'em?--No?--Well then, here's powder for the shrill treble; and wadding for the tenor; and a lead bullet for the concluding bass! And,--and,--and,--ay; for the top-wadding, I'll send 'em back their lie, and plant it scorching in their brains!" He tore off that part of Glen and Fred's letter, which more particularly gave the lie; and halving it, rammed it home upon the bullets. He thrust a pistol into either breast of his coat; and taking the rearward passages, went down into the back street; directing his rapid steps toward the grand central thoroughfare of the city. It was a cold, but clear, quiet, and slantingly sunny day; it was between four and five of the afternoon; that hour, when the great glaring avenue was most thronged with haughty-rolling carriages, and proud-rustling promenaders, both men and women. But these last were mostly confined to the one wide pavement to the West; the other pavement was well nigh deserted, save by porters, waiters, and parcel-carriers of the shops. On the west pave, up and down, for three long miles, two streams of glossy, shawled, or broadcloth life unceasingly brushed by each other, as long, resplendent, drooping trains of rival peacocks brush. Mixing with neither of these, Pierre stalked midway between. From his wild and fatal aspect, one way the people took the wall, the other way they took the curb. Unentangledly Pierre threaded all their host, though in its inmost heart. Bent he was, on a straightforward, mathematical intent. His eyes were all about him as he went; especially he glanced over to the deserted pavement opposite; for that emptiness did not deceive him; he himself had often walked that side, the better to scan the pouring throng upon the other. Just as he gained a large, open, triangular space, built round with the stateliest public erections;--the very proscenium of the town;--he saw Glen and Fred advancing, in the distance, on the other side. He continued on; and soon he saw them crossing over to him obliquely, so as to take him face-and-face. He continued on; when suddenly running ahead of Fred, who now chafingly stood still (because Fred would not make two, in the direct personal assault upon one) and shouting "Liar! Villain!" Glen leaped toward Pierre from front, and with such lightning-like ferocity, that the simultaneous blow of his cowhide smote Pierre across the cheek, and left a half-livid and half-bloody brand. For that one moment, the people fell back on all sides from them; and left them--momentarily recoiled from each other--in a ring of panics. But clapping both hands to his two breasts, Pierre, on both sides shaking off the sudden white grasp of two rushing girls, tore out both pistols, and rushed headlong upon Glen. "For thy one blow, take here two deaths! 'Tis speechless sweet to murder thee!" Spatterings of his own kindred blood were upon the pavement; his own hand had extinguished his house in slaughtering the only unoutlawed human being by the name of Glendinning;--and Pierre was seized by a hundred contending hands. VI. That sundown, Pierre stood solitary in a low dungeon of the city prison. The cumbersome stone ceiling almost rested on his brow; so that the long tiers of massive cell-galleries above seemed partly piled on him. His immortal, immovable, bleached cheek was dry; but the stone cheeks of the walls were trickling. The pent twilight of the contracted yard, coming through the barred arrow-slit, fell in dim bars upon the granite floor. "Here, then, is the untimely, timely end;--Life's last chapter well stitched into the middle! Nor book, nor author of the book, hath any sequel, though each hath its last lettering!--It is ambiguous still. Had I been heartless now, disowned, and spurningly portioned off the girl at Saddle Meadows, then had I been happy through a long life on earth, and perchance through a long eternity in heaven! Now, 'tis merely hell in both worlds. Well, be it hell. I will mold a trumpet of the flames, and, with my breath of flame, breathe back my defiance! But give me first another body! I long and long to die, to be rid of this dishonored cheek. _Hung by the neck till thou be dead._--Not if I forestall you, though!--Oh now to live is death, and now to die is life; now, to my soul, were a sword my midwife!--Hark!--the hangman?--who comes?" "Thy wife and cousin--so they say;--hope they may be; they may stay till twelve;" wheezingly answered a turnkey, pushing the tottering girls into the cell, and locking the door upon them. "Ye two pale ghosts, were this the other world, ye were not welcome. Away!--Good Angel and Bad Angel both!--For Pierre is neuter now!" "Oh, ye stony roofs, and seven-fold stony skies!--not thou art the murderer, but thy sister hath murdered thee, my brother, oh my brother!" At these wailed words from Isabel, Lucy shrunk up like a scroll, and noiselessly fell at the feet of Pierre. He touched her heart.--"Dead!--Girl! wife or sister, saint or fiend!"--seizing Isabel in his grasp--"in thy breasts, life for infants lodgeth not, but death-milk for thee and me!--The drug!" and tearing her bosom loose, he seized the secret vial nesting there. VII. At night the squat-framed, asthmatic turnkey tramped the dim-lit iron gallery before one of the long honey-combed rows of cells. "Mighty still there, in that hole, them two mice I let in;--humph!" Suddenly, at the further end of the gallery, he discerned a shadowy figure emerging from the archway there, and running on before an officer, and impetuously approaching where the turnkey stood. "More relations coming. These wind-broken chaps are always in before the second death, seeing they always miss the first.--Humph! What a froth the fellow's in?--Wheezes worse than me!" "Where is she?" cried Fred Tartan, fiercely, to him; "she's not at the murderer's rooms! I sought the sweet girl there, instant upon the blow; but the lone dumb thing I found there only wrung her speechless hands and pointed to the door;--both birds were flown! Where is she, turnkey? I've searched all lengths and breadths but this. Hath any angel swept adown and lighted in your granite hell?" "Broken his wind, and broken loose, too, aint he?" wheezed the turnkey to the officer who now came up. "This gentleman seeks a young lady, his sister, someway innocently connected with the prisoner last brought in. Have any females been here to see him?" "Oh, ay,--two of 'em in there now;" jerking his stumped thumb behind him. Fred darted toward the designated cell. "Oh, easy, easy, young gentleman"--jingling at his huge bunch of keys--"easy, easy, till I get the picks--I'm housewife here.--Hallo, here comes another." Hurrying through the same archway toward them, there now rapidly advanced a second impetuous figure, running on in advance of a second officer. "Where is the cell?" demanded Millthorpe. "He seeks an interview with the last prisoner," explained the second officer. "Kill 'em both with one stone, then," wheezed the turnkey, gratingly throwing open the door of the cell. "There's his pretty parlor, gentlemen; step in. Reg'lar mouse-hole, arn't it?--Might hear a rabbit burrow on the world's t'other side;--are they all 'sleep?" "I stumble!" cried Fred, from within; "Lucy! A light! a light!--Lucy!" And he wildly groped about the cell, and blindly caught Millthorpe, who was also wildly groping. "Blister me not! take off thy bloody touch!--Ho, ho, the light!--Lucy! Lucy!--she's fainted!" Then both stumbled again, and fell from each other in the cell: and for a moment all seemed still, as though all breaths were held. As the light was now thrust in, Fred was seen on the floor holding his sister in his arms; and Millthorpe kneeling by the side of Pierre, the unresponsive hand in his; while Isabel, feebly moving, reclined between, against the wall. "Yes! Yes!--Dead! Dead! Dead!--without one visible wound--her sweet plumage hides it.--Thou hellish carrion, this is thy hellish work! Thy juggler's rifle brought down this heavenly bird! Oh, my God, my God! Thou scalpest me with this sight!" "The dark vein's burst, and here's the deluge-wreck--all stranded here! Ah, Pierre! my old companion, Pierre;--school-mate--play-mate--friend!--Our sweet boy's walks within the woods!--Oh, I would have rallied thee, and banteringly warned thee from thy too moody ways, but thou wouldst never heed! What scornful innocence rests on thy lips, my friend!--Hand scorched with murderer's powder, yet how woman-soft!--By heaven, these fingers move!--one speechless clasp!--all's o'er!" "All's o'er, and ye know him not!" came gasping from the wall; and from the fingers of Isabel dropped an empty vial--as it had been a run-out sand-glass--and shivered upon the floor; and her whole form sloped sideways, and she fell upon Pierre's heart, and her long hair ran over him, and arbored him in ebon vines. FINIS. 
47535	----	Insert provided from the collection of Culver-Stockton College, Canton, Mo.) THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB [Illustration: "_Gentlemen, what does this mean? 'Chops and Tomato sauce. Yours, Pickwick.'_"] THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB BY CHARLES DICKENS ILLUSTRATED BY CECIL ALDIN VOLUME THE SECOND [Illustration] NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 31 West Twenty-Third Street CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE +The Story of the Goblins who Stole a Sexton+ 1 CHAPTER II +How the Pickwickians made and cultivated the Acquaintance of a couple of Nice Young Men belonging to one of the Liberal Professions; how they Disported themselves on the Ice; and how their First Visit came to a Conclusion+ 12 CHAPTER III +Which is all about the Law, and sundry great Authorities learned therein+ 26 CHAPTER IV +Describes, far more fully than the Court Newsman ever did, a Bachelor's Party, given by Mr. Bob Sawyer at his Lodgings in the Borough+ 43 CHAPTER V +Mr. Weller the Elder delivers some Critical Sentiments respecting Literary Composition; and, assisted by his son Samuel, pays a small Instalment of Retaliation to the Account of the Reverend Gentleman with the Red Nose+ 59 CHAPTER VI +Is wholly devoted to a Full and Faithful Report of the Memorable Trial of Bardell against Pickwick+ 78 CHAPTER VII +In which Mr. Pickwick thinks he had better go to Bath; and goes accordingly+ 105 CHAPTER VIII +The Chief Features of which, will be found to be an Authentic Version of the Legend of Prince Bladud, and a most extraordinary Calamity that befell Mr. Winkle+ 123 CHAPTER IX +Honourably accounts for Mr. Weller's Absence, by describing a Soiree to which he was Invited and went; also relates how he was entrusted by Mr. Pickwick with a Private Mission of Delicacy and Importance+ 136 CHAPTER X +How Mr. Winkle, when he stepped out of the Frying-pan, walked gently and comfortably into the Fire+ 151 CHAPTER XI +Mr. Samuel Weller, being entrusted with a Mission of Love, proceeds to Execute it; with what Success will hereinafter appear+ 167 CHAPTER XII +Introduces Mr. Pickwick to a New and not uninteresting Scene in the great Drama of Life+ 184 CHAPTER XIII +What befell Mr. Pickwick when he got into the Fleet; what Prisoners he Saw there; and how he Passed the Night+ 199 CHAPTER XIV +Illustrative, like the preceding one, of the old Proverb, That Adversity brings a Man acquainted with Strange Bed-fellows. Likewise containing Mr. Pickwick's extraordinary and startling Announcement to Mr. Samuel Weller+ 214 CHAPTER XV +Showing how Mr. Samuel Weller got into Difficulties+ 230 CHAPTER XVI +Treats of divers little Matters which occurred in the Fleet, and of Mr. Winkle's Mysterious Behaviour; and shows how the poor Chancery Prisoner obtained his Release at last+ 246 CHAPTER XVII +Descriptive of an Affecting Interview between Mr. Samuel Weller and a Family Party. Mr. Pickwick makes a Tour of the Diminutive World he inhabits, and resolves to mix with it, in future, as little as possible+ 261 CHAPTER XVIII +Records a touching Act of delicate Feeling, not unmixed With Pleasantry, achieved and performed by Messrs. Dodson and Fogg+ 280 CHAPTER XIX +Is chiefly devoted to Matters of Business, and the Temporal Advantage of Dodson and Fogg. Mr. Winkle reappears under Extraordinary Circumstances. Mr. Pickwick's Benevolence proves stronger than his Obstinacy+ 292 CHAPTER XX +Relates how Mr. Pickwick, with the assistance of Samuel Weller, essayed to soften the Heart of Mr. Benjamin Allen, and to mollify the Wrath of Mr. Robert Sawyer+ 305 CHAPTER XXI +Containing the Story of the Bagman's Uncle+ 320 CHAPTER XXII +How Mr. Pickwick sped upon his Mission, and how he was Reinforced in the Outset by a most unexpected Auxiliary+ 340 CHAPTER XXIII +In which Mr. Pickwick encounters an old Acquaintance, to which fortunate Circumstance the Reader is mainly indebted for Matter of thrilling Interest herein set down, concerning two great Public Men of Might and Power+ 357 CHAPTER XXIV +Involving a serious Change in the Weller Family, and the untimely Downfall of the Red-nosed Mr. Stiggins+ 374 CHAPTER XXV +Comprising the final Exit of Mr. Jingle and Job Trotter; with a great Morning of Business in Gray's Inn Square. Concluding with a Double Knock at Mr. Perker's Door+ 387 CHAPTER XXVI +Containing some Particulars relative to the Double Knock, and other Matters: among which certain Interesting Disclosures relative to Mr. Snodgrass and a Young Lady are by no means irrelevant to this History+ 402 CHAPTER XXVII +Mr. Solomon Pell, assisted by a Select Committee of Coachmen, arranges the Affairs of the Elder Mr. Weller+ 420 CHAPTER XXVIII +An important Conference takes place between Mr. Pickwick and Samuel Weller, at which his Parent assists. An old Gentleman in a Snuff-coloured Suit arrives unexpectedly+ 434 CHAPTER XXIX +In which the Pickwick Club is finally Dissolved, and Everything Concluded to the Satisfaction of Everybody+ 449 ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR _"Gentlemen, what does this mean? 'Chops and Tomato sauce. Yours, Pickwick'"_ _Frontispiece_ _A face, head, and shoulders, emerged from beneath the water, and disclosed the features and spectacles of Mr. Pickwick_ _Facing page_ 22 _"A what!" asked Mr. Weller, apparently horror-stricken by the word. "A Walentine," replied Sam_ " 64 _Mr. Winkle took to his heels and tore round the Crescent_ " 134 _And here, to the great horror of Mr. John Smauker, Sam Weller began to whistle_ " 138 _"Lor', do adun, Mr. Weller!"_ " 170 _The cavalcade gave three tremendous cheers_ " 244 _"I drove the old piebald"_ " 264 _He felled Mr. Benjamin Allen to the ground_ " 310 _It was a beautiful and exhilarating sight to see the red-nosed man writhing in Mr. Weller's grasp_ " 386 _The admiration of numerous elderly ladies of single condition_ " 454 IN TEXT PAGE _Heading to Chapter I_ 1 _Heading to Chapter II_ 12 _"Now then, sir," said Sam, "off vith you, and show 'em how to do it"_ 18 _Went slowly and gravely down the slide_ 21 _Heading to Chapter III_ 26 _Heading to Chapter IV_ 43 _"If you'll have the kindness to settle that little bill of mine I'll thank you"_ 46 _Heading to Chapter V_ 59 _"Is there anybody here, named Sam?"_ 60 _Heading to Chapter VI_ 78 _Heading to Chapter VII_ 105 _"Do you do anything in this way, sir?" inquired the tall footman_ 117 _Heading to Chapter VIII_ 123 _Heading to Chapter IX_ 136 _Heading to Chapter X_ 151 _"You've been stopping to over all the posts in Bristol"_ 156 _Heading to Chapter XI_ 167 _Heading to Chapter XII_ 184 _"Take your hat off"_ 187 _Heading to Chapter XIII_ 199 _"Come on--both of you"_ 209 _Heading to Chapter XIV_ 214 _Heading to Chapter XV_ 230 _After a violent struggle, released his head and face_ 236 _Heading to Chapter XVI_ 246 _Heading to Chapter XVII_ 261 _Heading to Chapter XVIII_ 280 _A shabby man in black leggings_ 287 _Heading to Chapter XIX_ 292 _Heading to Chapter XX_ 305 _Heading to Chapter XXI_ 320 _"My uncle gave a loud stamp on the boot in the energy of the moment"_ 338 _Heading to Chapter XXII_ 340 _Mr. Winkle senior_ 352 _Heading to Chapter XXIII_ 357 _Heading to Chapter XXIV_ 374 _Heading to Chapter XXV_ 387 _Heading to Chapter XXVI_ 402 _His jolly red face shining with smiles and health_ 404 _Pointed with his thumb over his shoulder_ 416 _Heading to Chapter XXVII_ 420 _A cold collation of an Abernethy biscuit and a saveloy_ 423 _Heading to Chapter XXVIII_ 434 _A little old gentleman in a suit of snuff-coloured clothes_ 444 _Dismissed him with a harmless but ceremonious kick_ 448 _Heading to Chapter XXIX_ 449 _"The happiness of young people," said Mr. Pickwick, a little moved, "has ever been the chief pleasure of my life"_ 451 _Exchanged his old costume for the ordinary dress of Englishmen_ 455 _Tailpiece to Chapter XXIX_ 457 CHAPTER I _The Story of the Goblins who stole a Sexton_ [Illustration] "In an old abbey town, down in this part of the country, a long, long while ago--so long, that the story must be a true one, because our great-grandfathers implicitly believed it--there officiated as sexton and grave-digger in the churchyard, one Gabriel Grub. It by no means follows that because a man is a sexton, and constantly surrounded by the emblems of mortality, therefore he should be a morose and melancholy man; your undertakers are the merriest fellows in the world; and I once had the honour of being on intimate terms with a mute, who in private life, and off duty, was as comical and jocose a little fellow as ever chirped out a devil-may-care song, without a hitch in his memory, or drained off the contents of a good stiff glass without stopping for breath. But, notwithstanding these precedents to the contrary, Gabriel Grub was an ill-conditioned, cross-grained, surly fellow--a morose and lonely man, who consorted with nobody but himself, and an old wicker bottle which fitted into his large deep waistcoat pocket--and who eyed each merry face, as it passed him by, with such a deep scowl of malice and ill-humour, as it was difficult to meet, without feeling something the worse for. "A little before twilight, one Christmas Eve, Gabriel shouldered his spade, lighted his lantern, and betook himself towards the old churchyard; for he had got a grave to finish by next morning, and, feeling very low, he thought it might raise his spirits, perhaps, if he went on with his work at once. As he went his way, up the ancient street, he saw the cheerful light of blazing fires gleam through the old casements, and heard the loud laugh and the cheerful shouts of those who were assembled around them; he marked the bustling preparations for next day's cheer, and smelt the numerous savoury odours consequent thereupon, as they steamed up from the kitchen windows in clouds. All this was gall and wormwood to the heart of Gabriel Grub: and when groups of children bounded out of the houses, tripped across the road, and were met, before they could knock at the opposite door, by half a dozen curly-headed little rascals who crowded round them as they flocked up-stairs to spend the evening in their Christmas games, Gabriel smiled grimly, and clutched the handle of his spade with a firmer grasp, as he thought of measles, scarlet-fever, thrush, hooping-cough, and a good many other sources of consolation besides. "In this happy frame of mind, Gabriel strode along: returning a short, sullen growl to the good-humoured greetings of such of his neighbours as now and then passed him: until he turned into the dark lane which led to the churchyard. Now, Gabriel had been looking forward to reaching the dark lane, because it was, generally speaking, a nice, gloomy, mournful place, into which the townspeople did not much care to go, except in broad daylight, and when the sun was shining; consequently, he was not a little indignant to hear a young urchin roaring out some jolly song about a merry Christmas, in this very sanctuary, which had been called Coffin Lane ever since the days of the old abbey, and the time of the shaven-headed monks. As Gabriel walked on, and the voice drew nearer, he found it proceeded from a small boy, who was hurrying along, to join one of the little parties in the old street, and who, partly to keep himself company, and partly to prepare himself for the occasion, was shouting out the song at the highest pitch of his lungs. So Gabriel waited until the boy came up, and then dodged him into a corner, and rapped him over the head with his lantern five or six times, to teach him to modulate his voice. And as the boy hurried away with his hand to his head, singing quite a different sort of tune, Gabriel Grub chuckled very heartily to himself, and entered the churchyard: locking the gate behind him. "He took off his coat, put down his lantern, and getting into the unfinished grave, worked at it for an hour or so, with right good will. But the earth was hardened with the frost, and it was no very easy matter to break it up, and shovel it out; and although there was a moon, it was a very young one, and shed little light upon the grave, which was in the shadow of the church. At any other time, these obstacles would have made Gabriel Grub very moody and miserable, but he was so well pleased with having stopped the small boy's singing, that he took little heed of the scanty progress he had made, and looked down into the grave, when he had finished work for the night, with grim satisfaction: murmuring as he gathered up his things: 'Brave lodgings for one, brave lodgings for one, A few feet of cold earth, when life is done; A stone at the head, a stone at the feet, A rich, juicy meal for the worms to eat; Rank grass over head, and damp clay around, Brave lodgings for one, these, in holy ground!' "'Ho! ho!' laughed Gabriel Grub, as he sat himself down on a flat tombstone which was a favourite resting-place of his; and drew forth his wicker bottle. 'A coffin at Christmas! A Christmas Box. Ho! ho! ho!' "'Ho! ho! ho!' repeated a voice which sounded close behind him. "Gabriel paused, in some alarm, in the act of raising the wicker bottle to his lips: and looked round. The bottom of the oldest grave about him was not more still and quiet than the churchyard in the pale moonlight. The cold hoar-frost glistened on the tombstones, and sparkled like rows of gems, among the stone carvings of the old church. The snow lay hard and crisp upon the ground; and spread over the thickly-strewn mounds of earth, so white and smooth a cover, that it seemed as if corpses lay there, hidden only by their winding-sheets. Not the faintest rustle broke the profound tranquillity of the solemn scene. Sound itself appeared to be frozen up, all was so cold and still. "'It was the echoes,' said Gabriel Grub, raising the bottle to his lips again. "'It was _not_,' said a deep voice. "Gabriel started up, and stood rooted to the spot with astonishment and terror; for his eyes rested on a form that made his blood run cold. "Seated on an upright tombstone, close to him, was a strange unearthly figure, whom Gabriel felt at once, was no being of this world. His long fantastic legs, which might have reached the ground, were cocked up, and crossed after a quaint, fantastic fashion; his sinewy arms were bare; and his hands rested on his knees. On his short round body, he wore a close covering, ornamented with small slashes; a short cloak dangled at his back; the collar was cut into curious peaks, which served the goblin in lieu of ruff or neckerchief; and his shoes curled up at his toes into long points. On his head he wore a broad-brimmed sugar-loaf hat, garnished with a single feather. The hat was covered with the white frost; and the goblin looked as if he had sat on the same tombstone, very comfortably, for two or three hundred years. He was sitting perfectly still; his tongue was put out, as if in derision; and he was grinning at Gabriel Grub with such a grin as only a goblin could call up. "'It was _not_ the echoes,' said the goblin. "Gabriel Grub was paralysed, and could make no reply. "'What do you do here on Christmas Eve?' said the goblin, sternly. "'I came to dig a grave, sir,' stammered Gabriel Grub. "'What man wanders among graves and churchyards on such a night as this?' cried the goblin. "'Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!' screamed a wild chorus of voices that seemed to fill the churchyard. Gabriel looked fearfully round--nothing was to be seen. "'What have you got in that bottle?' said the goblin. "'Hollands, sir,' replied the sexton, trembling more than ever; for he had bought it of the smugglers, and he thought that perhaps his questioner might be in the excise department of the goblins. "'Who drinks Hollands alone, and in the churchyard, on such a night as this?' said the goblin. "'Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!' exclaimed the wild voices again. "The goblin leered maliciously at the terrified sexton, and then raising his voice exclaimed: "'And who, then, is our fair and lawful prize?' "To this inquiry the invisible chorus replied, in a strain that sounded like the voices of many choristers singing to the mighty swell of the old church organ--a strain that seemed borne to the sexton's ears upon a wild wind, and to die away as it passed onward; but the burden of the reply was still the same, 'Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!' "The goblin grinned a broader grin than before, as he said, 'Well, Gabriel, what do you say to this?' "The sexton gasped for breath. "'What do you think of this, Gabriel?' said the goblin, kicking up his feet in the air on either side of the tombstone, and looking at the turned-up points with as much complacency as if he had been contemplating the most fashionable pair of Wellingtons in all Bond Street. "'It's--it's--very curious, sir,' replied the sexton, half dead with fright; 'very curious, and very pretty, but I think I'll go back and finish my work, sir, if you please.' "'Work!' said the goblin, 'what work?' "'The grave, sir; making the grave,' stammered the sexton. "'Oh, the grave, eh?' said the goblin; 'who makes graves at a time when all other men are merry, and takes a pleasure in it?' "Again the mysterious voices replied, 'Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!' "'I'm afraid my friends want you, Gabriel,' said the goblin, thrusting his tongue further into his cheek than ever--and a most astonishing tongue it was--'I'm afraid my friends want you, Gabriel,' said the goblin. "'Under favour, sir,' replied the horror-stricken sexton, 'I don't think they can, sir; they don't know me, sir; I don't think the gentlemen have ever seen me, sir.' "'Oh yes, they have,' replied the goblin; 'we know the man with the sulky face and grim scowl, that came down the street to-night, throwing his evil looks at the children, and grasping his burying-spade the tighter. We know the man who struck the boy in the envious malice of his heart, because the boy could be merry, and he could not. We know him, we know him.' "Here the goblin gave a loud shrill laugh, which the echoes returned twenty-fold: and throwing his legs up in the air, stood upon his head, or rather upon the very point of his sugar-loaf hat, on the narrow edge of the tombstone: whence he threw a somerset with extraordinary agility, right to the sexton's feet, at which he planted himself in the attitude in which tailors generally sit upon the shop-board. "'I--I--am afraid I must leave you, sir,' said the sexton, making an effort to move. "'Leave us!' said the goblin, 'Gabriel Grub going to leave us. Ho! ho! ho!' "As the goblin laughed, the sexton observed, for one instant, a brilliant illumination within the windows of the church, as if the whole building were lighted up; it disappeared, the organ pealed forth a lively air, and whole troops of goblins, the very counterpart of the first one, poured into the churchyard, and began playing at leap-frog with the tombstones: never stopping for an instant to take breath, but 'overing' the highest among them, one after the other, with the utmost marvellous dexterity. The first goblin was a most astonishing leaper, and none of the others could come near him; even in the extremity of his terror the sexton could not help observing, that while his friends were content to leap over the common-sized gravestones, the first one took the family vaults, iron railings and all, with as much ease as if they had been so many street posts. "At last the game reached to a most exciting pitch; the organ played quicker and quicker; and the goblins leaped faster and faster: coiling themselves up, rolling head over heels upon the ground, and bounding over the tombstones like footballs. The sexton's brain whirled round with the rapidity of the motion he beheld, and his legs reeled beneath him, as the spirits flew before his eyes: when the goblin king, suddenly darting towards him, laid his hand upon his collar, and sank with him through the earth. "When Gabriel Grub had had time to fetch his breath, which the rapidity of his descent had for the moment taken away, he found himself in what appeared to be a huge cavern, surrounded on all sides by crowds of goblins, ugly and grim; in the centre of the room, on an elevated seat, was stationed his friend of the churchyard; and close beside him stood Gabriel Grub himself, without power of motion. "'Cold to-night,' said the king of the goblins, 'very cold. A glass of something warm, here!' "At this command, half a dozen officious goblins, with a perpetual smile upon their faces, whom Gabriel Grub imagined to be courtiers, on that account, hastily disappeared, and presently returned with a goblet of liquid fire, which they presented to the king. "'Ah!' cried the goblin, whose cheeks and throat were transparent, as he tossed down the flame, 'this warms one, indeed! Bring a bumper of the same for Mr. Grub.' "It was in vain for the unfortunate sexton to protest that he was not in the habit of taking anything warm at night; one of the goblins held him while another poured the blazing liquid down his throat; the whole assembly screeched with laughter as he coughed and choked, and wiped away the tears which gushed plentifully from his eyes, after swallowing the burning draught. "'And now,' said the king, fantastically poking the taper corner of his sugar-loaf hat into the sexton's eye, and thereby occasioning him the most exquisite pain: 'And now, show the man of misery and gloom, a few of the pictures from our own great storehouse!' "As the goblin said this, a thick cloud which obscured the remoter end of the cavern rolled gradually away, and disclosed, apparently at a great distance, a small and scantily furnished, but neat and clean apartment. A crowd of little children were gathered round a bright fire, clinging to their mother's gown, and gambolling around her chair. The mother occasionally rose, and drew aside the window-curtain, as if to look for some expected object; a frugal meal was ready spread upon the table; and an elbow chair was placed near the fire. A knock was heard at the door: the mother opened it, and the children crowded round her, and clapped their hands for joy, as their father entered. He was wet and weary, and shook the snow from his garments, as the children crowded round him, and seizing his cloak, hat, stick, and gloves, with busy zeal, ran with them from the room. Then, as he sat down to his meal before the fire, the children climbed about his knee, and the mother sat by his side, and all seemed happiness and comfort. "But a change came upon the view, almost imperceptibly. The scene was altered to a small bed-room, where the fairest and youngest child lay dying; the roses had fled from his cheek, and the light from his eye; and even as the sexton looked upon him with an interest he had never felt or known before, he died. His young brothers and sisters crowded round his little bed, and seized his tiny hand, so cold and heavy; but they shrunk back from its touch, and looked with awe on his infant face; for calm and tranquil as it was, and sleeping in rest and peace as the beautiful child seemed to be, they saw that he was dead, and they knew that he was an Angel looking down upon, and blessing them, from a bright and happy Heaven. "Again the light cloud passed across the picture, and again the subject changed. The father and mother were old and helpless now, and the number of those about them was diminished more than half; but content and cheerfulness sat on every face, and beamed in every eye, as they crowded round the fireside, and told and listened to old stories of earlier and bygone days. Slowly and peacefully the father sank into the grave, and, soon after, the sharer of all his cares and troubles followed him to a place of rest. The few, who yet survived them, knelt by their tomb, and watered the green turf which covered it, with their tears; then rose, and turned away: sadly and mournfully, but not with bitter cries, or despairing lamentations, for they knew that they should one day meet again; and once more they mixed with the busy world, and their content and cheerfulness were restored. The cloud settled upon the picture, and concealed it from the sexton's view. "'What do you think of _that_?' said the goblin, turning his large face towards Gabriel Grub. "Gabriel murmured out something about its being very pretty, and looked somewhat ashamed, as the goblin bent his fiery eyes upon him. "'_You_ a miserable man!' said the goblin, in a tone of excessive contempt. 'You!' He appeared disposed to add more, but indignation choked his utterance, so he lifted up one of his very pliable legs, and flourishing it above his head a little, to insure his aim, administered a good sound kick to Gabriel Grub; immediately after which, all the goblins in waiting crowded round the wretched sexton, and kicked him without mercy: according to the established and invariable custom of courtiers upon earth, who kick whom royalty kicks, and hug whom royalty hugs. "'Show him some more!' said the king of the goblins. "At these words, the cloud was dispelled, and a rich and beautiful landscape was disclosed to view--there is just such another to this day, within half a mile of the old abbey town. The sun shone from out the clear blue sky, the water sparkled beneath his rays, and the trees looked greener, and the flowers more gay, beneath his cheering influence. The water rippled on, with a pleasant sound; the trees rustled in the light wind that murmured among their leaves; the birds sang upon the boughs; and the lark carolled on high, her welcome to the morning. Yes, it was morning: the bright, balmy morning of summer; the minutest leaf, the smallest blade of grass, was instinct with life. The ant crept forth to her daily toil, the butterfly fluttered and basked in the warm rays of the sun; myriads of insects spread their transparent wings, and revelled in their brief but happy existence. Man walked forth, elated with the scene; and all was brightness and splendour. "'_You_ a miserable man!' said the king of the goblins, in a more contemptuous tone than before. And again the king of the goblins gave his leg a flourish; again it descended on the shoulders of the sexton; and again the attendant goblins imitated the example of their chief. "Many a time the cloud went and came, and many a lesson it taught to Gabriel Grub, who, although his shoulders smarted with pain from the frequent applications of the goblins' feet, looked on with an interest that nothing could diminish. He saw that men who worked hard, and earned their scanty bread with lives of labour, were cheerful and happy; and that to the most ignorant, the sweet face of nature was a never-failing source of cheerfulness and joy. He saw those who had been delicately nurtured, and tenderly brought up, cheerful under privations, and superior to suffering, that would have crushed many of a rougher grain, because they bore within their own bosoms the materials of happiness, contentment, and peace. He saw that women, the tenderest and most fragile of all God's creatures, were the oftenest superior to sorrow, adversity, and distress; and he saw that it was because they bore in their own hearts, an inexhaustible well-spring of affection and devotion. Above all, he saw that men like himself, who snarled at the mirth and cheerfulness of others, were the foulest weeds on the fair face of the earth; and setting all the good of the world against the evil, he came to the conclusion that it was a very decent and respectable sort of world after all. No sooner had he formed it, than the cloud which closed over the last picture, seemed to settle on his senses, and lull him to repose. One by one the goblins faded from his sight; and as the last one disappeared, he sunk to sleep. "The day had broken when Gabriel Grub awoke, and found himself lying, at full length, on the flat grave-stone in the churchyard with the wicker bottle lying empty by his side, and his coat, spade, and lantern, all well whitened by the last night's frost, scattered on the ground. The stone on which he had first seen the goblin seated, stood bolt upright before him, and the grave at which he had worked, the night before, was not far off. At first, he began to doubt the reality of his adventures, but the acute pain in his shoulders when he attempted to rise, assured him that the kicking of the goblins was certainly not ideal. He was staggered again, by observing no traces of footsteps in the snow, on which the goblins had played at leap-frog with the grave-stones, but he speedily accounted for this circumstance when he remembered that, being spirits, they would leave no visible impression behind them. So, Gabriel Grub got on his feet as well as he could, for the pain in his back; and brushing the frost off his coat, put it on, and turned his face towards the town. "But he was an altered man, and he could not bear the thought of returning to a place where his repentance would be scoffed at, and his reformation disbelieved. He hesitated for a few moments; and then turned away to wander where he might, and seek his bread elsewhere. "The lantern, the spade, and the wicker bottle, were found, that day, in the churchyard. There were a great many speculations about the sexton's fate, at first, but it was speedily determined that he had been carried away by the goblins; and there were not wanting some very credible witnesses who had distinctly seen him whisked through the air on the back of a chestnut horse blind of one eye, with the hind-quarters of a lion, and the tail of a bear. At length all this was devoutly believed; and the new sexton used to exhibit to the curious, for a trifling emolument, a good-sized piece of the church weathercock which had been accidentally kicked off by the aforesaid horse in his aërial flight, and picked up by himself in the churchyard, a year or two afterwards. "Unfortunately, these stories were somewhat disturbed by the unlooked-for reappearance of Gabriel Grub himself, some ten years afterwards, a ragged, contented, rheumatic old man. He told his story to the clergyman, and also to the mayor; and in course of time it began to be received as a matter of history, in which form it has continued down to this very day. The believers in the weathercock tale, having misplaced their confidence once, were not easily prevailed upon to part with it again, so they looked as wise as they could, shrugged their shoulders, touched their foreheads, and murmured something about Gabriel Grub having drunk all the Hollands, and then fallen asleep on the flat tombstone; and they affected to explain what he supposed he had witnessed in the goblins' cavern, by saying that he had seen the world, and grown wiser. But this opinion, which was by no means a popular one at any time, gradually died off; and be the matter how it may, as Gabriel Grub was afflicted with rheumatism to the end of his days, this story has at least one moral, if it teach no better one--and that is, that if a man turn sulky and drink by himself at Christmas time, he may make up his mind to be not a bit the better for it: let the spirits be never so good, or let them be even as many degrees beyond proof, as those which Gabriel Grub saw in the goblins' cavern." CHAPTER II [Illustration] _How the Pickwickians made and cultivated the Acquaintance of a couple of Nice Young Men belonging to one of the Liberal Professions; how they Disported themselves on the Ice; and how their First Visit came to a Conclusion_ "Well, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick as that favoured servitor entered his bed-chamber with his warm water, on the morning of Christmas Day, "still frosty?" "Water in the wash-hand basin's a mask o' ice, sir," responded Sam. "Severe weather, Sam," observed Mr. Pickwick. "Fine time for them as is well wropped up, as the Polar Bear said to himself, ven he was practising his skating," replied Mr. Weller. "I shall be down in a quarter of an hour, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, untying his nightcap. "Wery good, sir," replied Sam. "There's a couple o' Sawbones downstairs." "A couple of what!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, sitting up in bed. "A couple o' Sawbones," said Sam. "What's a Sawbones?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, not quite certain whether it was a live animal, or something to eat. "What! Don't you know what a Sawbones is, sir?" inquired Mr. Weller. "I thought everybody know'd as a Sawbones was a surgeon." "Oh, a surgeon, eh?" said Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. "Just that, sir," replied Sam. "These here ones as is below, though, ain't reg'lar thorough-bred Sawbones; they're only in trainin'." "In other words they're medical students, I suppose?" said Mr. Pickwick. Sam Weller nodded assent. "I am glad of it," said Mr. Pickwick, casting his nightcap energetically on the counterpane. "They are fine fellows; very fine fellows; with judgments matured by observation and reflection; tastes refined by reading and study. I am very glad of it." "They're a smokin' cigars by the kitchen fire," said Sam. "Ah!" observed Mr. Pickwick, rubbing his hands, "overflowing with kindly feelings and animal spirits. Just what I like to see." "And one on 'em," said Sam, not noticing his master's interruption, "one on 'em's got his legs on the table, and is a drinkin' brandy neat, vile the tother one--him in the barnacles--has got a barrel o' oysters atween his knees, wich he's a openin' like steam, and as fast as he eats 'em, he takes a aim vith the shells at young dropsy, who's a sittin' down fast asleep, in the chimbley corner." "Eccentricities of genius, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "You may retire." Sam did retire accordingly; Mr. Pickwick, at the expiration of the quarter of an hour, went down to breakfast. "Here he is at last!" said old Mr. Wardle. "Pickwick, this is Miss Allen's brother, Mr. Benjamin Allen. Ben we call him, and so may you if you like. This gentleman is his very particular friend, Mr. ----" "Mr. Bob Sawyer," interposed Mr. Benjamin Allen; whereupon Mr. Bob Sawyer and Mr. Benjamin Allen laughed in concert. Mr. Pickwick bowed to Bob Sawyer, and Bob Sawyer bowed to Mr. Pickwick; Bob and his very particular friend then applied themselves most assiduously to the eatables before them, and Mr. Pickwick had an opportunity of glancing at them both. Mr. Benjamin Allen was a coarse, stout, thickset young man, with black hair cut rather short, and a white face cut rather long. He was embellished with spectacles, and wore a white neckerchief. Below his single-breasted black surtout, which was buttoned up to his chin, appeared the usual number of pepper-and-salt coloured legs, terminating in a pair of imperfectly polished boots. Although his coat was short in the sleeves, it disclosed no vestige of a linen wristband; and although there was quite enough of his face to admit of the encroachment of a shirt collar, it was not graced by the smallest approach to that appendage. He presented, altogether, rather a mildewy appearance, and emitted a fragrant odour of full-flavoured Cubas. Mr. Bob Sawyer, who was habited in a coarse blue coat, which, without being either a great-coat or a surtout, partook of the nature and qualities of both, had about him that sort of slovenly smartness, and swaggering gait, which is peculiar to young gentlemen who smoke in the streets by day, shout and scream in the same by night, call waiters by their Christian names, and do various other acts and deeds of an equally facetious description. He wore a pair of plaid trousers, and a large rough double-breasted waistcoat; out of doors, he carried a thick stick with a big top. He eschewed gloves, and looked, upon the whole, something like a dissipated Robinson Crusoe. Such were the two worthies to whom Mr. Pickwick was introduced, as he took his seat at the breakfast table on Christmas morning. "Splendid morning, gentlemen," said Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Bob Sawyer slightly nodded his assent to the proposition, and asked Mr. Benjamin Allen for the mustard. "Have you come far this morning, gentlemen?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Blue Lion at Muggleton," briefly responded Mr. Allen. "You should have joined us last night," said Mr. Pickwick. "So we should," replied Bob Sawyer, "but the brandy was too good to leave in a hurry: wasn't it, Ben?" "Certainly," said Mr. Benjamin Allen; "and the cigars were not bad, or the pork chops either: were they, Bob?" "Decidedly not," said Bob. The particular friends resumed their attack upon the breakfast, more freely than before, as if the recollection of last night's supper had imparted a new relish to the meal. "Peg away, Bob," said Mr. Allen to his companion, encouragingly. "So I do," replied Bob Sawyer. And so, to do him justice, he did. "Nothing like dissecting, to give one an appetite," said Mr. Bob Sawyer, looking round the table. Mr. Pickwick slightly shuddered. "By-the-bye, Bob," said Mr. Allen, "have you finished that leg yet?" "Nearly," replied Sawyer, helping himself to half a fowl as he spoke. "It's a very muscular one for a child's." "Is it?" inquired Mr. Allen, carelessly. "Very," said Bob Sawyer, with his mouth full. "I've put my name down for an arm, at our place," said Mr. Allen. "We're clubbing for a subject, and the list is nearly full, only we can't get hold of any fellow that wants a head. I wish you'd take it." "No," replied Bob Sawyer; "can't afford expensive luxuries." "Nonsense!" said Allen. "Can't indeed," rejoined Bob Sawyer. "I wouldn't mind a brain, but I couldn't stand a whole head." "Hush, hush, gentlemen, pray," said Mr. Pickwick. "I hear the ladies." As Mr. Pickwick spoke, the ladies, gallantly escorted by Messrs. Snodgrass, Winkle, and Tupman, returned from an early walk. "Why, Ben!" said Arabella, in a tone which expressed more surprise than pleasure at the sight of her brother. "Come to take you home to-morrow," replied Benjamin. Mr. Winkle turned pale. "Don't you see Bob Sawyer, Arabella?" inquired Mr. Benjamin Allen, somewhat reproachfully. Arabella gracefully held out her hand, in acknowledgment of Bob Sawyer's presence. A thrill of hatred struck to Mr. Winkle's heart, as Bob Sawyer inflicted on the proffered hand a perceptible squeeze. "Ben, dear!" said Arabella, blushing; "have--have--you been introduced to Mr. Winkle?" "I have not been, but I shall be very happy to be, Arabella," replied her brother, gravely. Here Mr. Allen bowed grimly to Mr. Winkle, while Mr. Winkle and Mr. Bob Sawyer glanced mutual distrust out of the corners of their eyes. The arrival of the two new visitors, and the consequent check upon Mr. Winkle and the young lady with the fur round her boots, would in all probability have proved a very unpleasant interruption to the hilarity of the party, had not the cheerfulness of Mr. Pickwick, and the good humour of the host, been exerted to the very utmost for the common weal. Mr. Winkle gradually insinuated himself into the good graces of Mr. Benjamin Allen, and even joined in a friendly conversation with Mr. Bob Sawyer; who, enlivened with the brandy, and the breakfast, and the talking, gradually ripened into a state of extreme facetiousness, and related with much glee an agreeable anecdote, about the removal of a tumour on some gentleman's head: which he illustrated by means of an oyster-knife and a half-quartern loaf, to the great edification of the assembled company. Then, the whole train went to church, where Mr. Benjamin Allen fell fast asleep; while Mr. Bob Sawyer abstracted his thoughts from worldly matters, by the ingenious process of carving his name on the seat of the pew, in corpulent letters of four inches long. "Now," said Wardle, after a substantial lunch, with the agreeable items of strong beer and cherry-brandy, had been done ample justice to; "what say you to an hour on the ice? We shall have plenty of time." "Capital!" said Mr. Benjamin Allen. "Prime!" ejaculated Mr. Bob Sawyer. "You skate, of course, Winkle?" said Wardle. "Ye-yes, oh yes," replied Mr. Winkle. "I--I--am _rather_ out of practice." "Oh, _do_ skate, Mr. Winkle," said Arabella. "I like to see it so much." "Oh, it is _so_ graceful," said another young lady. A third young lady said it was elegant, and a fourth expressed her opinion that it was "swan-like." "I should be very happy, I'm sure," said Mr. Winkle, reddening; "but I have no skates." This objection was at once overruled. Trundle had a couple of pair, and the fat boy announced that there were half a dozen more down-stairs: whereat Mr. Winkle expressed exquisite delight, and looked exquisitely uncomfortable. Old Wardle led the way to a pretty large sheet of ice; and the fat boy and Mr. Weller having shovelled and swept away the snow which had fallen on it during the night, Mr. Bob Sawyer adjusted his skates with a dexterity which to Mr. Winkle was perfectly marvellous, and described circles with his left leg, and cut figures of eight, and inscribed upon the ice, without once stopping for breath, a great many other pleasant and astonishing devices, to the excessive satisfaction of Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Tupman, and the ladies: which reached a pitch of positive enthusiasm, when old Wardle and Benjamin Allen, assisted by the aforesaid Bob Sawyer, performed some mystic evolutions, which they called a reel. All this time, Mr. Winkle, with his face and hands blue with the cold, had been forcing a gimlet into the soles of his feet, and putting his skates on, with the points behind, and getting the straps into a very complicated and entangled state, with the assistance of Mr. Snodgrass, who knew rather less about skates than a Hindoo. At length, however, with the assistance of Mr. Weller, the unfortunate skates were firmly screwed and buckled on, and Mr. Winkle was raised to his feet. "Now then, sir," said Sam, in an encouraging tone; "off vith you, and show 'em how to do it." "Stop, Sam, stop!" said Mr. Winkle, trembling violently, and clutching hold of Sam's arms with the grasp of a drowning man. "How slippery it is, Sam!" "Not an uncommon thing upon ice, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "Hold up, sir!" This last observation of Mr. Weller's bore reference to a demonstration Mr. Winkle made at the instant, of a frantic desire to throw his feet in the air, and dash the back of his head on the ice. "These--these--are very awkward skates; ain't they, Sam?" inquired Mr. Winkle, staggering. [Illustration: _"Now then, sir," said Sam, "off vith you, and show 'em how to do it"_] "I'm afeerd there's a orkard gen'l'm'n in 'em, sir," replied Sam. "Now, Winkle," cried Mr. Pickwick, quite unconscious that there was anything the matter. "Come; the ladies are all anxiety." "Yes, yes," replied Mr. Winkle, with a ghastly smile. "I'm coming." "Just a goin' to begin," said Sam, endeavouring to disengage himself. "Now, sir, start off!" "Stop an instant, Sam," gasped Mr. Winkle, clinging most affectionately to Mr. Weller. "I find I've got a couple of coats at home I don't want, Sam. You may have them, Sam." "Thank'ee, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "Never mind touching your hat, Sam," said Mr. Winkle, hastily. "You needn't take your hand away to do that. I meant to have given you five shillings this morning for a Christmas-box, Sam. I'll give it you this afternoon, Sam." "You're wery good, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "Just hold me at first, Sam; will you?" said Mr. Winkle. "There--that's right. I shall soon get in the way of it, Sam. Not too fast, Sam; not too fast." Mr. Winkle stooping forward, with his body half doubled up, was being assisted over the ice by Mr. Weller, in a most singular and un-swan-like manner, when Mr. Pickwick most innocently shouted from the opposite bank: "Sam!" "Sir?" "Here. I want you." "Let go, sir," said Sam. "Don't you hear the governor a callin'? Let go, sir." With a violent effort, Mr. Weller disengaged himself from the grasp of the agonised Pickwickian, and, in so doing, administered a considerable impetus to the unhappy Mr. Winkle. With an accuracy which no degree of dexterity or practice could have insured, that unfortunate gentleman bore swiftly down into the centre of the reel, at the very moment when Mr. Bob Sawyer was performing a flourish of unparalleled beauty. Mr. Winkle struck wildly against him, and with a loud crash they both fell heavily down. Mr. Pickwick ran to the spot. Bob Sawyer had risen to his feet, but Mr. Winkle was far too wise to do anything of the kind, in skates. He was seated on the ice, making spasmodic efforts to smile; but anguish was depicted on every lineament of his countenance. "Are you hurt?" inquired Mr. Benjamin Allen, with great anxiety. "Not much," said Mr. Winkle, rubbing his back very hard. "I wish you'd let me bleed you," said Mr. Benjamin with great eagerness. "No, thank you," replied Mr. Winkle, hurriedly. "I really think you had better," said Allen. "Thank you," replied Mr. Winkle; "I'd rather not." "What do _you_ think, Mr. Pickwick?" inquired Bob Sawyer. Mr. Pickwick was excited and indignant. He beckoned to Mr. Weller, and said in a stern voice, "Take his skates off." "No; but really I had scarcely begun," remonstrated Mr. Winkle. "Take his skates off," repeated Mr. Pickwick, firmly. The command was not to be resisted. Mr. Winkle allowed Sam to obey it in silence. "Lift him up," said Mr. Pickwick. Sam assisted him to rise. Mr. Pickwick retired a few paces apart from the bystanders; and, beckoning his friend to approach, fixed a searching look upon him, and uttered in a low, but distinct and emphatic tone, these remarkable words: "You're a humbug, sir." "A what?" said Mr. Winkle, starting. "A humbug, sir. I will speak plainer, if you wish it. An impostor, sir." With these words, Mr. Pickwick turned slowly on his heel, and rejoined his friends. While Mr. Pickwick was delivering himself of the sentiment just recorded, Mr. Weller and the fat boy, having by their joint endeavours cut out a slide, were exercising themselves thereupon, in a very masterly and brilliant manner. Sam Weller, in particular, was displaying that beautiful feat of fancy sliding which is currently denominated "knocking at the cobbler's door," and which is achieved by skimming over the ice on one foot, and occasionally giving a postman's knock upon it with the other. It was a good long slide, and there was something in the motion which Mr. Pickwick, who was very cold with standing still, could not help envying. "It looks a nice warm exercise that, doesn't it?" he inquired of Wardle, when that gentleman was thoroughly out of breath, by reason of the indefatigable manner in which he had converted his legs into a pair of compasses, and drawn complicated problems on the ice. "Ah, it does indeed," replied Wardle. "Do you slide?" "I used to do so, on the gutters, when I was a boy," replied Mr. Pickwick. [Illustration: _Went slowly and gravely down the slide_] "Try it now," said Wardle. "Oh do, please, Mr. Pickwick!" cried all the ladies. "I should be very happy to afford you any amusement," replied Mr. Pickwick, "but I haven't done such a thing these thirty years." "Pooh! pooh! Nonsense!" said Wardle, dragging off his skates with the impetuosity which characterised all his proceedings. "Here; I'll keep you company; come along!" And away went the good-tempered old fellow down the slide, with a rapidity which came very close upon Mr. Weller, and beat the fat boy all to nothing. Mr. Pickwick paused, considered, pulled off his gloves and put them in his hat: took two or three short runs, baulked himself as often, and at last took another run, and went slowly and gravely down the slide, with his feet about a yard and a quarter apart, amidst the gratified shouts of all the spectators. "Keep the pot a bilin', sir!" said Sam; and down went Wardle again, and then Mr. Pickwick, and then Sam, and then Mr. Winkle, and then Mr. Bob Sawyer, and then the fat boy, and then Mr. Snodgrass, following closely upon each other's heels, and running after each other with as much eagerness as if all their future prospects in life depended on their expedition. It was the most intensely interesting thing, to observe the manner in which Mr. Pickwick performed his share in the ceremony; to watch the torture of anxiety with which he viewed the person behind, gaining upon him at the imminent hazard of tripping him up; to see him gradually expend the painful force he had put on at first, and turn slowly round on the slide, with his face towards the point from which he had started; to contemplate the playful smile which mantled on his face when he had accomplished the distance, and the eagerness with which he turned round when he had done so, and ran after his predecessor: his black gaiters tripping pleasantly through the snow, and his eyes beaming cheerfulness and gladness through his spectacles. And when he was knocked down (which happened upon the average every third round), it was the most invigorating sight that can possibly be imagined, to behold him gather up his hat, gloves, and handkerchief, with a glowing countenance, and resume his station in the rank, with an ardour and enthusiasm that nothing could abate. The sport was at its height, the sliding was at the quickest, the laughter was at the loudest, when a sharp smart crack was heard. There was a quick rush towards the bank, a wild scream from the ladies, and a shout from Mr. Tupman. A large mass of ice disappeared; the water bubbled up over it; Mr. Pickwick's hat, gloves, and handkerchief were floating on the surface; and this was all of Mr. Pickwick that anybody could see. Dismay and anguish were depicted on every countenance, the males turned pale, and the females fainted, Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle grasped each other by the hand, and gazed at the spot where their leader had gone down, with frenzied eagerness; while Mr. Tupman, by way of rendering the promptest assistance, and at the same time conveying to any persons who might be within hearing, the clearest possible notion of the catastrophe, ran off across the country at his utmost speed, screaming "Fire!" with all his might. It was at this moment, when old Wardle and Sam Weller were approaching the hole with cautious steps, and Mr. Benjamin Allen was holding a hurried consultation with Bob Sawyer, on the advisability of bleeding the company generally, as an improving little bit of professional practice--it was at this very moment, that a face, head, and shoulders, emerged from beneath the water, and disclosed the features and spectacles of Mr. Pickwick. [Illustration: _A face, head, and shoulders, emerged from beneath the water, and disclosed the features and spectacles of Mr. Pickwick._] "Keep yourself up for an instant--for only one instant;" bawled Mr. Snodgrass. "Yes, do; let me implore you--for my sake!" roared Mr. Winkle, deeply affected. The adjuration was rather unnecessary: the probability being, that if Mr. Pickwick; had declined to keep himself up for anybody else's sake, it would have occurred to him that he might as well do so for his own. "Do you feel the bottom there, old fellow?" said Wardle. "Yes, certainly," replied Mr. Pickwick, wringing the water from his head and face, and gasping for breath. "I fell upon my back. I couldn't get on my feet at first." The clay upon so much of Mr. Pickwick's coat as was yet visible, bore testimony to the accuracy of this statement; and as the fears of the spectators were still further relieved by the fat boy's suddenly recollecting that the water was nowhere more than five feet deep, prodigies of valour were performed to get him out. After a vast quantity of splashing, and cracking, and struggling, Mr. Pickwick was at length fairly extricated from his unpleasant position, and once more stood on dry land. "Oh, he'll catch his death of cold," said Emily. "Dear old thing!" said Arabella. "Let me wrap this shawl round you, Mr. Pickwick." "Ah, that's the best thing you can do," said Wardle; "and when you've got it on, run home as fast as your legs can carry you, and jump into bed directly." A dozen shawls were offered on the instant. Three or four of the thickest having been selected, Mr. Pickwick was wrapped up, and started off, under the guidance of Mr. Weller: presenting the singular phenomenon of an elderly gentleman, dripping wet, and without a hat, with his arms bound down to his sides, skimming over the ground, without any clearly defined purpose, at the rate of six good English miles an hour. But Mr. Pickwick cared not for appearances in such an extreme case, and urged on by Sam Weller, he kept at the very top of his speed until he reached the door of Manor Farm, where Mr. Tupman had arrived some five minutes before, and had frightened the old lady into palpitations of the heart by impressing her with the unalterable conviction that the kitchen chimney was on fire--a calamity which always presented itself in glowing colours to the old lady's mind, when anybody about her evinced the smallest agitation. Mr. Pickwick paused not an instant until he was snug in bed. Sam Weller lighted a blazing fire in the room and took up his dinner; a bowl of punch was carried up afterwards, and a grand carouse held in honour of his safety. Old Wardle would not hear of his rising, so they made the bed the chair, and Mr. Pickwick presided. A second and a third bowl were ordered in; and when Mr. Pickwick awoke next morning, there was not a symptom of rheumatism about him: which proves, as Mr. Bob Sawyer very justly observed, that there is nothing like hot punch in such cases: and that if ever hot punch did fail to act as a preventive, it was merely because the patient fell into the vulgar error of not taking enough of it. The jovial party broke up next morning. Breakings up are capital things in our school days, but in after life they are painful enough. Death, self-interest, and fortune's changes, are every day breaking up many a happy group, and scattering them far and wide; and the boys and girls never come back again. We do not mean to say that it was exactly the case in this particular instance; all we wish to inform the reader is, that the different members of the party dispersed to their several homes; that Mr. Pickwick and his friends once more took their seats on the top of the Muggleton coach; and that Arabella Allen repaired to her place of destination, wherever it might have been--we dare say Mr. Winkle knew, but we confess we don't--under the care and guardianship of her brother Benjamin, and his most intimate friend, Mr. Bob Sawyer. Before they separated, however, that gentleman and Mr. Benjamin Allen drew Mr. Pickwick aside with an air of some mystery: and Mr. Bob Sawyer, thrusting his forefinger between two of Mr. Pickwick's ribs, and thereby displaying his native drollery, and his knowledge of the anatomy of the human frame, at one and the same time, inquired: "I say, old boy, where do you hang out?" Mr. Pickwick replied that he was at present suspended at the George and Vulture. "I wish you'd come and see me," said Bob Sawyer. "Nothing would give me greater pleasure," replied Mr. Pickwick. "There's my lodgings," said Mr. Bob Sawyer, producing a card. "Lant Street, Borough; it's near Guy's, and handy for me, you know. Little distance after you've passed St. George's Church--turns out of the High Street on the right-hand side the way." "I shall find it," said Mr. Pickwick. "Come on Thursday fortnight, and bring the other chaps with you," said Mr. Bob Sawyer. "I'm going to have a few medical fellows that night." Mr. Pickwick expressed the pleasure it would afford him to meet the medical fellows; and after Mr. Bob Sawyer had informed him that he meant to be very cosy, and that his friend Ben was to be one of the party, they shook hands and separated. We feel that in this place we lay ourselves open to inquiry whether Mr. Winkle was whispering, during this brief conversation, to Arabella Allen; and if so, what he said; and furthermore, whether Mr. Snodgrass was conversing apart with Emily Wardle; and if so, what _he_ said. To this, we reply, that whatever they might have said to the ladies, they said nothing at all to Mr. Pickwick or Mr. Tupman for eight-and-twenty miles, and that they sighed very often, refused ale and brandy, and looked gloomy. If our observant lady readers can deduce any satisfactory inferences from these facts, we beg them by all means to do so. CHAPTER III [Illustration] _Which is all about the Law, and sundry great Authorities learned therein_ Scattered about, in various holes and corners of the Temple, are certain dark and dirty chambers, in and out of which, all the morning in Vacation, and half the evening too in Term times, there may be seen constantly hurrying with bundles of papers under their arms, and protruding from their pockets, an almost uninterrupted succession of Lawyers' Clerks. There are several grades of Lawyers' Clerks. There is the Articled Clerk, who has paid a premium, and is an attorney in perspective, who runs a tailor's bill, receives invitations to parties, knows a family in Gower Street, and another in Tavistock Square; who goes out of town every Long Vacation to see his father, who keeps live horses innumerable; and who is, in short, the very aristocrat of clerks. There is the salaried clerk--out of door or in door, as the case may be--who devotes the major part of his thirty shillings a week to his personal pleasure and adornment, repairs half-price to the Adelphi Theatre at least three times a week, dissipates majestically at the cider cellars afterwards, and is a dirty caricature of the fashion which expired six months ago. There is the middle-aged copying clerk, with a large family, who is always shabby, and often drunk. And there are the office lads in their first surtouts, who feel a befitting contempt for boys at day-schools; club, as they go home at night, for saveloys and porter; and think there's nothing like "life." There are varieties of the genus, too numerous to recapitulate, but however numerous they may be, they are all to be seen, at certain regulated business hours, hurrying to and from the places we have just mentioned. These sequestered nooks are the public offices of the legal profession, where writs are issued, judgments signed, declarations filed, and numerous other ingenious machines put in motion for the torture and torment of His Majesty's liege subjects, and the comfort and emolument of the practitioners of the law. They are, for the most part, low-roofed, mouldy rooms, where innumerable rolls of parchment, which have been perspiring in secret for the last century, send forth an agreeable odour, which is mingled by day with the scent of the dry rot, and by night with the various exhalations which arise from damp cloaks, festering umbrellas, and the coarsest tallow candles. About half-past seven o'clock in the evening, some ten days or a fortnight after Mr. Pickwick and his friends returned to London, there hurried into one of these offices, an individual in a brown coat and brass buttons, whose long hair was scrupulously twisted round the rim of his napless hat, and whose soiled drab trousers were so tightly strapped over his Blucher boots, that his knees threatened every moment to start from their concealment. He produced from his coat pocket a long and narrow strip of parchment, on which the presiding functionary impressed an illegible black stamp. He then drew forth four scraps of paper, of similar dimensions, each containing a printed copy of the strip of parchment with blanks for a name; and having filled up the blanks, put all the five documents in his pocket, and hurried away. The man in the brown coat, with the cabalistic documents in his pocket, was no other than our old acquaintance Mr. Jackson, of the house of Dodson and Fogg, Freeman's Court, Cornhill. Instead of returning to the office from whence he came, however, he bent his steps direct to Sun Court, and walking straight into the George and Vulture, demanded to know whether one Mr. Pickwick was within. "Call Mr. Pickwick's servant, Tom," said the barmaid of the George and Vulture. "Don't trouble yourself," said Mr. Jackson, "I've come on business. If you'll show me Mr. Pickwick's room I'll step up myself." "What name, sir?" said the waiter. "Jackson," replied the clerk. The waiter stepped up-stairs to announce Mr. Jackson; but Mr. Jackson saved him the trouble by following close at his heels, and walking into the apartment before he could articulate a syllable. Mr. Pickwick had, that day, invited his three friends to dinner; they were all seated round the fire, drinking their wine, when Mr. Jackson presented himself, as above described. "How de do, sir?" said Mr. Jackson, nodding to Mr. Pickwick. That gentleman bowed, and looked somewhat surprised, for the physiognomy of Mr. Jackson dwelt not on his recollection. "I have called from Dodson and Fogg's," said Mr. Jackson, in an explanatory tone. Mr. Pickwick roused at the name. "I refer you to my attorney, sir: Mr. Perker, of Gray's Inn," said he. "Waiter, show this gentleman out." "Beg your pardon, Mr. Pickwick," said Jackson, deliberately depositing his hat on the floor, and drawing from his pocket the strip of parchment. "But personal service, by clerk or agent, in these cases, you know, Mr. Pickwick--nothing like caution, sir, in all legal forms." Here Mr. Jackson cast his eye on the parchment; and resting his hands on the table, and looking round with a winning and persuasive smile, said: "Now, come; don't let's have no words about such a little matter as this. Which of you gentlemen's name's Snodgrass?" At this inquiry Mr. Snodgrass gave such a very undisguised and palpable start, that no further reply was needed. "Ah! I thought so," said Mr. Jackson, more affably than before. "I've got a little something to trouble you with, sir." "Me!" exclaimed Mr. Snodgrass. "It's only a _subpoena_ in Bardell and Pickwick on behalf of the plaintiff," replied Mr. Jackson, singling out one of the slips of paper, and producing a shilling from his waistcoat pocket. "It'll come on, in the settens after Term; fourteenth of Febooary, we expect; we've marked it a special jury cause, and it's only ten down the paper. That's yours, Mr. Snodgrass." As Jackson said this he presented the parchment before the eyes of Mr. Snodgrass, and slipped the paper and the shilling into his hand. Mr. Tupman had witnessed this process in silent astonishment, when Jackson, turning sharply upon him, said: "I think I ain't mistaken when I say your name's Tupman, am I?" Mr. Tupman looked at Mr. Pickwick; but, perceiving no encouragement in that gentleman's widely opened eyes to deny his name, said: "Yes, my name _is_ Tupman, sir." "And that other gentleman's Mr. Winkle, I think?" said Jackson. Mr. Winkle faltered out a reply in the affirmative; and both gentlemen were forthwith invested with a slip of paper, and a shilling each, by the dexterous Mr. Jackson. "Now," said Jackson, "I'm afraid you'll think me rather troublesome, but I want somebody else, if it ain't inconvenient. I _have_ Samuel Weller's name here, Mr. Pickwick." "Send my servant here, waiter," said Mr. Pickwick. The waiter retired, considerably astonished, and Mr. Pickwick motioned Jackson to a seat. There was a painful pause, which was at length broken by the innocent defendant. "I suppose, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, his indignation rising while he spoke; "I suppose, sir, that it is the intention of your employers to seek to criminate me upon the testimony of my own friends?" Mr. Jackson struck his forefinger several times against the left side of his nose, to intimate that he was not there to disclose the secrets of the prison-house, and playfully rejoined: "Not knowin', can't say." "For what other reason, sir," pursued Mr. Pickwick, "are these subpoenas served upon them, if not for this?" "Very good plant, Mr. Pickwick," replied Jackson, slowly shaking his head. "But it won't do. No harm in trying, but there's little to be got out of me." Here Mr. Jackson smiled once more upon the company, and, applying his left thumb to the tip of his nose, worked a visionary coffee-mill with his right hand: thereby performing a very graceful piece of pantomime (then much in vogue, but now, unhappily, almost obsolete) which was familiarly denominated "taking a grinder." "No, no, Mr. Pickwick," said Jackson, in conclusion; "Perker's people must guess what we've served these subpoenas for. If they can't, they must wait till the action comes on, and then they'll find out." Mr. Pickwick bestowed a look of excessive disgust on his unwelcome visitor, and would probably have hurled some tremendous anathema at the heads of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg, had not Sam's entrance at the instant interrupted him. "Samuel Weller?" said Mr. Jackson, inquiringly. "Vun o' the truest things as you've said for many a long year," replied Sam, in a most composed manner. "Here's a subpoena for you, Mr. Weller," said Jackson. "What's that in English?" inquired Sam. "Here's the original," said Jackson, declining the required explanation. "Which?" said Sam. "This," replied Jackson, shaking the parchment. "Oh, that's the 'rig'nal, is it?" said Sam. "Well, I'm wery glad I've seen the 'rig'nal, 'cos it's a gratifyin' sort o' thing, and eases vun's mind so much." "And here's the shilling," said Jackson. "It's from Dodson and Fogg's." "And it's uncommon handsome o' Dodson and Fogg, as knows so little of me, to come down vith a present," said Sam. "I feel it as a wery high compliment, sir; it's a wery hon'rable thing to them, as they knows how to reward merit werever they meets it. Besides wich, it's affectin' to one's feelin's." As Mr. Weller said this, he inflicted a little friction on his right eyelid, with the sleeve of his coat, after the most approved manner of actors when they are in domestic pathetics. Mr. Jackson seemed rather puzzled by Sam's proceedings; but, as he had served the subpoenas, and had nothing more to say, he made a feint of putting on the one glove which he usually carried in his hand for the sake of appearances; and returned to the office to report progress. Mr. Pickwick slept little that night; his memory had received a very disagreeable refresher on the subject of Mrs. Bardell's action. He breakfasted betimes next morning, and, desiring Sam to accompany him, set forth towards Gray's Inn Square. "Sam!" said Mr. Pickwick, looking round, when they got to the end of Cheapside. "Sir?" said Sam, stepping up to his master. "Which way?" "Up Newgate Street." Mr. Pickwick did not turn round immediately, but looked vacantly in Sam's face for a few seconds, and heaved a deep sigh. "What's the matter, sir?" inquired Sam. "This action, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, "is expected to come on on the fourteenth of next month." "Remarkable coin_ci_dence that 'ere, sir," replied Sam. "Why remarkable, Sam?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Walentine's day, sir," responded Sam; "reg'lar good day for a breach o' promise trial." Mr. Weller's smile awakened no gleam of mirth in his master's countenance. Mr. Pickwick turned abruptly round, and led the way in silence. They had walked some distance: Mr. Pickwick trotting on before, plunged in profound meditation, and Sam following behind, with a countenance expressive of the most enviable and easy defiance of everything and everybody: when the latter, who was always especially anxious to impart to his master any exclusive information he possessed, quickened his pace until he was close at Mr. Pickwick's heels; and, pointing up at a house they were passing, said: "Wery nice pork-shop that 'ere, sir." "Yes, it seems so," said Mr. Pickwick. "Celebrated sassage factory," said Sam. "Is it?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Is it!" reiterated Sam, with some indignation: "I should rayther think it was. Why, sir, bless your innocent eyebrows, that's where the mysterious disappearance of a 'spectable tradesman took place four year ago." "You don't mean to say he was burked, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick, looking hastily round. "No, I don't indeed, sir," replied Mr. Weller, "I wish I did; far worse than that. He was the master o' that 'ere shop, sir, and the inwenter o' the patent never-leavin'-off sassage steam ingine, as 'ud swaller up a pavin' stone if you put it too near, and grind it into sassages as easy as if it was a tender young baby. Wery proud o' that machine he was, as it was nat'ral he should be, and he'd stand down in the cellar a lookin' at it wen it was in full play, till he got quite melancholy with joy. A wery happy man he'd ha' been, sir, in the procession o' that 'ere ingine and two more lovely hinfants besides, if it hadn't been for his wife, who was a most ow-dacious wixin. She was always a follerin' him about and dinnin' in his ears, till at last he couldn't stand it no longer. 'I'll tell you what it is, my dear,' he says one day; 'if you persewere in this here sort of amusement,' he says, 'I'm blessed if I don't go away to 'Merriker; and that's all about it.' 'You're a idle willin,' says she, 'and I wish the 'Merrikins joy of their bargain.' Arter wich she keeps on abusin' of him for half an hour, and then runs into the little parlour behind the shop, sets to a screamin', says he'll be the death on her, and falls in a fit, which lasts for three good hours--one o' them fits wich is all screamin' and kickin'. Well, next mornin', the husband was missin'. He hadn't taken nothin' from the till--hadn't even put on his great-coat--so it was quite clear he warn't gone to 'Merriker. Didn't come back next day; didn't come back next week; Missis had bills printed, sayin' that, if he'd come back, he should be forgiven everythin' (which was very liberal, seein' that he hadn't done nothin' at all); the canals was dragged, and for two months artervards, wenever a body turned up, it was carried, as a reg'lar thing, straight off to the sassage shop. Hows'ever, none on 'em answered; so they gave out that he'd run avay, and she kep' on the bis'ness. One Saturday night, a little thin old gen'l'm'n comes into the shop in a great passion and says, 'Are you the missis o' this here shop?' 'Yes, I am,' says she. 'Well, ma'am,' says he, 'then I've just looked in to say that me and my family ain't a goin' to be choked for nothin'; and more than that, ma'am,' he says, 'you'll allow me to observe, that as you don't use the primest parts of the meat in the manafacter o' sassages, I think you'd find beef come nearly as cheap as buttons.' 'As buttons, sir!' says she. 'Buttons, ma'am,' says the little old gen'l'm'n, unfolding a bit of paper, and showing twenty or thirty halves o' buttons. 'Nice seasonin' for sassages, is trousers buttons, ma'am.' 'They're my husband's buttons!' says the widder, beginnin' to faint. 'What!' screams the little old gen'l'm'n, turnin' wery pale. 'I see it all,' says the widder; 'in a fit of temporary insanity he rashly converted his-self into sassages!' And so he had, sir," said Mr. Weller, looking steadily into Mr. Pickwick's horror-stricken countenance, "or else he'd been draw'd into the ingine; but however that might ha' been, the little old gen'l'm'n, who had been remarkably partial to sassages all his life, rushed out o' the shop in a wild state, and was never heard on artervards!" The relation of this affecting incident of private life brought master and man to Mr. Perker's chambers. Lowten, holding the door half open, was in conversation with a rustily-clad, miserable-looking man, in boots without toes and gloves without fingers. There were traces of privation and suffering--almost of despair--in his lank and careworn countenance; he felt his poverty, for he shrunk to the dark side of the staircase as Mr. Pickwick approached. "It's very unfortunate," said the stranger, with a sigh. "Very," said Lowten, scribbling his name on the door-post with his pen, and rubbing it out again with the feather. "Will you leave a message for him?" "When do you think he'll be back?" inquired the stranger. "Quite uncertain," replied Lowten, winking at Mr. Pickwick, as the stranger cast his eyes towards the ground. "You don't think it would be of any use my waiting for him?" said the stranger, looking wistfully into the office. "Oh no, I'm sure it wouldn't," replied the clerk, moving a little more into the centre of the doorway. "He's certain not to be back this week, and it's a chance whether he will be next; for when Perker once gets out of town, he's never in a hurry to come back again." "Out of town!" said Mr. Pickwick; "dear me, how unfortunate!" "Don't go away, Mr. Pickwick," said Lowten, "I've got a letter for you." The stranger seeming to hesitate, once more looked towards the ground, and the clerk winked slily at Mr. Pickwick, as if to intimate that some exquisite piece of humour was going forward, though what it was Mr. Pickwick could not for the life of him divine. "Step in, Mr. Pickwick," said Lowten. "Well, will you leave a message, Mr. Watty, or will you call again?" "Ask him to be so kind as to leave out word what has been done in my business," said the man; "for God's sake don't neglect it, Mr. Lowten." "No, no; I won't forget it," replied the clerk. "Walk in, Mr. Pickwick. Good morning, Mr. Watty; it's a fine day for walking, isn't it?" Seeing that the stranger still lingered, he beckoned Sam Weller to follow his master in, and shut the door in his face. "There never was such a pestering bankrupt as that since the world began, I do believe!" said Lowten, throwing down his pen with the air of an injured man. "His affairs haven't been in Chancery quite four years yet, and I'm d--d if he don't come worrying here twice a week. Step this way, Mr. Pickwick. Perker _is_ in, and he'll see you, I know. Devilish cold," he added, pettishly, "standing at that door, wasting one's time with such seedy vagabonds!" Having very vehemently stirred a particularly large fire with a particularly small poker, the clerk led the way to his principal's private room, and announced Mr. Pickwick. "Ah, my dear sir," said little Mr. Perker, bustling up from his chair. "Well, my dear sir, and what's the news about your matter, eh? Anything more about our friends in Freeman's Court? They've not been sleeping, _I_ know that. Ah, they're smart fellows; very smart indeed." As the little man concluded, he took an emphatic pinch of snuff, as a tribute to the smartness of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg. "They are great scoundrels," said Mr. Pickwick. "Aye, aye," said the little man; "that's a matter of opinion, you know, and we won't dispute about terms; because of course you can't be expected to view these subjects with a professional eye. Well, we've done everything that's necessary. I have retained Serjeant Snubbin." "Is he a good man?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Good man!" replied Perker; "bless your heart and soul, my dear sir, Serjeant Snubbin is at the very top of his profession. Gets treble the business of any man in court--engaged in every case. You needn't mention it abroad; but we say--we of the profession--that Serjeant Snubbin leads the court by the nose." The little man took another pinch of snuff as he made this communication, and nodded mysteriously to Mr. Pickwick. "They have subpoena'd my three friends," said Mr. Pickwick. "Ah! of course they would," replied Perker. "Important witnesses; saw you in a delicate situation." "But she fainted of her own accord," said Mr. Pickwick. "She threw herself into my arms." "Very likely, my dear sir," replied Perker; "very likely and very natural. Nothing more so, my dear sir, nothing. But who's to prove it?" "They have subpoena'd my servant too," said Mr. Pickwick, quitting the other point; for there Mr. Perker's question had somewhat staggered him. "Sam?" said Perker. Mr. Pickwick replied in the affirmative. "Of course, my dear sir; of course. I knew they would. I could have told you that a month ago. You know, my dear sir, if you _will_ take the management of your affairs into your own hands after intrusting them to your solicitor, you must also take the consequences." Here Mr. Perker drew himself up with conscious dignity, and brushed some stray grains of snuff from his shirt frill. "And what do they want him to prove?" asked Mr. Pickwick, after two or three minutes' silence. "That you sent him up to the plaintiff's to make some offer of a compromise, I suppose," replied Perker. "It don't matter much, though; I don't think many counsel could get a great deal out of _him_." "I don't think they could," said Mr. Pickwick; smiling, despite his vexation, at the idea of Sam's appearance as a witness. "What course do we pursue?" "We have only one to adopt, my dear sir," replied Perker; "cross-examine the witnesses; trust to Snubbin's eloquence; throw dust in the eyes of the judge; throw ourselves on the jury." "And suppose the verdict is against me?" said Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Perker smiled, took a very long pinch of snuff, stirred the fire, shrugged his shoulders, and remained expressively silent. "You mean that in that case I must pay the damages?" said Mr. Pickwick, who had watched this telegraphic answer with considerable sternness. Perker gave the fire another very unnecessary poke, and said, "I am afraid so." "Then I beg to announce to you, my unalterable determination to pay no damages whatever," said Mr. Pickwick, most emphatically. "None, Perker. Not a pound, not a penny, of my money, shall find its way into the pockets of Dodson and Fogg. That is my deliberate and irrevocable determination." Mr. Pickwick gave a heavy blow on the table before him, in confirmation of the irrevocability of his intention. "Very well, my dear sir, very well," said Perker. "You know best, of course." "Of course," replied Mr. Pickwick, hastily. "Where does Serjeant Snubbin live?" "In Lincoln's Inn Old Square," replied Perker. "I should like to see him," said Mr. Pickwick. "See Serjeant Snubbin, my dear sir!" rejoined Perker, in utter amazement. "Pooh, pooh, my dear sir, impossible. See Serjeant Snubbin! Bless you, my dear sir, such a thing was never heard of, without a consultation fee being previously paid, and a consultation fixed. It couldn't be done, my dear sir; it couldn't be done." Mr. Pickwick, however, had made up his mind not only that it could be done, but that it should be done; and the consequence was, that within ten minutes after he had received the assurance that the thing was impossible, he was conducted by his solicitor into the outer office of the great Serjeant Snubbin himself. It was an uncarpeted room of tolerable dimensions, with a large writing-table drawn up near the fire: the baize top of which had long since lost all claim to its original hue of green, and had gradually grown grey with dust and age, except where all traces of its natural colour were obliterated by ink-stains. Upon the table were numerous little bundles of papers tied with red tape; and behind it sat an elderly clerk, whose sleek appearance, and heavy gold watch-chain, presented imposing indications of the extensive and lucrative practice of Mr. Serjeant Snubbin. "Is the Serjeant in his room, Mr. Mallard?" inquired Perker, offering his box with all imaginable courtesy. "Yes, he is," was the reply, "but he's very busy. Look here; not an opinion given yet, on any one of these cases; and an expedition fee paid with all of 'em." The clerk smiled as he said this, and inhaled a pinch of snuff with a zest which seemed to be compounded of a fondness for snuff and a relish for fees. "Something like practice that," said Perker. "Yes," said the barrister's clerk, producing his own box, and offering it with the greatest cordiality; "and the best of it is, that as nobody alive except myself can read the Serjeant's writing, they are obliged to wait for the opinions, when he has given them, till I have copied 'em, ha--ha--ha!" "Which makes good for we know who, besides the Serjeant, and draws a little more out of the clients, eh?" said Perker; "Ha, ha, ha!" At this the Serjeant's clerk laughed again; not a noisy boisterous laugh, but a silent, internal chuckle, which Mr. Pickwick disliked to hear. When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people. "You haven't made me out that little list of the fees that I'm in your debt, have you?" said Perker. "No, I have not," replied the clerk. "I wish you would," said Perker. "Let me have them, and I'll send you a cheque. But I suppose you're too busy pocketing the ready money, to think of the debtors, eh? ha, ha, ha!" This sally seemed to tickle the clerk amazingly, and he once more enjoyed a little quiet laugh to himself. "But, Mr. Mallard, my dear friend," said Perker, suddenly recovering his gravity, and drawing the great man's great man into a corner, by the lappel of his coat; "you must persuade the Serjeant to see me and my client here." "Come, come," said the clerk, "that's not bad either. See the Serjeant! come, that's too absurd." Notwithstanding the absurdity of the proposal, however, the clerk allowed himself to be gently drawn beyond the hearing of Mr. Pickwick; and after a short conversation conducted in whispers, walked softly down a little dark passage and disappeared into the legal luminary's sanctum: whence he shortly returned on tiptoe, and informed Mr. Perker and Mr. Pickwick that the Serjeant had been prevailed upon, in violation of all established rules and customs, to admit them at once. Mr. Serjeant Snubbin was a lantern-faced, sallow-complexioned man, of about five-and-forty, or--as the novels say--he might be fifty. He had that dull-looking boiled eye which is often to be seen in the heads of people who have applied themselves during many years to a weary and laborious course of study; and which would have been sufficient, without the additional eye-glass which dangled from a broad black riband round his neck, to warn a stranger that he was very near-sighted. His hair was thin and weak, which was partly attributable to his having never devoted much time to its arrangement, and partly to his having worn for five-and-twenty years the forensic wig which hung on a block beside him. The marks of hair-powder on his coat-collar, and the ill-washed and worse-tied white neckerchief round his throat, showed that he had not found leisure since he left the court to make any alteration in his dress: while the slovenly style of the remainder of his costume warranted the inference that his personal appearance would not have been very much improved if he had. Books of practice, heaps of papers, and opened letters, were scattered over the table, without any attempt at order or arrangement; the furniture of the room was old and rickety; the doors of the bookcase were rotting in their hinges; the dust flew out from the carpet in little clouds at every step; the blinds were yellow with age and dirt; the state of everything in the room showed, with a clearness not to be mistaken, that Mr. Serjeant Snubbin was far too much occupied with his professional pursuits to take any great heed or regard of his personal comforts. The Serjeant was writing when his clients entered; he bowed abstractedly when Mr. Pickwick was introduced by his solicitor; and then, motioning them to a seat, put his pen carefully in the inkstand, nursed his left leg, and waited to be spoken to. "Mr. Pickwick is the defendant in Bardell and Pickwick, Serjeant Snubbin," said Perker. "I am retained in that, am I?" said the Serjeant. "You are, sir," replied Perker. The Serjeant nodded his head, and waited for something else. "Mr. Pickwick was anxious to call upon you, Serjeant Snubbin," said Perker, "to state to you, before you entered upon the case, that he denies there being any ground or pretence whatever for the action against him; and that unless he came into court with clean hands, and without the most conscientious conviction that he was right in resisting the plaintiff's demand, he would not be there at all. I believe I state your views correctly; do not, my dear sir?" said the little man, turning to Mr. Pickwick. "Quite so," replied that gentleman. Mr. Serjeant Snubbin unfolded his glasses, raised them to his eyes; and, after looking at Mr. Pickwick for a few seconds with great curiosity, turned to Mr. Perker, and said, smiling slightly as he spoke: "Has Mr. Pickwick a strong case?" The attorney shrugged his shoulders. "Do you propose calling witnesses?" "No." The smile on the Serjeant's countenance became more defined; he rocked his leg with increased violence; and, throwing himself back in his easy-chair, coughed dubiously. These tokens of the Serjeant's presentiments on the subject, slight as they were, were not lost on Mr. Pickwick. He settled the spectacles, through which he had attentively regarded such demonstrations of the barrister's feelings as he had permitted himself to exhibit, more firmly on his nose; and said with great energy, and in utter disregard of all Mr. Perker's admonitory winkings and frownings: "My wishing to wait upon you, for such a purpose as this, sir, appears, I have no doubt, to a gentleman who sees so much of these matters as you must necessarily do, a very extraordinary circumstance." The Serjeant tried to look gravely at the fire, but the smile came back again. "Gentlemen of your profession, sir," continued Mr. Pickwick, "see the worst side of human nature. All its disputes, all its ill-will and bad blood, rise up before you. You know from your experience of juries (I mean no disparagement to you, or them) how much depends upon _effect_: and you are apt to attribute to others, a desire to use, for purposes of deception and self-interest, the very instruments which you, in pure honesty and honour of purpose, and with a laudable desire to do your utmost for your client, know the temper and worth of so well, from constantly employing them yourselves. I really believe that to this circumstance may be attributed the vulgar but very general notion of your being, as a body, suspicious, distrustful, and over-cautious. Conscious as I am, sir, of the disadvantage of making such a declaration to you, under such circumstances, I have come here, because I wish you distinctly to understand, as my friend Mr. Perker has said, that I am innocent of the falsehood laid to my charge; and although I am very well aware of the inestimable value of your assistance, sir, I must beg to add, that unless you sincerely believe this, I would rather be deprived of the aid of your talents than have the advantage of them." Long before the close of this address, which we are bound to say was of a very prosy character for Mr. Pickwick, the Serjeant had relapsed into a state of abstraction. After some minutes, however, during which he had reassumed his pen, he appeared to be again aware of the presence of his clients; raising his head from the paper, he said, rather snappishly, "Who is with me in this case?" "Mr. Phunky, Serjeant Snubbin," replied the attorney. "Phunky, Phunky," said the Serjeant, "I never heard the name before. He must be a very young man." "Yes, he is a very young man," replied the attorney. "He was only called the other day. Let me see--he has not been at the Bar eight years yet." "Ah, I thought not," said the Serjeant, in that sort of pitying tone in which ordinary folks would speak of a very helpless little child. "Mr. Mallard, send round to Mr.--Mr.----" "Phunky's--Holborn Court, Gray's Inn," interposed Perker. (Holborn Court, by-the-bye, is South Square now). "Mr. Phunky, and say I should be glad if he'd step here, a moment." Mr. Mallard departed to execute his commission; and Serjeant Snubbin relapsed into abstraction until Mr. Phunky himself was introduced. Although an infant barrister, he was a full-grown man. He had a very nervous manner, and a painful hesitation in his speech; it did not appear to be a natural defect, but seemed rather the result of timidity, arising from the consciousness of being "kept down" by want of means, or interests, or connection, or impudence, as the case might be. He was overawed by the Serjeant, and profoundly courteous to the attorney. "I have not had the pleasure of seeing you before, Mr. Phunky," said Serjeant Snubbin, with a haughty condescension. Mr. Phunky bowed. He _had_ had the pleasure of seeing the Serjeant, and of envying him too, with all a poor man's envy, for eight years and a quarter. "You are with me in this case, I understand?" said the Serjeant. If Mr. Phunky had been a rich man, he would have instantly sent for his clerk to remind him; if he had been a wise one, he would have applied his forefinger to his forehead, and endeavoured to recollect, whether, in the multiplicity of his engagements, he had undertaken this one, or not; but as he was neither rich nor wise (in this sense at all events) he turned red, and bowed. "Have you read the papers, Mr. Phunky?" inquired the Serjeant. Here again, Mr. Phunky should have professed to have forgotten all about the merits of the case; but as he had read such papers as had been laid before him in the course of the action, and had thought of nothing else, waking, or sleeping, throughout the two months during which he had been retained as Mr. Serjeant Snubbin's junior, he turned a deeper red, and bowed again. "This is Mr. Pickwick," said the Serjeant, waving his pen in the direction in which that gentleman was standing. Mr. Phunky bowed to Mr. Pickwick with a reverence which a first client must ever awaken; and again inclined his head towards his leader. "Perhaps you will take Mr. Pickwick away," said the Serjeant, "and--and--and--hear anything Mr. Pickwick may wish to communicate. We shall have a consultation, of course." With this hint that he had been interrupted quite long enough, Mr. Serjeant Snubbin, who had been gradually growing more and more abstracted, applied his glass to his eyes for an instant, bowed slightly round, and was once more deeply immersed in the case before him: which arose out of an interminable lawsuit, originating in the act of an individual, deceased a century or so ago, who had stopped up a pathway leading from some place which nobody ever came from, to some other place which nobody ever went to. Mr. Phunky would not hear of passing through any door until Mr. Pickwick and his solicitor had passed through before him, so it was some time before they got into the Square; and when they did reach it, they walked up and down, and held a long conference, the result of which was, that it was a very difficult matter to say how the verdict would go; that nobody could presume to calculate on the issue of an action; that it was very lucky they had prevented the other party from getting Serjeant Snubbin; and other topics of doubt and consolation, common in such a position of affairs. Mr. Weller was then roused by his master from a sweet sleep of an hour's duration; and, bidding adieu to Lowten, they returned to the City. CHAPTER IV [Illustration] _Describes, far more fully than the Court Newsman ever did, a Bachelor's Party, given by Mr. Bob Sawyer at his Lodgings in the Borough_ There is a repose about Lant Street, in the Borough, which sheds a gentle melancholy upon the soul. There are always a good many houses to let in the street: it is a by-street too, and its dulness is soothing. A house in Lant Street would not come within the denomination of a first-rate residence, in the strict acceptation of the term; but it is a most desirable spot nevertheless. If a man wished to abstract himself from the world--to remove himself from within the reach of temptation--to place himself beyond the possibility of any inducement to look out of the window--he should by all means go to Lant Street. In this happy retreat are colonised a few clear-starchers, a sprinkling of journeymen bookbinders, one or two prison agents for the Insolvent Court, several small housekeepers who are employed in the docks, a handful of mantua-makers, and a seasoning of jobbing tailors. The majority of the inhabitants either direct their energies to the letting of furnished apartments, or devote themselves to the healthful and invigorating pursuit of mangling. The chief features in the still life of the street are green shutters, lodging-bills, brass door-plates, and bell-handles; the principal specimens of animated nature, the pot-boy, the muffin youth, and the baked-potato man. The population is migratory, usually disappearing on the verge of quarter-day, and generally by night. His Majesty's revenues are seldom collected in this happy valley; the rents are dubious; and the water communication is very frequently cut off. Mr. Bob Sawyer embellished one side of the fire, in his first-floor front, early in the evening for which he had invited Mr. Pickwick; and Mr. Ben Allen the other. The preparations for the reception of visitors appeared to be completed. The umbrellas in the passage had been heaped into the little corner outside the back-parlour door; the bonnet and shawl of the landlady's servant had been removed from the banisters; there were not more than two pairs of pattens on the street-door mat, and the kitchen candle, with a very long snuff, burnt cheerfully on the ledge of the staircase window. Mr. Bob Sawyer had himself purchased the spirits at a wine vaults in High Street, and had returned home preceding the bearer thereof, to preclude the possibility of their delivery at the wrong house. The punch was ready-made in a red pan in the bedroom; a little table, covered with a green baize cloth, had been borrowed from the parlour, to play cards on; and the glasses of the establishment, together with those which had been borrowed for the occasion from the public-house, were all drawn up in a tray, which was deposited on the landing outside the door. Notwithstanding the highly satisfactory nature of all these arrangements, there was a cloud on the countenance of Mr. Bob Sawyer, as he sat by the fireside. There was a sympathising expression, too, in the features of Mr. Ben Allen, as he gazed intently on the coals; and a tone of melancholy in his voice, as he said, after a long silence: "Well, it _is_ unlucky she should have taken it in her head to turn sour, just on this occasion. She might at least have waited till to-morrow." "That's her malevolence, that's her malevolence," returned Mr. Bob Sawyer, vehemently. "She says that if I can afford to give a party I ought to be able to pay her confounded 'little bill.'" "How long has it been running?" inquired Mr. Ben Allen. A bill, by-the-bye, is the most extraordinary locomotive engine that the genius of man ever produced. It would keep on running during the longest lifetime, without ever once stopping of its own accord. "Only a quarter, and a month or so," replied Mr. Bob Sawyer. Ben Allen coughed hopelessly, and directed a searching look between the two top bars of the stove. "It'll be a deuced unpleasant thing if she takes it into her head to let out, when those fellows are here, won't it?" said Mr. Ben Allen at length. "Horrible," replied Bob Sawyer, "horrible." A low tap was heard at the room door. Mr. Bob Sawyer looked expressively at his friend, and bade the tapper come in; whereupon a dirty slipshod girl in black cotton stockings, who might have passed for the neglected daughter of a superannuated dustman in very reduced circumstances, thrust in her head, and said, "Please, Mister Sawyer, Missis Raddle wants to speak to _you_." Before Mr. Bob Sawyer could return any answer, the girl suddenly disappeared with a jerk, as if somebody had given her a violent pull behind; this mysterious exit was no sooner accomplished, than there was another tap at the door--a smart pointed tap, which seemed to say, "Here I am, and in I'm coming." Mr. Bob Sawyer glanced at his friend with a look of abject apprehension, and once more cried "Come in." The permission was not at all necessary, for, before Mr. Bob Sawyer had uttered the words, a little fierce woman bounced into the room, all in a tremble with passion, and pale with rage. "Now, Mr. Sawyer," said the little fierce woman, trying to appear very calm, "if you'll have the kindness to settle that little bill of mine I'll thank you, because I've got my rent to pay this afternoon, and my landlord's a waiting below now." Here the little woman rubbed her hands, and looked steadily over Mr. Bob Sawyer's head, at the wall behind him. "I am very sorry to put you to any inconvenience, Mrs. Raddle," said Bob Sawyer, deferentially, "but----" "Oh, it isn't any inconvenience," replied the little woman, with a shrill titter. "I didn't want it particular before to-day; leastways, as it has to go to my landlord directly, it was as well for you to keep it as me. You promised me this afternoon, Mr. Sawyer, and every gentleman as has ever lived here, has kept his word, sir, as of course anybody as calls himself a gentleman, does." Mrs. Raddle tossed her head, bit her lips, rubbed her hands harder, and looked at the wall more steadily than ever. It was plain to see, as Mr. Bob Sawyer remarked in a style of eastern allegory on a subsequent occasion, that she was "getting the steam up." [Illustration: _"If you'll have the kindness to settle that little bill of mine I'll thank you"_] "I am very sorry, Mrs. Raddle," said Bob Sawyer with all imaginable humility, "but the fact is that I have been disappointed in the City to-day."--Extraordinary place, that City. An astonishing number of men always _are_ getting disappointed there. "Well, Mr. Sawyer," said Mrs. Raddle, planting herself firmly on a purple cauliflower in the Kidderminster carpet, "and what's that to me, sir?" "I--I have no doubt, Mrs. Raddle," said Bob Sawyer, blinking this last question, "that before the middle of next week we shall be able to set ourselves quite square, and go on, on a better system afterwards." This was all Mrs. Raddle wanted. She had bustled up to the apartment of the unlucky Bob Sawyer, so bent upon going into a passion, that in all probability payment would have rather disappointed her than otherwise. She was in excellent order for a little relaxation of the kind: having just exchanged a few introductory compliments with Mr. R. in the front kitchen. "Do you suppose, Mr. Sawyer," said Mrs. Raddle, elevating her voice for the information of the neighbours, "do you suppose that I'm a-going day after day to let a fellar occupy my lodgings as never thinks of paying his rent, nor even the very money laid out for the fresh butter and lump sugar that's bought for his breakfast, and the very milk that's took in, at the street door? Do you suppose a hard-working and industrious woman as has lived in this street for twenty year (ten year over the way, and nine year and three-quarter in this very house) has nothing else to do but to work herself to death after a parcel of lazy idle fellars, that are always smoking and drinking, and lounging, when they ought to be glad to turn their hands to anything that would help them to pay their bills? Do you----" "My good soul," interposed Mr. Benjamin Allen, soothingly. "Have the goodness to keep your observashuns to yourself, sir, I beg," said Mrs. Raddle, suddenly arresting the rapid torrent of her speech, and addressing the third party with impressive slowness and solemnity. "I am not aweer, sir, that you have any right to address your conversation to me. I don't think I let these apartments to you, sir." "No, you certainly did not," said Mr. Benjamin Allen. "Very good, sir," responded Mrs. Raddle, with lofty politeness. "Then p'raps, sir, you'll confine yourself to breaking the arms and legs of the poor people in the hospitals, and keep yourself _to_ yourself, sir, or there may be some persons here as will make you, sir." "But you are such an unreasonable woman," remonstrated Mr. Benjamin Allen. "I beg your parding, young man," said Mrs. Raddle, in a cold perspiration of anger. "But will you have the goodness just to call me that again, sir?" "I didn't make use of the word in any invidious sense, ma'am," replied Mr. Benjamin Allen, growing somewhat uneasy on his own account. "I beg your parding, young man," demanded Mrs. Raddle in a louder and more imperative tone. "But who do you call a woman? Did you make that remark to me, sir?" "Why, bless my heart!" said Mr. Benjamin Allen. "Did you apply that name to me, I ask of you, sir?" interrupted Mrs. Raddle, with intense fierceness, throwing the door wide open. "Why, of course I did," replied Mr. Benjamin Allen. "Yes, of course you did," said Mrs. Raddle, backing gradually to the door, and raising her voice to its loudest pitch, for the special behoof of Mr. Raddle in the kitchen. "Yes, of course you did! And everybody knows that they may safely insult me in my own 'ouse while my husband sits sleeping down-stairs, and taking no more notice than if I was a dog in the streets. He ought to be ashamed of himself (here Mrs. Raddle sobbed) to allow his wife to be treated in this way by a parcel of young cutters and carvers of live people's bodies, that disgraces the lodgings (another sob), and leaving her exposed to all manner of abuse; a base, faint-hearted, timorous wretch, that's afraid to come up-stairs, and face the ruffinly creatures--that's afraid--that's afraid to come!" Mrs. Raddle paused to listen whether the repetition of the taunt had roused her better half; and, finding that it had not been successful, proceeded to descend the stairs with sobs innumerable: when there came a loud double knock at the street door: whereupon she burst into an hysterical fit of weeping, accompanied with dismal moans, which was prolonged until the knock had been repeated six times, when, in an uncontrollable burst of mental agony, she threw down all the umbrellas, and disappeared into the back parlour, closing the door after her with an awful crash. "Does Mr. Sawyer live here?" said Mr. Pickwick, when the door was opened. "Yes," said the girl, "first floor. It's the door straight afore you when you gets to the top of the stairs." Having given this instruction, the handmaid, who had been brought up among the aboriginal inhabitants of Southwark, disappeared, with the candle in her hand, down the kitchen stairs: perfectly satisfied that she had done everything that could possibly be required of her under the circumstances. Mr. Snodgrass, who entered last, secured the street door, after several ineffectual efforts, by putting up the chain; and the friends stumbled up-stairs, where they were received by Mr. Bob Sawyer, who had been afraid to go down, lest he should be waylaid by Mrs. Raddle. "How are you?" said the discomfited student. "Glad to see you,--take care of the glasses." This caution was addressed to Mr. Pickwick, who had put his hat in the tray. "Dear me," said Mr. Pickwick, "I beg your pardon." "Don't mention it, don't mention it," said Bob Sawyer. "I'm rather confined for room here, but you must put up with all that, when you come to see a young bachelor. Walk in. You've seen this gentleman before, I think?" Mr. Pickwick shook hands with Mr. Benjamin Allen, and his friends followed his example. They had scarcely taken their seats when there was another double knock. "I hope that's Jack Hopkins!" said Mr. Bob Sawyer. "Hush! Yes, it is. Come up, Jack; come up." A heavy footstep was heard upon the stairs, and Jack Hopkins presented himself. He wore a black velvet waistcoat, with thunder-and-lightning buttons; and a blue striped shirt, with a white false collar. "You're late, Jack," said Mr. Benjamin Allen. "Been detained at Bartholomew's," replied Hopkins. "Anything new?" "No, nothing particular. Rather a good accident brought into the casualty ward." "What was that, sir?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Only a man fallen out of a four pair of stairs' window;--but it's a very fair case--very fair case indeed." "Do you mean that the patient is in a fair way to recover?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "No," replied Hopkins, carelessly. "No, I should rather say he wouldn't. There must be a splendid operation though, to-morrow--magnificent sight if Slasher does it." "You consider Mr. Slasher a good operator?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Best alive," replied Hopkins. "Took a boy's leg out of the socket last week--boy ate five apples and a gingerbread cake--exactly two minutes after it was all over, boy said he wouldn't lie there to be made game of, and he'd tell his mother if they didn't begin." "Dear me!" said Mr. Pickwick, astonished. "Pooh! That's nothing, that ain't," said Jack Hopkins. "Is it, Bob?" "Nothing at all," replied Mr. Bob Sawyer. "By-the-bye, Bob," said Hopkins, with a scarcely perceptible glance at Mr. Pickwick's attentive face, "we had a curious accident last night. A child was brought in, who had swallowed a necklace." "Swallowed what, sir?" interrupted Mr. Pickwick. "A necklace," replied Jack Hopkins. "Not all at once, you know, that would be too much--_you_ couldn't swallow that, if the child did--eh, Mr. Pickwick, ha! ha!" Mr. Hopkins appeared highly gratified with his own pleasantry; and continued. "No, the way was this. Child's parents were poor people who lived in a court. Child's eldest sister bought a necklace; common necklace, made of large black wooden beads. Child, being fond of toys, cribbed the necklace, hid it, played with it, cut the string, and swallowed a bead. Child thought it capital fun, went back next day, and swallowed another bead." "Bless my heart," said Mr. Pickwick, "what a dreadful thing! I beg your pardon, sir. Go on." "Next day child swallowed two beads; the day after that, he treated himself to three, and so on, till in a week's time he had got through the necklace--five-and-twenty beads in all. The sister, who was an industrious girl, and seldom treated herself to a bit of finery, cried her eyes out, at the loss of the necklace; looked high and low for it; but, I needn't say, didn't find it. A few days afterwards the family were at dinner--baked shoulder of mutton, and potatoes under it--the child, who wasn't hungry, was playing about the room, when suddenly there was heard a devil of a noise, like a small hailstorm. 'Don't do that, my boy,' said the father. 'I ain't a doin' nothing,' said the child. 'Well, don't do it again,' said the father. There was a short silence, and then the noise again began, worse than ever. 'If you don't mind what I say, my boy,' said the father, 'you'll find yourself in bed, in something less than a pig's whisper.' He gave the child a shake to make him obedient, and such a rattling ensued as nobody ever heard before. 'Why, damme, it's _in_ the child!' said the father, 'he's got the croup in the wrong place!' 'No I haven't, father,' said the child, beginning to cry, 'it's the necklace; I swallowed it, father.' The father caught the child up, and ran with him to the hospital: the beads in the boy's stomach rattling all the way with the jolting; and the people looking up in the air, and down in the cellars to see where the unusual sound came from. He's in the hospital now," said Jack Hopkins, "and he makes such a devil of a noise when he walks about, that they're obliged to muffle him in a watchman's coat, for fear he should wake the patients!" "That's the most extraordinary case I ever heard of," said Mr. Pickwick, with an emphatic blow on the table. "Oh, that's nothing," said Jack Hopkins; "is it, Bob?" "Certainly not," replied Mr. Bob Sawyer. "Very singular things occur in our profession, I can assure you, sir," said Hopkins. "So I should be disposed to imagine," replied Mr. Pickwick. Another knock at the door, announced a large-headed young man in a black wig, who brought with him a scorbutic youth in a long stock. The next comer was a gentleman in a shirt emblazoned with pink anchors, who was closely followed by a pale youth with a plated watchguard. The arrival of a prim personage in clean linen and cloth boots rendered the party complete. The little table with the green baize cover was wheeled out; the first instalment of punch was brought in, in a white jug; and the succeeding three hours were devoted to _vingt-et-un_ at sixpence a dozen, which was only once interrupted by a slight dispute between the scorbutic youth and the gentleman with the pink anchors; in the course of which, the scorbutic youth intimated a burning desire to pull the nose of the gentleman with the emblems of hope; in reply to which, that individual expressed his decided unwillingness to accept of any "sauce" on gratuitous terms, either from the irascible young gentleman with the scorbutic countenance, or any other person who was ornamented with a head. When the last "natural" had been declared, and the profit and loss account of fish and sixpences adjusted, to the satisfaction of all parties, Mr. Bob Sawyer rang for supper, and the visitors squeezed themselves into corners while it was getting ready. It was not so easily got ready as some people may imagine. First of all, it was necessary to awaken the girl, who had fallen asleep with her face on the kitchen table; this took a little time, and, even when she did answer the bell, another quarter of an hour was consumed in fruitless endeavours to impart to her a faint and distant glimmering of reason. The man to whom the order for the oysters had been sent, had not been told to open them; it is a very difficult thing to open an oyster with a limp knife or a two-pronged fork; and very little was done in this way. Very little of the beef was done either; and the ham (which was also from the German-sausage shop round the corner) was in a similar predicament. However, there was plenty of porter in a tin can; and the cheese went a great way, for it was very strong. So upon the whole, perhaps, the supper was quite as good as such matters usually are. After supper, another jug of punch was put upon the table, together with a paper of cigars, and a couple of bottles of spirits. Then there was an awful pause; and this awful pause was occasioned by a very common occurrence in this sort of place, but a very embarrassing one notwithstanding. The fact is, the girl was washing the glasses. The establishment boasted four; we do not record the circumstance as at all derogatory to Mrs. Raddle, for there never was a lodging-house yet, that was not short of glasses. The landlady's glasses were little thin blown glass tumblers, and those which had been borrowed from the public-house were great, dropsical, bloated articles, each supported on a huge gouty leg. This would have been in itself sufficient to have possessed the company with the real state of affairs; but the young woman of all work had prevented the possibility of any misconception arising in the mind of any gentleman upon the subject, by forcibly dragging every man's glass away, long before he had finished his beer, and audibly stating, despite the winks and interruptions of Mr. Bob Sawyer, that it was to be conveyed down-stairs, and washed forthwith. It is a very ill wind that blows nobody any good. The prim man in the cloth boots, who had been unsuccessfully attempting to make a joke during the whole time the round game lasted, saw his opportunity, and availed himself of it. The instant the glasses disappeared, he commenced a long story about a great public character, whose name he had forgotten, making a particularly happy reply to another eminent and illustrious individual whom he had never been able to identify. He enlarged at some length and with great minuteness upon divers collateral circumstances, distantly connected with the anecdote in hand, but for the life of him he couldn't recollect at that precise moment what the anecdote was, although he had been in the habit of telling the story with great applause for the last ten years. "Dear me," said the prim man in the cloth boots, "it is a very extraordinary circumstance." "I am sorry you have forgotten it," said Mr. Bob Sawyer, glancing eagerly at the door, as he thought he heard the noise of glasses jingling; "very sorry." "So am I," responded the prim man, "because I know it would have afforded so much amusement. Never mind; I dare say I shall manage to recollect it, in the course of half an hour or so." The prim man arrived at this point, just as the glasses came back, when Mr. Bob Sawyer, who had been absorbed in attention during the whole time, said he should very much like to hear the end of it, for, so far as it went, it was, without exception, the very best story he had ever heard. The sight of the tumblers restored Bob Sawyer to a degree of equanimity which he had not possessed since his interview with his landlady. His face brightened up, and he began to feel quite convivial. "Now, Betsy," said Mr. Bob Sawyer, with great suavity, and dispersing, at the same time, the tumultuous little mob of glasses the girl had collected in the centre of the table: "now, Betsy, the warm water: be brisk, there's a good girl." "You can't have no warm water," replied Betsy. "No warm water!" exclaimed Mr. Bob Sawyer. "No," said the girl, with a shake of the head which expressed a more decided negative than the most copious language could have conveyed. "Missis Raddle said you warn't to have none." The surprise depicted on the countenances of his guests imparted new courage to the host. "Bring up the warm water instantly--instantly!" said Mr. Bob Sawyer, with desperate sternness. "No. I can't," replied the girl; "Missis Raddle raked out the kitchen fire afore she went to bed, and locked up the kittle." "Oh, never mind; never mind. Pray don't disturb yourself about such a trifle," said Mr. Pickwick, observing the conflict of Bob Sawyer's passions, as depicted in his countenance, "cold water will do very well." "Oh, admirably," said Mr. Benjamin Allen. "My landlady is subject to some slight attacks of mental derangement," remarked Bob Sawyer with a ghastly smile; "and I fear I must give her warning." "No, don't," said Ben Allen. "I fear I must," said Bob, with heroic firmness. "I'll pay her what I owe her, and give her warning to-morrow morning." Poor fellow! how devoutly he wished he could! Mr. Bob Sawyer's heart-sickening attempts to rally under this last blow, communicated a dispiriting influence on the company, the greater part of whom, with the view of raising their spirits, attached themselves with extra cordiality to the cold brandy and water, the first perceptible effects of which were displayed in a renewal of hostilities between the scorbutic youth and the gentleman in the shirt. The belligerents vented their feelings of mutual contempt, for some time, in a variety of frownings and snortings, until at last the scorbutic youth felt it necessary to come to a more explicit understanding on the matter, when the following clear understanding took place. "Sawyer," said the scorbutic youth, in a loud voice. "Well, Noddy," replied Mr. Bob Sawyer. "I should be very sorry, Sawyer," said Mr. Noddy, "to create any unpleasantness at any friend's table, and much less at yours, Sawyer--very; but I must take this opportunity of informing Mr. Gunter that he is no gentleman." "And _I_ should be very sorry, Sawyer, to create any disturbance in the street in which you reside," said Mr. Gunter, "but I'm afraid I shall be under the necessity of alarming the neighbours by throwing the person who has just spoken, out o' window." "What do you mean by that, sir?" inquired Mr. Noddy. "What I say, sir," replied Mr. Gunter. "I should like to see you do it, sir," said Mr. Noddy. "You shall feel me do it in half a minute, sir," replied Mr. Gunter. "I request that you'll favour me with your card, sir," said Mr. Noddy. "I'll do nothing of the kind, sir," replied Mr. Gunter. "Why not, sir?" inquired Mr. Noddy. "Because you'll stick it up over your chimney-piece, and delude your visitors into the false belief that a gentleman has been to see you, sir," replied Mr. Gunter. "Sir, a friend of mine shall wait on you in the morning," said Mr. Noddy. "Sir, I'm very much obliged to you for the caution, and I'll leave particular directions with the servant to lock up the spoons," replied Mr. Gunter. At this point the remainder of the guests interposed, and remonstrated with both parties on the impropriety of their conduct; on which Mr. Noddy begged to state that his father was quite as respectable as Mr. Gunter's father; to which Mr. Gunter replied that his father was to the full as respectable as Mr. Noddy's father, and that his father's son was as good a man as Mr. Noddy, any day in the week. As this announcement seemed the prelude to a recommencement of the dispute, there was another interference on the part of the company; and a vast quantity of talking and clamouring ensued, in the course of which Mr. Noddy gradually allowed his feelings to overpower him, and professed that he had ever entertained a devoted personal attachment towards Mr. Gunter. To this Mr. Gunter replied that, upon the whole, he rather preferred Mr. Noddy to his own brother; on hearing which admission, Mr. Noddy magnanimously rose from his seat, and proffered his hand to Mr. Gunter. Mr. Gunter grasped it with affecting fervour; and everybody said that the whole dispute had been conducted in a manner which was highly honourable to both parties concerned. "Now," said Jack Hopkins, "just to set us going again, Bob, I don't mind singing a song." And Hopkins, incited thereto by tumultuous applause, plunged himself at once into "The King, God bless him," which he sang as loud as he could, to a novel air, compounded of the "Bay of Biscay," and "A Frog he would." The chorus was the essence of the song; and, as each gentleman sang it to the tune he knew best, the effect was very striking indeed. It was at the end of the chorus to the first verse, that Mr. Pickwick held up his hand in a listening attitude, and said, as soon as silence was restored: "Hush! I beg your pardon. I thought I heard somebody calling from up-stairs." A profound silence immediately ensued; and Mr. Bob Sawyer was observed to turn pale. "I think I hear it now," said Mr. Pickwick. "Have the goodness to open the door." The door was no sooner opened than all doubt on the subject was removed. "Mr. Sawyer! Mr. Sawyer!" screamed a voice from the two-pair landing. "It's my landlady," said Bob Sawyer, looking round him with great dismay. "Yes, Mrs. Raddle." "What do you mean by this, Mr. Sawyer?" replied the voice, with great shrillness and rapidity of utterance. "Ain't it enough to be swindled out of one's rent, and money lent out of pocket besides, and abused and insulted by your friends that dares to call themselves men: without having the house turned out of window, and noise enough made to bring the fire-engines here, at two o'clock in the morning? Turn them wretches away." "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves," said the voice of Mr. Raddle, which appeared to proceed from beneath some distant bed-clothes. "Ashamed of themselves!" said Mrs. Raddle. "Why don't you go down and knock 'em every one down-stairs? You would if you was a man." "I should if I was a dozen men, my dear," replied Mr. Raddle, pacifically, "but they've the advantage of me in numbers, my dear." "Ugh, you coward!" replied Mrs. Raddle, with supreme contempt. "_Do_ you mean to turn them wretches out, or not, Mr. Sawyer?" "They're going, Mrs. Raddle, they're going," said the miserable Bob. "I am afraid you'd better go," said Mr. Bob Sawyer to his friends. "I _thought_ you were making too much noise." "It's a very unfortunate thing," said the prim man. "Just as we were getting so comfortable too!" The prim man was just beginning to have a dawning recollection of the story he had forgotten. "It's hardly to be borne," said the prim man, looking round. "Hardly to be borne, is it?" "Not to be endured," replied Jack Hopkins; "let's have the other verse, Bob. Come, here goes!" "No, no, Jack, don't," interrupted Bob Sawyer; "it's a capital song, but I am afraid we had better not have the other verse. They are very violent people, the people of the house." "Shall I step up-stairs and pitch into the landlord?" inquired Hopkins, "or keep on ringing the bell, or go and groan on the staircase? You may command me, Bob." "I am very much indebted to you for your friendship and good nature, Hopkins," said the wretched Mr. Bob Sawyer, "but I think, the best plan to avoid any further dispute is for us to break up at once." "Now Mr. Sawyer!" screamed the shrill voice of Mrs. Raddle, "_are_ them brutes going?" "They're only looking for their hats, Mrs. Raddle," said Bob; "they are going directly." "Going!" said Mrs. Raddle, thrusting her night-cap over the banisters just as Mr. Pickwick, followed by Mr. Tupman, emerged from the sitting-room. "Going! what did they ever come for?" "My dear ma'am," remonstrated Mr. Pickwick, looking up. "Get along with you, you old wretch!" replied Mrs. Raddle, hastily withdrawing the night-cap. "Old enough to be his grandfather, you willin! You're worse than any of 'em." Mr. Pickwick found it in vain to protest his innocence, so hurried down-stairs into the street, whither he was closely followed by Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass. Mr. Ben Allen, who was dismally depressed with spirits and agitation, accompanied them as far as London Bridge, and in the course of the walk confided to Mr. Winkle, as an especially eligible person to entrust the secret to, that he was resolved to cut the throat of any gentleman except Mr. Bob Sawyer, who should aspire to the affections of his sister Arabella. Having expressed his determination to perform this painful duty of a brother with proper firmness, he burst into tears, knocked his hat over his eyes, and, making the best of his way back, knocked double knocks at the door of the Borough Market office, and took short naps on the steps alternately, until daybreak, under the firm impression that he lived there, and had forgotten the key. The visitors having all departed, in compliance with the rather pressing request of Mrs. Raddle, the luckless Mr. Bob Sawyer was left alone to meditate on the probable events of to-morrow, and the pleasures of the evening. CHAPTER V [Illustration] _Mr. Weller the Elder delivers some Critical Sentiments respecting Literary Composition; and, assisted by his son Samuel, pays a small Instalment of Retaliation to the Account of the Reverend Gentleman with the Red Nose_ The morning of the thirteenth of February, which the readers of this authentic narrative know, as well as we do, to have been the day immediately preceding that which was appointed for the trial of Mrs. Bardell's action, was a busy time for Mr. Samuel Weller, who was perpetually engaged in travelling from the George and Vulture to Mr. Perker's chambers and back again, from and between the hours of nine o'clock in the morning and two in the afternoon, both inclusive. Not that there was anything whatever to be done, for the consultation had taken place, and the course of proceeding to be adopted, had been finally determined on; but Mr. Pickwick being in a most extreme state of excitement, persevered in constantly sending small notes to his attorney, merely containing the inquiry, "Dear Perker. Is all going on well?" to which Mr. Perker invariably forwarded the reply, "Dear Pickwick. As well as possible;" the fact being, as we have already hinted, that there was nothing whatever to go on, either well or ill, until the sitting of the court on the following morning. But people who go voluntarily to law, or are taken forcibly there, for the first time, may be allowed to labour under some temporary irritation and anxiety: and Sam, with a due allowance for the frailties of human nature, obeyed all his master's behests with that imperturbable good humour and unruffable composure which formed one of his most striking and amiable characteristics. Sam had solaced himself with a most agreeable little dinner, and was waiting at the bar for the glass of warm mixture in which Mr. Pickwick had requested him to drown the fatigues of his morning's walks, when a young boy of about three feet high, or thereabouts, in a hairy cap and fustian over-alls, whose garb bespoke a laudable ambition to attain in time the elevation of an hostler, entered the passage of the George and Vulture, and looked first up the stairs, and then along the passage, and then into the bar, as if in search of somebody to whom he bore a commission; whereupon the barmaid, conceiving it not improbable that the said commission might be directed to the tea or table spoons of the establishment, accosted the boy with: "Now, young man, what do _you_ want?" "Is there anybody here, named Sam?" inquired the youth, in a loud voice of treble quality. [Illustration: "_Is there anybody here, named Sam?_"] "What's the t'other name?" said Sam Weller, looking round. "How should I know?" briskly replied the young gentleman below the hairy cap. "You're a sharp boy, you are," said Mr. Weller; "only I wouldn't show that wery fine edge too much, if I was you, in case anybody took it off. What do you mean by comin' to a hot-el and asking arter Sam, vith as much politeness as a vild Indian?" "'Cos an old gen'l'm'n told me to," replied the boy. "What old gen'l'm'n?" inquired Sam, with deep disdain. "Him as drives a Ipswich coach, and uses our parlour," rejoined the boy. "He told me yesterday mornin' to come to the George and Wultur this arternoon, and ask for Sam." "It's my father, my dear," said Mr. Weller, turning with an explanatory air to the young lady in the bar; "blessed if I think he hardly knows wot my other name is. Vell, young brockiley sprout, wot then?" "Why, then," said the boy, "you was to come to him at six o'clock to our 'ouse, 'cos he wants to see you--Blue Boar, Leaden'all Markit. Shall I say you're comin'?" "You _may_ wenture on that 'ere statement, sir," replied Sam. And thus empowered, the young gentleman walked away, awakening all the echoes in George Yard, as he did so, with several chaste and extremely correct imitations of a drover's whistle, delivered in a tone of peculiar richness and volume. Mr. Weller having obtained leave of absence from Mr. Pickwick, who, in his then state of excitement and worry was by no means displeased at being left alone, set forth, long before the appointed hour, and having plenty of time at his disposal, sauntered down as far as the Mansion House, where he paused and contemplated, with a face of great calmness and philosophy, the numerous cads and drivers of short stages who assemble near that famous place of resort, to the great terror and confusion of the old-lady population of these realms. Having loitered here, for half an hour or so, Mr. Weller turned, and began wending his way towards Leadenhall Market, through a variety of by-streets and courts. As he was sauntering away his spare time, and stopped to look at almost every object that met his gaze, it is by no means surprising that Mr. Weller should have paused before a small stationer's and print-seller's window; but without further explanation it does appear surprising that his eyes should have no sooner rested on certain pictures which were exposed for sale therein, than he gave a sudden start, smote his right leg with great vehemence, and exclaimed with energy, "If it hadn't been for this, I should ha' forgot all about it, till it was too late!" The particular picture on which Sam Weller's eyes were fixed, as he said this, was a highly coloured representation of a couple of human hearts, skewered together with an arrow, cooking before a cheerful fire, while a male and female cannibal in modern attire: the gentleman being clad in a blue coat and white trousers, and the lady in a deep red pelisse with a parasol of the same: were approaching the meal with hungry eyes, up a serpentine gravel path leading thereunto. A decidedly indelicate young gentleman, in a pair of wings and nothing else, was depicted as superintending the cooking; a representation of the spire of the church in Langham Place, London, appeared in the distance; and the whole formed a "valentine," of which, as a written inscription in the window testified, there was a large assortment within, which the shopkeeper pledged himself to dispose of, to his countrymen generally, at the reduced rate of one and sixpence each. "I should ha' forgot it; I should certainly ha' forgot it!" said Sam; so saying, he at once stepped into the stationer's shop, and requested to be served with a sheet of the best gilt-edged letter-paper, and a hard-nibbed pen which could be warranted not to splutter. These articles having been promptly supplied, he walked on direct towards Leadenhall Market at a good round pace, very different from his recent lingering one. Looking round him, he there beheld a sign-board on which the painter's art had delineated something remotely resembling a cerulean elephant with an aquiline nose in lieu of trunk. Rightly conjecturing that this was the Blue Boar himself, he stepped into the house, and inquired concerning his parent. "He won't be here this three-quarters of an hour or more," said the young lady who superintended the domestic arrangements of the Blue Boar. "Wery good, my dear," replied Sam. "Let me have nine penn'orth o' brandy and water luke, and the inkstand, will you, miss?" The brandy and water luke, and the inkstand, having been carried into the little parlour, and the young lady having carefully flattened down the coals to prevent their blazing, and carried away the poker to preclude the possibility of the fire being stirred, without the full privity and concurrence of the Blue Boar being first had and obtained, Sam Weller sat himself down in a box near the stove, and pulled out the sheet of gilt-edged letter-paper, and the hard-nibbed pen. Then looking carefully at the pen to see that there were no hairs in it, and dusting down the table, so that there might be no crumbs of bread under the paper, Sam tucked up the cuffs of his coat, squared his elbows, and composed himself to write. To ladies and gentlemen who are not in the habit of devoting themselves practically to the science of penmanship, writing a letter is no very easy task; it being always considered necessary in such cases for the writer to recline his head on his left arm, so as to place his eyes as nearly as possible on a level with the paper, while glancing sideways at the letters he is constructing, and to form with his tongue imaginary characters to correspond. These motions, although unquestionably of the greatest assistance to original composition, retard in some degree the progress of the writer; and Sam had unconsciously been a full hour and a half writing words in small text, smearing out wrong letters with his little finger, and putting in new ones which required going over often to render them visible through the old blots, when he was roused by the opening of the door and the entrance of his parent. "Vell, Sammy," said the father. "Vell, my Prooshan Blue," responded the son, laying down his pen. "What's the last bulletin about mother-in-law?" "'Mrs. Weller passed a very good night, but is uncommon perwerse and unpleasant this mornin'. Signed upon oath, S. Veller, Esquire, Senior.' That's the last vun as was issued, Sammy," replied Mr. Weller, untying his shawl. "No better yet?" inquired Sam. "All the symptoms aggerawated," replied Mr. Weller, shaking his head. "But wot's that, you're a doin' of? Pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, Sammy?" "I've done now," said Sam, with slight embarrassment; "I've been a writin'." "So I see," replied Mr. Weller. "Not to any young 'ooman, I hope, Sammy?" "Why it's no use a sayin' it ain't," replied Sam. "It's a walentine." "A what!" exclaimed Mr. Weller, apparently horror-stricken by the word. [Illustration: _"A what!" asked Mr. Weller, apparently horror-stricken by the word. "A walentine," replied Sam._] "A walentine," replied Sam. "Samivel, Samivel," said Mr. Weller, in reproachful accents, "I didn't think you'd ha' done it. Arter the warnin' you've had o' your father's wicious propensities; arter all I've said to you upon this here wery subject; arter actiwally seein' and bein' in the company o' your own mother-in-law, vich I should ha' thought wos a moral lesson as no man could never ha' forgotten to his dyin' day! I didn't think you'd ha' done it, Sammy, I didn't think you'd ha' done it!" These reflections were too much for the good old man. He raised Sam's tumbler to his lips and drank off its contents. "Wot's the matter now?" said Sam. "Nev'r mind, Sammy," replied Mr. Weller, "it'll be a wery agonizin' trial to me at my time of life, but I'm pretty tough, that's vun consolation, as the wery old turkey remarked ven the farmer said he wos afeerd he should be obliged to kill him for the London market." "Wot'll be a trial?" inquired Sam. "To see you married, Sammy--to see you a dilluded wictim, and thinkin' in your innocence that it's all wery capital," replied Mr. Weller. "It's a dreadful trial to a father's feelin's, that 'ere, Sammy." "Nonsense," said Sam. "I ain't a goin' to get married, don't you fret yourself about that; I know you're a judge of these things. Order in your pipe, and I'll read you the letter. There!" We cannot distinctly say whether it was the prospect of the pipe, or the consolatory reflection that a fatal disposition to get married ran in the family and couldn't be helped, which calmed Mr. Weller's feelings, and caused his grief to subside. We should be rather disposed to say that the result was attained by combining the two sources of consolation, for he repeated the second in a low tone, very frequently; ringing the bell meanwhile, to order in the first. He then divested himself of his upper coat; and lighting the pipe and placing himself in front of the fire with his back towards it, so that he could feel its full heat, and recline against the mantelpiece at the same time, turned towards Sam, and, with a countenance greatly mollified by the softening influence of tobacco, requested him to "fire away." Sam dipped his pen into the ink to be ready for any corrections, and began with a very theatrical air: "'Lovely----'" "Stop," said Mr. Weller, ringing the bell. "A double glass o' the inwariable, my dear." "Very well, sir," replied the girl; who with great quickness appeared, vanished, returned, and disappeared. "They seem to know your ways here," observed Sam. "Yes," replied his father, "I've been here before, in my time. Go on, Sammy." "'Lovely creetur,'" repeated Sam. "'Tain't in poetry, is it?" interposed his father. "No, no," replied Sam. "Wery glad to hear it," said Mr. Weller. "Poetry's unnat'ral; no man ever talked poetry 'cept a beadle on boxin' day, or Warren's blackin', or Rowland's oil, or some o' them low fellows; never you let yourself down to talk poetry, my boy. Begin agin, Sammy." Mr. Weller resumed his pipe with critical solemnity, and Sam once more commenced, and read as follows: "'Lovely creetur i feel myself a damned----'" "That ain't proper," said Mr. Weller, taking his pipe from his mouth. "No; it ain't 'damned,'" observed Sam, holding the letter up to the light, "it's 'shamed,' there's a blot there--'I feel myself ashamed.'" "Wery good," said Mr. Weller. "Go on." "'Feel myself ashamed, and completely cir--' I forget what this here word is," said Sam, scratching his head with the pen, in vain attempts to remember. "Why don't you look at it, then?" inquired Mr. Weller. "So I _am_ a lookin' at it," replied Sam, "but there's another blot. Here's a 'c,' and a 'i,' and a 'd.'" "Circumwented, p'raps," suggested Mr. Weller. "No, it ain't that," said Sam, "circumscribed; that's it." "That ain't as good a word as circumwented, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, gravely. "Think not?" said Sam. "Nothin' like it," replied his father. "But don't you think it means more?" inquired Sam. "Vell, p'raps it is a more tenderer word," said Mr. Weller, after a moment's reflection. "Go on, Sammy." "'Feel myself ashamed and completely circumscribed in a dressin' of you, for you _are_ a nice gal and nothin' but it.'" "That's a wery pretty sentiment," said the elder Mr. Weller, removing his pipe to make way for the remark. "Yes, I think it is rayther good," observed Sam, highly flattered. "Wot I like in that 'ere style of writin'," said the elder Mr. Weller, "is that there ain't no callin' names in it--no Wenuses, nor nothin' o' that kind. Wot's the good o' callin' a young 'ooman a Wenus or a angel, Sammy?" "Ah! what, indeed?" replied Sam. "You might jist as well call her a griffin, or a unicorn, or a king's arms at once, which is wery well known to be a col-lection o' fabulous animals," added Mr. Weller. "Just as well," replied Sam. "Drive on, Sammy," said Mr. Weller. Sam complied with the request, and proceeded as follows: his father continuing to smoke, with a mixed expression of wisdom and complacency, which was particularly edifying, "'Afore I see you, I thought all women was alike.'" "So they are," observed the elder Mr. Weller, parenthetically. "'But now,' continued Sam, 'now I find what a reg'lar soft-headed, inkred'lous turnip I must ha' been; for there ain't nobody like you, though _I_ like you better than nothin' at all.' I thought it best to make that rayther strong," said Sam, looking up. Mr. Weller nodded approvingly, and Sam resumed. "'So I take the privilidge of the day, Mary my dear--as the gen'l'm'n in difficulties did, ven he walked out of a Sunday--to tell you that the first and only time I see you, your likeness was took on my hart in much quicker time and brighter colours than ever a likeness was took by the profeel macheen (vich p'raps you may have heerd on Mary my dear) altho it _does_ finish a portrait and put the frame and glass on complete, with a hook at the end to hang it up by, and all in two minutes and a quarter.'" "I am afeerd that werges on the poetical, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, dubiously. "No it don't," replied Sam, reading on very quickly, to avoid contesting the point. "'Except of me Mary my dear as your walentine and think over what I've said.--My dear Mary I will now conclude.' That's all," said Sam. "That's rather a sudden pull up, ain't it, Sammy?" inquired Mr. Weller. "Not a bit on it," said Sam; "she'll vish there wos more, and that's the great art o' letter writin'." "Well," said Mr. Weller, "there's somethin' in that; and I wish your mother-in-law 'ud only conduct her conwersation on the same gen-teel principle. Ain't you a goin' to sign it?" "That's the difficulty," said Sam; "I don't know what _to_ sign it." "Sign it, Veller," said the oldest surviving proprietor of that name. "Won't do," said Sam. "Never sign a walentine with your own name." "Sign it 'Pickvick,' then," said Mr. Weller; "it's a wery good name and an easy one to spell." "The wery thing," said Sam. "I _could_ end with a werse; what do you think?" "I don't like it, Sam," rejoined Mr. Weller. "I never know'd a respectable coachman as wrote poetry, 'cept one, as made an affectin' copy o' werses the night afore he wos hung for a highway robbery; and _he_ wos only a Cambervell man, so even that's no rule." But Sam was not to be dissuaded from the poetical idea that had occurred to him, so he signed the letter, "Your love-sick Pickwick." And having folded it in a very intricate manner, squeezed a down-hill direction in one corner: "To Mary, Housemaid, at Mr. Nupkins's Mayor's, Ipswich, Suffolk;" and put it into his pocket, wafered, and ready for the general post. This important business having been transacted, Mr. Weller the elder proceeded to open that on which he had summoned his son. "The first matter relates to your governor, Sammy," said Mr. Weller. "He's a goin' to be tried to-morrow, ain't he?" "The trial's a comin' on," replied Sam. "Vell," said Mr. Weller, "now I s'pose he'll want to call some witnesses to speak to his character, or p'raps to prove a alleybi. I've been a turnin' the business over in my mind, and he may make his-self easy, Sammy. I've got some friends as'll do either for him, but my adwice 'ud be this here--never mind the character, and stick to the alleybi. Nothing like a alleybi, Sammy, nothing." Mr. Weller looked very profound as he delivered this legal opinion; and burying his nose in his tumbler, winked over the top thereof, at his astonished son. "Why, what do you mean?" said Sam; "you don't think he's a goin' to be tried at the Old Bailey, do you?" "That ain't no part of the present con-sideration, Sammy," replied Mr. Weller. "Verever he's a goin' to be tried, my boy, a alleybi's the thing to get him off. Ve got Tom Vildspark off that 'ere manslaughter, with a alleybi, ven all the big vigs to a man said as nothin' couldn't save him. And my 'pinion is, Sammy, that if your governor don't prove a alleybi, he'll be what the Italians call reg'larly flummoxed, and that's all about it." As the elder Mr. Weller entertained a firm and unalterable conviction that the Old Bailey was the supreme court of judicature in this country, and that its rules and forms of proceeding regulated and controlled the practice of all other courts of justice whatsoever, he totally disregarded the assurances and arguments of his son, tending to show that the alibi was inadmissible; and vehemently protested that Mr. Pickwick was being "wictimised." Finding that it was of no use to discuss the matter further, Sam changed the subject, and inquired what the second topic was, on which his revered parent wished to consult him. "That's a pint o' domestic policy, Sammy," said Mr. Weller. "This here Stiggins----" "Red-nosed man?" inquired Sam. "The wery same," replied Mr. Weller. "This here red-nosed man, Sammy, wisits your mother-in-law vith a kindness and constancy as I never see equalled. He's sitch a friend o' the family, Sammy, that ven he's avay from us, he can't be comfortable unless he has somethin' to remember us by." "And I'd give him somethin' as 'ud turpentine and bees'-vax his memory for the next ten year or so, if I wos you," interposed Sam. "Stop a minute," said Mr. Weller; "I wos a going to say, he always brings now, a flat bottle as holds about a pint and a half and fills it vith the pine-apple rum afore he goes avay." "And empties it afore he comes back, I s'pose?" said Sam. "Clean!" replied Mr. Weller; "never leaves nothin' in it but the cork and the smell; trust him for that, Sammy. Now, these here fellows, my boy, are a goin' to-night to get up the monthly meetin' o' the Brick Lane Branch o' the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association. Your mother-in-law _wos_ a goin', Sammy, but she's got the rheumatics, and can't; and I, Sammy--I've got the two tickets as wos sent her." Mr. Weller communicated his secret with great glee, and winked so indefatigably after doing so, that Sam began to think he must have got the _tic doloureux_ in his right eye-lid. "Well?" said that young gentleman. "Well," continued his progenitor, looking round him very cautiously, "you and I'll go, punctival to the time. The deputy shepherd won't, Sammy; the deputy shepherd won't." Here Mr. Weller was seized with a paroxysm of chuckles, which gradually terminated in as near an approach to a choke as an elderly gentleman can, with safety, sustain. "Well, I never see sitch an old ghost in all my born days," exclaimed Sam, rubbing the old gentleman's back, hard enough to set him on fire with friction. "What are you a laughin' at, corpilence?" "Hush! Sammy," said Mr. Weller, looking round him with increased caution, and speaking in a whisper: "Two friends o' mine, as works the Oxford Road, and is up to all kinds o' games, has got the deputy shepherd safe in tow, Sammy; and ven he does come to the Ebenezer Junction (vich he's sure to do: for they'll see him to the door, and shove him in if necessary), he'll be as far gone in rum and water, as ever he wos at the Markis o' Granby, Dorkin', and that's not sayin' a little neither." And with this, Mr. Weller once more laughed immoderately, and once more relapsed into a state of partial suffocation, in consequence. Nothing could have been more in accordance with Sam Weller's feelings, than the projected exposure of the real propensities and qualities of the red-nosed man; and it being very near the appointed hour of meeting, the father and son took their way at once to Brick Lane: Sam not forgetting to drop his letter into a general post-office as they walked along. The monthly meetings of the Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association were held in a large room, pleasantly and airily situated at the top of a safe and commodious ladder. The president was the straight-walking Mr. Anthony Humm, a converted fireman, now a schoolmaster, and occasionally an itinerant preacher; and the secretary was Mr. Jonas Mudge, chandler's-shop keeper, an enthusiastic and disinterested vessel, who sold tea to the members. Previous to the commencement of business, the ladies sat upon forms, and drank tea, till such time as they considered it expedient to leave off; and a large wooden money-box was conspicuously placed upon the green baize cloth of the business table, behind which the secretary stood, and acknowledged, with a gracious smile, every addition to the rich vein of copper which lay concealed within. On this particular occasion the women drank tea to a most alarming extent; greatly to the horror of Mr. Weller senior, who, utterly regardless of all Sam's admonitory nudgings, stared about him in every direction with the most undisguised astonishment. "Sammy," whispered Mr. Weller, "if some o' these here people don't want tappin' to-morrow mornin', I ain't your father, and that's wot it is. Why, this here old lady next me is a drowndin' herself in tea." "Be quiet, can't you?" murmured Sam. "Sam," whispered Mr. Weller, a moment afterwards, in a tone of deep agitation, "mark my words, my boy. If that 'ere secretary fellow keeps on for only five minutes more, he'll blow hisself up with toast and water." "Well, let him, if he likes," replied Sam; "it ain't no bis'ness o' yourn." "If this here lasts much longer, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, in the same low voice, "I shall feel it my duty, as a human bein', to rise and address the cheer. There's a young 'ooman on the next form but two, as has drunk nine breakfast cups and a half; and she's a swellin' wisibly before my wery eyes." There is little doubt that Mr. Weller would have carried his benevolent intention into immediate execution, if a great noise, occasioned by putting up the cups and saucers, had not very fortunately announced that the tea-drinking was over. The crockery having been removed, the table with the green baize cover was carried out into the centre of the room, and the business of the evening was commenced by a little emphatic man, with a bald head, and drab shorts, who suddenly rushed up the ladder, at the imminent peril of snapping the two little legs encased in the drab shorts, and said: "Ladies and gentlemen, I move our excellent brother, Mr. Anthony Humm, into the chair." The ladies waved a choice collection of pocket-handkerchiefs at this proposition; and the impetuous little man literally moved Mr. Humm into the chair, by taking him by the shoulders and thrusting him into a mahogany frame which had once represented that article of furniture. The waving of handkerchiefs was renewed; and Mr. Humm, who was a sleek, white-faced man, in a perpetual perspiration, bowed meekly, to the great admiration of the females, and formally took his seat. Silence was then proclaimed by the little man in the drab shorts, and Mr. Humm rose and said--That, with the permission of his Brick Lane Branch brothers and sisters, then and there present, the secretary would read the report of the Brick Lane Branch committee; a proposition which was again received with a demonstration of pocket-handkerchiefs. The secretary having sneezed in a very impressive manner, and the cough which always seizes an assembly, when anything particular is going to be done, having been duly performed, the following document was read: "+Report of the Committee of the Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association+ "Your committee have pursued their grateful labours during the past month, and have the unspeakable pleasure of reporting the following additional cases of converts to Temperance. "H. Walker, tailor, wife, and two children. When in better circumstances, owns to having been in the constant habit of drinking ale and beer; says he is not certain whether he did not twice a week for twenty years taste 'dog's nose,' which your committee find upon inquiry to be compounded of warm porter, moist sugar, gin, and nutmeg (a groan, and 'So it is!' from an elderly female). Is now out of work and penniless; thinks it must be the porter (cheers) or the loss of the use of his right hand; is not certain which, but thinks it very likely that, if he had drunk nothing but water all his life, his fellow-workman would never have stuck a rusty needle in him, and thereby occasioned his accident (tremendous cheering). Has nothing but cold water to drink, and never feels thirsty (great applause). "Betsy Martin, widow, one child and one eye. Goes out charing and washing, by the day; never had more than one eye, but knows her mother drank bottled stout, and shouldn't wonder if that caused it (immense cheering). Thinks it not impossible that if she had always abstained from spirits, she might have had two eyes by this time (tremendous applause). Used, at every place she went to, to have eighteenpence a day, a pint of porter, and a glass of spirits; but since she became a member of the Brick Lane Branch, has always demanded three and sixpence instead (the announcement of this most interesting fact was received with deafening enthusiasm). "Henry Beller was for many years toast-master at various corporation dinners, during which time he drank a great deal of foreign wine; may sometimes have carried a bottle or two home with him; is not quite certain of that, but is sure if he did, that he drank the contents. Feels very low and melancholy, is very feverish, and has a constant thirst upon him; thinks it must be the wine he used to drink (cheers). Is out of employ now: and never touches a drop of foreign wine by any chance (tremendous plaudits). "Thomas Burton is a purveyor of cats' meat to the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, and several members of the Common Council (the announcement of this gentleman's name was received with breathless interest). Has a wooden leg; finds a wooden leg expensive, going over the stones; used to wear second-hand wooden legs, and drink a glass of hot gin and water regularly every night--sometimes two (deep sighs). Found the second-hand wooden legs split and rot very quickly; is firmly persuaded that their constitution was undermined by the gin and water (prolonged cheering). Buys new wooden legs now, and drinks nothing but water and weak tea. The new legs last twice as long as the others used to do, and he attributes this solely to his temperate habits" (triumphant cheers). Anthony Humm now moved that the assembly do regale itself with a song. With a view to their rational and moral enjoyment, Brother Mordlin had adapted the beautiful words of "Who hasn't heard of a Jolly Young Waterman?" to the tune of the Old Hundredth which he would request them to join him in singing (great applause). He might take that opportunity of expressing his firm persuasion that the late Mr. Dibdin, seeing the errors of his former life, had written that song to show the advantages of abstinence. It was a temperance song (whirlwinds of cheers). The neatness of the young man's attire, the dexterity of his feathering, the enviable state of mind which enabled him in the beautiful words of the poet, to "Row along, thinking of nothing at all," all combined to prove that he must have been a water-drinker (cheers). Oh, what a state of virtuous jollity! (rapturous cheering). And what was the young man's reward? Let all young men present mark this: "The maidens all flock'd to his boat so readily." (Loud cheers, in which the ladies joined.) What a bright example! The sisterhood, the maidens, flocking round the young waterman, and urging him along the stream of duty and of temperance. But, was it the maidens of humble life only, who soothed, consoled, and supported him? No! "He was always first oars with the fine city ladies." (Immense cheering.) The soft sex to a man--he begged pardon, to a female--rallied round the young waterman, and turned with disgust from the drinker of spirits (cheers). The Brick Lane Branch brothers were watermen (cheers and laughter). That room was their boat; that audience were the maidens; and he (Mr. Anthony Humm), however unworthily, was "first oars" (unbounded applause). "Wot does he mean by the soft sex, Sammy?" inquired Mr. Weller, in a whisper. "The womin," said Sam, in the same tone. "He ain't far out there, Sammy," replied Mr. Weller; "they _must_ be a soft sex,--a wery soft sex, indeed--if they let themselves be gammoned by such fellers as him." Any further observations from the indignant old gentleman were cut short by the announcement of the song, which Mr. Anthony Humm gave out, two lines at a time, for the information of such of his hearers as were unacquainted with the legend. While it was being sung, the little man with the drab shorts disappeared; he returned immediately on its conclusion, and whispered Mr. Anthony Humm, with a face of the deepest importance. "My friends," said Mr. Humm, holding up his hand in a deprecatory manner, to bespeak the silence of such of the stout old ladies as were yet a line or two behind; "my friends, a delegate from the Dorking Branch of our Society, Brother Stiggins, attends below." Out came the pocket-handkerchiefs again, in greater force than ever; for Mr. Stiggins was excessively popular among the female constituency of Brick Lane. "He may approach, I think," said Mr. Humm, looking round him, with a fat smile. "Brother Tadger, let him come forth and greet us." The little man in drab shorts who answered to the name of Brother Tadger, bustled down the ladder with great speed, and was immediately afterwards heard tumbling up with the Reverend Mr. Stiggins. "He's a comin', Sammy," whispered Mr. Weller, purple in the countenance with suppressed laughter. "Don't say nothin' to me," replied Sam, "for I can't bear it. He's close to the door. I hear him a-knockin' his head again the lath and plaster now." As Sam Weller spoke, the little door flew open, and Brother Tadger appeared, closely followed by the Reverend Mr. Stiggins, who no sooner entered, than there was a great clapping of hands, and stamping of feet, and flourishing of handkerchiefs; to all of which manifestations of delight, Brother Stiggins returned no other acknowledgment than staring with a wild eye, and a fixed smile, at the extreme top of the wick of the candle on the table: swaying his body to and fro, meanwhile, in a very unsteady and uncertain manner. "Are you unwell, Brother Stiggins?" whispered Mr. Anthony Humm. "I am all right, sir," replied Mr. Stiggins, in a tone in which ferocity was blended with an extreme thickness of utterance; "I am all right, sir." "Oh, very well," rejoined Mr. Anthony Humm, retreating a few paces. "I believe no man here has ventured to say that I am _not_ all right, sir?" said Mr. Stiggins. "Oh, certainly not," said Mr. Humm. "I should advise him not to, sir; I should advise him not," said Mr. Stiggins. By this time the audience were perfectly silent, and waited with some anxiety for the resumption of business. "Will you address the meeting, brother?" said Mr. Humm, with a smile of invitation. "No, sir," rejoined Mr. Stiggins; "no, sir. I will not, sir." The meeting looked at each other with raised eyelids; and a murmur of astonishment ran through the room. "It's my opinion, sir," said Mr. Stiggins, unbuttoning his coat, and speaking very loudly; "it's my opinion, sir, that this meeting is drunk, sir. Brother Tadger, sir!" said Mr. Stiggins, suddenly increasing in ferocity, and turning sharp round on the little man in the drab shorts, "_you_ are drunk, sir!" With this, Mr. Stiggins, entertaining a praiseworthy desire to promote the sobriety of the meeting, and to exclude therefrom all improper characters, hit Brother Tadger on the summit of the nose with such unerring aim, that the drab shorts disappeared like a flash of lightning. Brother Tadger had been knocked, head first, down the ladder. Upon this, the women set up a loud and dismal screaming; and rushing in small parties before their favourite brothers, flung their arms around them to preserve them from danger. An instance of affection which had nearly proved fatal to Humm, who, being extremely popular, was all but suffocated, by the crowd of female devotees that hung about his neck, and heaped caresses upon him. The greater part of the lights were quickly put out, and nothing but noise and confusion resounded on all sides. "Now, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, taking off his great-coat with much deliberation, "just you step out, and fetch in a watchman." "And wot are you a goin' to do, the while?" inquired Sam. "Never you mind me, Sammy," replied the old gentleman; "I shall ockipy myself in havin' a small settlement with that 'ere Stiggins." Before Sam could interfere to prevent it, his heroic parent had penetrated into a remote corner of the room, and attacked the Reverend Mr. Stiggins with manual dexterity. "Come off!" said Sam. "Come on!" cried Mr. Weller; and without further invitation he gave the Reverend Mr. Stiggins a preliminary tap on the head, and began dancing round him in a buoyant and cork-like manner, which in a gentleman at his time of life was a perfect marvel to behold. Finding all remonstrance unavailing, Sam pulled his hat firmly on, threw his father's coat over his arm, and taking the old man round the waist, forcibly dragged him down the ladder, and into the street; never releasing his hold, or permitting him to stop, until they reached the corner. As they gained it, they could hear the shouts of the populace, who were witnessing the removal of the Reverend Mr. Stiggins to strong lodgings for the night: and could hear the noise occasioned by the dispersion in various directions of the members of the Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association. CHAPTER VI [Illustration] _Is wholly devoted to a Full and Faithful Report of the Memorable Trial of Bardell against Pickwick_ "I wonder what the foreman of the jury, whoever he'll be, has got for breakfast," said Mr. Snodgrass, by way of keeping up a conversation on the eventful morning of the fourteenth of February. "Ah!" said Perker, "I hope he's got a good one." "Why so?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Highly important; very important, my dear sir," replied Perker. "A good, contented, well-breakfasted juryman, is a capital thing to get hold of. Discontented or hungry jurymen, my dear sir, always find for the plaintiff." "Bless my heart," said Mr. Pickwick, looking very blank; "what do they do that for?" "Why, I don't know," replied the little man, coolly; "saves time, I suppose. If it's near the dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury has retired, and says, 'Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen.' So do I,' says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at three, and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--'Well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen? I rather think, so far as I am concerned, gentlemen,--I say, I rather think,--but don't let that influence you--I _rather_ think the plaintiff's the man.' Upon this, two or three other men are sure to say that they think so too--as of course they do; and then they get on very unanimously and comfortably. Ten minutes past nine!" said the little man, looking at his watch. "Time we were off, my dear sir; breach of promise trial--court is generally full in such cases. You had better ring for a coach, my dear sir, or we shall be rather late." Mr. Pickwick immediately rang the bell; and a coach having been procured, the four Pickwickians and Mr. Perker ensconced themselves therein, and drove to Guildhall; Sam Weller, Mr. Lowten, and the blue bag, following in a cab. "Lowten," said Perker, when they reached the outer hall of the court, "put Mr. Pickwick's friends in the students' box; Mr. Pickwick himself had better sit by me. This way, my dear sir, this way." Taking Mr. Pickwick by the coat-sleeve, the little man led him to the low seat just beneath the desks of the King's Counsel, which is constructed for the convenience of attorneys, who from that spot can whisper into the ear of the leading counsel in the case, any instructions that may be necessary during the progress of the trial. The occupants of this seat are invisible to the great body of spectators, inasmuch as they sit on a much lower level than either the barristers or the audience, whose seats are raised above the floor. Of course they have their backs to both, and their faces towards the judge. "That's the witness-box, I suppose?" said Mr. Pickwick, pointing to a kind of pulpit, with a brass rail, on his left hand. "That's the witness-box, my dear sir," replied Perker, disinterring a quantity of papers from the blue bag, which Lowten had just deposited at his feet. "And that," said Mr. Pickwick, pointing to a couple of enclosed seats on his right, "that's where the jurymen sit, is it not?" "The identical place, my dear sir," replied Perker, tapping the lid of his snuff-box. Mr. Pickwick stood up in a state of great agitation, and took a glance at the court. There were already a pretty large sprinkling of spectators in the gallery, and a numerous muster of gentlemen in wigs, in the barristers' seats: who presented, as a body, all that pleasing and extensive variety of nose and whisker for which the bar of England is so justly celebrated. Such of the gentlemen as had a brief to carry, carried it in as conspicuous a manner as possible, and occasionally scratched their noses therewith, to impress the fact more strongly on the observation of the spectators. Other gentlemen, who had no briefs to show, carried under their arms goodly octavos with a red label behind, and that under-done-pie-crust-coloured cover, which is technically known as "law calf." Others, who had neither briefs nor books, thrust their hands into their pockets, and looked as wise as they conveniently could; others, again, moved here and there with great restlessness and earnestness of manner, content to awaken thereby the admiration and astonishment of the uninitiated strangers. The whole, to the great wonderment of Mr. Pickwick, were divided into little groups, who were chatting and discussing the news of the day in the most unfeeling manner possible,--just as if no trial at all were coming on. A bow from Mr. Phunky, as he entered, and took his seat behind the row appropriated to the King's Counsel, attracted Mr. Pickwick's attention; and he had scarcely returned it, when Mr. Serjeant Snubbin appeared, followed by Mr. Mallard, who half hid the Serjeant behind a large crimson bag, which he placed on the table, and after shaking hands with Perker, withdrew. Then there entered two or three more Serjeants; and among them, one with a fat body and a red face, who nodded in a friendly manner to Mr. Serjeant Snubbin, and said it was a fine morning. "Who's that red-faced man, who said it was a fine morning, and nodded to our counsel?" whispered Mr. Pickwick. "Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz," replied Perker. "He's opposed to us; he leads on the other side. That gentleman behind him is Mr. Skimpin, his junior." Mr. Pickwick was on the point of inquiring, with great abhorrence of the man's cold-blooded villainy, how Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, who was counsel for the opposite party, dared to presume to tell Mr. Serjeant Snubbin, who was counsel for him, that it was a fine morning, when he was interrupted by a general rising of the barristers, and a loud cry of "Silence!" from the officers of the court. Looking round, he found that this was caused by the entrance of the judge. Mr. Justice Stareleigh (who sat in the absence of the Chief Justice, occasioned by indisposition), was a most particularly short man, and so fat, that he seemed all face and waistcoat. He rolled in, upon two little turned legs, and having bobbed gravely to the bar, who bobbed gravely to him, put his little legs underneath his table, and his little three-cornered hat upon it; and when Mr. Justice Stareleigh had done this, all you could see of him was two queer little eyes, one broad pink face, and somewhere about half of a big and very comical-looking wig. The judge had no sooner taken his seat, than the officer on the floor of the court called out "Silence!" in a commanding tone, upon which another officer in the gallery cried "Silence!" in an angry manner, whereupon three or four more ushers shouted "Silence!" in a voice of indignant remonstrance. This being done, a gentleman in black, who sat below the judge, proceeded to call over the names of the jury; and after a great deal of bawling, it was discovered that only ten special jurymen were present. Upon this, Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz prayed a _tales_; the gentleman in black then proceeded to press into the special jury, two of the common jurymen; and a greengrocer and a chemist were caught directly. "Answer to your names, gentlemen, that you may be sworn," said the gentleman in black. "Richard Upwitch." "Here," said the greengrocer. "Thomas Groffin." "Here," said the chemist. "Take the book, gentlemen. You shall well and truly try----" "I beg this court's pardon," said the chemist, who was a tall, thin, yellow-visaged man, "but I hope this court will excuse my attendance." "On what grounds, sir?" said Mr. Justice Stareleigh. "I have no assistant, my Lord," said the chemist. "I can't help that, sir," replied Mr. Justice Stareleigh. "You should hire one." "I can't afford it, my Lord," rejoined the chemist. "Then you ought to be able to afford it, sir," said the judge, reddening; for Mr. Justice Stareleigh's temper bordered on the irritable, and brooked no contradiction. "I know I _ought_ to do, if I got on as well as I deserved, but I don't, my Lord," answered the chemist. "Swear the gentleman," said the judge, peremptorily. The officer had got no further than the "You shall well and truly try," when he was again interrupted by the chemist. "I am to be sworn, my Lord, am I?" said the chemist. "Certainly, sir," said the testy little judge. "Very well, my Lord," replied the chemist, in a resigned manner. "Then there'll be murder before this trial's over; that's all. Swear me, if you please, sir;" and sworn the chemist was, before the judge could find words to utter. "I merely wanted to observe, my Lord," said the chemist, taking his seat with great deliberation, "that I've left nobody but an errand-boy in my shop. He is a very nice boy, my Lord, but he is not acquainted with drugs; and I know that the prevailing impression on his mind, is that Epsom salts means oxalic acid; and syrup of senna, laudanum. That's all, my Lord." With this, the tall chemist composed himself into a comfortable attitude, and, assuming a pleasant expression of countenance, appeared to have prepared himself for the worst. Mr. Pickwick was regarding the chemist with feelings of the deepest horror, when a slight sensation was perceptible in the body of the court; and immediately afterwards Mrs. Bardell, supported by Mrs. Cluppins, was led in, and placed, in a drooping state, at the other end of the seat on which Mr. Pickwick sat. An extra-sized umbrella was then handed in by Mr. Dodson, and a pair of pattens by Mr. Fogg, each of whom had prepared a most sympathising and melancholy face for the occasion. Mrs. Sanders then appeared, leading in Master Bardell. At sight of her child, Mrs. Bardell started; suddenly recollecting herself, she kissed him in a frantic manner; then relapsing into a state of hysterical imbecility, the good lady requested to be informed where she was. In reply to this, Mrs. Cluppins and Mrs. Sanders turned their heads away and wept, while Messrs. Dodson and Fogg entreated the plaintiff to compose herself. Serjeant Buzfuz rubbed his eyes very hard with a large white handkerchief, and gave an appealing look towards the jury, while the judge was visibly affected, and several of the beholders tried to cough down their emotions. "Very good notion that, indeed," whispered Perker to Mr. Pickwick. "Capital fellows those Dodson and Fogg; excellent ideas of effect, my dear sir, excellent." As Perker spoke, Mrs. Bardell began to recover by slow degrees, while Mrs. Cluppins, after a careful survey of Master Bardell's buttons and the button-holes to which they severally belonged, placed him on the floor of the court in front of his mother,--a commanding position in which he could not fail to awaken the full commiseration and sympathy of both judge and jury. This was not done without considerable opposition, and many tears, on the part of the young gentleman himself, who had certain inward misgivings that the placing him within the full glare of the judge's eye was only a formal prelude to his being immediately ordered away for instant execution, or for transportation beyond the seas, during the whole term of his natural life, at the very least. "Bardell and Pickwick," cried the gentleman in black, calling on the case, which stood first on the list. "I am for the plaintiff, my Lord," said Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz. "Who is with you, brother Buzfuz?" said the judge. Mr. Skimpin bowed, to intimate that he was. "I appear for the defendant, my Lord," said Mr. Serjeant Snubbin. "Anybody with you, brother Snubbin?" inquired the court. "Mr. Phunky, my Lord," replied Serjeant Snubbin. "Serjeant Buzfuz and Mr. Skimpin for the plaintiff," said the judge, writing down the names in his note-book, and reading as he wrote; "for the defendant, Serjeant Snubbin and Mr. Monkey." "Beg your Lordship's pardon, Phunky." "Oh, very good," said the judge; "I never had the pleasure of hearing the gentleman's name before." Here Mr. Phunky bowed and smiled and the judge bowed and smiled too, and then Mr. Phunky, blushing into the very whites of his eyes, tried to look as if he didn't know that everybody was gazing at him: a thing which no man ever succeeded in doing yet, or, in all reasonable probability, ever will. "Go on," said the judge. The ushers again called silence, and Mr. Skimpin proceeded to "open the case;" and the case appeared to have very little inside it when he had opened it, for he kept such particulars as he knew, completely to himself, and sat down, after a lapse of three minutes, leaving the jury in precisely the same advanced stage of wisdom as they were in before. Serjeant Buzfuz then rose with all the majesty and dignity which the grave nature of the proceedings demanded, and having whispered to Dodson, and conferred briefly with Fogg, pulled his gown over his shoulders, settled his wig, and addressed the jury. Serjeant Buzfuz began by saying, that never, in the whole course of his professional experience--never, from the very first moment of his applying himself to the study and practice of the law--had he approached a case with feelings of such deep emotion, or with such a heavy sense of the responsibility imposed upon him--a responsibility, he would say, which he could never have supported, were he not buoyed up and sustained by a conviction so strong, that it amounted to positive certainty that the cause of truth and justice, or, in other words, the cause of his much-injured and most oppressed client, must prevail with the high-minded and intelligent dozen of men whom he now saw in that box before him. Counsel usually begin in this way, because it puts the jury on the very best terms with themselves, and makes them think what sharp fellows they must be. A visible effect was produced immediately; several jurymen beginning to take voluminous notes with the utmost eagerness. "You have heard from my learned friend, gentlemen," continued Serjeant Buzfuz, well knowing that, from the learned friend alluded to, the gentlemen of the jury had heard just nothing at all--"you have heard from my learned friend, gentlemen, that this is an action for a breach of promise of marriage, in which the damages are laid at £1500. But you have not heard from my learned friend, inasmuch as it did not come within my learned friend's province to tell you, what are the facts and circumstances of the case. Those facts and circumstances, gentlemen, you shall hear detailed by me and proved by the unimpeachable female whom I will place in that box before you." Here Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, with a tremendous emphasis on the word "box," smote his table with a mighty sound, and glanced at Dodson and Fogg, who nodded admiration of the serjeant, and indignant defiance of the defendant. "The plaintiff, gentlemen," continued Serjeant Buzfuz, in a soft and melancholy voice, "the plaintiff is a widow; yes, gentlemen, a widow. The late Mr. Bardell, after enjoying, for many years, the esteem and confidence of his sovereign, as one of the guardians of his royal revenues, glided almost imperceptibly from the world, to seek elsewhere for that repose and peace which a custom-house can never afford." At this pathetic description of the decease of Mr. Bardell, who had been knocked on the head with a quart-pot in a public-house cellar, the learned serjeant's voice faltered, and he proceeded with emotion: "Some time before his death, he had stamped his likeness upon a little boy. With this little boy, the only pledge of her departed exciseman, Mrs. Bardell shrunk from the world, and courted the retirement and tranquillity of Goswell Street; and here she placed in her front parlour window a written placard, bearing this inscription--'Apartments furnished for a single gentleman. Inquire within.'" Here Serjeant Buzfuz paused, while several gentlemen of the jury took a note of the document. "There is no date to that, is there, sir?" inquired a juror. "There is no date, gentlemen," replied Serjeant Buzfuz: "but I am instructed to say that it was put in the plaintiff's parlour-window just this time three years. I entreat the attention of the jury to the wording of this document. 'Apartments furnished for a single gentleman'! Mrs. Bardell's opinions of the opposite sex, gentlemen, were derived from a long contemplation of the inestimable qualities of her lost husband. She had no fear, she had no distrust, she had no suspicion, all was confidence and reliance. 'Mr. Bardell,' said the widow; 'Mr. Bardell was a man of honour, Mr. Bardell was a man of his word, Mr. Bardell was no deceiver, Mr. Bardell was once a single gentleman himself; _to_ single gentlemen I look for protection, for assistance, for comfort, and for consolation; _in_ single gentlemen I shall perpetually see something to remind me of what Mr. Bardell was, when he first won my young and untried affections; to a single gentleman, then, shall my lodgings be let.' Actuated by this beautiful and touching impulse (among the best impulses of our imperfect nature, gentlemen), the lonely and desolate widow dried her tears, furnished the first floor, caught the innocent boy to her maternal bosom, and put the bill up in her parlour-window. Did it remain there long? No. The serpent was on the watch, the train was laid, the mine was preparing, the sapper and miner was at work. Before the bill had been in the parlour-window three days--three days--gentlemen--a Being erect upon two legs, and bearing all the outward semblance of a man, and not of a monster, knocked at the door of Mrs. Bardell's house. He inquired within; he took the lodgings; and on the very next day he entered into possession of them. This man was Pickwick--Pickwick, the defendant." Serjeant Buzfuz, who had proceeded with such volubility that his face was perfectly crimson, here paused for breath. The silence awoke Mr. Justice Stareleigh, who immediately wrote down something with a pen, without any ink in it, and looked unusually profound, to impress the jury with the belief that he always thought most deeply with his eyes shut. Serjeant Buzfuz proceeded: "Of this man Pickwick I will say little; the subject presents but few attractions; and I, gentlemen, am not the man, nor are you, gentlemen, the men, to delight in the contemplation of revolting heartlessness, and of systematic villainy." Here Mr. Pickwick, who had been writhing in silence for some time, gave a violent start, as if some vague idea of assaulting Serjeant Buzfuz, in the august presence of justice and law, suggested itself to his mind. An admonitory gesture from Perker restrained him, and he listened to the learned gentleman's continuation with a look of indignation, which contrasted forcibly with the admiring faces of Mrs. Cluppins and Mrs. Sanders. "I say systematic villainy, gentlemen," said Serjeant Buzfuz, looking through Mr. Pickwick and talking _at_ him; "and when I say systematic villainy, let me tell the defendant Pickwick, if he be in court, as I am informed he is, that it would have been more decent in him, more becoming, in better judgment, and in better taste, if he had stopped away. Let me tell him, gentlemen, that any gestures of dissent or disapprobation in which he may indulge in this court will not go down with you; that you will know how to value and how to appreciate them; and let me tell him further, as my lord will tell you, gentlemen, that a counsel, in the discharge of his duty to his client, is neither to be intimidated nor bullied, nor put down; and that any attempt to do either the one or the other, or the first or the last, will recoil on the head of the attempter, be he plaintiff or be he defendant, be his name Pickwick, or Noakes, or Stoakes, or Stiles, or Brown, or Thompson." This little divergence from the subject in hand had, of course, the intended effect of turning all eyes to Mr. Pickwick. Serjeant Buzfuz, having partially recovered from the state of moral elevation into which he had lashed himself, resumed: "I shall show you, gentlemen, that for two years Pickwick continued to reside constantly, and without interruption or intermission, at Mrs. Bardell's house. I shall show you that Mrs. Bardell, during the whole of that time, waited on him, attended to his comforts, cooked his meals, looked out his linen for the washerwoman when it went abroad, darned, aired, and prepared it for wear, when it came home, and, in short, enjoyed his fullest trust and confidence. I shall show you that, on many occasions, he gave halfpence, and on some occasions even sixpences, to her little boy; and I shall prove to you, by a witness whose testimony it will be impossible for my learned friend to weaken or controvert, that on one occasion he patted the boy on the head, and, after inquiring whether he had won _alley tors_ or _commoneys_ lately (both of which I understand to be a particular species of marbles much prized by the youth of this town), made use of this remarkable expression: 'How should you like to have another father?' I shall prove to you, gentlemen, that about a year ago, Pickwick suddenly began to absent himself from home, during long intervals, as if with the intention of gradually breaking off from my client; but I shall show you also, that his resolution was not at that time sufficiently strong, or that his better feelings conquered, if better feelings he has, or that the charms and accomplishments of my client prevailed against his unmanly intentions; by proving to you, that on one occasion, when he returned from the country, he distinctly and in terms, offered her marriage: previously, however, taking special care that there should be no witness to their solemn contract; and I am in a situation to prove to you, on the testimony of three of his own friends--most unwilling witnesses, gentlemen--most unwilling witnesses--that on that morning he was discovered by them holding the plaintiff in his arms, and soothing her agitation by his caresses and endearments." A visible impression was produced upon the auditors by this part of the learned serjeant's address. Drawing forth two very small scraps of paper, he proceeded: "And now, gentlemen, but one word more. Two letters have passed between these parties, letters which are admitted to be in the handwriting of the defendant, and which speak volumes indeed. These letters, too, bespeak the character of the man. They are not open, fervent, eloquent epistles, breathing nothing but the language of affectionate attachment. They are covert, sly, underhanded communications, but, fortunately, far more conclusive than if couched in the most glowing language and the most poetic imagery--letters that must be viewed with a cautious and suspicious eye--letters that were evidently intended at the time, by Pickwick, to mislead and delude any third parties into whose hands they might fall. Let me read the first:--'Garraway's, twelve o'clock. Dear Mrs. B.--Chops and Tomato sauce. Yours, +Pickwick+.' Gentlemen, what does this mean? 'Chops and Tomato sauce. Yours, Pickwick!' Chops! Gracious heavens! and Tomato sauce! Gentlemen, is the happiness of a sensitive and confiding female to be trifled away by such shallow artifices as these? The next has no date whatever, which is in itself suspicious. 'Dear Mrs. B., I shall not be at home till to-morrow. Slow coach.' And then follows this very remarkable expression. 'Don't trouble yourself about the warming-pan.' The warming-pan! Why, gentlemen, who _does_ trouble himself about a warming-pan? When was the peace of mind of man or woman broken or disturbed by a warming-pan, which is in itself a harmless, a useful, and I will add, gentlemen, a comforting article of domestic furniture? Why is Mrs. Bardell so earnestly entreated not to agitate herself about this warming-pan, unless (as is no doubt the case) it is a mere cover for hidden fire--a mere substitute for some endearing word of promise, agreeably to a preconcerted system of correspondence, artfully contrived by Pickwick with a view to his contemplated desertion, and which I am not in a condition to explain? And what does this allusion to the slow coach mean? For aught I know, it may be a reference to Pickwick himself, who has most unquestionably been a criminally slow coach during the whole of this transaction, but whose speed will now be very unexpectedly accelerated, and whose wheels, gentlemen, as he will find to his cost, will very soon be greased by you!" Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz paused in this place, to see whether the jury smiled at his joke; but as nobody took it but the greengrocer, whose sensitiveness on the subject was very probably occasioned by his having subjected a chaise-cart to the process in question on that identical morning, the learned serjeant considered it advisable to undergo a slight relapse into the dismals before he concluded. "But enough of this, gentlemen," said Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz; "it is difficult to smile with an aching heart; it is ill jesting when our deepest sympathies are awakened. My client's hopes and prospects are ruined, and it is no figure of speech to say that her occupation is gone indeed. The bill is down--but there is no tenant. Eligible single gentlemen pass and repass--but there is no invitation for them to inquire within or without. All is gloom and silence in the house; even the voice of the child is hushed; his infant sports are disregarded when his mother weeps; his 'alley tors' and his 'commoneys' are alike neglected; he forgets the long familiar cry of 'knuckle-down,' and at tip-cheese, or odd and even, his hand is out. But Pickwick, gentlemen, Pickwick, the ruthless destroyer of this domestic oasis in the desert of Goswell Street--Pickwick, who has choked up the well, and thrown ashes on the sward--Pickwick, who comes before you to-day with his heartless Tomato sauce and warming-pans--Pickwick still rears his head with unblushing effrontery, and gazes without a sigh on the ruin he has made. Damages, gentlemen--heavy damages--is the only punishment with which you can visit him; the only recompense you can award to my client. And for those damages she now appeals to an enlightened, a high-minded, a right-feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a sympathising, a contemplative jury of her civilised countrymen." With this beautiful peroration, Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz sat down, and Mr. Justice Stareleigh woke up. "Call Elizabeth Cluppins," said Serjeant Buzfuz, rising a minute afterwards, with renewed vigour. The nearest usher called for Elizabeth Tuppins; another one, at a little distance off, demanded Elizabeth Jupkins; and a third rushed in a breathless state into King Street, and screamed for Elizabeth Muffins till he was hoarse. Meanwhile Mrs. Cluppins, with the combined assistance of Mrs. Bardell, Mrs. Sanders, Mr. Dodson, and Mr. Fogg, was hoisted into the witness-box; and when she was safely perched on the top step, Mrs. Bardell stood on the bottom one, with the pocket-handkerchief and pattens in one hand, and a glass bottle that might hold about a quarter of a pint of smelling salts in the other, ready for any emergency. Mrs. Sanders, whose eyes were intently fixed on the judge's face, planted herself close by, with the large umbrella: keeping her right thumb pressed on the spring with an earnest countenance, as if she were fully prepared to put it up at a moment's notice. "Mrs. Cluppins," said Serjeant Buzfuz, "pray compose yourself, ma'am." Of course, directly Mrs. Cluppins was desired to compose herself she sobbed with increased vehemence, and gave divers alarming manifestations of an approaching fainting fit, or, as she afterwards said, of her feelings being too many for her. "Do you recollect, Mrs. Cluppins," said Serjeant Buzfuz, after a few unimportant questions, "do you recollect being in Mrs. Bardell's back one pair of stairs, on one particular morning in July last, when she was dusting Pickwick's apartment?" "Yes, my Lord and Jury, I do," replied Mrs. Cluppins. "Mr. Pickwick's sitting-room was the first-floor front, I believe?" "Yes, it were, sir," replied Mrs. Cluppins. "What were you doing in the back room, ma'am?" inquired the little judge. "My Lord and Jury," said Mrs. Cluppins, with interesting agitation, "I will not deceive you." "You had better not, ma'am," said the little judge. "I was there," resumed Mrs. Cluppins, "unbeknown to Mrs. Bardell; I had been out with a little basket, gentlemen, to buy three pound of red kidney purtaties, which was three pound tuppense ha'penny, when I see Mrs. Bardell's street door on the jar." "On the what?" exclaimed the little judge. "Partly open, my Lord," said Serjeant Snubbin. "She _said_ on the jar," said the little judge, with a cunning look. "It's all the same, my Lord," said Serjeant Snubbin. The little judge looked doubtful and said he'd make a note of it. Mrs. Cluppins then resumed: "I walked in, gentlemen, just to say good mornin', and went, in a permiscuous manner, up-stairs, and into the back room. Gentlemen, there was the sound of voices in the front room, and----" "And you listened, I believe, Mrs. Cluppins?" said Serjeant Buzfuz. "Beggin' your pardon, sir," replied Mrs. Cluppins, in a majestic manner, "I would scorn the haction. The voices was very loud, sir, and forced themselves upon my ear." "Well, Mrs. Cluppins, you were not listening, but you heard the voices. Was one of these voices Pickwick's?" "Yes, it were, sir." And Mrs. Cluppins, after distinctly stating that Mr. Pickwick addressed himself to Mrs. Bardell, repeated by slow degrees, and by dint of many questions, the conversation with which our readers are already acquainted. The jury looked suspicious, and Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz smiled and sat down. They looked positively awful when Serjeant Snubbin intimated that he should not cross-examine the witness, for Mr. Pickwick wished it to be distinctly stated that it was due to her to say, that her account was in substance correct. Mrs. Cluppins having once broken the ice, thought it a favourable opportunity for entering into a short dissertation on her own domestic affairs; so, she straightway proceeded to inform the court that she was the mother of eight children at that present speaking, and that she entertained confident expectations of presenting Mr. Cluppins with a ninth, somewhere about that day six months. At this interesting point, the little judge interposed most irascibly; and the effect of the interposition was, that both the worthy lady and Mrs. Sanders were politely taken out of court, under the escort of Mr. Jackson, without further parley. "Nathaniel Winkle!" said Mr. Skimpin. "Here!" replied a feeble voice. Mr. Winkle entered the witness-box, and having been duly sworn, bowed to the judge with considerable deference. "Don't look at me, sir," said the judge, sharply, in acknowledgment of the salute; "look at the jury." Mr. Winkle obeyed the mandate, and looked at the place where he thought it most probable the jury might be; for seeing anything in his then state of intellectual complication was wholly out of the question. Mr. Winkle was then examined by Mr. Skimpin, who, being a promising young man of two or three and forty, was of course anxious to confuse a witness who was notoriously predisposed in favour of the other side, as much as he could. "Now, sir," said Mr. Skimpin, "have the goodness to let his Lordship and the jury know what your name is, will you?" and Mr. Skimpin inclined his head on one side to listen with great sharpness to the answer, and glanced at the jury meanwhile, as if to imply that he rather expected Mr. Winkle's natural taste for perjury would induce him to give some name which did not belong to him. "Winkle," replied the witness. "What's your Christian name, sir?" angrily inquired the little judge. "Nathaniel, sir." "Daniel,--any other name?" "Nathaniel, sir--my Lord, I mean." "Nathaniel Daniel, or Daniel Nathaniel?" "No, my Lord, only Nathaniel; not Daniel at all." "What did you tell me it was Daniel for, then, sir?" inquired the judge. "I didn't, my Lord," replied Mr. Winkle. "You did, sir," replied the judge, with a severe frown. "How could I have got Daniel on my notes, unless you told me so, sir?" This argument was, of course, unanswerable. "Mr. Winkle has rather a short memory, my Lord," interposed Mr. Skimpin, with another glance at the jury. "We shall find means to refresh it before we have quite done with him, I dare say." "You had better be careful, sir," said the little judge, with a sinister look at the witness. Poor Mr. Winkle bowed, and endeavoured to feign an easiness of manner which, in his then state of confusion, gave him rather the air of a disconcerted pickpocket. "Now, Mr. Winkle," said Mr. Skimpin, "attend to me, if you please, sir; and let me recommend you, for your own sake, to bear in mind his Lordship's injunction to be careful. I believe you are a particular friend of Pickwick, the defendant, are you not?" "I have known Mr. Pickwick now, as well as I recollect at this moment, nearly----" "Pray, Mr. Winkle, do not evade the question. Are you, or are you not, a particular friend of the defendant's?" "I was just about to say that----" "Will you, or will you not, answer my question, sir?" "If you don't answer the question you'll be committed, sir," interposed the little judge, looking over his note-book. "Come, sir," said Mr. Skimpin, "yes or no, if you please." "Yes, I am," replied Mr. Winkle. "Yes, you are. And why couldn't you say that at once, sir? Perhaps you know the plaintiff, too? Eh, Mr. Winkle?" "I don't know her; I've seen her." "Oh, you don't know her, but you've seen her? Now, have the goodness to tell the gentlemen of the jury what you mean by _that_, Mr. Winkle." "I mean that I am not intimate with her, but I have seen her when I went to call on Mr. Pickwick in Goswell Street." "How often have you seen her, sir?" "How often?" "Yes, Mr. Winkle, how often? I'll repeat the question for you a dozen times if you require it, sir." And the learned gentleman, with a firm and steady frown, placed his hands on his hips, and smiled suspiciously at the jury. On this question there arose the edifying brow-beating, customary on such points. First of all, Mr. Winkle said it was quite impossible for him to say how many times he had seen Mrs. Bardell. Then he was asked if he had seen her twenty times, to which he replied, "Certainly,--more than that." Then he was asked whether he hadn't seen her a hundred times--whether he couldn't swear that he had seen her more than fifty times--whether he didn't know that he had seen her at least seventy-five times--and so forth; the satisfactory conclusion which was arrived at, at last, being, that he had better take care of himself, and mind what he was about. The witness having been by these means reduced to the requisite ebb of nervous perplexity, the examination was continued as follows: "Pray Mr. Winkle, do you remember calling on the defendant Pickwick at these apartments in the plaintiff's house in Goswell Street, on one particular morning, in the month of July last?" "Yes, I do." "Were you accompanied on that occasion by a friend of the name of Tupman, and another of the name of Snodgrass?" "Yes, I was." "Are they here?" "Yes, they are," replied Mr. Winkle, looking very earnestly towards the spot where his friends were stationed. "Pray attend to me, Mr. Winkle, and never mind your friends," said Mr. Skimpin, with another expressive look at the jury. "They must tell their stories without any previous consultation with you, if none has yet taken place (another look at the jury). Now, sir, tell the gentlemen of the jury what you saw on entering the defendant's room, on this particular morning. Come; out with it, sir: we must have it, sooner or later." "The defendant, Mr. Pickwick, was holding the plaintiff in his arms, with his hands clasping her waist," replied Mr. Winkle, with natural hesitation, "and the plaintiff appeared to have fainted away." "Did you hear the defendant say anything?" "I heard him call Mrs. Bardell a good creature, and I heard him ask her to compose herself, for what a situation it was, if anybody should come, or words to that effect." "Now, Mr. Winkle, I have only one more question to ask you, and I beg you to bear in mind his lordship's caution. Will you undertake to swear that Pickwick, the defendant, did not say on the occasion in question, 'My dear Mrs. Bardell, you're a good creature; compose yourself to this situation, for to this situation you must come,' or words to _that_ effect?" "I didn't understand him so, certainly," said Mr. Winkle, astounded at this ingenious dove-tailing of the few words he had heard. "I was on the staircase, and couldn't hear distinctly; the impression on my mind is----" "The gentlemen of the jury want none of the impressions on your mind, Mr. Winkle, which I fear would be of little service to honest, straightforward men," interposed Mr. Skimpin. "You were on the staircase, and didn't distinctly hear; but you will not swear that Mr. Pickwick did not make use of the expressions I have quoted? Do I understand that?" "No, I will not," replied Mr. Winkle; and down sat Mr. Skimpin with a triumphant countenance. Mr. Pickwick's case had not gone off in so particularly happy a manner, up to this point, that it could very well afford to have any additional suspicion cast upon it. But as it could afford to be placed in a rather better light, if possible, Mr. Phunky rose for the purpose of getting something important out of Mr. Winkle in cross-examination. Whether he did get anything important out of him will immediately appear. "I believe, Mr. Winkle," said Mr. Phunky, "that Mr. Pickwick is not a young man?" "Oh no," replied Mr. Winkle; "old enough to be my father." "You have told my learned friend that you have known Mr. Pickwick a long time. Had you ever any reason to suppose or believe that he was about to be married?" "Oh no; certainly not;" replied Mr. Winkle with so much eagerness, that Mr. Phunky ought to have got him out of the box with all possible despatch. Lawyers hold that there are two kinds of particularly bad witnesses: a reluctant witness, and a too-willing witness; it was Mr. Winkle's fate to figure in both characters. "I will even go further than this, Mr. Winkle," continued Mr. Phunky in a most smooth and complacent manner. "Did you ever see anything in Mr. Pickwick's manner and conduct towards the opposite sex, to induce you to believe that he ever contemplated matrimony of late years, in any case?" "Oh no; certainly not," replied Mr. Winkle. "Has his behaviour, when females have been in the case, always been that of a man who, having attained a pretty advanced period of life, content with his own occupations and amusements, treats them only as a father might his daughters?" "Not the least doubt of it," replied Mr. Winkle, in the fulness of his heart. "That is--yes--oh yes--certainly." "You have never known anything in his behaviour towards Mrs. Bardell, or any other female, in the least degree suspicious?" said Mr. Phunky, preparing to sit down; for Serjeant Snubbin was winking at him. "N--n--no," replied Mr. Winkle, "except on one trifling occasion which, I have no doubt, might be easily explained." Now, if the unfortunate Mr. Phunky had sat down when Serjeant Snubbin winked at him, or if Serjeant Buzfuz had stopped this irregular cross-examination at the outset (which he knew better than to do; observing Mr. Winkle's anxiety, and well knowing it would, in all probability, lead to something serviceable to him), this unfortunate admission would not have been elicited. The moment the words fell from Mr. Winkle's lips, Mr. Phunky sat down, and Serjeant Snubbin rather hastily told him he might leave the box, which Mr. Winkle prepared to do with great readiness, when Serjeant Buzfuz stopped him. "Stay, Mr. Winkle, stay!" said Serjeant Buzfuz. "Will your Lordship have the goodness to ask him, what this one instance of suspicious behaviour towards females, on the part of this gentleman, who is old enough to be his father, was?" "You hear what the learned counsel says, sir," observed the judge, turning to the miserable and agonised Mr. Winkle. "Describe the occasion to which you refer." "My Lord," said Mr. Winkle, trembling with anxiety, "I--I'd rather not." "Perhaps so," said the little judge; "but you must." Amid the profound silence of the whole court, Mr. Winkle faltered out that the trifling circumstance of suspicion was Mr. Pickwick's being found in a lady's sleeping apartment at midnight; which had terminated, he believed, in the breaking off of the projected marriage of the lady in question, and had led, he knew, to the whole party being forcibly carried before George Nupkins, Esq., magistrate and justice of the peace for the borough of Ipswich! "You may leave the box, sir," said Serjeant Snubbin. Mr. Winkle _did_ leave the box, and rushed with delirious haste to the George and Vulture, where he was discovered some hours afterwards by the waiter, groaning in a hollow and dismal manner, with his head buried beneath the sofa cushions. Tracy Tupman, and Augustus Snodgrass, were severally called into the box; both corroborated the testimony of their unhappy friend; and each was driven to the verge of desperation by excessive badgering. Susannah Sanders was then called, and examined by Serjeant Buzfuz, and cross-examined by Serjeant Snubbin. Had always said and believed that Pickwick would marry Mrs. Bardell; knew that Mrs. Bardell's being engaged to Pickwick was the current topic of conversation in the neighbourhood, after the fainting in July; had been told it herself by Mrs. Mudberry which kept a mangle, and Mrs. Bunkin which clear-starched, but did not see either Mrs. Mudberry or Mrs. Bunkin in court. Had heard Pickwick ask the little boy how he should like to have another father. Did not know that Mrs. Bardell was at that time keeping company with the baker, but did know that the baker was then a single man and is now married. Couldn't swear that Mrs. Bardell was not very fond of the baker, but should think that the baker was not very fond of Mrs. Bardell, or he wouldn't have married somebody else. Thought Mrs. Bardell fainted away on the morning in July, because Pickwick asked her to name the day: knew that she (witness) fainted away stone dead when Mr. Sanders asked _her_ to name the day, and believed that everybody as called herself a lady would do the same, under similar circumstances. Heard Pickwick ask the boy the question about the marbles, but upon her oath did not know the difference between an alley tor and a commoney. By the +Court+--During the period of her keeping company with Mr. Sanders had received love-letters, like other ladies. In the course of their correspondence Mr. Sanders had often called her a "duck," but never "chops," nor yet "tomato sauce." He was particularly fond of ducks. Perhaps if he had been as fond of chops and tomato sauce, he might have called her that, as a term of affection. Serjeant Buzfuz now rose with more importance than he had yet exhibited, if that were possible, and vociferated: "Call Samuel Weller." It was quite unnecessary to call Samuel Weller; for Samuel Weller stepped briskly into the box the instant his name was pronounced; and placing his hat on the floor, and his arms on the rail, took a bird's-eye view of the bar, and a comprehensive survey of the bench, with a remarkably cheerful and lively aspect. "What's your name, sir?" inquired the judge. "Sam Weller, my Lord," replied that gentleman. "Do you spell it with a 'V' or a 'W'?" inquired the judge. "That depends upon the taste and fancy of the speller, my Lord," replied Sam; "I never had occasion to spell it more than once or twice in my life, but I spells it with a 'V'." Here a voice in the gallery exclaimed aloud, "Quite right, too, Samivel, quite right. Put it down a 'we,' my Lord, put it down a 'we'." "Who is that who dares to address the court?" said the little judge, looking up. "Usher!" "Yes, my Lord." "Bring that person here instantly." "Yes, my Lord." But as the usher didn't find the person, he didn't bring him; and, after a great commotion, all the people who had got up to look for the culprit sat down again. The little judge turned to the witness as soon as his indignation would allow him to speak, and said, "Do you know who that was, sir?" "I rayther suspect it was my father, my Lord," replied Sam. "Do you see him here, now?" said the judge. "No, I don't, my Lord," replied Sam, staring right up into the lantern in the roof of the court. "If you could have pointed him out, I would have committed him instantly," said the judge. Sam bowed his acknowledgments and turned, with unimpaired cheerfulness of countenance, towards Serjeant Buzfuz. "Now, Mr. Weller," said Serjeant Buzfuz. "Now, sir," replied Sam. "I believe you are in the service of Mr. Pickwick, the defendant in this case. Speak up, if you please, Mr. Weller." "I mean to speak up, sir," replied Sam; "I am in the service of that 'ere gen'l'm'n, and a wery good service it is." "Little to do, and plenty to get, I suppose?" said Serjeant Buzfuz, with jocularity. "Oh, quite enough to get, sir, as the soldier said ven they ordered him three hundred and fifty lashes," replied Sam. "You must not tell us what the soldier, or any other man, said, sir," interposed the judge, "it's not evidence." "Wery good, my Lord," replied Sam. "Do you recollect anything particular happening on the morning when you were first engaged by the defendant; eh, Mr. Weller?" said Serjeant Buzfuz. "Yes I do, sir," replied Sam. "Have the goodness to tell the jury what it was." "I had a reg'lar new fit out o' clothes that mornin', gen'l'm'n of the jury," said Sam, "and that was a wery partickler and uncommon circumstance vith me in those days." Hereupon there was a general laugh; and the little judge, looking with an angry countenance over his desk, said, "You had better be careful, sir." "So Mr. Pickwick said at the time, my Lord," replied Sam; "and I wos wery careful o' that 'ere suit o' clothes; wery careful indeed, my Lord." The judge looked sternly at Sam for full two minutes, but Sam's features were so perfectly calm and serene that the judge said nothing, and motioned Serjeant Buzfuz to proceed. "Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Weller," said Serjeant Buzfuz, folding his arms emphatically, and turning half-round to the jury, as if in mute assurance that he would bother the witness yet: "Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Weller, that you saw nothing of this fainting on the part of the plaintiff in the arms of the defendant, which you have heard described by the witnesses?" "Certainly not," replied Sam, "I was in the passage till they called me up, and then the old lady was not there." "Now, attend, Mr. Weller," said Serjeant Buzfuz, dipping a large pen into the inkstand before him, for the purpose of frightening Sam with a show of taking down his answer. "You were in the passage, and yet saw nothing of what was going forward. Have you a pair of eyes, Mr. Weller?" "Yes, I have a pair of eyes," replied Sam, "and that's just it. If they wos a pair o' patent double million magnifyin' gas microscopes of hextra power, p'raps I might be able to see through a flight o' stairs, and a deal door; but bein' only eyes, you see, my wision's limited." At this answer, which was delivered without the slightest appearance of irritation, and with the most complete simplicity and equanimity of manner, the spectators tittered, the little judge smiled, and Serjeant Buzfuz looked particularly foolish. After a short consultation with Dodson and Fogg, the learned Serjeant again turned towards Sam, and said, with a painful effort to conceal his vexation, "Now, Mr. Weller, I'll ask you a question on another point, if you please." "If you please, sir," rejoined Sam, with the utmost good-humour. "Do you remember going up to Mrs. Bardell's house, one night in November last?" "Oh yes, wery well." "Oh, you _do_ remember that, Mr. Weller," said Serjeant Buzfuz, recovering his spirits; "I thought we should get something at last." "I rayther thought that, too, sir," replied Sam; and at this the spectators tittered again. "Well; I suppose you went up to have a little talk about this trial--eh, Mr. Weller?" said Serjeant Buzfuz, looking knowingly at the jury. "I went up to pay the rent; but we _did_ get a talkin' about the trial," replied Sam. "Oh, you did get a talking about the trial," said Serjeant Buzfuz, brightening up with the anticipation of some important discovery. "Now what passed about the trial; will you have the goodness to tell us, Mr. Weller?" "Vith all the pleasure in life, sir," replied Sam. "Arter a few unimportant obserwations from the two virtuous females as has been examined here to-day, the ladies gets into a wery great state o' admiration at the honourable conduct of Mr. Dodson and Fogg--them two gen'l'm'n as is settin' near you now." This, of course, drew general attention to Dodson and Fogg, who looked as virtuous as possible. "The attorneys for the plaintiff," said Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz. "Well! They spoke in high praise of the honourable conduct of Messrs, Dodson and Fogg, the attorneys for the plaintiff, did they?" "Yes," said Sam, "they said what a wery gen'rous thing it was o' them to have taken up the case on spec, and to charge nothing at all for costs, unless they got 'em out of Mr. Pickwick." At this very unexpected reply, the spectators tittered again, and Dodson and Fogg, turning very red, leant over to Serjeant Buzfuz, and in a hurried manner whispered something in his ear. "You are quite right," said Serjeant Buzfuz aloud, with affected composure. "It's perfectly useless, my lord, attempting to get at any evidence through the impenetrable stupidity of this witness. I will not trouble the court by asking him any more questions. Stand down, sir." "Would any other gen'l'm'n like to ask me anythin'?" inquired Sam, taking up his hat, and looking round most deliberately. "Not I, Mr. Weller, thank you," said Serjeant Snubbin, laughing. "You may go down, sir," said Serjeant Buzfuz, waving his hand impatiently. Sam went down accordingly, after doing Messrs. Dodson and Fogg's case as much harm as he conveniently could, and saying just as little respecting Mr. Pickwick as might be, which was precisely the object he had had in view all along. "I have no objection to admit, my Lord," said Serjeant Snubbin, "if it will save the examination of another witness, that Mr. Pickwick has retired from business, and is a gentleman of considerable independent property." "Very well," said Serjeant Buzfuz, putting in the two letters to be read. "Then that's my case, my Lord." Serjeant Snubbin then addressed the jury on behalf of the defendant; and a very long and a very emphatic address he delivered, in which he bestowed the highest possible eulogiums on the conduct and character of Mr. Pickwick; but inasmuch as our readers are far better able to form a correct estimate of that gentleman's merits and deserts, than Serjeant Snubbin could possibly be, we do not feel called upon to enter at any length into the learned gentleman's observations. He attempted to show that the letters which had been exhibited, merely related to Mr. Pickwick's dinner, or to the preparations for receiving him in his apartments on his return from some country excursion. It is sufficient to add in general terms, that he did the best he could for Mr. Pickwick; and the best, as everybody knows, on the infallible authority of the old adage, could do no more. Mr. Justice Stareleigh summed up, in the old-established and most approved form. He read as much of his notes to the jury as he could decipher on so short a notice, and made running comments on the evidence as he went along. If Mrs. Bardell were right, it was perfectly clear that Mr. Pickwick was wrong, and if they thought the evidence of Mrs. Cluppins worthy of credence they would believe it, and, if they didn't, why they wouldn't. If they were satisfied that a breach of promise of marriage had been committed, they would find for the plaintiff with such damages as they thought proper; and if, on the other hand, it appeared to them that no promise of marriage had ever been given, they would find for the defendant with no damages at all. The jury then retired to their private room to talk the matter over, and the judge retired to _his_ private room, to refresh himself with a mutton chop and a glass of sherry. An anxious quarter of an hour elapsed; the jury came back; the judge was fetched in. Mr. Pickwick put on his spectacles, and gazed at the foreman with an agitated countenance and a quickly beating heart. "Gentlemen," said the individual in black, "are you all agreed upon your verdict?" "We are," replied the foreman. "Do you find for the plaintiff, gentlemen, or for the defendant?" "For the plaintiff." "With what damages, gentlemen?" "Seven hundred and fifty pounds." Mr. Pickwick took off his spectacles, carefully wiped the glasses, folded them into their case, and put them in his pocket; then having drawn on his gloves with great nicety, and stared at the foreman all the while, he mechanically followed Mr. Perker and the blue bag out of court. They stopped in a side room while Perker paid the court fees; and here, Mr. Pickwick was joined by his friends. Here, too, he encountered Messrs. Dodson and Fogg, rubbing their hands with every token of outward satisfaction. "Well, gentlemen?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Well, sir?" said Dodson: for self and partner. "You imagine you'll get your costs, don't you, gentlemen?" said Mr. Pickwick. Fogg said they thought it rather probable. Dodson smiled, and said they'd try. "You may try, and try, and try again, Messrs. Dodson and Fogg," said Mr. Pickwick vehemently, "but not one farthing of costs or damages do you ever get from me, if I spend the rest of my existence in a debtor's prison." "Ha, ha!" laughed Dodson. "You'll think better of that, before next term, Mr. Pickwick." "He, he, he! We'll soon see about that, Mr. Pickwick," grinned Fogg. Speechless with indignation, Mr. Pickwick allowed himself to be led by his solicitor and friends to the door, and there assisted into a hackney-coach, which had been fetched for the purpose, by the ever-watchful Sam Weller. Sam had put up the steps, and was preparing to jump upon the box, when he felt himself gently touched on the shoulder; and looking round, his father stood before him. The old gentleman's countenance wore a mournful expression, as he shook his head gravely, and said, in warning accents: "I know'd what 'ud come o' this here mode o' doin' bisness. Oh Sammy, Sammy, vy worn't there a alleybi!" CHAPTER VII [Illustration] _In which Mr. Pickwick thinks he had better go to Bath and goes Accordingly_ "But surely, my dear sir," said little Perker, as he stood in Mr. Pickwick's apartment on the morning after the trial: "surely you don't really mean--really and seriously now, and irritation apart--that you won't pay these costs and damages?" "Not one halfpenny," said Mr. Pickwick, firmly; "not one halfpenny." "Hooroar for the principle, as the money-lender said ven he vouldn't renew the bill," observed Mr. Weller, who was clearing away the breakfast things. "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, "have the goodness to step down-stairs." "Cert'nly, sir," replied Mr. Weller; and acting on Mr. Pickwick's gentle hint, Sam retired. "No, Perker," said Mr. Pickwick, with great seriousness of manner, "my friends here have endeavoured to dissuade me from this determination, but without avail. I shall employ myself as usual, until the opposite party have the power of issuing a legal process of execution against me; and if they are vile enough to avail themselves of it, and to arrest my person, I shall yield myself up with perfect cheerfulness and content of heart. When can they do this?" "They can issue execution, my dear sir, for the amount of the damages and taxed costs, next term," replied Perker; "just two months hence, my dear sir." "Very good," said Mr. Pickwick. "Until that time, my dear fellow, let me hear no more of the matter. And now," continued Mr. Pickwick, looking round on his friends with a good-humoured smile, and a sparkle in the eye which no spectacles could dim or conceal, "the only question is, Where shall we go next?" Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass were too much affected by their friend's heroism to offer any reply. Mr. Winkle had not yet sufficiently recovered the recollection of his evidence at the trial, to make any observations on any subject, so Mr. Pickwick paused in vain. "Well," said that gentleman, "if you leave me to suggest our destination, I say Bath. I think none of us have ever been there." Nobody had; and as the proposition was warmly seconded by Perker, who considered it extremely probable that if Mr. Pickwick saw a little change and gaiety he would be inclined to think better of his determination, and worse of a debtor's prison, it was carried unanimously: and Sam was at once despatched to the White Horse Cellar, to take five places by the half-past seven o'clock coach, next morning. There were just two places to be had inside, and just three to be had out; so Sam Weller booked for them all, and having exchanged a few compliments with the booking-office clerk on the subject of a pewter half-crown which was tendered him as a portion of his "change," walked back to the George and Vulture, where he was pretty busily employed until bed-time in reducing clothes and linen into the smallest possible compass, and exerting his mechanical genius in constructing a variety of ingenious devices for keeping the lids on boxes which had neither locks nor hinges. The next was a very unpropitious morning for a journey--muggy, damp, and drizzly. The horses in the stages that were going out, and had come through the city, were smoking so that the outside passengers were invisible. The newspaper-sellers looked moist, and smelt mouldy; the wet ran off the hats of the orange-vendors as they thrust their heads into the coach-windows, and diluted the insides in a refreshing manner. The Jews with the fifty-bladed penknives shut them up in despair; the men with the pocket-books made pocket-books of them. Watch-guards and toasting-forks were alike at a discount, and pencil-cases and sponges were a drug in the market. Leaving Sam Weller to rescue the luggage from the seven or eight porters who flung themselves savagely upon it, the moment the coach stopped: and finding that they were about twenty minutes too early; Mr. Pickwick and his friends went for shelter into the travellers' room--the last resource of human dejection. The travellers' room at the White Horse Cellar is of course uncomfortable; it would be no travellers' room if it were not. It is the right-hand parlour, into which an aspiring kitchen fire-place appears to have walked, accompanied by a rebellious poker, tongs, and shovel. It is divided into boxes, for the solitary confinement of travellers, and is furnished with a clock, a looking-glass, and a live waiter; which latter article is kept in a small kennel for washing glasses, in the corner of the apartment. One of these boxes was occupied, on this particular occasion, by a stern-eyed man of about five-and-forty, who had a bald and glossy forehead, with a good deal of black hair at the sides and back of his head, and large black whiskers. He was buttoned up to the chin in a brown coat; and had a large sealskin travelling cap, and a great-coat and cloak, lying on the seat beside him. He looked up from his breakfast as Mr. Pickwick entered, with a fierce and peremptory air, which was very dignified; and having scrutinised that gentleman and his companions to his entire satisfaction, hummed a tune, in a manner which seemed to say that he rather suspected somebody wanted to take advantage of him, but it wouldn't do. "Waiter," said the gentleman with the whiskers. "Sir?" replied a man with a dirty complexion, and a towel of the same, emerging from the kennel before mentioned. "Some more toast." "Yes, sir." "Buttered toast, mind," said the gentleman, fiercely. "D'rectly, sir," replied the waiter. The gentleman with the whiskers hummed a tune in the same manner as before, and pending the arrival of the toast advanced to the front of the fire, and taking his coat-tails under his arms, looked at his boots, and ruminated. "I wonder whereabouts in Bath this coach puts up?" said Mr. Pickwick, mildly addressing Mr. Winkle. "Hum--eh--what's that?" said the strange man. "I made an observation to my friend, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick, always ready to enter into conversation. "I wondered at what house the Bath coach put up. Perhaps you can inform me?" "Are you going to Bath?" said the strange man. "I am, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick. "And those other gentlemen?" "They are going also," said Mr. Pickwick. "Not inside--I'll be damned if you're going inside," said the strange man. "Not all of us," said Mr. Pickwick. "No, not all of you," said the strange man emphatically. "I've taken two places. If they try to squeeze six people into an infernal box that only holds four, I'll take a post-chaise and bring an action. I've paid my fare. It won't do; I told the clerk when I took my places that it wouldn't do. I know these things have been done. I know they are done every day; but _I_ never was done, and I never will be. Those who know me best, best know it; crush me!" Here the fierce gentleman rang the bell with great violence, and told the waiter he'd better bring the toast in five seconds, or he'd know the reason why. "My good sir," said Mr. Pickwick, "you will allow me to observe that this is a very unnecessary display of excitement. I have only taken places inside for two." "I am glad to hear it," said the fierce man. "I withdraw my expressions. I tender an apology. There's my card. Give me your acquaintance." "With great pleasure, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick. "We are to be fellow-travellers, and I hope shall find each other's society mutually agreeable." "I hope we shall," said the fierce gentleman. "I know we shall. I like your looks; they please me. Gentlemen, your hands and names. Know me." Of course, an interchange of friendly salutations followed this gracious speech, and the fierce gentleman immediately proceeded to inform the friends, in the same short, abrupt, jerking sentences, that his name was Dowler; that he was going to Bath on pleasure; that he was formerly in the army; that he had now set up in business as a gentleman; that he lived upon the profits; and that the individual for whom the second place was taken, was a personage no less illustrious than Mrs. Dowler, his lady wife. "She's a fine woman," said Mr. Dowler. "I am proud of her. I have reason." "I hope I shall have the pleasure of judging," said Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. "You shall," replied Dowler. "She shall know you. She shall esteem you. I courted her under singular circumstances. I won her through a rash vow. Thus. I saw her; I loved her: I proposed; she refused me.--'You love another?'--'Spare my blushes.'--'I know him.'--'You do.'--'Very good; if he remains here, I'll skin him.'" "Lord bless me!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, involuntarily. "Did you skin the gentleman, sir?" inquired Mr. Winkle, with a very pale face. "I wrote him a note. I said it was a painful thing. And so it was." "Certainly," interposed Mr. Winkle. "I said I had pledged my word as a gentleman to skin him. My character was at stake. I had no alternative. As an officer in His Majesty's service, I was bound to skin him. I regretted the necessity, but it must be done. He was open to conviction. He saw that the rules of the service were imperative. He fled. I married her. Here's the coach. That's her head." As Mr. Dowler concluded, he pointed to a stage which had just driven up, from the open window of which a rather pretty face in a bright blue bonnet was looking among the crowd on the pavement: most probably for the rash man himself. Mr. Dowler paid his bill and hurried out with his travelling-cap, coat, and cloak; and Mr. Pickwick and his friends followed to secure their places. Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass had seated themselves at the back part of the coach; Mr. Winkle had got inside; and Mr. Pickwick was preparing to follow him, when Sam Weller came up to his master, and whispering in his ear, begged to speak to him, with an air of the deepest mystery. "Well, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, "what's the matter now?" "Here's rayther a rum go, sir," replied Sam. "What?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "This here, sir," rejoined Sam. "I'm wery much afeerd, sir, that the properiator o' this here coach is a playin' some imperence vith us." "How is that, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick; "aren't the names down on the way-bill?" "The names is not only down on the vay-bill, sir," replied Sam, "but they've painted vun on 'em up, on the door o' the coach." As Sam spoke, he pointed to that part of the coach door on which the proprietor's name usually appears; and there, sure enough, in gilt letters of a goodly size, was the magic name of +Pickwick+! "Dear me," exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, quite staggered by the coincidence; "what a very extraordinary thing!" "Yes, but that ain't all," said Sam, again directing his master's attention to the coach door; "not content vith writin' up Pickwick, they puts 'Moses' afore it, vich I call addin' insult to injury, as the parrot said ven they not only took him from his native land, but made him talk the English langwidge arterwards." "It's odd enough certainly, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick; "but if we stand talking here, we shall lose our places." "Wot, ain't nothin' to be done in consequence, sir?" exclaimed Sam, perfectly aghast at the coolness with which Mr. Pickwick prepared to ensconce himself inside. "Done!" said Mr. Pickwick. "What should be done?" "Ain't nobody to be whopped for takin' this here liberty, sir?" said Mr. Weller, who had expected that at least he would have been commissioned to challenge the guard and coachman to a pugilistic encounter on the spot. "Certainly not," replied Mr. Pickwick, eagerly; "not on any account. Jump up to your seat directly." "I'm wery much afeerd," muttered Sam to himself, as he turned away, "that somethin' queer's come over the governor, or he'd never ha' stood this so quiet. I hope that 'ere trial hasn't broke his spirit, but it looks bad, wery bad." Mr. Weller shook his head gravely; and it is worthy of remark, as an illustration of the manner in which he took this circumstance to heart, that he did not speak another word until the coach reached the Kensington turnpike, which was so long a time for him to remain taciturn, that the fact may be considered wholly unprecedented. Nothing worthy of special mention occurred during the journey. Mr. Dowler related a variety of anecdotes, all illustrative of his own personal prowess and desperation, and appealed to Mrs. Dowler in corroboration thereof: when Mrs. Dowler invariably brought in, in the form of an appendix, some remarkable fact or circumstance which Mr. Dowler had forgotten, or had perhaps through modesty omitted: for the addenda in every instance went to show that Mr. Dowler was even more wonderful a fellow than he made himself out to be. Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Winkle listened with great admiration, and at intervals conversed with Mrs. Dowler, who was a very agreeable and fascinating person. So what between Mr. Dowler's stories, and Mrs. Dowler's charms, and Mr. Pickwick's good humour, and Mr. Winkle's good listening, the insides contrived to be very companionable all the way. The outsides did as outsides always do. They were very cheerful and talkative at the beginning of every stage, and very dismal and sleepy in the middle, and very bright and wakeful again towards the end. There was one young gentleman in an india-rubber cloak, who smoked cigars all day; and there was another young gentleman in a parody upon a great-coat, who lighted a good many, and feeling obviously unsettled after the second whiff, threw them away when he thought nobody was looking at him. There was a third young man on the box who wished to be learned in cattle, and an old one behind who was familiar with farming. There was a constant succession of Christian names in smock frocks and white coats, who were invited to have a "lift" by the guard, and who knew every horse and hostler on the road and off it: and there was a dinner which would have been cheap at half-a-crown a mouth, if any moderate number of mouths could have eaten it in the time. And at seven o'clock +P.M.+, Mr. Pickwick and his friends, and Mr. Dowler and his wife, respectively retired to their private sitting-rooms at the White Hart Hotel, opposite the Great Pump Room, Bath, where the waiters, from their costume, might be mistaken for Westminster boys, only they destroy the illusion by behaving themselves much better. Breakfast had scarcely been cleared away on the succeeding morning, when a waiter brought in Mr. Dowler's card, with a request to be allowed permission to introduce a friend. Mr. Dowler at once followed up the delivery of the card, by bringing himself and the friend also. The friend was a charming young man of not much more than fifty, dressed in a very bright blue coat with resplendent buttons, black trousers, and the thinnest possible pair of highly-polished boots. A gold eye-glass was suspended from his neck by a short broad black ribbon; a gold snuff-box was lightly clasped in his left hand; gold rings innumerable glittered on his fingers; and a large diamond pin set in gold glistened in his shirt frill. He had a gold watch, and a gold curb chain with large gold seals; and he carried a pliant ebony cane with a heavy gold top. His linen was of the very whitest, finest, and stiffest; his wig of the glossiest, blackest, and curliest. His snuff was prince's mixture; his scent _bouquet du roi_. His features were contracted into a perpetual smile; and his teeth were in such perfect order that it was difficult at a small distance to tell the real from the false. "Mr. Pickwick," said Mr. Dowler; "my friend, Angelo Cyrus Bantam, Esquire, M.C. Bantam; Mr. Pickwick. Know each other." "Welcome to Ba--ath, sir. This is indeed an acquisition. Most welcome to Ba--ath, sir. It is long--very long, Mr. Pickwick, since you drank the waters. It appears an age, Mr. Pickwick. Re--markable!" Such were the expressions with which Angelo Cyrus Bantam, Esquire, M.C., took Mr. Pickwick's hand; retaining it in his, meantime, and shrugging up his shoulders with a constant succession of bows, as if he really could not make up his mind to the trial of letting it go again. "It is a very long time since I drank the waters, certainly," replied Mr. Pickwick; "for to the best of my knowledge, I was never here before." "Never in Ba--ath, Mr. Pickwick!" exclaimed the Grand Master, letting the hand fall in astonishment. "Never in Ba--ath! He! he! Mr. Pickwick, you are a wag. Not bad, not bad. Good, good. He! he! he! Re--markable!" "To my shame, I must say that I am perfectly serious," rejoined Mr. Pickwick. "I really never was here before." "Oh, I see," exclaimed the Grand Master, looking extremely pleased; "yes, yes--good, good--better and better. You are the gentleman of whom we have heard. Yes; we know you, Mr. Pickwick; we know you." "The reports of the trial in those confounded papers," thought Mr. Pickwick. "They have heard all about me." "You are the gentleman residing on Clapham Green," resumed Bantam, "who lost the use of his limbs from imprudently taking cold after port wine; who could not be moved in consequence of acute suffering, and who had the water from the King's Bath bottled at one hundred and three degrees, and sent by waggon to his bed-room in town, where he bathed, sneezed, and same day recovered. Very re--markable!" Mr. Pickwick acknowledged the compliment which the supposition implied, but had the self-denial to repudiate it, notwithstanding; and taking advantage of a moment's silence on the part of the M.C., begged to introduce his friends, Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass. An introduction which overwhelmed the M.C. with delight and honour. "Bantam," said Mr. Dowler, "Mr. Pickwick and his friends are strangers. They must put their names down. Where's the book?" "The register of the distinguished visitors in Ba--ath will be at the Pump Room this morning at two o'clock," replied the M.C. "Will you guide our friends to that splendid building, and enable me to procure their autographs?" "I will," rejoined Dowler. "This is a long call. It's time to go. I shall be here again in an hour. Come." "This is a ball-night," said the M.C., again taking Mr. Pickwick's hand as he rose to go. "The ball-nights in Ba--ath are moments snatched from Paradise; rendered bewitching by music, beauty, elegance, fashion, etiquette, and--and--above all, by the absence of tradespeople, who are quite inconsistent with Paradise; and who have an amalgamation of themselves at the Guildhall every fortnight, which is, to say the least, remarkable. Good-bye, good-bye!" and protesting all the way down-stairs that he was most satisfied, and most delighted, and most overpowered, and most flattered, Angelo Cyrus Bantam, Esquire, M.C., stepped into a very elegant chariot that waited at the door, and rattled off. At the appointed hour, Mr. Pickwick and his friends, escorted by Dowler, repaired to the Assembly Rooms, and wrote their names down in a book. An instance of condescension at which Angelo Bantam was even more overpowered than before. Tickets of admission to that evening's assembly were to have been prepared for the whole party, but as they were not ready, Mr. Pickwick undertook, despite all the protestations to the contrary of Angelo Bantam, to send Sam for them at four o'clock in the afternoon, to the M.C.'s house in Queen Square. Having taken a short walk through the city, and arrived at the unanimous conclusion that Park Street was very much like the perpendicular streets a man sees in a dream, which he cannot get up for the life of him, they returned to the White Hart, and despatched Sam on the errand to which his master had pledged him. Sam Weller put on his hat in a very easy and graceful manner, and thrusting his hands in his waistcoat pockets, walked with great deliberation to Queen Square, whistling, as he went along, several of the most popular airs of the day, as arranged with entirely new movements for that noble instrument the organ, either mouth or barrel. Arriving at the number in Queen Square to which he had been directed, he left off whistling, and gave a cheerful knock, which was instantaneously answered by a powdered-headed footman in gorgeous livery, and of symmetrical stature. "Is this here Mr. Bantam's, old feller?" inquired Sam Weller, nothing abashed by the blaze of splendour which burst upon his sight, in the person of the powdered-headed footman with the gorgeous livery. "Why, young man?" was the haughty inquiry of the powdered-headed footman. "'Cos if it is, jist you step into him with that 'ere card, and say Mr. Veller's a waitin', will you?" said Sam. And saying it, he very coolly walked into the hall, and sat down. The powdered-headed footman slammed the door very hard, and scowled very grandly; but both the slam and the scowl were lost upon Sam, who was regarding a mahogany umbrella-stand with every outward token of critical approval. Apparently, his master's reception of the card had impressed the powdered-headed footman in Sam's favour, for when he came back from delivering it, he smiled in a friendly manner, and said that the answer would be ready directly. "Wery good," said Sam. "Tell the old gen'l'm'n not to put himself in a perspiration. No hurry, six-foot. I've had my dinner." "You dine early, sir," said the powdered-headed footman. "I find I gets on better at supper when I does," replied Sam. "Have you been long in Bath, sir?" inquired the powdered-headed footman. "I have not had the pleasure of hearing of you before." "I haven't created any wery surprisin' sensation here, as yet," rejoined Sam, "for me and the other fashionables only come last night." "Nice place, sir," said the powdered-headed footman. "Seems so," observed Sam. "Pleasant society, sir," remarked the powdered-headed footman. "Very agreeable servants, sir." "I should think they wos," replied Sam. "Affable, unaffected, say-nothing-to-nobody sort o' fellers." "Oh, very much so indeed, sir," said the powdered-headed footman, taking Sam's remark as a high compliment. "Very much so indeed. Do you do anything in this way, sir?" inquired the tall footman, producing a small snuff-box with a fox's head on the top of it. "Not without sneezing," replied Sam. "Why, it _is_ difficult, sir, I confess," said the tall footman. "It may be done by degrees, sir. Coffee is the best practice. I carried coffee, sir, for a long time. It looks very like rappee, sir." Here, a sharp peal at the bell, reduced the powdered-headed footman to the ignominious necessity of putting the fox's head in his pocket, and hastening with a humble countenance to Mr. Bantam's "study." By-the-bye, who ever knew a man who never read, or wrote either, who hadn't got some small back parlour which he _would_ call a study? "There is the answer, sir," said the powdered-headed footman. "I am afraid you'll find it inconveniently large." "Don't mention it," said Sam, taking a letter with a small enclosure. "It's just possible as exhausted nature may manage to surwive it." "I hope we shall meet again, sir," said the powdered-headed footman, rubbing his hands, and following Sam out to the door-step. "You are wery obligin', sir," replied Sam. "Now, don't allow yourself to be fatigued beyond your powers; there's a amiable bein'. Consider what you owe to society, and don't let yourself be injured by too much work. For the sake o' your feller creeturs, keep yourself as quiet as you can; only think what a loss you would be!" With these pathetic words, Sam Weller departed. "A very singular young man that," said the powdered-headed footman, looking after Mr. Weller, with a countenance which clearly showed he could make nothing of him. Sam said nothing at all. He winked, shook his head, smiled, winked again; and with an expression of countenance which seemed to denote that he was greatly amused with something or other, walked merrily away. [Illustration: _"Do you do anything in this way, sir?" inquired the tall footman_] At precisely twenty minutes before eight o'clock that night, Angelo Cyrus Bantam, Esq., the Master of the Ceremonies, emerged from his chariot at the door of the Assembly Rooms in the same wig, the same teeth, the same eye-glass, the same watch and seals, the same rings, the same shirt-pin, and the same cane. The only observable alterations in his appearance were, that he wore a brighter blue coat, with a white silk lining: black tights, black silk stockings, and pumps, and a white waistcoat, and was, if possible, just a thought more scented. Thus attired, the Master of the Ceremonies, in strict discharge of the important duties of his all-important office, planted himself in the rooms to receive the company. Bath being full, the company and the sixpences for tea poured in, in shoals. In the ball-room, the long card-room, the octagonal card-room, the staircases, and the passages, the hum of many voices and the sound of many feet were perfectly bewildering. Dresses rustled, feathers waved, lights shone, and jewels sparkled. There was the music--not of the quadrille band, for it had not yet commenced; but the music of soft tiny footsteps, with now and then a clear merry laugh--low and gentle, but very pleasant to hear in a female voice, whether in Bath or elsewhere. Brilliant eyes, lighted up with pleasurable expectation, gleamed from every side; and look where you would, some exquisite form glided gracefully through the throng, and was no sooner lost, than it was replaced by another as dainty and bewitching. In the tea-room, and hovering round the card-tables, were a vast number of queer old ladies and decrepit old gentlemen, discussing all the small talk and scandal of the day, with a relish and gusto which sufficiently bespoke the intensity of the pleasure they derived from the occupation. Mingled with these groups, were three or four matchmaking mammas, appearing to be wholly absorbed by the conversation in which they were taking part, but failing not from time to time to cast an anxious sidelong glance upon their daughters, who, remembering the maternal injunction to make the best use of their youth, had already commenced incipient flirtations in the mislaying of scarves, putting on gloves, setting down cups, and so forth; slight matters apparently, but which may be turned to surprisingly good account by expert practitioners. Lounging near the doors, and in remote corners, were various knots of silly young men, displaying various varieties of puppyism and stupidity; amusing all sensible people near them with their folly and conceit; and happily thinking themselves the objects of general admiration. A wise and merciful dispensation which no good man will quarrel with. And lastly, seated on some of the back benches, where they had already taken up their positions for the evening, were divers unmarried ladies past their grand climacteric, who, not dancing because there were no partners for them, and not playing cards lest they should be set down as irretrievably single, were in the favourable situation of being able to abuse everybody without reflecting on themselves. In short, they could abuse everybody, because everybody was there. It was a scene of gaiety, glitter, and show; of richly-dressed people, handsome mirrors, chalked floors, girandoles, and wax candles; and in all parts of the scene, gliding from spot to spot in silent softness, bowing obsequiously to this party, nodding familiarly to that, and smiling complacently on all, was the sprucely attired person of Angelo Cyrus Bantam, Esquire, Master of the Ceremonies. "Stop in the tea-room. Take your sixpenn'orth. They lay on hot water, and call it tea. Drink it," said Mr. Dowler, in a loud voice, directing Mr. Pickwick, who advanced at the head of the little party, with Mrs. Dowler on his arm. Into the tea-room Mr. Pickwick turned; and catching sight of him, Mr. Bantam cork-screwed his way through the crowd, and welcomed him with ecstasy. "My dear sir, I am highly honoured. Ba--ath is favoured. Mrs. Dowler, you embellish the rooms. I congratulate you on your feathers. Re--markable!" "Anybody here?" inquired Dowler, suspiciously. "Anybody! The _élite_ of Ba--ath. Mr. Pickwick, do you see the lady in the gauze turban?" "The fat old lady?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, innocently. "Hush, my dear sir--nobody's fat or old in Ba--ath. That's the Dowager Lady Snuphanuph." "Is it indeed?" said Mr. Pickwick. "No less a person, I assure you," said the Master of the Ceremonies. "Hush. Draw a little nearer, Mr. Pickwick. You see the splendidly dressed young man coming this way?" "The one with the long hair, and the particularly small forehead?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "The same. The richest young man in Ba--ath at this moment. Young Lord Mutanhed." "You don't say so?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Yes. You'll hear his voice in a moment, Mr. Pickwick. He'll speak to me. The other gentleman with him, in the red under-waistcoat and dark moustache, is the Honourable Mr. Crushton, his bosom friend. How do you do, my lord?" "Veway hot, Bantam," said his lordship. "It _is_ very warm, my lord," replied the M.C. "Confounded," assented the Honourable Mr. Crushton. "Have you seen his lordship's mail cart, Bantam?" inquired the Honourable Mr. Crushton, after a short pause, during which young Lord Mutanhed had been endeavouring to stare Mr. Pickwick out of countenance, and Mr. Crushton had been reflecting what subject his lordship could talk about best. "Dear me, no," replied the M.C. "A mail cart! What an excellent idea. Re--markable!" "Gwacious heavens!" said his lordship, "I thought evewebody had seen the new mail cart; it's the neatest, pwettiest, gwacefullest thing that ever wan upon wheels. Painted wed, with a cweam piebald." "With a real box for the letters, and all complete," said the Honourable Mr. Crushton. "And a little seat in fwont, with an iwon wail, for the dwiver," added his lordship. "I dwove it over to Bristol the other morning, in a cwimson coat, with two servants widing a quarter of a mile behind; and confound me if the people didn't wush out of their cottages, and awest my pwogwess, to know if I wasn't the post. Glorwious, glorwious!" At this anecdote his lordship laughed very heartily, as did the listeners, of course. Then, drawing his arm through that of the obsequious Mr. Crushton, Lord Mutanhed walked away. "Delightful young man, his lordship," said the Master of the Ceremonies. "So I should think," rejoined Mr. Pickwick, drily. The dancing having commenced, the necessary introductions having been made, and all preliminaries arranged, Angelo Bantam rejoined Mr. Pickwick, and led him into the card-room. Just at the very moment of their entrance, the Dowager Lady Snuphanuph and two other ladies of an ancient and whist-like appearance, were hovering over an unoccupied card-table; and they no sooner set eyes upon Mr. Pickwick under the convoy of Angelo Bantam, than they exchanged glances with each other, seeing that he was precisely the very person they wanted, to make up the rubber. "My dear Bantam," said the Dowager Lady Snuphanuph, coaxingly, "find us some nice creature to make up this table; there's a good soul." Mr. Pickwick happened to be looking another way at the moment, so her ladyship nodded her head towards him, and frowned expressively. "My friend, Mr. Pickwick, my lady, will be most happy, I am sure, re--markably so," said the M.C., taking the hint. "Mr. Pickwick, Lady Snuphanuph--Mrs. Colonel Wugsby--Miss Bolo." Mr. Pickwick bowed to each of the ladies, and, finding escape impossible, cut. Mr. Pickwick and Miss Bolo against Lady Snuphanuph and Mrs. Colonel Wugsby. As the trump card was turned up at the commencement of the second deal, two young ladies hurried into the room, and took their stations on either side of Mrs. Colonel Wugsby's chair, where they waited patiently until the hand was over. "Now, Jane," said Mrs. Colonel Wugsby, turning to one of the girls, "what is it?" "I came to ask, ma, whether I might dance with the youngest Mr. Crawley," whispered the prettier and younger of the two. "Good God, Jane, how can you think of such things?" replied the mamma, indignantly. "Haven't you repeatedly heard that his father has eight hundred a-year, which dies with him? I am ashamed of you. Not on any account." "Ma," whispered the other, who was much older than her sister and very insipid and artificial, "Lord Mutanhed has been introduced to me. I said I _thought_ I wasn't engaged, ma." "You're a sweet pet, my love," replied Mrs. Colonel Wugsby, tapping her daughter's cheek with her fan, "and are always to be trusted. He's immensely rich, my dear. Bless you!" With these words Mrs. Colonel Wugsby kissed her eldest daughter most affectionately, and frowning, in a warning manner, upon the other, sorted her cards. Poor Mr. Pickwick! he had never played with three thorough-paced female card-players before. They were so desperately sharp, that they quite frightened him. If he played a wrong card, Miss Bolo looked a small armoury of daggers; if he stopped to consider which was the right one, Lady Snuphanuph would throw herself back in her chair, and smile with a mingled glance of impatience and pity to Mrs. Colonel Wugsby; at which Mrs. Colonel Wugsby would shrug up her shoulders and cough, as much as to say she wondered whether he ever would begin. Then, at the end of every hand, Miss Bolo would inquire with a dismal countenance and reproachful sigh, why Mr. Pickwick had not returned that diamond, or led the club, or roughed the spade, or finessed the heart, or led through the honour, or brought out the ace, or played up to the king, or some such thing; and in reply to all these grave charges, Mr. Pickwick would be wholly unable to plead any justification whatever, having by this time forgotten all about the game. People came and looked on, too, which made Mr. Pickwick nervous. Besides all this, there was a great deal of distracting conversation near the table, between Angelo Bantam and the two Miss Matinters, who, being single and singular, paid great court to the Master of the Ceremonies, in the hope of getting a stray partner now and then. All these things, combined with the noises and interruptions of constant comings in and goings out, made Mr. Pickwick play rather badly; the cards were against him also; and when they left off at ten minutes past eleven, Miss Bolo rose from the table considerably agitated, and went straight home, in a flood of tears, and a sedan chair. Being joined by his friends, who one and all protested that they had scarcely ever spent a more pleasant evening, Mr. Pickwick accompanied them to the White Hart, and having soothed his feelings with something hot, went to bed, and to sleep, almost simultaneously. CHAPTER VIII [Illustration] _The Chief Features of which, will be found to be an Authentic Version of the Legend of Prince Bladud, and a most extraordinary Calamity that befell Mr. Winkle_ As Mr. Pickwick contemplated a stay of at least two months in Bath, he deemed it advisable to take private lodgings for himself and friends for that period; and as a favourable opportunity offered for their securing, on moderate terms, the upper portion of a house in the Royal Crescent, which was larger than they required, Mr. and Mrs. Dowler offered to relieve them of a bedroom and sitting-room. This proposition was at once accepted, and in three days' time they were all located in their new abode, when Mr. Pickwick began to drink the waters with the utmost assiduity. Mr. Pickwick took them systematically. He drank a quarter of a pint before breakfast, and then walked up a hill; and another quarter of a pint after breakfast, and then walked down a hill; and after every fresh quarter of a pint, Mr. Pickwick declared, in the most solemn and emphatic terms, that he felt a great deal better: whereat his friends were very much delighted, though they had not been previously aware that there was anything the matter with him. The great pump-room is a spacious saloon, ornamented with Corinthian pillars, and a music gallery, and a Tompion clock, and a statue of Nash, and a golden inscription, to which all the water-drinkers should attend, for it appeals to them in the cause of a deserving charity. There is a large bar with a marble vase, out of which the pumper gets the water; and there are a number of yellow-looking tumblers, out of which the company get it; and it is a most edifying and satisfactory sight to behold the perseverance and gravity with which they swallow it. There are baths near at hand, in which a part of the company wash themselves; and a band plays afterwards, to congratulate the remainder on their having done so. There is another pump-room, into which infirm ladies and gentlemen are wheeled, in such an astonishing variety of chairs and chaises, that any adventurous individual who goes in with the regular number of toes, is in imminent danger of coming out without them; and there is a third, into which the quiet people go, for it is less noisy than either. There is an immensity of promenading, on crutches and off, with sticks and without, and a great deal of conversation, and liveliness, and pleasantry. Every morning the regular water-drinkers, Mr. Pickwick among the number, met each other in the pump-room, took their quarter of a pint, and walked constitutionally. At the afternoon's promenade, Lord Mutanhed, and the Honourable Mr. Crushton, the Dowager Lady Snuphanuph, Mrs. Colonel Wugsby, and all the great people, and all the morning water-drinkers, met in grand assemblage. After this, they walked out, or drove out, or were pushed out in bath-chairs, and met one another again. After this, the gentlemen went to the reading-rooms and met divisions of the mass. After this, they went home. If it were theatre night, perhaps they met at the theatre; if it were assembly night, they met at the rooms; and if it were neither, they met the next day. A very pleasant routine, with perhaps a slight tinge of sameness. Mr. Pickwick was sitting up by himself, after a day spent in this manner, making entries in his journal: his friends having retired to bed: when he was roused by a gentle tap at the room door. "Beg your pardon, sir," said Mrs. Craddock, the landlady, peeping in; "but did you want anything more, sir?" "Nothing more, ma'am," replied Mr. Pickwick. "My young girl is gone to bed, sir," said Mrs. Craddock; "and Mr. Dowler is good enough to say that he'll sit up for Mrs. Dowler, as the party isn't expected to be over till late; so I was thinking if you wanted nothing more, Mr. Pickwick, I would go to bed." "By all means, ma'am," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Wish you good night, sir," said Mrs. Craddock. "Good night, ma'am," rejoined Mr. Pickwick. Mrs. Craddock closed the door, and Mr. Pickwick resumed his writing. In half an hour's time the entries were concluded. Mr. Pickwick carefully rubbed the last page on the blotting paper, shut up the book, wiped his pen on the bottom of the inside of his coat-tail, and opened the drawer of the inkstand to put it carefully away. There were a couple of sheets of writing paper, pretty closely written over, in the inkstand drawer, and they were folded so that the title, which was in a good round hand, was fully disclosed to him. Seeing from this, that it was no private document: and as it seemed to relate to Bath, and was very short: Mr. Pickwick unfolded it, lighted his bed-room candle that it might burn up well by the time he finished; and drawing his chair nearer the fire, read as follows: THE TRUE LEGEND OF PRINCE BLADUD "Less than two hundred years agone, on one of the public baths in this city, there appeared an inscription in honour of its mighty founder, the renowned Prince Bladud. That inscription is now erased. "For many hundred years before that time, there had been handed down, from age to age, an old legend, that the illustrious Prince being afflicted with leprosy, on his return from reaping a rich harvest of knowledge in Athens, shunned the court of his royal father, and consorted moodily with husbandmen and pigs. Among the herd (so said the legend) was a pig of grave and solemn countenance, with whom the Prince had a fellow feeling--for he too was wise--a pig of thoughtful and reserved demeanour; an animal superior to his fellows, whose grunt was terrible, and whose bite was sharp. The young prince sighed deeply as he looked upon the countenance of the majestic swine; he thought of his royal father, and his eyes were bedewed with tears. "This sagacious pig was fond of bathing in rich, moist mud. Not in summer, as common pigs do now, to cool themselves, and did even in those distant ages (which is a proof that the light of civilisation had already begun to dawn, though feebly), but in the cold sharp days of winter. His coat was ever so sleek, and his complexion so clear, that the Prince resolved to essay the purifying qualities of the same water that his friend resorted to. He made the trial. Beneath that black mud, bubbled the hot springs of Bath. He washed, and was cured. Hastening to his father's court, he paid his best respects, and returning quickly hither, founded this city, and its famous baths. "He sought the pig with all the ardour of their early friendship--but, alas! the waters had been his death. He had imprudently taken a bath at too high a temperature, and the natural philosopher was no more! He was succeeded by Pliny, who also fell a victim to his thirst for knowledge. "This _was_ the legend. Listen to the true one. "A great many centuries since, there flourished in great state, the famous and renowned Lud Hudibras, King of Britain. He was a mighty monarch. The earth shook when he walked: he was so very stout. His people basked in the light of his countenance: it was so red and glowing. He was, indeed, every inch a king. And there were a good many inches of him too, for although he was not very tall, he was a remarkable size round, and the inches that he wanted in height he made up in circumference. If any degenerate monarch of modern times could be in any way compared with him, I should say the venerable King Cole would be that illustrious potentate. "This good king had a queen, who eighteen years before, had had a son, who was called Bladud. He was sent to a preparatory seminary in his father's dominions until he was ten years old, and was then despatched in charge of a trusty messenger, to a finishing school at Athens; and as there was no extra charge for remaining during the holidays, and no notice required previous to the removal of a pupil, there he remained for eight long years, at the expiration of which time, the king his father sent the Lord Chamberlain over, to settle the bill, and to bring him home: which, the Lord Chamberlain doing, was received with shouts, and pensioned immediately. "When King Lud saw the Prince his son, and found he had grown up such a fine young man, he perceived at once what a grand thing it would be to have him married without delay, so that his children might be the means of perpetuating the glorious race of Lud, down to the very latest ages of the world. With this view, he sent a special embassy, composed of great noblemen who had nothing particular to do, and wanted lucrative employment, to a neighbouring king, and demanded his fair daughter in marriage for his son: stating at the same time that he was anxious to be on the most affectionate terms with his brother and friend, but that if they couldn't agree in arranging this marriage, he should be under the unpleasant necessity of invading his kingdom, and putting his eyes out. To this, the other king (who was the weaker of the two) replied, that he was very much obliged to his friend and brother for all his goodness and magnanimity, and that his daughter was quite ready to be married, whenever Prince Bladud liked to come and fetch her. "This answer no sooner reached Britain, than the whole nation were transported with joy. Nothing was heard, on all sides, but the sounds of feasting and revelry,--except the chinking of money as it was paid in by the people to the collector of the Royal Treasures, to defray the expenses of the happy ceremony. It was upon this occasion that King Lud, seated on the top of his throne in full council, rose, in the exuberance of his feelings, and commanded the Lord Chief Justice to order in the richest wines and the court minstrels: an act of graciousness which has been, through the ignorance of traditionary historians, attributed to King Cole, in those celebrated lines in which his majesty is represented as-- 'Calling for his pipe, and calling for his pot, And calling for his fiddlers three.' Which is an obvious injustice to the memory of King Lud, and a dishonest exaltation of the virtues of King Cole. "But in the midst of all this festivity and rejoicing, there was one individual present who tasted not when the sparkling wines were poured forth, and who danced not when the minstrels played. This was no other than Prince Bladud himself, in honour of whose happiness a whole people were at that very moment straining alike their throats and purse-strings. The truth was, that the Prince, forgetting the undoubted right of the minister for foreign affairs to fall in love on his behalf, had, contrary to every precedent of policy and diplomacy, already fallen in love on his own account, and privately contracted himself unto the fair daughter of a noble Athenian. "Here we have a striking example of one of the manifold advantages of civilisation and refinement. If the Prince had lived in later days, he might at once have married the object of his father's choice, and then set himself seriously to work, to relieve himself of the burden which rested heavily upon him. He might have endeavoured to break her heart by a systematic course of insult and neglect; or, if the spirit of her sex, and a proud consciousness of her many wrongs, had upheld her under this ill treatment, he might have sought to take her life, and so get rid of her effectually. But neither mode of relief suggested itself to Prince Bladud; so he solicited a private audience, and told his father. "It is an old prerogative of kings to govern everything but their passions. King Lud flew into a frightful rage, tossed his crown up to the ceiling, and caught it again--for in those days kings kept their crowns on their heads, and not in the Tower--stamped the ground, rapped his forehead, wondered why his own flesh and blood rebelled against him, and, finally, calling in his guards, ordered the Prince away to instant confinement in a lofty turret; a course of treatment which the kings of old very generally pursued towards their sons, when their matrimonial inclinations did not happen to point to the same quarter as their own. "When Prince Bladud had been shut up in the lofty turret for the greater part of a year, with no better prospect before his bodily eyes than a stone wall, or before his mental vision than prolonged imprisonment, he naturally began to ruminate on a plan of escape, which, after months of preparation, he managed to accomplish; considerately leaving his dinner knife in the heart of his gaoler, lest the poor fellow (who had a family) should be considered privy to his flight, and punished accordingly by the infuriated king. "The monarch was frantic at the loss of his son. He knew not on whom to vent his grief and wrath, until fortunately bethinking himself of the Lord Chamberlain who had brought him home, he struck off his pension and his head together. "Meanwhile the young Prince, effectually disguised, wandered on foot through his father's dominions, cheered and supported in all his hardships by sweet thoughts of the Athenian maid, who was the innocent cause of his weary trials. One day he stopped to rest in a country village; and seeing that there were gay dances going forward on the green, and gay faces passing to and fro, ventured to inquire of a reveller who stood near him, the reason for this rejoicing. "'Know you not, O stranger,' was the reply, 'of the recent proclamation of our gracious king?' "'Proclamation! No. What proclamation?' rejoined the Prince--for he had travelled along the bye and little-frequented ways and knew nothing of what had passed upon the public roads, such as they were. "'Why,' replied the peasant, 'the foreign lady that our Prince wished to wed, is married to a foreign noble of her own country; and the king proclaims the fact, and a great public festival besides; for now, of course, Prince Bladud will come back and marry the lady his father chose, who they say is as beautiful as the noonday sun. Your health, sir. God save the king!' "The Prince remained to hear no more. He fled from the spot, and plunged into the thickest recesses of a neighbouring wood. On, on, he wandered night and day: beneath the blazing sun, and the cold pale moon: through the dry heat of noon, and the damp cold of night: in the grey light of morn, and the red glare of eve. So heedless was he of time or object, that being bound for Athens, he wandered as far out of his way as Bath. "There was no city where Bath stands, then. There was no vestige of human habitation, or sign of man's resort, to bear the name; but there was the same noble country, the same broad expanse of hill and dale, the same beautiful channel stealing on, far away: the same lofty mountains which, like the troubles of life, viewed at a distance, and partially obscured by the bright mist of its morning, lose their ruggedness and asperity, and seem all ease and softness. Moved by the gentle beauty of the scene, the Prince sank upon the green turf, and bathed his swollen feet in his tears. "'Oh!' said the unhappy Bladud, clasping his hands, and mournfully raising his eyes towards the sky, 'would that my wanderings might end here! Would that these grateful tears, with which I now mourn hope misplaced, and love despised, might flow in peace for ever!' "The wish was heard. It was in the time of the heathen deities, who used occasionally to take people at their words, with a promptness, in some cases, extremely awkward. The ground opened beneath the Prince's feet; he sunk into the chasm; and instantaneously it closed upon his head for ever, save where his hot tears welled up through the earth, and where they have continued to gush forth ever since. "It is observable that, to this day, large numbers of elderly ladies and gentlemen who have been disappointed in procuring partners, and almost as many young ones who are anxious to obtain them, repair, annually, to Bath to drink the waters, from which they derive much strength and comfort. This is most complimentary to the virtue of Prince Bladud's tears, and strongly corroborative of the veracity of this legend." * * * * * Mr. Pickwick yawned several times, when he had arrived at the end of this little manuscript: carefully refolded, and replaced it in the inkstand drawer: and then, with a countenance expressive of the utmost weariness, lighted his chamber candle, and went upstairs to bed. He stopped at Mr. Dowler's door, according to custom, and knocked to say good night. "Ah!" said Dowler, "going to bed? I wish I was. Dismal night. Windy; isn't it?" "Very," said Mr. Pickwick. "Good night." "Good night." Mr. Pickwick went to his bed-chamber, and Mr. Dowler resumed his seat before the fire, in fulfilment of his rash promise to sit up till his wife came home. There are few things more worrying than sitting up for somebody, especially if that somebody be at a party. You cannot help thinking how quickly the time passes with them, which drags so heavily with you; and the more you think of this, the more your hopes of their speedy arrival decline. Clocks tick so loud, too, when you are sitting up alone, and you seem as if you had an under garment of cobwebs on. First, something tickles your right knee, and then the same sensation irritates your left. You have no sooner changed your position than it comes again in the arms; when you have fidgeted your limbs into all sorts of odd shapes, you have a sudden relapse in the nose, which you rub as if to rub it off--as there is no doubt you would, if you could. Eyes, too, are mere personal inconveniences; and the wick of one candle gets an inch and a half long, while you are snuffing the other. These, and various other little nervous annoyances, render sitting up for a length of time after everybody else has gone to bed, anything but a cheerful amusement. This was just Mr. Dowler's opinion as he sat before the fire, and felt honestly indignant with all the inhuman people at the party who were keeping him up. He was not put into better humour either by the reflection that he had taken it into his head, early in the evening, to think that he had got an ache there, and so stopped at home. At length, after several droppings asleep, and fallings forward towards the bars, and catchings backward soon enough to prevent being branded in the face, Mr. Dowler made up his mind that he would throw himself on the bed in the back room and _think_--not sleep, of course. "I'm a heavy sleeper," said Mr. Dowler, as he flung himself on the bed. "I must keep awake. I suppose I shall hear a knock here. Yes. I thought so. I can hear the watchman. There he goes. Fainter now, though. A little fainter. He's turning the corner. Ah!" When Mr. Dowler arrived at this point, _he_ turned the corner at which he had been long hesitating, and fell fast asleep. Just as the clock struck three, there was blown into the crescent a sedan-chair with Mrs. Dowler inside, borne by one short fat chairman, and one long thin one, who had much ado to keep their bodies perpendicular: to say nothing of the chair. But on that high ground, and in the crescent, which the wind swept round and round, as if it were going to tear the paving stones up, its fury was tremendous. They were very glad to set the chair down, and give a good round loud double-knock at the street door. They waited some time, but nobody came. "Servants is in the arms o' Porpus, I think," said the short chairman, warming his hands at the attendant link-boy's torch. "I wish he'd give 'em a squeeze and wake 'em," observed the long one. "Knock again, will you, if you please," cried Mrs. Dowler from the chair. "Knock two or three times, if you please." The short man was quite willing to get the job over, as soon as possible; so he stood on the step, and gave four or five most startling double knocks, of eight or ten knocks a piece: while the long man went into the road, and looked up at the windows for a light. Nobody came. It was all as silent and dark as ever. "Dear me!" said Mrs. Dowler. "You must knock again, if you please." "Theer ain't a bell, is there, ma'am?" said the short chairman. "Yes, there is," interposed the link-boy, "I've been a ringing at it ever so long." "It's only a handle," said Mrs. Dowler, "the wire's broken." "I wish the servants' heads wos," growled the long man. "I must trouble you to knock again, if you please," said Mrs. Dowler with the utmost politeness. The short man did knock again several times, without producing the smallest effect. The tall man, growing very impatient, then relieved him, and kept on perpetually knocking double knocks of two loud knocks each, like an insane postman. At length Mr. Winkle began to dream that he was at a club, and that the members being very refractory, the chairman was obliged to hammer the table a good deal to preserve order; then he had a confused notion of an auction room where there were no bidders, and the auctioneer was buying everything in; and ultimately he began to think it just within the bounds of possibility that somebody might be knocking at the street door. To make quite certain, however, he remained quiet in bed for ten minutes or so, and listened; and when he had counted two or three and thirty knocks, he felt quite satisfied, and gave himself a great deal of credit for being so wakeful. "Rap rap--rap rap--rap rap--ra, ra, ra, ra, ra, rap!" went the knocker. Mr. Winkle jumped out of bed, wondering very much what could possibly be the matter, and hastily putting on his stockings and slippers, folded his dressing-gown round him, lighted a flat candle from the rushlight that was burning in the fireplace, and hurried downstairs. "Here's somebody comin' at last, ma'am," said the short chairman. "I wish I wos behind him vith a bradawl," muttered the long one. "Who's there?" cried Mr. Winkle, undoing the chain. "Don't stop to ask questions, cast-iron head," replied the long man, with great disgust, taking it for granted that the inquirer was a footman; "but open the door." "Come, look sharp, timber eyelids," added the other encouragingly. Mr. Winkle, being half asleep, obeyed the command mechanically, opened the door a little, and peeped out. The first thing he saw, was the red glare of the link-boy's torch. Startled by the sudden fear that the house might be on fire, he hastily threw the door wide open, and holding the candle above his head, stared eagerly before him, not quite certain whether what he saw was a sedan-chair or a fire-engine. At this instant there came a violent gust of wind; the light was blown out; Mr. Winkle felt himself irresistibly impelled on to the steps; and the door blew to, with a loud crash. "Well, young man, now you _have_ done it!" said the short chairman. Mr. Winkle, catching sight of a lady's face at the window of the sedan, turned hastily round, plied the knocker with all his might and main, and called frantically upon the chairman to take the chair away again. "Take it away, take it away!" cried Mr. Winkle. "Here's somebody coming out of another house; put me into the chair. Hide me! Do something with me!" All this time he was shivering with cold; and every time he raised his hand to the knocker, the wind took the dressing-gown in a most unpleasant manner. "The people are coming down the crescent now. There are ladies with 'em; cover me up with something. Stand before me!" roared Mr. Winkle. But the chairmen were too much exhausted with laughing to afford him the slightest assistance, and the ladies were every moment approaching nearer and nearer. Mr. Winkle gave a last hopeless knock; the ladies were only a few doors off. He threw away the extinguished candle, which, all this time, he had held above his head, and fairly bolted into the sedan-chair where Mrs. Dowler was. Now, Mrs. Craddock had heard the knocking and the voices at last; and only waiting to put something smarter on her head than her night-cap, ran down into the front drawing-room to make sure that it was the right party. Throwing up the window sash as Mr. Winkle was rushing into the chair, she no sooner caught sight of what was going forward below, than she raised a vehement and dismal shriek, and implored Mr. Dowler to get up directly, for his wife was running away with another gentleman. Upon this, Mr. Dowler bounced off the bed as abruptly as an india-rubber ball, and rushing into the front room, arrived at one window just as Mr. Pickwick threw up the other; when the first object that met the gaze of both, was Mr. Winkle bolting into the sedan-chair. "Watchman," shouted Dowler furiously; "stop him--hold him--keep him tight--shut him in, till I come down. I'll cut his throat--give me a knife--from ear to ear, Mrs. Craddock--I will!" And breaking from the shrieking landlady, and from Mr. Pickwick, the indignant husband seized a small supper-knife, and tore into the street. But Mr. Winkle didn't wait for him. He no sooner heard the horrible threat of the valorous Dowler, than he bounced out of the sedan, quite as quickly as he had bounced in, and throwing off his slippers into the road, took to his heels and tore round the crescent, hotly pursued by Dowler and the watchman. He kept ahead; the door was open as he came round the second time; he rushed in, slammed it in Dowler's face, mounted to his bed-room, locked the door, piled a washhand-stand, chest of drawers, and table against it, and packed up a few necessaries ready for flight with the first ray of morning. [Illustration: _Mr. Winkle took to his heels and tore round the Crescent._] Dowler came up to the outside of the door; avowed, through the keyhole, his steadfast determination of cutting Mr. Winkle's throat next day; and, after a great confusion of voices in the drawing-room, amidst which that of Mr. Pickwick was distinctly heard endeavouring to make peace, the inmates dispersed to their several bed-chambers, and all was quite once more. It is not unlikely that the inquiry may be made, where Mr. Weller was, all this time? We will state where he was, in the next chapter. CHAPTER IX [Illustration] _Honourably accounts for Mr. Weller's Absence, by describing a Soiree to which he was invited and went; also relates how he was entrusted by Mr. Pickwick with a Private Mission of Delicacy and Importance_ "Mr. Weller," said Mrs. Craddock, upon the morning of this very eventful day, "here's a letter for you." "Wery odd that," said Sam, "I'm afeerd there must be somethin' the matter, for I don't recollect any gen'l'm'n in my circle of acquaintance as is capable o' writin' one." "Perhaps something uncommon has taken place," observed Mrs. Craddock. "It must be somethin' wery uncommon indeed, as could produce a letter out o' any friend o' mine," replied Sam, shaking his head dubiously; "nothin' less than a nat'ral conwulsion, as the young gen'l'm'n observed ven he was took with fits. It can't be from the gov'ner," said Sam, looking at the direction. "He always prints, I know, 'cos he learnt writin' from the large bills in the bookin' offices. It's a wery strange thing now, where this here letter can ha' come from." As Sam said this, he did what a great many people do when they are uncertain about the writer of a note,--looked at the seal, and then at the front, and then at the back, and then at the sides, and then at the superscription; and, as a last resource, thought perhaps he might as well look at the inside, and try to find out from that. "It's wrote on gilt-edged paper," said Sam, as he unfolded it, "and sealed in bronze vax with the top of a door-key. Now for it." And, with a very grave face, Mr. Weller slowly read as follows: "A select company of the Bath footmen presents their compliments to Mr. Weller, and requests the pleasure of his company this evening, to a friendly swarry, consisting of a boiled leg of mutton with the usual trimmings. The swarry to be on table at half-past nine o'clock punctually." This was enclosed in another note, which ran thus-- "Mr. John Smauker, the gentleman who had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Weller at the house of their mutual acquaintance, Mr. Bantam, a few days since, begs to inclose Mr. Weller the herewith invitation. If Mr. Weller will call on Mr. John Smauker at nine o'clock, Mr. John Smauker will have the pleasure of introducing Mr. Weller. (Signed) +John Smauker+." The envelope was directed to blank Weller, Esq., at Mr. Pickwick's; and in a parenthesis, in the left-hand corner, were the words "airy bell," as an instruction to the bearer. "Vell," said Sam, "this is comin' it rayther powerful, this is. I never heerd a biled leg of mutton called a swarry afore. I wonder wot they'd call a roast one?" However, without waiting to debate the point, Sam at once betook himself into the presence of Mr. Pickwick, and requested leave of absence for that evening, which was readily granted. With this permission, and the street-door key, Sam Weller issued forth a little before the appointed time, and strolled leisurely towards Queen Square, which he no sooner gained than he had the satisfaction of beholding Mr. John Smauker leaning his powdered head against a lamp-post at a short distance off, smoking a cigar through an amber tube. "How do you do, Mr. Weller?" said Mr. John Smauker, raising his hat gracefully with one hand, while he gently waved the other in a condescending manner. "How do you do, sir?" "Why, reasonably conwalessent," replied Sam. "How do _you_ find yourself, my dear feller?" "Only so so," said Mr. John Smauker. "Ah, you've been a workin' too hard," observed Sam. "I was fearful you would; it won't do, you know; you must not give way to that 'ere uncompromisin' spirit o' your'n." "It's not so much that, Mr. Weller," replied Mr. John Smauker, "as bad wine; I'm afraid I've been dissipating." "Oh! that's it, is it?" said Sam; "that's a wery bad complaint, that." "And yet the temptation, you see, Mr. Weller," observed Mr. John Smauker. "Ah, to be sure," said Sam. "Plunged into the very vortex of society, you know, Mr. Weller," said Mr. John Smauker with a sigh. "Dreadful indeed!" rejoined Sam. "But it's always the way," said Mr. John Smauker; "if your destiny leads you into public life, and public station, you must expect to be subjected to temptations which other people is free from, Mr. Weller." "Precisely what my uncle said, ven _he_ vent into the public line," remarked Sam, "and wery right the old gen'l'm'n wos, for he drank hisself to death in somethin' less than a quarter." Mr. John Smauker looked deeply indignant at any parallel being drawn between himself and the deceased gentleman in question; but as Sam's face was in the most immovable state of calmness, he thought better of it, and looked affable again. "Perhaps we had better be walking," said Mr. Smauker, consulting a copper timepiece which dwelt at the bottom of a deep watch-pocket, and was raised to the surface by means of a black string, with a copper key at the other end. "Perhaps we had," replied Sam, "or they'll overdo the swarry, and that'll spile it." "Have you drank the waters, Mr. Weller?" inquired his companion, as they walked towards High Street. "Once," replied Sam. "What did you think of 'em, sir?" "I thought they wos particklery unpleasant," replied Sam. "Ah," said Mr. John Smauker, "you disliked the killibeate taste, perhaps?" "I don't know much about that 'ere," said Sam. "I thought they'd a wery strong flavour o' warm flat-irons." "That _is_ the killibeate, Mr. Weller," observed Mr. John Smauker, contemptuously. "Well, if it is, it's a wery inexpressive word, that's all," said Sam. "It may be, but I ain't much in the chimical line myself, so I can't say." And here, to the great horror of Mr. John Smauker, Sam Weller began to whistle. [Illustration: _And here, to the great horror of Mr. John Smauker, Sam Weller began to whistle._] "I beg your pardon, Mr. Weller," said Mr. John Smauker, agonised at the exceedingly ungenteel sound, "will you take my arm?" "Thankee, you're wery good, but I won't deprive you of it," replied Sam. "I've rayther a way o' puttin' my hands in my pockets, if it's all the same to you." As Sam said this, he suited the action to the word, and whistled far louder than before. "This way," said his new friend, apparently much relieved as they turned down a by-street; "we shall soon be there." "Shall we?" said Sam, quite unmoved by the announcement of his close vicinity to the select footmen of Bath. "Yes," said Mr. John Smauker. "Don't be alarmed, Mr. Weller." "Oh no," said Sam. "You'll see very handsome uniforms, Mr. Weller," continued Mr. John Smauker; "and perhaps you'll find some of the gentlemen rather high at first, you know, but they'll soon come round." "That's wery kind on 'em," replied Sam. "And you know," resumed Mr. John Smauker, with an air of sublime protection; "you know, as you're a stranger, perhaps they'll be rather hard upon you at first." "They won't be wery cruel, though, will they?" inquired Sam. "No, no," replied Mr. John Smauker, pulling forth the fox's head and taking a gentlemanly pinch. "There are some funny dogs among us, and they will have their joke, you know: but you mustn't mind 'em, you mustn't mind 'em." "I'll try and bear up agin such a reg'lar knock-down o' talent," replied Sam. "That's right," said Mr. John Smauker, putting up the fox's head and elevating his own; "I'll stand by you." By this time they had reached a small greengrocer's shop, which Mr. John Smauker entered, followed by Sam: who, the moment he got behind him, relapsed into a series of the very broadest and most unmitigated grins, and manifested other demonstrations of being in a highly enviable state of inward merriment. Crossing the greengrocer's shop, and putting their hats on the stairs in the little passage behind it, they walked into a small parlour; and here the full splendour of the scene burst upon Mr. Weller's view. A couple of tables were put together in the middle of the parlour, covered with three or four cloths of different ages and dates of washing, arranged to look as much like one as the circumstances of the case would allow. Upon these were laid knives and forks for six or eight people. Some of the knife handles were green, others red, and a few yellow; and as all the forks were black, the combination of colours was exceedingly striking. Plates for a corresponding number of guests were warming behind the fender; and the guests themselves were warming before it: the chief and most important of whom appeared to be a stoutish gentleman in a bright crimson coat with long tails, vividly red breeches, and a cocked hat, who was standing with his back to the fire and had apparently just entered, for besides retaining his cocked hat on his head, he carried in his hand a high stick, such as gentlemen of his profession usually elevate in a sloping position over the roofs of carriages. "Smauker, my lad, your fin," said the gentleman with the cocked hat. Mr. Smauker dovetailed the top joint of his right-hand little finger into that of the gentleman with the cocked hat and said he was charmed to see him looking so well. "Well, they tell me I am looking pretty blooming," said the man with the cocked hat, "and it's a wonder, too. I've been following our old woman about, two hours a day, for the last fortnight; and if a constant contemplation of the manner in which she hooks-and-eyes that infernal old lavender-coloured gown of hers behind, isn't enough to throw anybody into a low state of despondency for life, stop my quarter's salary." At this, the assembled selections laughed very heartily; and one gentleman in a yellow waistcoat, with a coach-trimming border, whispered a neighbour in green-foil smalls, that Tuckle was in spirits to-night. "By-the-bye," said Mr. Tuckle, "Smauker, my boy, you--" The remainder of the sentence was forwarded into Mr. John Smauker's ear, by whisper. "Oh, dear me, I quite forgot," said Mr. John Smauker. "Gentlemen, my friend Mr. Weller." "Sorry to keep the fire off you, Weller," said Mr. Tuckle, with a familiar nod. "Hope you're not cold, Weller?" "Not by no means, Blazes," replied Sam. "It 'ud be a wery chilly subject as felt cold ven you stood opposit. You'd save coals if they put you behind the fender in the waitin' room at a public office, you would." As this retort appeared to convey rather a personal allusion to Mr. Tuckle's crimson livery, that gentleman looked majestic for a few seconds, but gradually edging away from the fire, broke into a forced smile, and said it wasn't bad. "Wery much obliged for your good opinion, sir," replied Sam. "We shall get on by degrees, I des-say. We'll try a better one, by-and-by." At this point the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a gentleman in orange-coloured plush, accompanied by another selection in purple cloth, with a great extent of stocking. The new comers having been welcomed by the old ones, Mr. Tuckle put the question that supper be ordered in, which was carried unanimously. The greengrocer and his wife then arranged upon the table a boiled leg of mutton, hot, with caper sauce, turnips, and potatoes. Mr. Tuckle took the chair, and was supported at the other end of the board by the gentleman in orange plush. The greengrocer put on a pair of wash-leather gloves to hand the plates with, and stationed himself behind Mr. Tuckle's chair. "Harris," said Mr. Tuckle in a commanding tone. "Sir?" said the greengrocer. "Have you got your gloves on?" "Yes, sir." "Then take the kiver off." "Yes, sir." The greengrocer did as he was told, with a show of great humility, and obsequiously handed Mr. Tuckle the carving knife; in doing which, he accidentally gaped. "What do you mean by that, sir?" said Mr. Tuckle, with great asperity. "I beg your pardon, sir," replied the crestfallen greengrocer, "I din't mean to do it, sir; I was up very late last night, sir." "I tell you what my opinion of you is, Harris," said Mr. Tuckle with a most impressive air, "you're a wulgar beast." "I hope, gentlemen," said Harris, "that you won't be severe with me, gentlemen. I'm very much obliged to you indeed, gentlemen, for your patronage, and also for your recommendations, gentlemen, whenever additional assistance in waiting is required. I hope, gentlemen, I give satisfaction." "No, you don't, sir," said Mr. Tuckle. "Very far from it, sir." "We consider you an inattentive reskel," said the gentleman in the orange plush. "And a low thief," added the gentleman in the green-foil smalls. "And an unreclaimable blaygaird," added the gentleman in purple. The poor greengrocer bowed very humbly while these little epithets were bestowed upon him, in the true spirit of the very smallest tyranny; and when everybody had said something to show his superiority, Mr. Tuckle proceeded to carve the leg of mutton, and to help the company. This important business of the evening had hardly commenced, when the door was thrown briskly open, and another gentleman in a light blue suit, and leaden buttons, made his appearance. "Against the rules," said Mr. Tuckle. "Too late, too late." "No, no; positively I couldn't help it," said the gentleman in blue. "I appeal to the company. An affair of gallantry now, an appointment at the theayter." "Oh, that indeed," said the gentleman in the orange plush. "Yes; raly now, honour bright," said the man in blue. "I made a promese to fetch our youngest daughter at half-past ten, and she is such an uncauminly fine gal, that I raly hadn't the art to disappoint her. No offence to the present company, sir, but a petticut, sir, a petticut, sir, is irrevokeable!" "I begin to suspect there's something in that quarter," said Tuckle, as the new-comer took his seat next Sam. "I've remarked once or twice, that she leans very heavy on your shoulder, when she gets in and out of the carriage." "Oh raly, raly, Tuckle, you shouldn't," said the man in blue. "It's not fair. I may have said to one or two friends that she was a very divine creechure, and had refused one or two offers without any hobvus cause, but--no, no, no, indeed, Tuckle--before strangers too--it's not right--you shouldn't. Delicacy, my dear friend, delicacy!" And the man in blue, pulling up his neckerchief, and adjusting his coat cuffs, nodded and frowned as if there were more behind, which he could say if he liked, but was bound in honour to suppress. The man in blue being a light-haired, stiff-necked, free and easy sort of footman, with a swaggering air and pert face, had attracted Mr. Weller's especial attention at first, but when he began to come out in this way, Sam felt more than ever disposed to cultivate his acquaintance; so he launched himself into the conversation at once, with characteristic independence. "Your health, sir," said Sam. "I like you conwersation much. I think it's wery pretty." At this the man in blue smiled, as if it were a compliment he was well used to; but looked approvingly on Sam at the same time, and said he hoped he should be better acquainted with him, for without any flattery at all, he seemed to have the makings of a very nice fellow about him, and to be just the man after his own heart. "You're wery good, sir," said Sam. "What a lucky feller you are!" "How do you mean?" inquired the gentleman in blue. "That 'ere young lady," replied Sam. "She knows wot's wot, she does. Ah! I see." Mr. Weller closed one eye, and shook his head from side to side, in a manner which was highly gratifying to the personal vanity of the gentleman in blue. "I'm afraid you're a cunning fellow, Mr. Weller," said that individual. "No, no," said Sam. "I leave all that 'ere to you. It's a great deal more in your way than mine, as the gen'l'm'n on the right side o' the garden vall said to the man on the wrong 'un, ven the mad bull wos a comin' up the lane." "Well, well, Mr. Weller," said the gentleman in blue, "I think she has remarked my air and manner, Mr. Weller." "I should think she couldn't wery vell be off o' that," said Sam. "Have you any little thing of that kind in hand, sir?" inquired the favoured gentleman in blue, drawing a toothpick from his waistcoat pocket. "Not exactly," said Sam. "There's no daughters at my place, else o' course I should ha' made up to vun on 'em. As it is, I don't think I can do anything under a female markis. I might take up vith a young 'ooman o' large property, as hadn't a title, if she made wery fierce love to me. Not else." "Of course not, Mr. Weller," said the gentleman in blue, "one can't be troubled, you know; and _we_ know, Mr. Weller--we, who are men of the world--that a good uniform must work its way with the women, sooner or later. In fact, that's the only thing, between you and me, that makes the service worth entering into." "Just so," said Sam. "That's it, o' course." When this confidential dialogue had gone thus far, glasses were placed round, and every gentleman ordered what he liked best, before the public-house shut up. The gentleman in blue, and the man in orange, who were the chief exquisites of the party, ordered "cold scrub and water," but with the others, gin and water, sweet, appeared to be the favourite beverage. Sam called the greengrocer a "desp'rate willin," and ordered a large bowl of punch: two circumstances which seemed to raise him very much in the opinion of the selections. "Gentlemen," said the man in blue, with an air of the most consummate dandyism, "I'll give you 'The ladies'; come." "Hear, hear!" said Sam, "The young mississes." Here there was a loud cry of "Order," and Mr. John Smauker, as the gentleman who had introduced Mr. Weller into that company, begged to inform him that the word he had just made use of was unparliamentary. "Which word was that 'ere, sir?" inquired Sam. "Missesses, sir," replied Mr. John Smauker, with an alarming frown. "We don't recognise such distinctions here." "Oh, wery good," said Sam; "then I'll amend the observation, and call 'em the dear creeturs, if Blazes vill allow me." Some doubt appeared to exist in the mind of the gentleman in the green-foil smalls, whether the chairman could be legally appealed to, as "Blazes," but as the company seemed more disposed to stand upon their own rights than his, the question was not raised. The man with the cocked hat breathed short, and looked long at Sam, but apparently thought it as well to say nothing, in case he should get the worst of it. After a short silence, a gentleman in an embroidered coat reaching down to his heels, and a waistcoat of the same which kept one half of his legs warm, stirred his gin and water with great energy, and putting himself upon his feet, all at once, by a violent effort, said he was desirous of offering a few remarks to the company: whereupon the person in the cocked hat had no doubt that the company would be very happy to hear any remarks that the man in the long coat might wish to offer. "I feel a great delicacy, gentlemen, in coming for'ard," said the man in the long coat, "having the misforchune to be a coachman, and being admitted as a honorary member of these agreeable swarrys, but I do feel myself bound, gentlemen--drove into a corner, if I may use the expression--to make known an afflicting circumstance which has come to my knowledge; which has happened I may say within the soap of my everyday contemplation. Gentlemen, our friend Mr. Whiffers (everybody looked at the individual in orange), our friend Mr. Whiffers has resigned." Universal astonishment fell upon the hearers. Each gentleman looked in his neighbour's face, and then transferred his glance to the upstanding coachman. "You may well be sapparised, gentlemen," said the coachman. "I will not wenchure to state the reasons of this irrepairabel loss to the service, but I will beg Mr. Whiffers to state them himself, for the improvement and imitation of his admiring friends." The suggestion being loudly approved of, Mr. Whiffers explained. He said he certainly could have wished to have continued to hold the appointment he had just resigned. The uniform was extremely rich and expensive, the females of the family was most agreeable, and the duties of the situation was not, he was bound to say, too heavy: the principal service that was required of him, being, that he should look out of the hall window as much as possible, in company with another gentleman, who had also resigned. He could have wished to have spared that company the painful and disgusting detail on which he was about to enter, but as the explanation had been demanded of him, he had no alternative but to state, boldly and distinctly, that he had been required to eat cold meat. It is impossible to conceive the disgust which this avowal awakened in the bosoms of the hearers. Loud cries of "Shame!" mingled with groans and hisses, prevailed for a quarter of an hour. Mr. Whiffers then added that he feared a portion of this outrage might be traced to his own forbearing and accommodating disposition. He had a distinct recollection of having once consented to eat salt butter, and he had, moreover, on an occasion of sudden sickness in the house, so far forgotten himself as to carry a coal-scuttle up to the second floor. He trusted he had not lowered himself in the good opinion of his friends by this frank confession of his faults; and he hoped the promptness with which he had resented the last unmanly outrage on his feelings, to which he had referred, would reinstate him in their good opinion, if he had. Mr. Whiffers' address was responded to with a shout of admiration, and the health of the interesting martyr was drunk in a most enthusiastic manner; for this, the martyr returned thanks, and proposed their visitor, Mr. Weller; a gentleman whom he had not the pleasure of an intimate acquaintance with, but who was the friend of Mr. John Smauker, which was a sufficient letter of recommendation to any society of gentlemen whatever, or wherever. On this account, he should have been disposed to have given Mr. Weller's health with all the honours, if his friends had been drinking wine; but as they were taking spirits by way of a change, and as it might be inconvenient to empty a tumbler at every toast, he should propose that the honours be understood. At the conclusion of this speech, everybody took a sip in honour of Sam; and Sam having ladled out, and drunk, two full glasses of punch in honour of himself, returned thanks in a neat speech. "Wery much obliged to you, old fellers," said Sam, ladling away at the punch in the most unembarrassed manner possible, "for this here compliment; wich, comin' from sich a quarter, is wery overvelmin'. I've heerd a good deal on you as a body, but I will say, that I never thought you was sich uncommon nice men as I find you air. I only hope you'll take care o' yourselves, and not compromise nothin' o' your dignity, which is a wery charmin' thing to see, when one's out a walkin', and has always made me wery happy to look at, ever since I was a boy about half as high as the brass-headed stick o' my wery respectable friend, Blazes, there. As to the wictim of oppression in the suit o' brimstone, all I can say of him, is, that I hope he'll get jist as good a berth as he deserves: in vich case it's wery little cold swarry as ever he'll be troubled with agin." Here Sam sat down with a pleasant smile, and his speech having been vociferously applauded, the company broke up. "Vy, you don't mean to say you're a goin', old feller?" said Sam Weller to his friend Mr. John Smauker. "I must indeed," said Mr. Smauker; "I promised Bantam." "Oh, wery well," said Sam; "that's another thing. P'raps _he'd_ resign if you disappointed him. You ain't a goin', Blazes?" "Yes, I am," said the man with the cocked hat. "Wot, and leave three quarters of a bowl of punch behind you!" said Sam; "nonsense, set down agin." Mr. Tuckle was not proof against this invitation. He laid aside the cocked hat and stick which he had just taken up, and said he would have one glass, for good fellowship's sake. As the gentleman in blue went home the same way as Mr. Tuckle, he was prevailed upon to stop too. When the punch was about half gone, Sam ordered in some oysters from the greengrocer's shop; and the effect of both was so extremely exhilarating, that Mr. Tuckle, dressed out with the cocked hat and stick, danced the frog hornpipe among the shells on the table; while the gentleman in blue played an accompaniment upon an ingenious musical instrument formed of a hair-comb and a curl-paper. At last, when the punch was all gone, and the night nearly so, they sallied forth to see each other home. Mr. Tuckle no sooner got into the open air, than he was seized with a sudden desire to lie on the curb-stone; Sam thought it would be a pity to contradict him, and so let him have his own way. As the cocked hat would have been spoilt if left there, Sam very considerately flattened it down on the head of the gentleman in blue, and putting the big stick in his hand, propped him up against his own street door, rang the bell, and walked quietly home. At a much earlier hour next morning than his usual time of rising, Mr. Pickwick walked down-stairs completely dressed and rang the bell. "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, when Mr. Weller appeared in reply to the summons, "shut the door." Mr. Weller did so. "There was an unfortunate occurrence here last night, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, "which gave Mr. Winkle some cause to apprehend violence from Mr. Dowler." "So I've heerd from the old lady down-stairs, sir," replied Sam. "And I'm sorry to say, Sam," continued Mr. Pickwick, with a most perplexed countenance, "that in dread of this violence, Mr. Winkle has gone away." "Gone avay!" said Sam. "Left the house early this morning, without the slightest previous communication with me," replied Mr. Pickwick, "And is gone, I know not where." "He should ha' stopped and fought it out, sir," replied Sam, contemptuously. "It wouldn't take much to settle that 'ere Dowler, sir." "Well, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, "I may have my doubts of his great bravery and determination, also. But, however that may be, Mr. Winkle is gone. He must be found, Sam. Found and brought back to me." "And s'pose he won't come back, sir?" said Sam. "He must be made, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "Who's to do it, sir?" inquired Sam, with a smile. "You," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Wery good, sir." With these words Mr. Weller left the room, and immediately afterwards was heard to shut the street door. In two hours' time he returned with as much coolness as if he had been despatched on the most ordinary message possible, and brought the information that an individual, in every respect answering Mr. Winkle's description, had gone over to Bristol that morning, by the branch coach from the Royal Hotel. "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, grasping his hand, "you're a capital fellow; an invaluable fellow. You must follow him, Sam." "Cert'nly, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "The instant you discover him, write to me immediately, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "If he attempts to run away from you, knock him down, or lock him up. You have my full authority, Sam." "I'll be wery careful, sir," rejoined Sam. "You'll tell him," said Mr. Pickwick, "that I am highly excited, highly displeased, and naturally indignant, at the very extraordinary course he has thought proper to pursue." "I will, sir," replied Sam. "You'll tell him," said Mr. Pickwick, "that if he does not come back to this very house, with you, he will come back with me, for I will come and fetch him." "I'll mention that 'ere, sir," rejoined Sam. "You think you can find him, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick, looking earnestly in his face. "Oh, I'll find him, if he's anyvere," rejoined Sam, with great confidence. "Very well," said Mr. Pickwick. "Then the sooner you go the better." With these instructions Mr. Pickwick placed a sum of money in the hands of his faithful servitor, and ordered him to start for Bristol immediately, in pursuit of the fugitive. Sam put a few necessaries in a carpet bag, and was ready for starting. He stopped when he had got to the end of the passage, and walking quietly back, thrust his head in at the parlour door. "Sir," whispered Sam. "Well, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick. "I fully understands my instructions, do I, sir?" inquired Sam. "I hope so," said Mr. Pickwick. "It's reg'larly understood about the knockin' down, is it, sir?" inquired Sam. "Perfectly," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Thoroughly. Do what you think necessary. You have my orders." Sam gave a nod of intelligence, and withdrawing his head from the door, set forth on his pilgrimage with a light heart. CHAPTER X [Illustration] _How Mr. Winkle, when he stepped out of the Frying-Pan, walked gently and comfortably into the Fire_ The ill-starred gentleman who had been the unfortunate cause of the unusual noise and disturbance which alarmed the inhabitants of the Royal Crescent in manner and form already described, after passing a night of great confusion and anxiety, left the roof beneath which his friends still slumbered, bound he knew not whither. The excellent and considerate feelings which prompted Mr. Winkle to take this step can never be too highly appreciated or too warmly extolled. "If," reasoned Mr. Winkle with himself, "if this Dowler attempts (as I have no doubt he will) to carry into execution his threat of personal violence against myself, it will be incumbent on me to call him out. He has a wife; that wife is attached to and dependent on him. Heavens! If I should kill him in the blindness of my wrath, what would be my feelings ever afterwards!" This painful consideration operated so powerfully on the feelings of the humane young man, as to cause his knees to knock together, and his countenance to exhibit alarming manifestations of inward emotion. Impelled by such reflections, he grasped his carpet bag, and creeping stealthily down-stairs, shut the detestable street door with as little noise as possible, and walked off. Bending his steps towards the Royal Hotel, he found a coach on the point of starting for Bristol, and, thinking Bristol as good a place for his purpose as any other he could go to, he mounted the box, and reached the place of destination in such time as the pair of horses, who went the whole stage and back again twice a day or more, could be reasonably supposed to arrive there. He took up his quarters at The Bush, and, designing to postpone any communication by letter with Mr. Pickwick until it was probable that Mr. Dowler's wrath might have in some degree evaporated, walked forth to view the city, which struck him as being a shade more dirty than any place he had ever seen. Having inspected the docks and shipping, and viewed the cathedral, he inquired his way to Clifton, and being directed thither, took the route which was pointed out to him. But, as the pavements of Bristol are not the widest or cleanest upon earth, so its streets are not altogether the straightest or least intricate; Mr. Winkle being greatly puzzled by their manifold windings and twistings, looked about him for a decent shop, in which he could apply afresh for counsel and instruction. His eyes fell upon a newly-painted tenement which had been recently converted into something between a shop and a private house, and which a red lamp, projecting over the fanlight of the street-door, would have sufficiently announced as the residence of a medical practitioner, even if the word "Surgery" had not been inscribed in golden characters on a wainscot ground, above the window of what, in times bygone, had been the front parlour. Thinking this an eligible place wherein to make his inquiries, Mr. Winkle stepped into the little shop where the gilt-labelled drawers and bottles were; and finding nobody there, knocked with a half-crown on the counter, to attract the attention of anybody who might happen to be in the back parlour, which he judged to be the innermost and peculiar sanctum of the establishment, from the repetition of the word "Surgery" on the door--painted in white letters this time, by way of taking off the monotony. At the first knock, a sound, as of persons fencing with fire-irons, which had until now been very audible, suddenly ceased; at the second, a studious-looking young gentleman in green spectacles, with a very large book in his hand, glided quietly into the shop, and stepping behind the counter, requested to know the visitor's pleasure. "I am sorry to trouble you, sir," said Mr. Winkle, "but will you have the goodness to direct me to----" "Ha! ha! ha!" roared the studious young gentleman, throwing the large book up into the air, and catching it with great dexterity at the very moment when it threatened to smash to atoms all the bottles on the counter. "Here's a start!" There was, without a doubt; for Mr. Winkle was so very much astonished at the extraordinary behaviour of the medical gentleman, that he involuntarily retreated towards the door, and looked very much disturbed at this strange reception. "What, don't you know me?" said the medical gentleman. Mr. Winkle murmured, in reply, that he had not that pleasure. "Why, then," said the medical gentleman, "there are hopes for me yet; I may attend half the old women in Bristol if I've decent luck. Get out, you mouldy old villain, get out!" With this adjuration, which was addressed to the large book, the medical gentleman kicked the volume with remarkable agility to the further end of the shop, and, pulling off his green spectacles, grinned the identical grin of Robert Sawyer, Esquire, formerly of Guy's Hospital in the Borough, with a private residence in Lant Street. "You don't mean to say you weren't down upon me!" said Mr. Bob Sawyer, shaking Mr. Winkle's hand with friendly warmth. "Upon my word I was not," replied Mr. Winkle, returning the pressure. "I wonder you didn't see the name," said Bob Sawyer, calling his friend's attention to the outer door, on which, in the same white paint, were traced the words, "Sawyer, late Nockemorf." "It never caught my eye," returned Mr. Winkle. "Lord, if I had known who you were, I should have rushed out, and caught you in my arms," said Bob Sawyer; "but upon my life, I thought you were the King's-taxes." "No!" said Mr. Winkle. "I did, indeed," responded Bob Sawyer, "and I was just going to say that I wasn't at home, but if you'd leave a message I'd be sure to give it to myself; for he don't know me; no more does the Lighting and Paving. I think the Church-rates guesses who I am, and I know the Water-works does, because I drew a tooth of his when I first came down here. But come in, come in!" Chattering in this way, Mr. Bob Sawyer pushed Mr. Winkle into the back room, where, amusing himself by boring little circular caverns in the chimney-piece with a red-hot poker, sat no less a person than Mr. Benjamin Allen. "Well!" said Mr. Winkle. "This is indeed a pleasure I did not expect. What a very nice place you have here!" "Pretty well, pretty well," replied Bob Sawyer. "I _passed_ soon after the precious party, and my friends came down with the needful for this business; so I put on a black suit of clothes, and a pair of spectacles, and came here to look as solemn as I could." "And a very snug little business you have, no doubt?" said Mr. Winkle, knowingly. "Very," replied Bob Sawyer. "So snug, that at the end of a few years you might put all the profits in a wine-glass, and cover 'em over with a gooseberry leaf." "You cannot surely mean that?" said Mr. Winkle. "The stock itself----" "Dummies, my dear boy," said Bob Sawyer; "half the drawers have nothing in 'em, and the other half don't open." "Nonsense!" said Mr. Winkle. "Fact--honour!" returned Bob Sawyer, stepping out into the shop, and demonstrating the veracity of the assertion by divers hard pulls at the little gilt knobs on the counterfeit drawers. "Hardly anything real in the shop but the leeches, and _they_ are second-hand." "I shouldn't have thought it!" exclaimed Mr. Winkle, much surprised. "I hope not," replied Bob Sawyer, "else where's the use of appearances, eh? But what will you take? Do as we do? That's right. Ben, my fine fellow, put your hand into the cupboard, and bring out the patent digester." Mr. Benjamin Allen smiled his readiness, and produced from the closet at his elbow a black bottle half full of brandy. "You don't take water, of course?" said Bob Sawyer. "Thank you," replied Mr. Winkle. "It's rather early. I should like to qualify it, if you have no objection." "None in the least, if you can reconcile it to your conscience," replied Bob Sawyer; tossing off, as he spoke, a glass of the liquor with great relish. "Ben, the pipkin!" Mr. Benjamin Allen drew forth, from the same hiding-place, a small brass pipkin, which Bob Sawyer observed he prided himself upon particularly, because it looked so business-like. The water in the professional pipkin having been made to boil, in course of time, by various little shovelsful of coal, which Mr. Bob Sawyer took out of a practicable window-seat, labelled "Soda Water," Mr. Winkle adulterated his brandy; and the conversation was becoming general, when it was interrupted by the entrance into the shop of a boy, in a sober grey livery and a gold-laced hat, with a small covered basket under his arm: whom Mr. Bob Sawyer immediately hailed with, "Tom, you vagabond, come here." The boy presented himself accordingly. "You've been stopping to over all the posts in Bristol, you idle young scamp!" said Mr. Bob Sawyer. "No, sir, I haven't," replied the boy. "You had better not!" said Mr. Bob Sawyer, with a threatening aspect. "Who do you suppose will ever employ a professional man, when they see his boy playing at marbles in the gutter, or flying the garter in the horse-road? Have you no feeling for your profession, you groveller? Did you leave all the medicine?" "Yes, sir." "The powders for the child, at the large house with the new family, and the pills to be taken four times a day at the ill-tempered old gentleman's with the gouty leg?" "Yes, sir." "Then shut the door, and mind the shop." "Come," said Mr. Winkle, as the boy retired, "things are not quite so bad as you would have me believe, either. There is _some_ medicine to be sent out." Mr. Bob Sawyer peeped out the shop to see that no stranger was within hearing, and leaning forward to Mr. Winkle, said, in a low tone: "He leaves it all at the wrong houses." Mr. Winkle looked perplexed, and Bob Sawyer and his friend laughed. [Illustration: "_You've been stopping to over all the posts in Bristol_"] "Don't you see?" said Bob. "He goes up to a house, rings the area bell, pokes a packet of medicine without a direction into the servant's hand, and walks off. Servant takes it into the dining-parlour; master open it, and reads the label: 'Draught to be taken at bed-time--pills as before--lotion as usual--_the_ powder. From Sawyer's, late Nockemorf's. Physicians' prescriptions carefully prepared,' and all the rest of it. Shows it to his wife--_she_ reads the label; it goes down to the servants--_they_ read the label. Next day, boy calls: 'Very sorry--his mistake--immense business--great many parcels to deliver--Mr. Sawyer's compliments--late Nockemorf.' The name gets known, and that's the thing, my boy, in the medical way. Bless your heart, old fellow, it's better than all the advertising in the world. We have got one four-ounce bottle that's been to half the houses in Bristol, and hasn't done yet." "Dear me, I see," observed Mr. Winkle; "what an excellent plan!" "Oh, Ben and I have hit upon a dozen such," replied Bob Sawyer with great glee. "The lamplighter has eighteenpence a week to pull the night-bell for ten minutes every time he comes round; and my boy always rushes into church, just before the psalms, when the people have got nothing to do but look about 'em, and calls me out, with horror and dismay depicted on his countenance. 'Bless my soul,' everybody says, 'somebody taken suddenly ill! Sawyer, late Nockemorf, sent for. What a business that young man has!'" At the termination of this disclosure of some of the mysteries of medicine, Mr. Bob Sawyer and his friend, Ben Allen, threw themselves back in their respective chairs, and laughed boisterously. When they had enjoyed the joke to their hearts' content, the discourse changed to topics in which Mr. Winkle was more immediately interested. We think we have hinted elsewhere, that Mr. Benjamin Allen had a way of becoming sentimental after brandy. The case is not a peculiar one, as we ourselves can testify: having, on a few occasions, had to deal with patients who have been afflicted in a similar manner. At this precise period of his existence, Mr. Benjamin Allen had perhaps a greater predisposition to maudlinism than he had ever known before; the cause of which malady was briefly this. He had been staying nearly three weeks with Mr. Bob Sawyer; Mr. Bob Sawyer was not remarkable for temperance, nor was Mr. Benjamin Allen for the ownership of a very strong head; the consequence was, that, during the whole space of time just mentioned, Mr. Benjamin Allen had been wavering between intoxication partial, and intoxication complete. "My dear friend," said Mr. Ben Allen, taking advantage of Mr. Bob Sawyer's temporary absence behind the counter, whither he had retired to dispense some of the second-hand leeches, previously referred to: "my dear friend, I am very miserable." Mr. Winkle professed his heartfelt regret to hear it, and begged to know whether he could do anything to alleviate the sorrows of the suffering student. "Nothing, my dear boy, nothing," said Ben. "You recollect Arabella, Winkle? My sister Arabella--a little girl, Winkle, with black eyes--when we were down at Wardle's? I don't know whether you happened to notice her, a nice little girl, Winkle. Perhaps my features may recall her countenance to your recollection?" Mr. Winkle required nothing to recall the charming Arabella to his mind; and it was rather fortunate he did not, for the features of her brother Benjamin would unquestionably have proved but an indifferent refresher to his memory. He answered, with as much calmness as he could assume, that he perfectly remembered the young lady referred to, and sincerely trusted she was in good health. "Our friend Bob is a delightful fellow, Winkle," was the only reply of Mr. Ben Allen. "Very," said Mr. Winkle; not much relishing the close connection of the two names. "I designed 'em for each other; they were made for each other, sent into the world for each other, born for each other, Winkle," said Mr. Ben Allen, setting down his glass with emphasis. "There's a special destiny in the matter, my dear sir; there's only five years' difference between 'em, and both their birthdays are in August." Mr. Winkle was too anxious to hear what was to follow, to express much wonderment at this extraordinary coincidence, marvellous as it was; so Mr. Ben Allen, after a tear or two, went on to say, that, notwithstanding all his esteem and respect and veneration for his friend, Arabella had unaccountably and undutifully evinced the most determined antipathy to his person. "And I think," said Mr. Ben Allen, in conclusion, "_I_ think there's a prior attachment." "Have you any idea who the object of it might be?" asked Mr. Winkle, with great trepidation. Mr. Ben Allen seized the poker, flourished it in a warlike manner above his head, inflicted a savage blow on an imaginary skull, and wound up by saying, in a very expressive manner, that he only wished he could guess; that was all. "I'd show him what I thought of him," said Mr. Ben Allen. And round went the poker again, more fiercely than before. All this was, of course, very soothing to the feelings of Mr. Winkle, who remained silent for a few minutes; but at length mustered up resolution to inquire whether Miss Allen was in Kent. "No, no," said Mr. Allen, laying aside the poker, and looking very cunning; "I didn't think Wardle's exactly the place for a headstrong girl; so, as I am her natural protector and guardian, our parents being dead, I have brought her down into this part of the country, to spend a few months at an old aunt's, in a nice dull close place. I think that will cure her, my boy. If it doesn't, I'll take her abroad for a little while, and see what that'll do." "Oh, the aunt's is in Bristol, is it?" faltered Mr. Winkle. "No, no, not in Bristol," replied Mr. Ben Allen, jerking his thumb over his right shoulder; "over that way; down there. But hush! here's Bob. Not a word, my dear friend, not a word." Short as this conversation was, it roused in Mr. Winkle the highest degree of excitement and anxiety. The suspected prior attachment rankled in his heart. Could he be the object of it? Could it be for him that the fair Arabella had looked scornfully on the sprightly Bob Sawyer, or had he a successful rival? He determined to see her, cost what it might; but here an insurmountable objection presented itself, for whether the explanatory "over that way," and "down there," of Mr. Ben Allen, meant three miles off, or thirty, or three hundred, he could in no wise guess. But he had no opportunity of pondering over his love just then, for Bob Sawyer's return was the immediate precursor of the arrival of a meat pie from the baker's, of which that gentleman insisted on his staying to partake. The cloth was laid by an occasional charwoman, who officiated in the capacity of Mr. Bob Sawyer's housekeeper; and a third knife and fork having been borrowed from the mother of the boy in the grey livery (for Mr. Sawyer's domestic arrangements were as yet conducted on a limited scale), they sat down to dinner; the beer being served up, as Mr. Sawyer remarked, "in its native pewter." After dinner Mr. Bob Sawyer ordered in the largest mortar in the shop, and proceeded to brew a reeking jorum of rum-punch therein: stirring up and amalgamating the materials with a pestle in a very creditable and apothecary-like manner. Mr. Sawyer, being a bachelor, had only one tumbler in the house, which was assigned to Mr. Winkle as a compliment to the visitor: Mr. Ben Allen being accommodated with a funnel with a cork in the narrow end: and Bob Sawyer contented himself with one of those wide-lipped crystal vessels inscribed with a variety of cabalistic characters, in which chemists are wont to measure out their liquid drugs in compounding prescriptions. These preliminaries adjusted, the punch was tasted, and pronounced excellent; and it having been arranged that Bob Sawyer and Ben Allen should be considered at liberty to fill twice to Mr. Winkle's once, they started fair, with great satisfaction and good-fellowship. There was no singing, because Mr. Bob Sawyer said it wouldn't look professional; but to make amends for this deprivation there was so much talking and laughing that it might have been heard, and very likely was, at the end of the street. Which conversation materially lightened the hours and improved the mind of Mr. Bob Sawyer's boy, who instead of devoting the evening to his ordinary occupation of writing his name on the counter, and rubbing it out again, peeped through the glass door, and thus listened and looked on at the same time. The mirth of Mr. Bob Sawyer was rapidly ripening into the furious; Mr. Ben Allen was fast relapsing into the sentimental, and the punch had well-nigh disappeared altogether, when the boy hastily running in, announced that a young woman had just come over, to say that Sawyer late Nockemorf was wanted directly, a couple of streets off. This broke up the party. Mr. Bob Sawyer understanding the message after some twenty repetitions, tied a wet cloth round his head to sober himself, and, having partially succeeded, put on his green spectacles and issued forth. Resisting all entreaties to stay till he came back, and finding it quite impossible to engage Mr. Ben Allen in any intelligible conversation on the subject nearest his heart, or indeed on any other, Mr. Winkle took his departure, and returned to The Bush. The anxiety of his mind, and the numerous meditations which Arabella had awakened, prevented his share of the mortar of punch producing that effect upon him which it would have had, under other circumstances. So, after taking a glass of soda-water and brandy at the bar, he turned into the coffee-room, dispirited rather than elevated by the occurrences of the evening. Sitting in the front of the fire, with his back towards him, was a tallish gentleman in a great-coat: the only other occupant of the room. It was rather a cool evening for the season of the year, and the gentleman drew his chair aside to afford the new comer a sight of the fire. What were Mr. Winkle's feelings when, in doing so, he disclosed to view the face and figure of the vindictive and sanguinary Dowler! Mr. Winkle's first impulse was to give a violent pull at the nearest bell-handle, but that unfortunately happened to be immediately behind Mr. Dowler's head. He had made one step towards it, before he checked himself. As he did so, Mr. Dowler very hastily drew back. "Mr. Winkle, sir. Be calm. Don't strike me. I won't bear it. A blow! Never!" said Mr. Dowler, looking meeker than Mr. Winkle had expected in a gentleman of his ferocity. "A blow, sir?" stammered Mr. Winkle. "A blow, sir," replied Dowler. "Compose your feelings. Sit down. Hear me." "Sir," said Mr. Winkle, trembling from head to foot, "before I consent to sit down beside, or opposite you, without the presence of a waiter, I must be secured by some further understanding. You used a threat against me last night, sir, a dreadful threat, sir." Here Mr. Winkle turned very pale indeed, and stopped short. "I did," said Dowler, with a countenance almost as white as Mr. Winkle's. "Circumstances were suspicious. They have been explained. I respect your bravery. Your feeling is upright. Conscious innocence. There's my hand. Grasp it." "Really, sir," said Mr. Winkle, hesitating whether to give his hand or not, and almost fearing that it was demanded in order that he might be taken at an advantage, "really sir, I----" "I know what you mean," interposed Dowler. "You feel aggrieved. Very natural. So should I. I was strong. I beg your pardon. Be friendly. Forgive me." With this, Dowler fairly forced his hand upon Mr. Winkle, and shaking it with the utmost vehemence, declared he was a fellow of extreme spirit, and he had a higher opinion of him than ever. "Now," said Dowler, "sit down. Relate it all. How did you find me? When did you follow? Be frank. Tell me." "It's quite accidental," replied Mr. Winkle, greatly perplexed by the curious and unexpected nature of the interview, "quite." "Glad of it," said Dowler. "I woke this morning. I had forgotten my threat. I laughed at the accident. I felt friendly. I said so." "To whom?" inquired Mr. Winkle. "To Mrs. Dowler. 'You made a vow,' said she. 'I did,' said I. 'It was a rash one,' said she. 'It was,' said I. 'I'll apologise. Where is he?'" "Who?" inquired Mr. Winkle. "You," replied Dowler. "I went down-stairs. You were not to be found. Pickwick looked gloomy. Shook his head. Hoped no violence would be committed. I saw it all. You felt yourself insulted. You had gone, for a friend perhaps. Possibly for pistols. 'High spirit,' said I. 'I admire him.'" Mr. Winkle coughed, and beginning to see how the land lay, assumed a look of importance. "I left a note for you," resumed Dowler. "I said I was sorry. So I was. Pressing business called me here. You were not satisfied. You followed. You required a verbal explanation. You were right. It's all over now. My business is finished. I go back to-morrow. Join me." As Dowler progressed in his explanation, Mr. Winkle's countenance grew more and more dignified. The mysterious nature of the commencement of their conversation was explained; Mr. Dowler had as great an objection to duelling as himself; in short, this blustering and awful personage was one of the most egregious cowards in existence, and interpreting Mr. Winkle's absence through the medium of his own fears, had taken the same step as himself, and prudently retired until all excitement of feeling should have subsided. As the real state of the case dawned upon Mr. Winkle's mind, he looked very terrible, and said he was perfectly satisfied; but, at the same time, said so with an air that left Mr. Dowler no alternative but to infer that if he had not been, something most horrible and destructive must inevitably have occurred. Mr. Dowler appeared to be impressed with a becoming sense of Mr. Winkle's magnanimity and condescension; and the two belligerents parted for the night, with many protestations of eternal friendship. About half-past twelve o'clock, when Mr. Winkle had been revelling some twenty minutes in the full luxury of his first sleep, he was suddenly awakened by a loud knocking at his chamber door, which being repeated with increased vehemence, caused him to start up in bed, and inquire who was there, and what the matter was. "Please, sir, here's a young man which says he must see you directly," responded the voice of the chambermaid. "A young man!" exclaimed Mr. Winkle. "No mistake about that 'ere, sir," replied another voice through the keyhole; "and if that wery same interestin' young creetur ain't let in vithout delay, it's wery possible as his legs vill enter afore his countenance." The young man gave a gentle kick at one of the lower panels of the door, after he had given utterance to this hint, as if to add force and point to the remark. "Is that you, Sam?" inquired Mr. Winkle, springing out of bed. "Quite unpossible to identify any gen'l'm'n vith any degree o' mental satisfaction, vithout lookin' at him, sir," replied the voice, dogmatically. Mr. Winkle, not much doubting who the young man was, unlocked the door; which he had no sooner done, than Mr. Samuel Weller entered with great precipitation, and carefully re-locking it on the inside, deliberately put the key in his waistcoat pocket: and, after surveying Mr. Winkle from head to foot, said: "You're a wery humorous young gen'l'm'n, you air, sir!" "What do you mean by this conduct, Sam?" inquired Mr. Winkle, indignantly. "Get out, sir, this instant. What do you mean, sir?" "What do _I_ mean," retorted Sam; "come, sir, this is rayther too rich, as the young lady said, ven she remonstrated with the pastry-cook, arter he'd sold her a pork-pie as had got nothin' but fat inside. What do _I_ mean! Well, that ain't a bad un, that ain't." "Unlock that door, and leave this room immediately, sir," said Mr. Winkle. "I shall leave this here room, sir, just precisely at the wery same moment as you leaves it," responded Sam, speaking in a forcible manner, and seating himself with perfect gravity. "If I find it necessary to carry you away, pick-a-back, o' course I shall leave it the least bit o' time possible afore you; but allow me to express a hope as you won't reduce me to extremities; in saying vich, I merely quote wot the nobleman said to the fractious pennywinkle, ven he vouldn't come out of his shell by means of a pin, and he conseqvently began to be afeared that he should be obliged to crack him in the parlour door." At the end of this address, which was unusually lengthy for him, Mr. Weller planted his hands on his knees, and looked full in Mr. Winkle's face, with an expression of countenance that showed that he had not the remotest intention of being trifled with. "You're a amiably disposed young man, sir, I don't think," resumed Mr. Weller, in a tone of moral reproof, "to go inwolving our precious governor in all sorts o' fanteegs, ven he's made up his mind to go through everythink for principle. You're far worse nor Dodson, sir; and as for Fogg, I consider him a born angel to you!" Mr. Weller having accompanied this last sentiment with an emphatic slap on each knee, folded his arms with a look of great disgust, and threw himself back in his chair, as if awaiting the criminal's defence. "My good fellow," said Mr. Winkle, extending his hand; his teeth chattering all the time he spoke, for he had been standing, during the whole of Mr. Weller's lecture, in his night-gear; "my good fellow, I respect your attachment to my excellent friend, and I am very sorry indeed, to have added to his causes for disquiet. There, Sam, there!" "Well," said Sam, rather sulkily, but giving the proffered hand a respectful shake at the same time: "well, so you ought to be, and I am very glad to find you air; for, if I can help it, I won't have him put upon by nobody, and that's all about it." "Certainly not, Sam," said Mr. Winkle. "There! Now go to bed, Sam, and we'll talk further about this in the morning." "I'm wery sorry," said Sam, "but I can't go to bed." "Not go to bed!" repeated Mr. Winkle. "No," said Sam, shaking his head. "Can't be done." "You don't mean to say you're going back to-night, Sam?" urged Mr. Winkle, greatly surprised. "Not unless you particklerly wish it," replied Sam; "but mustn't leave this here room. The governor's orders was peremptory." "Nonsense, Sam," said Mr. Winkle, "I must stop here two or three days; and more than that, Sam, you must stop here too, to assist me in gaining an interview with a young lady--Miss Allen, Sam; you remember her--whom I must and will see before I leave Bristol." But in reply to each of these positions, Sam shook his head with great firmness, and energetically replied, "It can't be done." After a great deal of argument and representation on the part of Mr. Winkle, however, and a full disclosure of what had passed in the interview with Dowler, Sam began to waver; and at length a compromise was effected, of which the following were the main and principal conditions: That Sam should retire, and leave Mr. Winkle in the undisturbed possession of his apartment, on the condition that he had permission to lock the door on the outside, and carry off the key; provided always, that in the event of an alarm of fire, or other dangerous contingency, the door should be instantly unlocked. That a letter should be written to Mr. Pickwick early next morning, and forwarded per Dowler, requesting his consent to Sam and Mr. Winkle's remaining at Bristol, for the purpose, and with the object, already assigned, and begging an answer by the next coach; if favourable, the aforesaid parties to remain accordingly, and if not, to return to Bath immediately on the receipt thereof. And, lastly, that Mr. Winkle should be understood as distinctly pledging himself not to resort to the window, fireplace, or other surreptitious mode of escape in the meanwhile. These stipulations having been concluded, Sam locked the door and departed. He had nearly got down-stairs, when he stopped, and drew the key from his pocket. "I quite forgot about the knockin' down," said Sam, half turning back. "The governor distinctly said it was to be done. Amazin' stupid o' me, that 'ere! Never mind," said Sam, brightening up, "it's easily done to-morrow, anyvays." Apparently much consoled by this reflection, Mr. Weller once more deposited the key in his pocket, and descending the remainder of the stairs without any fresh visitations of conscience, was soon, in common with the other inmates of the house, buried in profound repose. CHAPTER XI [Illustration] _Mr. Samuel Weller, being entrusted with a Mission of Love, proceeds to execute it; with what Success will hereinafter appear_ During the whole of the next day, Sam kept Mr. Winkle steadily in sight, fully determined not to take his eyes off him for one instant, until he should receive express instructions from the fountain-head. However disagreeable Sam's very close watch and great vigilance were to Mr. Winkle, he thought it better to bear with them, than, by any act of violent opposition, to hazard being carried away by force, which Mr. Weller more than once strongly hinted was the line of conduct that a strict sense of duty prompted him to pursue. There is little reason to doubt that Sam would very speedily have quieted his scruples by bearing Mr. Winkle back to Bath, bound hand and foot, had not Mr. Pickwick's prompt attention to the note, which Dowler had undertaken to deliver, forestalled any such proceeding. In short, at eight o'clock in the evening, Mr. Pickwick himself walked into the coffee-room of the Bush tavern, and told Sam with a smile, to his very great relief, that he had done quite right, and it was unnecessary for him to mount guard any longer. "I thought it better to come myself," said Mr. Pickwick, addressing Mr. Winkle, as Sam disencumbered him of his great-coat and travelling shawl, "to ascertain, before I gave my consent to Sam's employment in this matter, that you are quite in earnest and serious, with respect to this young lady." "Serious from my heart--from my soul!" returned Mr. Winkle, with great energy. "Remember," said Mr. Pickwick, with beaming eyes, "we met her at our excellent and hospitable friend's, Winkle. It would be an ill return to tamper lightly, and without due consideration, with this young lady's affections. I'll not allow this, sir. I'll not allow it." "I have no such intention, indeed," exclaimed Mr. Winkle, warmly. "I have considered the matter well, for a long time, and I feel that my happiness is bound up in her." "That's wot we call tying it up in a small parcel, sir," interposed Mr. Weller, with an agreeable smile. Mr. Winkle looked somewhat stern at this interruption, and Mr. Pickwick angrily requested his attendant not to jest with one of the best feelings of our nature; to which Sam replied, "That he wouldn't, if he was aware on it; but there were so many on 'em, that he hardly know'd which was the best ones ven he heer'd 'em mentioned." Mr. Winkle then recounted what had passed between himself and Mr. Ben Allen, relative to Arabella; stated that his object was to gain an interview with the young lady, and make a formal disclosure of his passion; and declared his conviction, founded on certain dark hints and mutterings of the aforesaid Ben, that, wherever she was at present immured, it was somewhere near the Downs. And this was his whole stock of knowledge or suspicion on the subject. With this very slight clue to guide him, it was determined that Mr. Weller should start next morning on an expedition of discovery; it was also arranged that Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Winkle, who were less confident of their powers, should parade the town meanwhile, and accidentally drop in upon Mr. Bob Sawyer in the course of the day, in the hope of seeing or hearing something of the young lady's whereabout. Accordingly, next morning, Sam Weller issued forth upon his quest, in no way daunted by the very discouraging prospect before him; and away he walked, up one street and down another--we were going to say, up one hill and down another, only it's all uphill at Clifton--without meeting with anything or anybody that tended to throw the faintest light on the matter in hand. Many were the colloquies into which Sam entered with grooms who were airing horses on roads, and nursemaids who were airing children in lanes; but nothing could Sam elicit from either the first-mentioned or the last, which bore the slightest reference to the object of his artfully-prosecuted inquiries. There were a great many young ladies in a great many houses, the greater part whereof were ere shrewdly suspected by the male and female domestics to be deeply attached to somebody, or perfectly ready to become so, if opportunity offered. But as none among these young ladies was Miss Arabella Allen, the information left Sam at exactly the old point of wisdom at which he had stood before. Sam struggled across the Downs against a good high wind, wondering whether it was always necessary to hold your hat on with both hands in that part of the country, and came to a shady by-place about which were sprinkled several little villas of quiet and secluded appearance. Outside a stable-door at the bottom of a long back lane without a thoroughfare, a groom in undress was idling about, apparently persuading himself that he was doing something with a spade and a wheelbarrow. We may remark, in this place, that we have scarcely ever seen a groom near a stable, in his lazy moments, who has not been, to a greater or less extent, the victim of this singular delusion. Sam thought he might as well talk to this groom as to any one else, especially as he was very tired with walking, and there was a good large stone just opposite the wheelbarrow; so he strolled down the lane, and, seating himself on the stone, opened a conversation with the ease and freedom for which he was remarkable. "Mornin', old friend," said Sam. "Arternoon, you mean," replied the groom, casting a surly look at Sam. "You're wery right, old friend," said Sam; "I _do_ mean arternoon. How are you?" "Why, I don't find myself much the better for seeing you," replied the ill-tempered groom. "That's wery odd--that is," said Sam, "for you look so uncommon cheerful, and seem altogether so lively, that it does vun's heart good to see you." The surly groom looked surlier still at this, but not sufficiently so to produce any effect upon Sam, who immediately inquired, with a countenance of great anxiety, whether his master's name was not Walker. "No, it ain't," said the groom. "Nor Brown, I s'pose?" said Sam. "No, it ain't." "Nor Vilson?" "No; nor that neither," said the groom. "Vell," replied Sam, "then I'm mistaken, and he hasn't got the honour o' my acquaintance, which I thought he had. Don't wait here out o' compliment to me," said Sam, as the groom wheeled in the barrow, and prepared to shut the gate. "Ease afore ceremony, old boy; I'll excuse you." "I'd knock your head off for half-a-crown," said the surly groom, bolting one half of the gate. "Couldn't afford to have it done on those terms," rejoined Sam. "It 'ud be worth a life's board vages at least, to you, and 'ud be cheap at that. Make my compliments indoors. Tell 'em not to vait dinner for me, and say they needn't mind puttin' any by, for it'll be cold afore I come in." In reply to this the groom, waxing very wroth, muttered a desire to damage somebody's person; but disappeared without carrying it into execution, slamming the door angrily after him, and wholly unheeding Sam's affectionate request that he would leave him a lock of his hair before he went. Sam continued to sit on the large stone, meditating upon what was best to be done, and revolving in his mind a plan for knocking at all the doors within five miles of Bristol, taking them at a hundred and fifty or two hundred a day, and endeavouring to find Miss Arabella by that expedient, when accident all of a sudden threw in his way what he might have sat there for a twelvemonth and yet not found without it. Into the lane where he sat, there opened three or four garden-gates, belonging to as many houses, which though detached from each other, were only separated by their gardens. As these were large and long, and well planted with trees, the houses were not only at some distance off, but the greater part of them were nearly concealed from view. Sam was sitting with his eyes fixed upon the dust-heap outside the next gate to that by which the groom had disappeared, profoundly turning over in his mind the difficulties of his present undertaking, when the gate opened, and a female servant came out into the lane to shake some bed-side carpets. Sam was so very busy with his own thoughts, that it is probable he would have taken no more notice of the young woman than just raising his head and remarking that she had a very neat and pretty figure, if his feelings of gallantry had not been most strongly roused by observing that she had no one to help her, and that the carpets seemed too heavy for her single strength. Mr. Weller was a gentleman of great gallantry in his own way, and he no sooner remarked this circumstance then he hastily rose from the large stone, and advanced towards her. "My dear," said Sam, sliding up with an air of great respect, "you'll spile that wery pretty figure out o' all perportion if you shake them carpets by yourself. Let me help you." The young lady, who had been coyly affecting not to know that a gentleman was so near, turned round as Sam spoke--no doubt (indeed she said so afterwards) to decline this offer from a perfect stranger--when instead of speaking, she started back, and uttered a half-suppressed scream. Sam was scarcely less staggered, for in the countenance of the well-shaped female servant, he beheld the very features of his Valentine, the pretty housemaid from Mr. Nupkins's. "Vy, Mary, my dear!" said Sam. "Lauk, Mr. Weller," said Mary, "how you do frighten one!" Sam made no verbal answer to this complaint, nor can we precisely say what reply he _did_ make. We merely know that after a short pause Mary said, "Lor, do adun, Mr. Weller!" and that his hat had fallen off a few moments before--from both of which tokens we should be disposed to infer that one kiss or more had passed between the parties. [Illustration: "_Lor', do adun, Mr. Weller!_"] "Why, how did you come here?" said Mary, when the conversation to which this interruption had been offered was resumed. "O' course I came to look arter you, my darlin'," replied Mr. Weller; for once permitting his passion to get the better of his veracity. "And how did you know I was here?" inquired Mary. "Who could have told you that I took another service at Ipswich, and that they afterwards moved all the way here? Who _could_ have told you that, Mr. Weller?" "Ah to be sure," said Sam, with a cunning look, "that's the pint. Who could ha' told me?" "It wasn't Mr. Muzzle, was it?" inquired Mary. "Oh no," replied Sam, with a solemn shake of the head, "it warn't him." "It must have been the cook," said Mary. "O' course it must," said Sam. "Well, I never heard the like of that!" exclaimed Mary. "No more did I," said Sam. "But Mary, my dear:" here Sam's manner grew extremely affectionate: "Mary, my dear, I've got another affair in hand as is wery pressin'. There's one o' my governor's friends--Mr. Winkle, you remember him?" "Him in the green coat?" said Mary. "Oh yes, I remember him." "Well," said Sam, "he's in a horrid state o' love; reg'larly comfoozled, and done over with it." "Lor!" interposed Mary. "Yes," said Sam: "but that's nothing if we could find out the young 'ooman;" and here Sam, with many digressions upon the personal beauty of Mary, and the unspeakable tortures he had experienced since he last saw her, gave a faithful account of Mr. Winkle's present predicament. "Well," said Mary, "I never did!" "O' course not," said Sam, "nobody never did, nor never vill neither; and here am I a walkin' about like the Wandering Jew--a sportin' character you have perhaps heerd on, Mary, my dear, as wos alvays doin' a match agin' time, and never vent to sleep--looking arter this here Miss Arabella Allen." "Miss who?" said Mary, in great astonishment. "Miss Arabella Allen," said Sam. "Goodness gracious!" said Mary, pointing the garden door which the sulky groom had locked after him. "Why, it's that very house; she's been living there these six weeks. Their upper housemaid, which is lady's maid too, told me all about it over the wash-house palin's before the family was out of bed one mornin'." "Wot, the wery next door to you?" said Sam. "The very next," replied Mary. Mr. Weller was so deeply overcome on receiving this intelligence that he found it absolutely necessary to cling to his fair informant for support; and divers little love passages had passed between them, before he was sufficiently collected to return to the subject. "Vell," said Sam at length, "if this don't beat cock-fightin', nothin' never vill, as the Lord Mayor said, ven the chief secretary o' state proposed his missis's health arter dinner. That wery next house! Wy, I've got a message to her as I've been a tryin' all day to deliver." "Ah," said Mary, "but you can't deliver it now, because she only walks in the garden in the evening, and then only for a very little time; she never goes out, without the old lady." Sam ruminated for a few moments, and finally hit upon the following plan of operations; that he should return just at dusk--the time at which Arabella invariably took her walk--and, being admitted by Mary into the garden of the house to which she belonged, would contrive to scramble up the wall, beneath the overhanging boughs of a large pear-tree, which would effectually screen him from observation; would there deliver his message, and arrange, if possible, an interview on behalf of Mr. Winkle for the ensuing evening at the same hour. Having made this arrangement with great despatch, he assisted Mary in the long-deferred occupation of shaking the carpets. It is not half as innocent a thing as it looks, that shaking little pieces of carpet--at least, there may be no great harm in the shaking, but the folding is a very insidious process. So long as the shaking lasts, and the two parties are kept the carpet's length apart, it is as innocent an amusement as can well be devised; but when the folding begins, and the distance between them get gradually lessened from one half its former length to a quarter, and then to an eighth, and then to a sixteenth, and then to a thirty-second, if the carpet be long enough: it becomes dangerous. We do not know, to a nicety, how many pieces of carpet were folded in this instance, but we can venture to state that as many pieces as there were, so many times did Sam kiss the pretty housemaid. Mr. Weller regaled himself with moderation at the nearest tavern until it was nearly dusk, and then returned to the lane without the thoroughfare. Having been admitted into the garden by Mary, and having received from that lady sundry admonitions concerning the safety of his limbs and neck, Sam mounted into the pear-tree, to wait until Arabella should come in sight. He waited so long without this anxiously expected event occurring, that he began to think it was not going to take place at all, when he heard light footsteps upon the gravel, and immediately afterwards beheld Arabella walking pensively down the garden. As soon as she came nearly below the tree, Sam began, by way of gently indicating his presence, to make sundry diabolical noises similar to those which would probably be natural to a person of middle age who had been afflicted with a combination of inflammatory sore throat, croup, and hooping-cough, from his earliest infancy. Upon this, the young lady cast a hurried glance towards the spot from whence the dreadful sounds proceeded; and her previous alarm being not at all diminished when she saw a man among the branches, she would most certainly have decamped, and alarmed the house, had not fear fortunately deprived her of the power of moving, and caused her to sink down on a garden-seat; which happened by good luck to be near at hand. "She's a goin' off," soliloquised Sam in great perplexity. "Wot a thing it is, as these here young creeturs _will_ go a faintin' avay just ven they oughtn't to. Here, young 'ooman, Miss Sawbones, Mrs. Vinkle, don't!" Whether it was the magic of Mr. Winkle's name, or the coolness of the open air, or some recollection of Mr. Weller's voice, that revived Arabella, matters not. She raised her head and languidly inquired, "Who's that, and what do you want?" "Hush!" said Sam, swinging himself on to the wall, and crouching there in as small a compass as he could reduce himself to; "only me, miss, only me." "Mr. Pickwick's servant?" said Arabella, earnestly. "The wery same, miss," replied Sam. "Here's Mr. Vinkle reg'larly sewed up vith desperation, miss." "Ah!" said Arabella, drawing nearer the wall. "Ah, indeed," said Sam. "Ve thought ve should ha' been obliged to straight-veskit him last night; he's been a ravin' all day; and he says if he can't see you afore to-morrow night's over, he vishes he may be somethin'-unpleasanted if he don't drownd hisself." "Oh no, no, Mr. Weller!" said Arabella, clasping her hands. "That's wot he says, miss," replied Sam. "He's a man of his word, and it's my opinion he'll do it, miss. He's heerd all about you from the Sawbones in barnacles." "From my brother!" said Arabella, having some faint recognition of Sam's description. "I don't rightly know which is your brother, miss," replied Sam. "Is it the dirtiest vun o' the two?" "Yes, yes, Mr. Weller," returned Arabella, "go on. Make haste, pray." "Well miss," said Sam, "he's heerd all about it from him; and it's the gov'nor's opinion that if you don't see him wery quick, the Sawbones as we've been a speaking on, 'ull get as much extra lead in his head as'll damage the dewelopment o' the orgins if they ever put it in spirits artervards." "Oh, what can I do to prevent these dreadful quarrels!" exclaimed Arabella. "It's the suspicion of a priory 'tachment as is the cause of it all," replied Sam. "You'd better see him, miss." "But how?--where?" cried Arabella. "I dare not leave the house alone. My brother is so unkind, so unreasonable! I know how strange my talking thus to you must appear, Mr. Weller, but I am very, very unhappy--" and here poor Arabella wept so bitterly, that Sam grew chivalrous. "It may seem wery strange talkin' to me about these here affairs, miss," said Sam with great vehemence: "but all I can say is, that I'm not only ready but villin' to do anythin' as'll make matters agreeable; and if chuckin' either o' them Sawboneses out o' winder 'ull do it, I'm the man." As Sam Weller said his, he tucked up his wristbands, at the imminent hazard of falling off the wall in so doing, to intimate his readiness to set to work immediately. Flattering as these professions of good feeling were, Arabella resolutely declined (most unaccountably, as Sam thought) to avail herself of them. For some time she strenuously refused to grant Mr. Winkle the interview Sam had so pathetically requested; but at length, when the conversation threatened to be interrupted by the unwelcome arrival of a third party, she hurriedly gave him to understand, with many professions of gratitude, that it was barely possible she might be in the garden an hour later, next evening. Sam understood this perfectly well; and Arabella, bestowing upon him one of her sweetest smiles, tripped gracefully away, leaving Mr. Weller in a state of very great admiration of her charms, both personal and mental. Having descended in safety from the wall, and not forgotten to devote a few moments to his own particular business in the same department, Mr. Weller then made the best of his way back to the Bush, where his prolonged absence had occasioned much speculation and some alarm. "We must be careful," said Mr. Pickwick, after listening attentively to Sam's tale, "not for our own sakes, but for that of the young lady. We must be very cautious." "_We!_" said Mr. Winkle, with marked emphasis. Mr. Pickwick's momentary look of indignation at the tone of this remark subsided into his characteristic expression of benevolence, as he replied: "_We_, sir! I shall accompany you." "You!" said Mr. Winkle. "I," replied Mr. Pickwick, mildly. "In affording you this interview, the young lady has taken a natural, perhaps, but still a very imprudent step. If I am present at the meeting, a mutual friend, who is old enough to be the father of both parties, the voice of calumny can never be raised against her hereafter." Mr. Pickwick's eyes lightened with honest exultation at his own foresight, as he spoke thus. Mr. Winkle was touched by this little trait of his delicate respect for the young _protégée_ of his friend, and took his hand with a feeling of regard, akin to veneration. "You _shall_ go," said Mr. Winkle. "I will," said Mr. Pickwick. "Sam, have my great-coat and shawl ready, and order a conveyance to be at the door to-morrow evening, rather earlier than is absolutely necessary, in order that we may be in good time." Mr. Weller touched his hat, as an earnest of his obedience, and withdrew to make all needful preparations for the expedition. The coach was punctual to the time appointed; and Mr. Weller, after duly installing Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Winkle inside, took his seat on the box by the driver. They alighted, as had been agreed on, about a quarter of a mile from the place of rendezvous, and desiring the coachman to await their return, proceeded the remaining distance on foot. It was at this stage of the undertaking that Mr. Pickwick, with many smiles and various other indications of great self-satisfaction, produced from one of his coat pockets a dark lantern, with which he had specially provided himself for the occasion, and the great mechanical beauty of which he proceeded to explain to Mr. Winkle as they walked along, to the no small surprise of the few stragglers they met. "I should have been the better for something of this kind in my last garden expedition, at night; eh, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick, looking good-humouredly round at his follower, who was trudging behind. "Wery nice things if they're managed properly, sir," replied Mr. Weller; "but when you don't want to be seen, I think they're more useful arter the candle's gone out, than ven it's alight." Mr. Pickwick appeared struck with Sam's remarks, for he put the lantern into his pocket again, and they walked on in silence. "Down here, sir," said Sam. "Let me lead the way. This is the lane, sir." Down the lane they went, and dark enough it was. Mr. Pickwick brought out the lantern, once or twice, as they groped their way along, and threw a very brilliant little tunnel of light before them, about a foot in diameter. It was very pretty to look at, but seemed to have the effect of rendering surrounding objects rather darker than before. At length they arrived at the large stone. Here Sam recommended his master and Mr. Winkle to seat themselves, while he reconnoitred, and ascertained whether Mary was yet in waiting. After an absence of five or ten minutes, Sam returned, to say that the gate was opened, and all quiet. Following him with stealthy tread, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Winkle soon found themselves in the garden. Here everybody said "Hush!" a good many times; and that being done, no one seemed to have any very distinct apprehension of what was to be done next. "Is Miss Allen in the garden yet, Mary?" inquired Mr. Winkle, much agitated. "I don't know, sir," replied the pretty housemaid. "The best thing to be done, sir, will be for Mr. Weller to give you a hoist up into the tree, and perhaps Mr. Pickwick will have the goodness to see that nobody comes up the lane, while I watch at the other end of the garden. Goodness gracious, what's that!" "That 'ere blessed lantern 'ull be the death on us all," exclaimed Sam, peevishly. "Take care wot you're a doin' on, sir; you're a sendin' a blaze o' light, right into the back parlour winder." "Dear me!" said Mr. Pickwick, turning hastily aside, "I didn't mean to do that." "Now, it's in the next house, sir," remonstrated Sam. "Bless my heart!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, turning round again. "Now, it's in the stable, and they'll think the place is afire," said Sam. "Shut it up, sir, can't you?" "It's the most extraordinary lantern I ever met with, in all my life!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, greatly bewildered by the effects he had so unintentionally produced. "I never saw such a powerful reflector." "It'll be vun too powerful for us, if you keep blazin' avay in that manner, sir," replied Sam, as Mr. Pickwick, after various unsuccessful efforts, managed to close the slide. "There's the young lady's footsteps. Now, Mr. Vinkle, sir, up vith you." "Stop, stop!" said Mr. Pickwick, "I must speak to her first. Help me up, Sam." "Gently, sir," said Sam, planting his head against the wall, and making a platform of his back. "Step a top o' that 'ere flower-pot, sir. Now then, up vith you." "I'm afraid I shall hurt you, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "Never mind me, sir," replied Sam. "Lend him a hand, Mr. Vinkle, sir. Steady, sir, steady. That's the time o' day!" As Sam spoke, Mr. Pickwick, by exertions almost supernatural in a gentleman of his years and weight, contrived to get upon Sam's back; and Sam gently raising himself up, and Mr. Pickwick holding on fast by the top of the wall, while Mr. Winkle clasped him tight by the legs, they contrived by these means to bring his spectacles just above the level of the coping. "My dear," said Mr. Pickwick, looking over the wall, and catching sight of Arabella, on the other side. "Don't be frightened, my dear, it's only me." "Oh pray go away, Mr. Pickwick," said Arabella. "Tell them all to go away. I am so dreadfully frightened. Dear, dear Mr. Pickwick, don't stop there. You'll fall down and kill yourself, I know you will." "Now, pray don't alarm yourself, my dear," said Mr. Pickwick soothingly. "There is not the least cause for fear, I assure you. Stand firm, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, looking down. "All right, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "Don't be longer than you can conweniently help, sir. You're rayther heavy." "Only another moment, Sam," replied Mr. Pickwick. "I merely wished you to know, my dear, that I should not have allowed my young friend to see you in this clandestine way, if the situation in which you are placed had left him any alternative; and lest the impropriety of this step should cause you any uneasiness, my love, it may be a satisfaction to you, to know that I am present. That's all, my dear." "Indeed, Mr. Pickwick, I am very much obliged to you for your kindness and consideration," replied Arabella, drying her tears with her handkerchief. She would probably have said much more, had not Mr. Pickwick's head disappeared with great swiftness, in consequence of a false step on Sam's shoulder, which brought him suddenly to the ground. He was up again in an instant, however, and bidding Mr. Winkle make haste and get the interview over, ran out into the lane to keep watch, with all the courage and ardour of youth. Mr. Winkle himself, inspired by the occasion, was on the wall in a moment, merely pausing to request Sam to be careful of his master. "I'll take care on him, sir," replied Sam. "Leave him to me." "Where is he? What's he doing, Sam?" inquired Mr. Winkle. "Bless his old gaiters!" rejoined Sam, looking out at the garden door, "he's a keepin' guard in the lane vith that 'ere dark lantern, like a amiable Guy Fawkes! I never see such a fine creetur in my days. Blessed if I don't think his heart must ha' been born five-and-twenty year arter his body, at least!" Mr. Winkle stayed not to hear the encomium upon his friend. He had dropped from the wall; thrown himself at Arabella's feet; and by this time was pleading the sincerity of his passion with an eloquence worthy even of Mr. Pickwick himself. While these things were going on in the open air, an elderly gentleman of scientific attainments was seated in his library, two or three houses off, writing a philosophical treatise, and ever and anon moistening his clay and his labours with a glass of claret from a venerable-looking bottle which stood by his side. In the agonies of composition, the elderly gentleman looked sometimes at the carpet, sometimes at the ceiling, and sometimes at the wall; and when neither carpet, ceiling, nor wall, afforded the requisite degree of inspiration, he looked out of the window. In one of these pauses of invention, the scientific gentleman was gazing abstractedly on the thick darkness outside, when he was very much surprised by observing a most brilliant light glide through the air at a short distance above the ground, and almost instantaneously vanish. After a short time the phenomenon was repeated, not once or twice, but several times: at last the scientific gentleman, laying down his pen, began to consider to what natural causes these appearances were to be assigned. They were not meteors; they were too low. They were not glow-worms; they were too high. They were not will-o'-the-wisps; they were not fire-flies; they were not fire-works. What could they be? Some extraordinary and wonderful phenomenon of nature, which no philosopher had ever seen before; something which it had been reserved for him alone to discover, and which he should immortalise his name by chronicling for the benefit of posterity. Full of this idea, the scientific gentleman seized his pen again, and committed to paper sundry notes of these unparalleled appearances, with the date, day, hour, minute, and precise second at which they were visible: all of which were to form the data of a voluminous treatise of great research and deep learning, which should astonish all the atmospherical sages that ever drew breath in any part of the civilised globe. He threw himself back in his easy chair, wrapped in contemplations of his future greatness. The mysterious light appeared more brilliantly than before: dancing, to all appearances, up and down the lane, crossing from side to side, and moving in an orbit as eccentric as comets themselves. The scientific gentleman was a bachelor. He had no wife to call in and astonish, so he rang the bell for his servant. "Pruffle," said the scientific gentleman, "there is something very extraordinary in the air to-night. Did you see that?" said the scientific gentleman, pointing out of the window, as the light again became visible. "Yes, I did, sir." "What do you think of it, Pruffle?" "Think of it, sir?" "Yes. You have been bred up in this country. What should you say was the cause of those lights, now?" The scientific gentleman smilingly anticipated Pruffle's reply that he could assign no cause for them at all. Pruffle meditated. "I should say it was thieves, sir," said Pruffle at length. "You're a fool, and may go down-stairs," said the scientific gentleman. "Thank you, sir," said Pruffle. And down he went. But the scientific gentleman could not rest under the idea of the ingenious treatise he had projected being lost to the world, which must inevitably be the case if the speculation of the ingenious Mr. Pruffle were not stifled in its birth. He put on his hat and walked quickly down the garden, determined to investigate the matter to the very bottom. Now, shortly before the scientific gentleman walked out into the garden, Mr. Pickwick had run down the lane as fast as he could, to convey a false alarm that somebody was coming that way; occasionally drawing back the slide of the dark lantern to keep himself from the ditch. The alarm was no sooner given, than Mr. Winkle scrambled back over the wall, and Arabella ran into the house; the garden-gate was shut, and the three adventurers were making the best of their way down the lane, when they were startled by the scientific old gentleman unlocking his garden-gate. "Hold hard," whispered Sam, who was, of course, the first of the party. "Show a light for just vun second, sir." Mr. Pickwick did as he was desired, and Sam, seeing a man's head peeping out very cautiously within half a yard of his own, gave it a gentle tap with his clenched fist, which knocked it, with a hollow sound, against the gate. Having performed this feat with great suddenness and dexterity, Mr. Weller caught Mr. Pickwick up on his back, and followed Mr. Winkle down the lane at a pace which, considering the burden he carried, was perfectly astonishing. "Have you got your vind back agin, sir," inquired Sam, when they had reached the end. "Quite. Quite, now," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Then come along, sir," said Sam, setting his master on his feet again. "Come between us, sir. Not half a mile to run. Think you're vinnin' a cup, sir. Now for it." Thus encouraged, Mr. Pickwick made the very best use of his legs. It may be confidently stated that a pair of black gaiters never got over the ground in better style than did those of Mr. Pickwick on this memorable occasion. The coach was waiting, the horses were fresh, the roads were good, and the driver was willing. The whole party arrived in safety at the Bush before Mr. Pickwick had recovered his breath. "In with you at once, sir," said Sam, as he helped his master out. "Don't stop a second in the street, arter that 'ere exercise. Beg your pardon, sir," continued Sam, touching his hat as Mr. Winkle descended. "Hope there warn't a priory 'tachment, sir?" Mr. Winkle grasped his humble friend by the hand, and whispered in his ear, "It's all right, Sam; quite right." Upon which Mr. Weller struck three distinct blows upon his nose in token of intelligence, smiled, winked, and proceeded to put the steps up, with a countenance expressive of lively satisfaction. As to the scientific gentleman, he demonstrated, in a masterly treatise, that these wonderful lights were the effect of electricity; and clearly proved the same by detailing how a flash of fire danced before his eyes when he put his head out of the gate, and how he received a shock which stunned him for a quarter of an hour afterwards; which demonstration delighted all the Scientific Associations beyond measure, and caused him to be considered a light of science ever afterwards. CHAPTER XII [Illustration] _Introduces Mr. Pickwick to a New and not uninteresting Scene in the great Drama of Life_ The remainder of the period which Mr. Pickwick had assigned as the duration of the stay at Bath, passed over without the occurrence of anything material. Trinity Term commenced. On the expiration of its first week, Mr. Pickwick and his friends returned to London; and the former gentleman, attended of course by Sam, straightway repaired to his old quarters at the George and Vulture. On the third morning after their arrival, just as all the clocks in the city were striking nine individually, and somewhere about nine hundred and ninety-nine collectively, Sam was taking the air in George Yard, when a queer sort of fresh-painted vehicle drove up, out of which there jumped with great agility, throwing the reins to a stout man who sat beside him, a queer sort of gentleman, who seemed made for the vehicle, and the vehicle for him. The vehicle was not exactly a gig, neither was it a stanhope. It was not what is currently denominated a dog-cart, neither was it a taxed-cart, not a chaise-cart, nor a guillotined cabriolet; and yet it had something of the character of each and every of these machines. It was painted a bright yellow, with the shafts and wheels picked out in black; and the driver sat, in the orthodox sporting style, on cushions piled about two feet above the rail. The horse was a bay, a well-looking animal enough; but with something of a flash and dog-fighting air about him, nevertheless, which accorded both with the vehicle and his master. The master himself was a man of about forty, with black hair, and carefully combed whiskers. He was dressed in a particularly gorgeous manner, with plenty of articles of jewellery about him--all about three sizes larger than those which are usually worn by gentlemen--and a rough great-coat to crown the whole. Into one pocket of his great-coat he thrust his left hand the moment he dismounted, while from the other he drew forth, with his right, a very bright and glaring silk handkerchief, with which he whisked a speck or two of dust from his boots, and then, crumpling it in his hand, swaggered up the court. It had not escaped Sam's attention that, when this person dismounted, a shabby-looking man in a brown great-coat shorn of divers buttons, who had been previously slinking about, on the opposite side of the way, crossed over, and remained stationary close by. Having something more than a suspicion of the object of the gentleman's visit, Sam preceded him to the George and Vulture, and turning sharp round, planted himself in the centre of the doorway. "Now, my fine fellow!" said the man in the rough coat, in an imperious tone, attempting at the same time to push his way past. "Now, sir, wot's the matter!" replied Sam, returning the push with compound interest. "Come, none of this, my man; this won't do with me," said the owner of the rough coat, raising his voice, and turning white. "Here, Smouch!" "Well, wot's amiss here?" growled the man in the brown coat, who had been gradually sneaking up the court during this short dialogue. "Only some insolence of this young man's," said the principal, giving Sam another push. "Come, none o' this gammon," growled Smouch, giving him another, and a harder one. This last push had the effect which it was intended by the experienced Mr. Smouch to produce; for while Sam, anxious to return the compliment, was grinding that gentleman's body against the doorpost, the principal crept past, and made his way to the bar: whither Sam, after bandying a few epithetical remarks with Mr. Smouch, followed at once. "Good morning, my dear," said the principal, addressing the young lady at the bar, with Botany Bay ease, and New South Wales gentility; "which is Mr. Pickwick's room, my dear?" "Show him up," said the barmaid to a waiter, without deigning another look at the exquisite, in reply to his inquiry. The waiter led the way up-stairs as he was desired, and the man in the rough coat followed, with Sam behind him: who, in his progress up the staircase, indulged in sundry gestures indicative of supreme contempt and defiance: to the unspeakable gratification of the servants and other lookers-on. Mr. Smouch, who was troubled with a hoarse cough, remained below, and expectorated in the passage. Mr. Pickwick was fast asleep in bed, when his early visitor, followed by Sam, entered the room. The noise they made, in so doing, awoke him. "Shaving water, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, from within the curtains. "Shave you directly, Mr. Pickwick," said the visitor, drawing one of them back from the bed's head. "I've got an execution against you, at the suit of Bardell.--Here's the warrant.--Common Pleas.--Here's my card. I suppose you'll come over to my house." Giving Mr. Pickwick a friendly tap on the shoulder, the sheriff's officer (for such he was) threw his card on the counterpane, and pulled a gold toothpick from his waistcoat pocket. "Namby's the name," said the sheriff's deputy, as Mr. Pickwick took his spectacles from under the pillow, and put them on, to read the card. "Namby, Bell Alley, Coleman Street." At this point Sam Weller, who had had his eyes fixed hitherto on Mr. Namby's shining beaver, interfered: "Are you a Quaker?" said Sam. "I'll let you know who I am, before I've done with you," replied the indignant officer. "I'll teach you manners, my fine fellow, one of these fine mornings." "Thankee," said Sam. "I'll do the same to you. Take your hat off." With this, Mr. Weller, in the most dexterous manner, knocked Mr. Namby's hat to the other side of the room: with such violence, that he had very nearly caused him to swallow the gold toothpick into the bargain. [Illustration: "_Take your hat off_"] "Observe this, Mr. Pickwick," said the disconcerted officer, gasping for breath. "I've been assaulted in the execution of my dooty by your servant in your chamber. I'm in bodily fear. I call you to witness this." "Don't witness nothin', sir," interposed Sam. "Shut your eyes up tight, sir. I'd pitch him out o' winder, only he couldn't fall far enough, 'cause o' the leads outside." "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick in an angry voice, as the attendant made various demonstrations of hostilities, "if you say another word, or offer the slightest interference with this person, I discharge you that instant." "But, sir!" said Sam. "Hold your tongue," interposed Mr. Pickwick. "Take that hat up again." But this Sam flatly and positively refused to do; and, after he had been severely reprimanded by his master, the officer, being in a hurry, condescended to pick it up himself: venting a great variety of threats against Sam meanwhile, which that gentleman received with perfect composure: merely observing that if Mr. Namby would have the goodness to put his hat on again, he would knock it into the latter end of next week. Mr. Namby, perhaps thinking that such a process might be productive of inconvenience to himself, declined to offer the temptation, and, soon after, called up Smouch. Having informed him that the capture was made, and that he was to wait for the prisoner until he should have finished dressing, Namby then swaggered out, and drove away. Smouch, requesting Mr. Pickwick in a surly manner "to be as alive as he could, for it was a busy time," drew up a chair by the door, and sat there, until he had finished dressing. Sam was then despatched for a hackney-coach, and in it the triumvirate proceeded to Coleman Street. It was fortunate the distance was short; for Mr. Smouch, besides possessing no very enchanting conversational powers, was rendered a decidedly unpleasant companion in a limited space, by the physical weakness to which we have elsewhere adverted. The coach having turned into a very narrow and dark street, stopped before a house with iron bars to all the windows; the door-posts of which were graced by the name and title of "Namby, Officer to the Sheriffs of London:" the inner gate having been opened by a gentleman who might have passed for a neglected twin brother of Mr. Smouch, and who was endowed with a large key for the purpose, Mr. Pickwick was shown into the "coffee-room." This coffee-room was a front parlour: the principal features of which were fresh sand and stale tobacco smoke. Mr. Pickwick bowed to the three persons who were seated in it when he entered and having despatched Sam for Perker, withdrew into an obscure corner, and from thence looked with some curiosity upon his new companions. One of these was a mere boy of nineteen or twenty, who, though it was yet barely ten o'clock, was drinking gin and water, and smoking a cigar: amusements to which, judging from his inflamed countenance, he had devoted himself pretty constantly for the last year or two of his life. Opposite him, engaged in stirring the fire with the toe of his right boot, was a coarse vulgar young man of about thirty, with a sallow face and harsh voice: evidently possessed of that knowledge of the world, and captivating freedom of manner, which is to be acquired in public-house parlours, and at low billiard-tables. The third tenant of the apartment was a middle-aged man in a very old suit of black, who looked pale and haggard, and paced up and down the room incessantly: stopping, now and then, to look with great anxiety out of the window as if he expected somebody, and then resuming his walk. "You'd better have the loan of my razor this morning, Mr. Ayresleigh," said the man who was stirring the fire, tipping the wink to his friend the boy. "Thank you, no, I shan't want it; I expect I shall be out in the course of an hour or so," replied the other in a hurried manner. Then, walking again up to the window, and once more returning disappointed, he sighed deeply, and left the room; upon which the other two burst into a loud laugh. "Well, I never saw such a game as that," said the gentleman who had offered the razor, whose name appeared to be Price. "Never!" Mr. Price confirmed the assertion with an oath, and then laughed again, when of course the boy (who thought his companion one of the most dashing fellows alive) laughed also. "You'd hardly think, would you now," said Price, turning towards Mr. Pickwick, "that that chap's been here a week yesterday, and never once shaved himself yet, because he feels so certain he's going out in half an hour's time, that he thinks he may as well put it off till he gets home?" "Poor man!" said Mr. Pickwick. "Are his chances of getting out of his difficulties really so great?" "Chances be d--d," replied Price; "he hasn't half the ghost of one. I wouldn't give _that_ for his chance of walking about the streets this time ten years." With this Mr. Price snapped his fingers contemptuously, and rang the bell. "Give me a sheet of paper, Crookey," said Mr. Price to the attendant, who in dress and general appearance looked something between a bankrupt grazier, and a drover in a state of insolvency; "and a glass of brandy and water, Crookey, d'ye hear? I'm going to write to my father, and I must have a stimulant, or I shan't be able to pitch it strong enough into the old boy." At this facetious speech, the young boy, it is almost needless to say, was fairly convulsed. "That's right," said Mr. Price. "Never say die. All fun, ain't it?" "Prime!" said the young gentleman. "You've some spirit about you, you have," said Price. "You've seen something of life." "I rather think I have!" replied the boy. He had looked at it through the dirty panes of glass in a bar door. Mr. Pickwick feeling not a little disgusted with this dialogue, as well as with the air and manner of the two beings by whom it had been carried on, was about to inquire whether he could not be accommodated with a private sitting-room, when two or three strangers of genteel appearance entered, at sight of whom the boy threw his cigar into the fire, and whispering to Mr. Price that they had come to "make it all right" for him, joined them at a table in the further end of the room. It would appear, however, that matters were not going to be made all right quite so speedily as the young gentleman anticipated; for a very long conversation ensued, of which Mr. Pickwick could not avoid hearing certain fragments regarding dissolute conduct, and repeated forgiveness. At last there were very distinct allusions made by the oldest gentleman of the party to one Whitecross Street, at which the young gentleman, notwithstanding his primeness and his spirit, and his knowledge of life into the bargain, reclined his head upon the table, and howled dismally. Very much satisfied with this sudden bringing down of the youth's valour, and this effectual lowering of his tone, Mr. Pickwick rang the bell, and was shown, at his own request, into a private room furnished with a carpet, table, chairs, sideboard, and sofa, and ornamented with a looking-glass, and various old prints. Here he had the advantage of hearing Mrs. Namby's performance on a square piano overhead, while the breakfast was getting ready; when it came, Mr. Perker came too. "Aha, my dear sir," said the little man, "nailed at last, eh? Come, come, I'm not sorry for it either, because now you'll see the absurdity of this conduct. I've noted down the amount of the taxed costs and damages for which the _ca-sa_ was issued, and we had better settle at once and lose no time. Namby is come home by this time, I dare say. What say you, my dear sir? Shall I draw a cheque, or will you?" The little man rubbed his hands with affected cheerfulness as he said this, but glancing at Mr. Pickwick's countenance, could not forbear at the same time casting a desponding look towards Sam Weller. "Perker," said Mr. Pickwick, "let me hear no more of this, I beg. I see no advantage in staying here, so I shall go to prison to-night." "You can't go to Whitecross Street, my dear sir," said Perker. "Impossible! There are sixty beds in a ward; and the bolt's on sixteen hours out of the four-and-twenty." "I would rather go to some other place of confinement if I can," said Mr. Pickwick. "If not, I must make the best I can of that." "You can go to the Fleet, my dear sir, if you're determined to go somewhere," said Perker. "That'll do," said Mr. Pickwick. "I'll go there directly I have finished my breakfast." "Stop, stop, my dear sir; not the least occasion for being in such a violent hurry to get into a place that most other men are as eager to get out of," said the good-natured little attorney. "We must have a _habeas corpus_. There'll be no judge at chambers till four o'clock this afternoon. You must wait till then." "Very good," said Mr. Pickwick, with unmoved patience. "Then we will have a chop, here, at two. See about it, Sam, and tell them to be punctual." Mr. Pickwick remaining firm, despite all the remonstrances and arguments of Perker, the chops appeared and disappeared in due course; he was then put into another hackney-coach, and carried off to Chancery Lane, after waiting half an hour or so for Mr. Namby, who had a select dinner-party and could on no account be disturbed before. There were two judges in attendance at Serjeant's Inn--one King's Bench, and one Common Pleas--and a great deal of business appeared to be transacting before them, if the number of lawyers' clerks who were hurrying in and out with bundles of papers, afforded any test. When they reached the low archway which forms the entrance to the Inn, Perker was detained a few moments parleying with the coachman about the fare and the change; and Mr. Pickwick, stepping to one side to be out of the way of the stream of people that were pouring in and out, looked about him with some curiosity. The people that attracted his attention most, were three or four men of shabby-genteel appearance, who touched their hats to many of the attorneys who passed, and seemed to have some business there, the nature of which Mr. Pickwick could not divine. They were curious-looking fellows. One was a slim and rather lame man in rusty black, and a white neckerchief; another was a stout burly person, dressed in the same apparel, with a great reddish-black cloth round his neck; a third was a little weazen drunken-looking body, with a pimply face. They were loitering about, with their hands behind them, and now and then with an anxious countenance whispered something in the ear of some of the gentlemen with papers, as they hurried by. Mr. Pickwick remembered to have very often observed them lounging under the archway when he had been walking past; and his curiosity was quite excited to know to what branch of the profession these dingy-looking loungers could possibly belong. He was about to propound the question to Namby, who kept close beside him, sucking a large gold ring on his little finger, when Perker bustled up, and observing that there was no time to lose, led the way into the Inn. As Mr. Pickwick followed, the lame man stepped up to him, and civilly touching his hat, held out a written card, which Mr. Pickwick, not wishing to hurt the man's feelings by refusing, courteously accepted and deposited in his waistcoat pocket. "Now," said Perker, turning round before he entered one of the offices, to see that his companions were close behind him. "In here, my dear sir. Hallo, what do _you_ want?" This last question was addressed to the lame man, who, unobserved by Mr. Pickwick, made one of the party. In reply to it, the lame man touched his hat again, with all imaginable politeness, and motioned towards Mr. Pickwick. "No, no," said Perker, with a smile. "We don't want you, my dear friend, we don't want you." "I beg your pardon, sir," said the lame man. "The gentleman took my card. I hope you will employ me, sir. The gentleman nodded to me. I'll be judged by the gentleman himself. You nodded to me, sir?" "Pooh, pooh, nonsense. You didn't nod to anybody, Pickwick? A mistake, a mistake," said Perker. "The gentleman handed me his card," replied Mr. Pickwick, producing it from his waistcoat pocket. "I accepted it, as the gentleman seemed to wish it--in fact I had some curiosity to look at it when I should be at leisure. I----" The little attorney burst into a loud laugh, and returning the card to the lame man, informing him it was all a mistake, whispered to Mr. Pickwick as the man turned away in dudgeon, that he was only a bail. "A what!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. "A bail," replied Perker. "A bail!" "Yes, my dear sir--half a dozen of 'em here. Bail you to any amount, and only charge half-a-crown. Curious trade, isn't it?" said Perker, regaling himself with a pinch of snuff. "What! Am I to understand that these men earn a livelihood by waiting about here, to perjure themselves before the judges of the land, at the rate of half-a-crown a crime!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, quite aghast at the disclosure. "Why, I don't exactly know about perjury, my dear sir," replied the little gentleman. "Harsh word, my dear sir, very harsh word indeed. It's a legal fiction, my dear sir, nothing more." Saying which the attorney shrugged his shoulders, smiled, took a second pinch of snuff, and led the way into the office of the judge's clerk. This was a room of specially dirty appearance, with a very low ceiling and old panelled walls; and so badly lighted, that although it was broad day outside, great tallow candles were burning on the desks. At one end was a door leading to the judge's private apartment, round which were congregated a crowd of attorneys and managing clerks, who were called in, in the order in which their respective appointments stood upon the file. Every time this door was opened to let a party out, the next party made a violent rush to get in; and, as in addition to the numerous dialogues which passed between the gentlemen who were waiting to see the judge, a variety of personal squabbles ensued between the greater part of those who had seen him, there was as much noise as could well be raised in an apartment of such confined dimensions. Nor were the conversations of these gentlemen the only sounds that broke upon the ear. Standing on a box behind a wooden bar at another end of the room, was a clerk in spectacles, who was "taking the affidavits:" large batches of which were, from time to time, carried into the private room by another clerk for the judge's signature. There were a large number of attorneys' clerks to be sworn, and it being a moral impossibility to swear them all at once, the struggles of these gentlemen to reach the clerk in spectacles, were like those of a crowd to get in at the pit door of a theatre when Gracious Majesty honours it with its presence. Another functionary, from time to time, exercised his lungs in calling over the names of those who had been sworn, for the purpose of restoring to them their affidavits after they had been signed by the judge: which gave rise to a few more scuffles; and all these things going on at the same time, occasioned as much bustle as the most active and excitable person could desire to behold. There were yet another class of persons--those who were waiting to attend summonses their employers had taken out, which it was optional to the attorney on the opposite side to attend or not--and whose business it was, from time to time, to cry out the opposite attorney's name; to make certain that he was not in attendance without their knowledge. For example. Leaning against the wall, close beside the seat Mr. Pickwick had taken, was an office-lad of fourteen, with a tenor voice; near him, a common-law clerk with a bass one. A clerk hurried in with a bundle of papers, and stared about him. "Sniggle and Blink," cried the tenor. "Porkin and Snob," growled the bass. "Stumpy and Deacon," said the new comer. Nobody answered; the next man who came in, was hailed by the whole three; and he in his turn shouted for another firm; and then somebody else roared in a loud voice for another; and so forth. All this time, the man in the spectacles was hard at work, swearing the clerks: the oath being invariably administered without any effort at the punctuation, and usually in the following terms: "Take the book in your right hand this is your name and hand-writing you swear that the contents of this your affidavit are true so help you God a shilling you must get change I haven't got it." "Well, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, "I suppose they are getting the _habeas corpus_ ready." "Yes," said Sam, "and I vish they'd bring out the have-his-carcase. It's wery unpleasant keepin' us vaitin' here. I'd ha' got half a dozen have-his-carcases ready, pack'd up and all, by this time." What sort of cumbrous and unmanageable machine Sam Weller imagined a _habeas corpus_ to be, does not appear; for Perker, at that moment, walked up, and took Mr. Pickwick away. The usual forms having been gone through, the body of Samuel Pickwick was soon afterwards confided to the custody of the tipstaff, to be by him taken to the Warden of the Fleet Prison, and there detained until the amount of the damages and costs in the action of Bardell against Pickwick was fully paid and satisfied. "And that," said Mr. Pickwick, laughing, "will be a very long time. Sam, call another hackney-coach. Perker, my dear friend, good-bye." "I shall go with you, and see you safe there," said Perker. "Indeed," replied Mr. Pickwick, "I would rather go without any other attendant than Sam. As soon as I get settled, I will write and let you know, and I shall expect you immediately. Until then, good-bye." As Mr. Pickwick said this, he got into the coach which had by this time arrived: followed by the tipstaff. Sam having stationed himself on the box, it rolled away. "A most extraordinary man that!" said Perker, as he stopped to pull on his gloves. "What a bankrupt he'd make, sir," observed Mr. Lowten, who was standing near. "How he would bother the commissioners! He'd set 'em at defiance if they talked of committing him, sir." The attorney did not appear very much delighted with his clerk's professional estimate of Mr. Pickwick's character, for he walked away without deigning any reply. The hackney-coach jolted along Fleet Street, as hackney-coaches usually do. The horses "went better," the driver said, when they had anything before them (they must have gone at a most extraordinary pace when there was nothing), and so the vehicle kept behind a cart; when the cart stopped, it stopped; and when the cart went on again, it did the same. Mr. Pickwick sat opposite the tipstaff; and the tipstaff sat with his hat between his knees, whistling a tune, and looking out of the coach window. Time performs wonders. By the powerful old gentleman's aid, even a hackney-coach gets over half a mile of ground. They stopped at length, and Mr. Pickwick alighted at the gate of the Fleet. The tipstaff, looking over his shoulder to see that his charge was following close at his heels, preceded Mr. Pickwick into the prison; turning to the left, after they had entered, they passed through an open door into a lobby, from which a heavy gate, opposite to that by which they had entered and which was guarded by a stout turnkey with a key in his hand, led at once into the interior of the prison. Here they stopped, while the tipstaff delivered his papers; and here Mr. Pickwick was apprised that he would remain, until he had undergone the ceremony, known to the initiated as "sitting for your portrait." "Sitting for my portrait!" said Mr. Pickwick. "Having your likeness taken, sir," replied the stout turnkey. "We're capital hands at likenesses here. Take 'em in no time, and always exact. Walk in, sir, and make yourself at home." Mr. Pickwick complied with the invitation, and sat himself down: and Mr. Weller, who stationed himself at the back of the chair, whispered that the sitting was merely another term for undergoing an inspection by the different turnkeys, in order that they might know prisoners from visitors. "Well, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, "then I wish the artists would come. This is rather a public place." "They von't be long, sir, I des-say," replied Sam. "There's a Dutch clock, sir." "So I see," observed Mr. Pickwick. "And a bird-cage, sir," said Sam. "Veels vithin veels, a prison in a prison. Ain't it, sir?" As Mr. Weller made this philosophical remark, Mr. Pickwick was aware that the sitting had commenced. The stout turnkey having been relieved from the lock, sat down, and looked at him carelessly from time to time, while a long thin man who had relieved him, thrust his hands beneath his coat-tails, and planting himself opposite, took a good long view of him. A third rather surly-looking gentleman: who had apparently been disturbed at his tea, for he was disposing of the last remnant of a crust and butter when he came in: stationed himself close to Mr. Pickwick; and, resting his hands on his hips, inspected him narrowly; while two others mixed with the group, and studied his features with most intent and thoughtful faces. Mr. Pickwick winced a good deal under the operation, and appeared to sit very uneasily in his chair; but he made no remark to anybody while it was being performed, not even to Sam, who reclined upon the back of the chair, reflecting, partly on the situation of his master, and partly on the great satisfaction it would have afforded him to make a fierce assault upon all the turnkeys there assembled, one after the other, if it were lawful and peaceable to do so. At length the likeness was completed, and Mr. Pickwick was informed, that he might now proceed into the prison. "Where am I to sleep to-night?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Why I don't rightly know about to-night," replied the stout turnkey. "You'll be chummed on somebody to-morrow, and then you'll be all snug and comfortable. The first night's generally rather unsettled, but you'll be set all squares to-morrow." After some discussion, it was discovered that one of the turnkeys had a bed to let, which Mr. Pickwick could have for that night. He gladly agreed to hire it. "If you'll come with me, I'll show it you at once," said the man. "It ain't a large 'un; but it's an out-and-outer to sleep in. This way, sir." They passed through the inner gate, and descended a short flight of steps. The key was turned after them; and Mr. Pickwick found himself, for the first time in his life, within the walls of a debtor's prison. CHAPTER XIII [Illustration] _What Befell Mr. Pickwick when he got into the Fleet: what Prisoners he Saw there; and how he Passed the Night_ Mr. Tom Roker, the gentleman who had accompanied Mr. Pickwick into the prison, turned sharp round to the right when he got to the bottom of the little flight of steps, and led the way, through an iron gate which stood open, and up another short flight of steps, into a long narrow gallery, dirty and low, paved with stone, and very dimly lighted by a window at each remote end. "This," said the gentleman, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and looking carelessly over his shoulder to Mr. Pickwick, "this here is the hall flight." "Oh," replied Mr. Pickwick, looking down a dark and filthy staircase, which appeared to lead to a range of damp and gloomy stone vaults, beneath the ground, "and those, I suppose, are the little cellars where the prisoners keep their small quantities of coals. Unpleasant places to have to go down to; but very convenient, I dare say." "Yes, I shouldn't wonder if they was convenient," replied the gentleman, "seeing that a few people live there, pretty snug. That's the Fair, that is." "My friend," said Mr. Pickwick, "you don't really mean to say that human beings live down in those wretched dungeons?" "Don't I?" replied Mr. Roker, with indignant astonishment; "why shouldn't I?" "Live! Live down there!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. "Live down there! Yes, and die down there, too, wery often!" replied Mr. Roker; "and what of that? Who's got to say anything agin it? Live down there! Yes, and a wery good place it is to live in, ain't it?" As Roker turned somewhat fiercely upon Mr. Pickwick in saying this, and, moreover, muttered in an excited fashion certain unpleasant invocations concerning his own eyes, limbs, and circulating fluids, the latter gentleman deemed it advisable to pursue the discourse no further. Mr. Roker then proceeded to mount another staircase, as dirty as that which led to the place which had just been the subject of discussion, in which ascent he was closely followed by Mr. Pickwick and Sam. "There," said Mr. Roker, pausing for breath when they reached another gallery of the same dimensions as the one below, "this is the coffee-room flight; the one above's the third, and the one above that's the top; and the room where you're a-going to sleep to-night is the warden's room, and it's this way--come on." Having said all this in a breath, Mr. Roker mounted another flight of stairs, with Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller following at his heels. These staircases received light from sundry windows placed at some little distance above the floor, and looking into a gravelled area bounded by a high brick wall, with iron _chevaux-de-frise_ at the top. This area, it appeared from Mr. Roker's statement, was the racket-ground; and it further appeared, on the testimony of the same gentleman, that there was a smaller area in that portion of the prison which was nearest Farringdon Street, denominated and called the "Painted Ground," from the fact of its walls having once displayed the semblances of various men-of-war in full sail, and other artistical effects achieved in bygone times by some imprisoned draughtsman in his leisure hours. Having communicated this piece of information, apparently more for the purpose of discharging his bosom of an important fact, than with any specific view of enlightening Mr. Pickwick, the guide, having at length reached another gallery, led the way into a small passage at the extreme end: opened a door: and disclosed an apartment of an appearance by no means inviting, containing eight or nine iron bedsteads. "There," said Mr. Roker, holding the door open, and looking triumphantly round at Mr. Pickwick, "there's a room!" Mr. Pickwick's face, however, betokened such a very trifling portion of satisfaction at the appearance of his lodging, that Mr. Roker looked for a reciprocity of feeling into the countenance of Samuel Weller, who, until now, had observed a dignified silence. "There's a room, young man," observed Mr. Roker. "I see it," replied Sam, with a placid nod of the head. "You wouldn't think to find such a room as this in the Farringdon Hotel, would you?" said Mr. Roker, with a complacent smile. To this Mr. Weller replied with an easy and unstudied closing of one eye; which might be considered to mean, either that he would have thought it, or that he would not have thought it, or that he had never thought anything at all about it: as the observer's imagination suggested. Having executed this feat, and re-opened his eye, Mr. Weller proceeded to inquire which was the individual bedstead that Mr. Roker had so flatteringly described as an out-and-outer to sleep in. "That's it," replied Mr. Roker, pointing to a very rusty one in a corner. "It would make any one go to sleep, that bedstead would, whether they wanted to or not." "I should think," said Sam, eyeing the piece of furniture in question with a look of excessive disgust, "I should think poppies was nothing to it." "Nothing at all," said Mr. Roker. "And I s'pose," said Sam, with a sidelong glance at his master, as if to see whether there were any symptoms of his determination being shaken by what passed, "I s'pose the other gen'l'm'n as sleeps here, _are_ gen'l'm'n." "Nothing but it," said Mr. Roker. "One of 'em takes his twelve pints of ale a-day, and never leaves off smoking even at his meals." "He must be a first-rater," said Sam. "A 1," replied Mr. Roker. Nothing daunted, even by this intelligence, Mr. Pickwick smilingly announced his determination to test the powers of the narcotic bedstead for that night; and Mr. Roker, after informing him that he could retire to rest at whatever hour he thought proper, without any further notice or formality, walked off, leaving him standing with Sam in the gallery. It was getting dark; that is to say, a few gas jets were kindled in this place which was never light, by way of compliment to the evening, which had set in outside. As it was rather warm, some of the tenants of the numerous little rooms which opened into the gallery on either hand, had set their doors ajar. Mr. Pickwick peeped into them as he passed along, with great curiosity and interest. Here four or five great hulking fellows, just visible through a cloud of tobacco-smoke, were engaged in noisy and riotous conversation over half-emptied pots of beer, or playing at all-fours with a very greasy pack of cards. In the adjoining room, some solitary tenant might be seen, poring, by the light of a feeble tallow candle, over a bundle of soiled and tattered papers, yellow with dust and dropping to pieces from age: writing, for the hundredth time, some lengthened statement of his grievances, for the perusal of some great man whose eyes it would never reach, or whose heart it would never touch. In a third, a man, with his wife and a whole crowd of children, might be seen making up a scanty bed on the ground, or upon a few chairs, for the younger ones to pass the night in. And in a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth, and a seventh, the noise and the beer, and the tobacco-smoke, and the cards, all came over again in greater force than before. In the galleries themselves, and more especially on the staircases, there lingered a great number of people, who came there, some because their rooms were empty and lonesome, others because their rooms were full and hot: the greater part because they were restless and uncomfortable, and not possessed of the secret of exactly knowing what to do with themselves. There were many classes of people here, from the labouring man in his fustian jacket, to the broken-down spendthrift in his shawl dressing-gown, most appropriately out at elbows; but there was the same air about them all--a listless, jail-bird, careless swagger, a vagabondish who's-afraid sort of bearing, which is wholly indescribable in words, but which any man can understand in one moment if he wish, by setting foot in the nearest debtor's prison, and looking at the very first group of people he sees there, with the same interest as Mr. Pickwick did. "It strikes me, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, leaning over the iron rail at the stair-head--"it strikes me, Sam, that imprisonment for debt is scarcely any punishment at all." "Think not, sir?" inquired Mr. Weller. "You see how these fellows drink, and smoke, and roar," replied Mr. Pickwick. "It's quite impossible that they can mind it much." "Ah, that's just the wery thing, sir," rejoined Sam, "_they_ don't mind it; it's a regular holiday to them--all porter and skittles. It's the t'other vuns as gets done over, vith this sort o' thing: them down-hearted fellers as can't svig avay at the beer, nor play at skittles neither; them as vould pay if they could, and gets low by being boxed up. I'll tell you wot it is, sir; them as is alvays a idlin' in public-houses it don't damage at all, and them as is alvays a workin' ven they can, it damages too much. 'It's unekal,' as my father used to say ven his grog worn't made half-and-half. It's unekal, and that's the fault on it." "I think you're right, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, after a few moments' reflection, "quite right." "P'raps, now and then, there's some honest people as likes it," observed Mr. Weller, in a ruminative tone, "but I never heerd o' one as I can call to mind, 'cept the little dirty-faced man in the brown coat; and that wos force of habit." "And who was he?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Vy, that's just the wery point as nobody never know'd," replied Sam. "But what did he do?" "Vy, he did wot many men as has been much better know'd has done in their time, sir," replied Sam, "he run a match agin the constable, and vun it." "In other words, I suppose," said Mr. Pickwick, "he got into debt?" "Just that, sir," replied Sam, "and in course o' time he come here in consekens. It warn't much--execution for nine pound nothin', multiplied by five for costs; but hows'ever here he stopped for seventeen year. If he got any wrinkles in his face, they wos stopped up vith the dirt, for both the dirty face and the brown coat wos just the same at the end o' that time as they wos at the beginnin'. He wos a wery peaceful inoffendin' little creetur, and wos alvays a bustlin' about for somebody, or playin' rackets and never vinnin'; till at last the turnkeys they got quite fond on him, and he wos in the lodge ev'ry night, a chattering vith 'em, and tellin' stories, and all that 'ere. Vun night he wos in there as usual, along vith a wery old friend of his, as wos on the lock, ven he says all of a sudden, 'I ain't seen the market outside, Bill,' he says (Fleet Market wos there at that time)--'I ain't seen the market outside, Bill,' he says, 'for seventeen year.' 'I know you ain't,' says the turnkey, smoking his pipe. 'I should like to see it for a minit, Bill,' he says. 'Wery probable,' says the turnkey, smoking his pipe wery fierce, and making believe he warn't up to what the little man wanted. 'Bill,' says the little man, more abrupt than afore, 'I've got the fancy in my head. Let me see the public streets once more afore I die; and if I ain't struck with apoplexy, I'll be back in five minits by the clock.' 'And wot 'ud become o' me if you _wos_ struck with apoplexy?' said the turnkey. 'Vy,' says the little creetur, 'whoever found me, 'ud bring me home, for I've got my card in my pocket, Bill,' he says, 'No. 20, Coffee-room Flight:' and that wos true, sure enough, for ven he wanted to make the acquaintance of any new comer, he used to pull out a little limp card vith them words on it and nothin' else; in consideration of vich, he wos alvays called Number Tventy. The turnkey takes a fixed look at him, and at last he says in a solemn manner, 'Tventy,' he says, 'I'll trust you; you won't get your old friend into trouble?' 'No, my boy; I hope I've somethin' better behind here,' says the little man; and as he said it he hit his little veskit wery hard, and then a tear started out o' each eye, which wos wery extraordinary, for it was supposed as water never touched his face. He shook the turnkey by the hand; out he vent----" "And never came back again?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Wrong for vunce, sir," replied Mr. Weller, "for back he come, two minits afore the time, a bilin' with rage: sayin' how he'd been nearly run over by a hackney-coach: that he warn't used to it: and he wos blowed if he wouldn't write to the Lord Mayor. They got him pacified at last; and for five years arter that, he never even so much as peeped out o' the lodge gate." "At the expiration of that time he died, I suppose?" said Mr. Pickwick. "No, he didn't, sir," replied Sam. "He got a curiosity to go and taste the beer at a new public-house over the way, and it wos such a wery nice parlour, that he took it into his head to go there every night, vich he did for a long time, always comin' back reg'lar about a quarter of an hour afore the gate shut, vich wos all wery snug and comfortable. At last he began to get so precious jolly, that he used to forget how the time vent, or care nothin' at all about it, and he vent on gettin' later and later, till vun night his old friend wos just a shuttin' the gate--had turned the key in fact--ven he come up. 'Hold hard, Bill,' he says. 'Wot, ain't you come home yet, Tventy?' says the turnkey; 'I thought you wos in, long ago.' 'No, I wasn't,' says the little man, vith a smile. 'Well then, I'll tell you wot it is, my friend,' says the turnkey, openin' the gate wery slow and sulky, 'it's my 'pinion as you've got into bad company o' late, which I'm wery sorry to see. Now, I don't wish to do nothing harsh,' he says, 'but if you can't confine yourself to steady circles, and find your vay back at reg'lar hours, as sure as you're a standin' there, I'll shut you out altogether!' The little man was seized vith a wiolent fit o' tremblin', and never vent outside the prison walls artervards!" As Sam concluded, Mr. Pickwick slowly retraced his steps down-stairs. After a few thoughtful turns in the Painted Ground, which, as it was now dark, was nearly deserted, he intimated to Mr. Weller that he thought it high time for him to withdraw for the night; requesting him to seek a bed in some adjacent public-house, and return early in the morning, to make arrangements for the removal of his master's wardrobe from the George and Vulture. This request Mr. Samuel Weller prepared to obey, with as good a grace as he could assume, but with a very considerable show of reluctance nevertheless. He even went so far as to essay sundry ineffectual hints regarding the expediency of stretching himself on the gravel for that night; but finding Mr. Pickwick obstinately deaf to any such suggestions, finally withdrew. There is no disguising the fact that Mr. Pickwick felt very low-spirited and uncomfortable; not for lack of society, for the prison was very full, and a bottle of wine would at once have purchased the utmost good-fellowship of a few choice spirits, without any more formal ceremony of introduction; but he was alone in the coarse, vulgar crowd, and felt the depression of spirit and sinking of heart, naturally consequent on the reflection that he was cooped and caged up, without a prospect of liberation. As to the idea of releasing himself by ministering to the sharpness of Dodson and Fogg, it never for an instant entered his thoughts. In this frame of mind he turned again into the coffee-room gallery, and walked slowly to and fro. The place was intolerably dirty, and the smell of tobacco-smoke perfectly suffocating. There was a perpetual slamming and banging of doors as the people went in and out; and the noise of their voices and footsteps echoed and re-echoed through the passages constantly. A young woman, with a child in her arms, who seemed scarcely able to crawl, from emaciation and misery, was walking up and down the passage in conversation with her husband, who had no other place to see her in. As they passed Mr. Pickwick, he could hear the female sob; and once she burst into such a passion of grief, that she was compelled to lean against the wall for support, while the man took the child in his arms, and tried to soothe her. Mr. Pickwick's heart was really too full to bear it, and he went up-stairs to bed. Now, although the warden's room was a very uncomfortable one (being, in every point of decoration and convenience, several hundred degrees inferior to the common infirmary of a county gaol), it had at present the merit of being wholly deserted save by Mr. Pickwick himself. So, he sat down at the foot of his little iron bedstead, and began to wonder how much a year the warden made out of the dirty room. Having satisfied himself, by mathematical calculation, that the apartment was about equal in annual value to the freehold of a small street in the suburbs of London, he took to wondering what possible temptation could have induced a dingy-looking fly that was crawling over his pantaloons, to come into a close prison, when he had the choice of so many airy situations--a course of meditation which led him to the irresistible conclusion that the insect was mad. After settling this point, he began to be conscious that he was getting sleepy; whereupon he took his nightcap out of the pocket in which he had had the precaution to stow it in the morning, and, leisurely undressing himself, got into bed, and fell asleep. "Bravo! Heel over toe--cut and shuffle--pay away at it, Zephyr! I'm smothered if the Opera House isn't your proper hemisphere. Keep it up! Hooray!" These expressions, delivered in a most boisterous tone, and accompanied with loud peals of laughter, roused Mr. Pickwick from one of those sound slumbers which, lasting in reality some half-hour, seem to the sleeper to have been protracted for three weeks or a month. The voice had no sooner ceased than the room was shaken with such violence that the windows rattled in their frames, and the bedsteads trembled again. Mr. Pickwick started up, and remained for some minutes fixed in mute astonishment at the scene before him. On the floor of the room, a man in a broad-skirted green coat, with corduroy knee smalls and grey cotton stockings, was performing the most popular steps of a hornpipe, with a slang and burlesque caricature of grace and lightness, which, combined with the very appropriate character of his costume, was inexpressibly absurd. Another man, evidently very drunk, who had probably been tumbled into bed by his companions, was sitting up between the sheets, warbling as much as he could recollect of a comic song, with the most intensely sentimental feeling and expression; while a third, seated on one of the bedsteads, was applauding both performers with the air of a profound connoisseur, and encouraging them by such ebullitions of feeling as had already roused Mr. Pickwick from his sleep. This last man was an admirable specimen of a class of gentry which never can be seen in full perfection but in such places;--they may be met with, in an imperfect state, occasionally about stable-yards and public-houses; but they never attain their full bloom except in these hot-beds, which would almost seem to be considerately provided by the Legislature for the sole purpose of rearing them. He was a tall fellow, with an olive complexion, long dark hair, and very thick bushy whiskers meeting under his chin. He wore no neckerchief, as he had been playing rackets all day, and his open shirt-collar displayed their full luxuriance. On his head he wore one of the common eighteenpenny French skull-caps, with a gaudy tassel dangling therefrom, very happily in keeping with a common fustian coat. His legs: which, being long, were afflicted with weakness: graced a pair of Oxford-mixture trousers, made to show the full symmetry of those limbs. Being somewhat negligently braced, however, and, moreover, but imperfectly buttoned, they fell in a series of not the most graceful folds over a pair of shoes sufficiently down at the heel to display a pair of very soiled white stockings. There was a rakish, vagabond smartness, and a kind of boastful rascality, about the whole man, that was worth a mine of gold. This figure was the first to perceive that Mr. Pickwick was looking on; upon which he winked to the Zephyr, and entreated him, with mock gravity, not to wake the gentleman. "Why, bless the gentleman's honest heart and soul!" said the Zephyr, turning round and affecting the extremity of surprise; "the gentleman _is_ awake. Hem, Shakespeare! How do you do, sir? How is Mary and Sarah, sir? and the dear old lady at home, sir? Will you have the kindness to put my compliments into the first little parcel you're sending that way, sir, and say that I would have sent 'em before, only I was afraid they might be broken in the waggon, sir?" "Don't overwhelm the gentleman with ordinary civilities when you see he's anxious to have something to drink," said the gentleman with the whiskers, with a jocose air. "Why don't you ask the gentleman what he'll take?" "Dear me, I quite forgot," replied the other. "What _will_ you take, sir? Will you take port wine, sir, or sherry wine, sir? I can recommend the ale, sir; or perhaps you'd like to taste the porter, sir? Allow me to have the felicity of hanging up your nightcap, sir." With this, the speaker snatched that article of dress from Mr. Pickwick's head, and fixed it in a twinkling on that of the drunken man, who, firmly impressed with the belief that he was delighting a numerous assembly, continued to hammer away at the comic song in the most melancholy strains imaginable. Taking a man's nightcap from his brow by violent means, and adjusting it on the head of an unknown gentleman of dirty exterior, however ingenious a witticism in itself, is unquestionably one of those which come under the denomination of practical jokes. Viewing the matter precisely in this light, Mr. Pickwick, without the slightest intimation of his purpose, sprang vigorously out of bed, struck the Zephyr so smart a blow in the chest as to deprive him of a considerable portion of the commodity which sometimes bears his name, and then, recapturing his nightcap, boldly placed himself in an attitude of defence. "Now," said Mr. Pickwick, gasping no less from excitement than from the expenditure of so much energy, "come on--both of you--both of you!" With this liberal invitation the worthy gentleman communicated a revolving motion to his clenched fists, by way of appalling his antagonists with a display of science. [Illustration: "_Come on--both of you_"] It might have been Mr. Pickwick's very unexpected gallantry, or it might have been the complicated manner in which he had got himself out of bed, and fallen all in a mass upon the hornpipe man, that touched his adversaries. Touched they were; for, instead of then and there making an attempt to commit manslaughter, as Mr. Pickwick implicitly believed they would have done, they paused, stared at each other a short time, and finally laughed outright. "Well; you're a trump, and I like you all the better for it," said the Zephyr. "Now jump into bed again, or you'll catch the rheumatics. No malice, I hope?" said the man, extending a hand the size of the yellow clump of fingers which sometimes swings over a glover's door. "Certainly not," said Mr. Pickwick, with great alacrity; for now that the excitement was over, he began to feel rather cool about the legs. "Allow me the _h_onour," said the gentleman with the whiskers, presenting his dexter hand, and aspirating the h. "With much pleasure, sir," said Mr. Pickwick; and having executed a very long and solemn shake, he got into bed again. "My name is Smangle, sir," said the man with the whiskers. "Oh," said Mr. Pickwick. "Mine is Mivins," said the man in the stockings. "I am delighted to hear it, sir," said Mr. Pickwick. "Hem," coughed Mr. Smangle. "Did you speak, sir?" said Mr. Pickwick. "No, I did not, sir," said Mr. Smangle. "I thought you did, sir," said Mr. Pickwick. All this was very genteel and pleasant; and to make matters still more comfortable, Mr. Smangle assured Mr. Pickwick a great many times that he entertained a very high respect for the feelings of a gentleman; which sentiment, indeed, did him infinite credit, as he could be in no wise supposed to understand them. "Are you going through the court, sir?" inquired Mr. Smangle. "Through the what?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Through the Court--Portugal Street--the Court for the Relief of--you know." "Oh no," replied Mr. Pickwick. "No, I am not." "Going out, perhaps?" suggested Mivins. "I fear not," replied Mr. Pickwick. "I refuse to pay some damages, and am here in consequence." "Ah," said Mr. Smangle, "paper has been my ruin." "A stationer, I presume, sir?" said Mr. Pickwick, innocently. "Stationer! No, no; confound and curse me! Not so low as that. No trade. When I say paper, I mean bills." "Oh, you use the word in that sense. I see," said Mr. Pickwick. "Damme! A gentleman must expect reverses," said Smangle. "What of that? Here am I in the Fleet Prison. Well; good. What then? I'm none the worse for that, am I?" "Not a bit," replied Mr. Mivins. And he was quite right; for, so far from Mr. Smangle being any the worse for it, he was something the better, inasmuch as to qualify himself for the place, he had obtained gratuitous possession of certain articles of jewellery, which, long before that, had found their way to the pawnbroker's. "Well; but come," said Mr. Smangle; "this is dry work. Let's rinse our mouths with a drop of burnt sherry; the last comer shall stand it, Mivins shall fetch it, and I'll help to drink it. That's a fair and gentlemanlike division of labour, anyhow. Curse me!" Unwilling to hazard another quarrel, Mr. Pickwick gladly assented to the proposition, and consigned the money to Mr. Mivins, who, as it was nearly eleven o'clock, lost no time in repairing to the coffee-room on his errand. "I say," whispered Smangle, the moment his friend had left the room; "what did you give him?" "Half a sovereign," said Mr. Pickwick. "He's a devilish pleasant gentlemanly dog," said Mr. Smangle;--"infernal pleasant. I don't know anybody more so, but--" Here Mr. Smangle stopped short, and shook his head dubiously. "You don't think there is any probability of his appropriating the money to his own use?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Oh no! Mind, I don't say that; I expressly say that he's a devilish gentlemanly fellow," said Mr. Smangle. "But I think, perhaps, if somebody went down, just to see that he didn't dip his beak into the jug by accident, or make some confounded mistake in losing the money as he came up-stairs, it would be as well. Here, you sir, just run down-stairs, and look after that gentleman, will you?" This request was addressed to a little timid-looking, nervous man, whose appearance bespoke great poverty, and who had been crouching on his bedstead all this while, apparently stupefied by the novelty of his situation. "You know where the coffee-room is," said Smangle; "just run down, and tell that gentleman you've come to help him up with the jug. Or--stop--I'll tell you what--I'll tell you how we'll do him," said Smangle, with a cunning look. "How?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Send down word that he's to spend the change in cigars. Capital thought. Run and tell him that; d'ye hear? They shan't be wasted," continued Smangle, turning to Mr. Pickwick. "_I'll_ smoke 'em." This manoeuvring was so exceedingly ingenious, and, withal, performed with such immovable composure and coolness, that Mr. Pickwick would have had no wish to disturb it, even if he had had the power. In a short time Mr. Mivins returned, bearing the sherry, which Mr. Smangle dispensed in two little cracked mugs; considerately remarking, with reference to himself, that a gentleman must not be particular under such circumstances, and that, for his part, he was not too proud to drink out of the jug. In which, to show his sincerity, he forthwith pledged the company in a draught which half emptied it. An excellent understanding having been by these means promoted, Mr. Smangle proceeded to entertain his hearers with a relation of divers romantic adventures in which he had been from time to time engaged, involving various interesting anecdotes of a thorough-bred horse, and a magnificent Jewess, both of surpassing beauty, and much coveted by the nobility and gentry of these kingdoms. Long before these elegant extracts from the biography of a gentleman were concluded, Mr. Mivins had betaken himself to bed, and had set in snoring for the night: leaving the timid stranger and Mr. Pickwick to the full benefit of Mr. Smangle's experiences. Nor were the two last-named gentlemen as much edified as they might have been, by the moving passages narrated. Mr. Pickwick had been in a state of slumber for some time, when he had a faint perception of the drunken man bursting out afresh with the comic song, and receiving from Mr. Smangle a gentle intimation, through the medium of the water jug, that his audience were not musically disposed. Mr. Pickwick then once again dropped off to sleep, with a confused consciousness that Mr. Smangle was still engaged in relating a long story, the chief point of which appeared to be, that on some occasion particularly stated and set forth, he had "done" a bill and a gentleman at the same time. CHAPTER XIV [Illustration] _Illustrative, like the preceding one, of the old Proverb, that Adversity brings a Man acquainted with Strange Bed-fellows. Likewise containing Mr. Pickwick's extraordinary and startling Announcement to Mr. Samuel Weller_ When Mr. Pickwick opened his eyes next morning, the first object upon which they rested, was Samuel Weller, seated upon a small black portmanteau, intently regarding, apparently in a condition of profound abstraction, the stately figure of the dashing Mr. Smangle; while Mr. Smangle himself, who was already partially dressed, was seated on his bedstead, occupied in the desperately hopeless attempt of staring Mr. Weller out of countenance. We say desperately hopeless, because Sam, with a comprehensive gaze which took in Mr. Smangle's cap, feet, head, face, legs, and whiskers, all at the same time, continued to look steadily on, with every demonstration of lively satisfaction, but with no more regard to Mr. Smangle's personal sentiments on the subject than he would have displayed had he been inspecting a wooden statue, or a straw-embowelled Guy Fawkes. "Well; will you know me again?" said Mr. Smangle, with a frown. "I'd svear to you anyveres, sir," replied Sam, cheerfully. "Don't be impertinent to a gentleman, sir," said Mr. Smangle. "Not on no account," replied Sam. "If you'll tell me ven he vakes, I'll be upon the wery best extra-super behaviour!" This observation, having a remote tendency to imply that Mr. Smangle was no gentleman, kindled his ire. "Mivins!" said Mr. Smangle, with a passionate air. "What's the office?" replied that gentleman from his couch. "Who the devil is this fellow?" "'Gad," said Mr. Mivins, looking lazily out from under the bed-clothes, "I ought to ask _you_ that. Hasn't he any business here?" "No," replied Mr. Smangle. "Then knock him down-stairs, and tell him not to presume to get up till I come and kick him," rejoined Mr. Mivins: with this prompt advice that excellent gentleman again betook himself to slumber. The conversation exhibiting these unequivocal symptoms of verging on the personal, Mr. Pickwick deemed it a fit point at which to interpose. "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "Sir?" rejoined that gentleman. "Has anything new occurred since last night?" "Nothin' partickler, sir," replied Sam, glancing at Mr. Smangle's whiskers; "the late prewailance of a close and confined atmosphere has been rayther favourable to the growth of veeds, of an alarmin' and sangvinary natur'; but vith that 'ere exception things is quiet enough." "I shall get up," said Mr. Pickwick; "give me some clean things." Whatever hostile intentions Mr. Smangle might have entertained, his thoughts were speedily diverted by the unpacking of the portmanteau; the contents of which appeared to impress him at once with a most favourable opinion, not only of Mr. Pickwick, but of Sam also, who, he took an early opportunity of declaring in a tone of voice loud enough for that eccentric personage to overhear, was a regular thorough-bred original, and consequently the very man after his own heart. As to Mr. Pickwick, the affection he conceived for him knew no limits. "Now is there anything I can do for you, my dear sir?" said Smangle. "Nothing that I am aware of, I am obliged to you," replied Mr. Pickwick. "No linen that you want sent to the washerwoman's? I know a delightful washerwoman outside, that comes for my things twice a week; and, by Jove!--how devilish lucky!--this is the day she calls. Shall I put any of those little things up with mine? Don't say anything about the trouble. Confound and curse it! if one gentleman under a cloud, is not to put himself a little out of the way to assist another gentleman in the same condition, what's human nature?" Thus spake Mr. Smangle, edging himself meanwhile as near as possible to the portmanteau, and beaming forth looks of the most fervent and disinterested friendship. "There's nothing you want to give out for the man to brush, my dear creature, is there?" resumed Smangle. "Nothin' whatever, my fine feller," rejoined Sam, taking the reply into his own mouth. "P'raps if vun of us wos to brush, without troubling the man, it 'ud be more agreeable for all parties, as the schoolmaster said wen the young gentleman objected to being flogged by the butler." "And there's nothing that I can send in my little box to the washerwoman's, is there?" said Smangle, turning from Sam to Mr. Pickwick, with an air of some discomfiture. "Nothin' whatever, sir," retorted Sam; "I'm afeerd the little box must be chock-full o' your own as it is." This speech was accompanied with such a very expressive look at that particular portion of Mr. Smangle's attire, by the appearance of which the skill of laundresses in getting up gentlemen's linen is generally tested, that he was fain to turn upon his heel, and, for the present at any rate, to give up all design on Mr. Pickwick's purse and wardrobe. He accordingly retired in dudgeon to the racket-ground, where he made a light and wholesome breakfast on a couple of the cigars which had been purchased on the previous night. Mr. Mivins, who was no smoker, and whose account for small articles of chandlery had also reached down to the bottom of the slate, and been "carried over" to the other side, remained in bed, and, in his own words, "took it out in sleep." After breakfasting in a small closet attached to the coffee-room, which bore the imposing title of the Snuggery; the temporary inmate of which, in consideration of a small additional charge, had the unspeakable advantage of overhearing all the conversation in the coffee-room aforesaid; and after despatching Mr. Weller on some necessary errands, Mr. Pickwick repaired to the Lodge, to consult Mr. Roker concerning his future accommodation. "Accommodation, eh?" said that gentleman, consulting a large book. "Plenty of that, Mr. Pickvick. Your chummage ticket will be on twenty-seven, in the third." "Oh," said Mr. Pickwick, "my what, did you say?" "Your chummage ticket," replied Mr. Roker; "you're up to that?" "Not quite," replied Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. "Why," said Mr. Roker, "it's as plain as Salisbury. You'll have a chummage ticket upon twenty-seven in the third, and them as is in the room will be your chums." "Are there many of them?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, dubiously. "Three," replied Mr. Roker. Mr. Pickwick coughed. "One of 'em's a parson," said Mr. Roker, filling up a little piece of paper as he spoke; "another's a butcher." "Eh?" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. "A butcher," repeated Mr. Roker, giving the nib of his pen a tap on the desk to cure it of a disinclination to mark. "What a thorough-paced goer he used to be sure-ly! You remember Tom Martin, Neddy?" said Roker, appealing to another man in the lodge, who was paring the mud off his shoes with a five-and-twenty bladed pocket-knife. "_I_ should think so," replied the party addressed, with a strong emphasis on the personal pronoun. "Bless my dear eyes!" said Mr. Roker, shaking his head slowly from side to side, and gazing abstractedly out of the grated windows before him, as if he were fondly recalling some peaceful scene of his early youth; "it seems but yesterday that he whopped the coal-heaver down Fox-under-the-Hill by the wharf there. I think I can see him now, a coming up the Strand between the two street-keepers, a little sobered by the bruising, with a patch o' winegar and brown paper over his right eyelid, and that 'ere lovely bulldog, as pinned the little boy arterwards, a following at his heels. What a rum thing Time is, ain't it, Neddy?" The gentleman to whom these observations were addressed, who appeared of a taciturn and thoughtful cast, merely echoed the inquiry; Mr. Roker, shaking off the poetical and gloomy train of thought into which he had been betrayed, descended to the common business of life, and resumed his pen. "Do you know what the third gentleman is?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, not very much gratified by this description of his future associates. "What is that Simpson, Neddy?" said Mr. Roker, turning to his companion. "What Simpson?" said Neddy. "Why, him in twenty-seven in the third, that this gentleman's going to be chummed on." "Oh, him!" replied Neddy: "he's nothing exactly. He was a horse chaunter: he's a leg now." "Ah, so I thought," rejoined Mr. Roker, closing the book, and placing the small piece of paper in Mr. Pickwick's hands. "That's the ticket, sir." Very much perplexed by this summary disposition of his person, Mr. Pickwick walked back into the prison, revolving in his mind what he had better do. Convinced, however, that before he took any other steps it would be advisable to see, and hold personal converse with, the three gentlemen with whom it was proposed to quarter him, he made the best of his way to the third flight. After groping about in the gallery for some time, attempting in the dim light to decipher the numbers on the different doors, he at length appealed to a potboy, who happened to be pursuing his morning occupation of gleaning for pewter. "Which is twenty-seven, my good fellow?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Five doors further on," replied the potboy. "There's the likeness of a man being hung, and smoking a pipe the while, chalked outside the door." Guided by this direction, Mr. Pickwick proceeded slowly along the gallery until he encountered the "portrait of a gentleman," above described, upon whose countenance he tapped, with the knuckle of his fore-finger--gently at first, and then audibly. After repeating this process several times without effect, he ventured to open the door and peep in. There was only one man in the room, and he was leaning out of window as far as he could without overbalancing himself, endeavouring, with great perseverance, to spit upon the crown of the hat of a personal friend on the parade below. As neither speaking, coughing, sneezing, knocking, nor any other ordinary mode of attracting attention, made this person aware of the presence of a visitor, Mr. Pickwick, after some delay, stepped up to the window, and pulled him gently by the coat-tail. The individual brought in his head and shoulders, with great swiftness, and surveying Mr. Pickwick from head to foot, demanded in a surly tone what the--something beginning with a capital H--he wanted. "I believe," said Mr. Pickwick, consulting his ticket, "I believe this is twenty-seven in the third?" "Well?" replied the gentleman. "I have come here in consequence of receiving this bit paper," rejoined Mr. Pickwick. "Hand it over," said the gentleman. Mr. Pickwick complied. "I think Roker might have chummed you somewhere else," said Mr. Simpson (for it was the leg), after a very discontented sort of a pause. Mr. Pickwick thought so also; but, under all the circumstances, he considered it a matter of sound policy to be silent. Mr. Simpson mused for a few moments after this, and then, thrusting his head out of the window, gave a shrill whistle, and pronounced some word aloud, several times. What the word was Mr. Pickwick could not distinguish; but he rather inferred that it must be some nickname which distinguished Mr. Martin: from the fact of a great number of gentlemen on the ground below, immediately proceeding to cry "Butcher!" in imitation of the tone in which that useful class of society are wont, diurnally, to make their presence known at area railings. Subsequent occurrences confirmed the accuracy of Mr. Pickwick's impression; for, in a few seconds, a gentleman, prematurely broad for his years: clothed in a professional blue jean frock, and top-boots with circular toes: entered the room nearly out of breath, closely followed by another gentleman in very shabby black, and a sealskin cap. The latter gentleman, who fastened his coat all the way up to his chin by means of a pin and a button alternately, had a very coarse red face, and looked like a drunken chaplain; which, indeed, he was. These two gentlemen having by turns perused Mr. Pickwick's billet, the one expressed his opinion that it was "a rig," and the other his conviction that it was "a go." Having recorded their feelings in these very intelligible terms, they looked at Mr. Pickwick and each other in awkward silence. "It's an aggravating thing, just as we got the beds so snug," said the chaplain, looking at three dirty mattresses, each rolled up in a blanket: which occupied one corner of the room during the day, and formed a kind of slab, on which were placed an old cracked basin, ewer, and soap-dish, of common yellow earthenware, with a blue flower. "Very aggravating." Mr. Martin expressed the same opinion in rather stronger terms: Mr. Simpson, after having let a variety of expletive adjectives loose upon society without any substantive to accompany them, tucked up his sleeves, and began to wash the greens for dinner. While this was going on, Mr. Pickwick had been eyeing the room, which was filthily dirty, and smelt intolerably close. There was no vestige of either carpet, curtain, or blind. There was not even a closet in it. Unquestionably there were but few things to put away, if there had been one; but, however few in number, or small in individual amount, still, remnants of loaves and pieces of cheese, and damp towels, and scrags of meat, and articles of wearing apparel, and mutilated crockery, and bellows without nozzles, and toasting-forks without prongs, _do_ present somewhat of an uncomfortable appearance when they are scattered about the floor of a small apartment, which is the common sitting and sleeping room of three idle men. "I suppose this can be managed somehow," said the butcher, after a pretty long silence. "What will you take to go out?" "I beg your pardon," replied Mr. Pickwick. "What did you say? I hardly understand you." "What will you take to be paid out?" said the butcher. "The regular chummage is two-and-six. Will you take three bob?" "--And a bender?" suggested the clerical gentleman. "Well, I don't mind that; it's only twopence a-piece more," said Mr. Martin. "What do you say, now? We'll pay you out for three-and-sixpence a week. Come!" "And stand a gallon of beer down," chimed in Mr. Simpson. "There!" "And drink it on the spot," said the chaplain. "Now!" "I really am so wholly ignorant of the rules of this place," returned Mr. Pickwick, "that I do not yet comprehend you. _Can_ I live anywhere else? I thought I could not." At this inquiry Mr. Martin looked, with a countenance of excessive surprise, at his two friends, and then each gentleman pointed with his right thumb over his left shoulder. This action, imperfectly described in words by the very feeble term of "over the left," when performed by any number of ladies or gentlemen who are accustomed to act in unison, has a very graceful and airy effect; its expression is one of light and playful sarcasm. "_Can_ you!" repeated Mr. Martin, with a smile of pity. "Well, if I knew as little of life as that, I'd eat my hat and swallow the buckle whole," said the clerical gentleman. "So would I," added the sporting one, solemnly. After this introductory preface, the three chums informed Mr. Pickwick, in a breath, that money was in the Fleet, just what money was out of it; that it would instantly procure him almost anything he desired; and that, supposing he had it, and had no objection to spend it, if he only signified his wish to have a room to himself he might take possession of one, furnished and fitted to boot, in half an hour's time. With this, the parties separated, very much to their common satisfaction: Mr. Pickwick once more retracing his steps to the lodge: and the three companions adjourned to the coffee-room, there to spend the five shillings which the clerical gentleman had, with admirable prudence and foresight, borrowed of him for the purpose. "I knowed it!" said Mr. Roker, with a chuckle, when Mr. Pickwick stated the object with which he had returned. "Didn't I say so, Neddy?" The philosophical owner of the universal penknife growled an affirmative. "I knowed you'd want a room for yourself, bless you!" said Mr. Roker. "Let me see. You'll want some furniture. You'll hire that of me, I suppose? That's the reg'lar thing." "With great pleasure," replied Mr. Pickwick. "There's a capital room up in the coffee-room flight, that belongs to a Chancery prisoner," said Mr. Roker. "It'll stand you in a pound a week. I suppose you don't mind that?" "Not at all," said Mr. Pickwick. "Just step there with me," said Roker, taking up his hat with great alacrity; "the matter's settled in five minutes. Lord! why didn't you say at first that you was willing to come down handsome?" The matter was soon arranged, as the turnkey had foretold. The Chancery prisoner had been there long enough to have lost friends, fortune, home, and happiness, and to have acquired the right of having a room to himself. As he laboured, however, under the inconvenience of often wanting a morsel of bread, he eagerly listened to Mr. Pickwick's proposal to rent the apartment, and readily covenanted and agreed to yield him up the sole and undisturbed possession thereof, in consideration of the weekly payment of twenty shillings; from which fund he furthermore contracted to pay out any person or persons that might be chummed upon it. As they struck the bargain, Mr. Pickwick surveyed him with a painful interest. He was a tall, gaunt, cadaverous man, in an old great-coat and slippers: with sunken cheeks, and a restless, eager eye. His lips were bloodless, and his bones sharp and thin. God help him! the iron teeth of confinement and privation had been slowly filing him down for twenty years. "And where will you live meanwhile, sir?" said Mr. Pickwick, as he laid the amount of the first week's rent, in advance, on the tottering table. The man gathered up the money with a trembling hand, and replied that he didn't know yet; he must go and see where he could move his bed to. "I am afraid, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, laying his hand gently and compassionately on his arm; "I am afraid you will have to live in some noisy crowded place. Now, pray, consider this room your own when you want quiet, or when any of your friends come to see you." "Friends!" interposed the man, in a voice which rattled in his throat. "If I lay dead at the bottom of the deepest mine in the world; tight screwed down and soldered in my coffin; rotting in the dark and filthy ditch that drags its slime along, beneath the foundations of this prison; I could not be more forgotten or unheeded than I am here. I am a dead man; dead to society, without the pity they bestow on those whose souls have passed to judgment. Friends to see _me_! My God! I have sunk, from the prime of life into old age, in this place, and there is not one to raise his hand above my bed when I lie dead upon it, and say, 'It is a blessing he is gone!'" The excitement, which had cast an unwonted light over the man's face while he spoke, subsided as he concluded; and, pressing his withered hands together in a hasty and disordered manner, he shuffled from the room. "Rides rather rusty," said Mr. Roker, with a smile. "Ah! they're like the elephants. They feel it now and then, and it makes 'em wild!" Having made this deeply sympathising remark, Mr. Roker entered upon his arrangements with such expedition, that in a short time the room was furnished with a carpet, six chairs, a table, a sofa bedstead, a tea-kettle, and various small articles, on hire, at the very reasonable rate of seven-and-twenty shillings and sixpence per week. "Now, is there anything more we can do for you?" inquired Mr. Roker, looking round with great satisfaction, and gaily chinking the first week's hire in his closed fist. "Why, yes," said Mr. Pickwick, who had been musing deeply for some time. "Are there any people here, who run on errands, and so forth?" "Outside, do you mean?" inquired Mr. Roker. "Yes. I mean who are able to go outside. Not prisoners." "Yes, there is," said Roker. "There's an unfortunate devil, who has got a friend on the poor side, that's glad to do anything of that sort. He's been running odd jobs, and that, for the last two months. Shall I send him?" "If you please," rejoined Mr. Pickwick. "Stay; no. The poor side, you say? I should like to see it. I'll go to him myself." The poor side of a debtor's prison is, as its name imports, that in which the most miserable and abject class of debtors are confined. A prisoner having declared upon the poor side, pays neither rent nor chummage. His fees, upon entering and leaving the gaol, are reduced in amount, and he becomes entitled to a share of some small quantities of food: to provide which, a few charitable persons have, from time to time, left trifling legacies in their wills. Most of our readers will remember that, until within a very few years past, there was a kind of iron cage in the wall of the Fleet Prison, within which was posted some man of hungry looks, who, from time to time, rattled a money-box, and exclaimed in a mournful voice, "Pray, remember the poor debtors; pray, remember the poor debtors." The receipts of this box, when there were any, were divided among the poor prisoners; and the men on the poor side relieved each other in this degrading office. Although this custom has been abolished, and the cage is now boarded up, the miserable and destitute condition of these unhappy persons remains the same. We no longer suffer them to appeal at the prison gates to the charity and compassion of the passers-by; but we still leave unblotted in the leaves of our statute book, for the reverence and admiration of succeeding ages, that just and wholesome law which declares that the sturdy felon shall be fed and clothed, and that the penniless debtor shall be left to die of starvation and nakedness. This is no fiction. Not a week passes over our heads, but, in every one of our prisons for debt, some of these men must inevitably expire in the slow agonies of want, if they were not relieved by their fellow-prisoners. Turning these things in his mind, as he mounted the narrow staircase at the foot of which Roker had left him, Mr. Pickwick gradually worked himself to the boiling-over point; and so excited was he with his reflections on this subject, that he had burst into the room to which he had been directed, before he had any distinct recollection, either of the place in which he was, or of the object of his visit. The general aspect of the room recalled him to himself at once; but he had no sooner cast his eyes on the figure of a man who was brooding over the dusty fire, than, letting his hat fall on the floor, he stood perfectly fixed, and immovable, with astonishment. Yes; in tattered garments, and without a coat; his common calico shirt yellow and in rags; his hair hanging over his face; his features changed with suffering, and pinched with famine; there sat Mr. Alfred Jingle: his head resting on his hand, his eyes fixed upon the fire, and his whole appearance denoting misery and dejection! Near him, leaning listlessly against the wall, stood a strong-built countryman, flicking with a worn-out hunting-whip the top-boot that adorned his right foot: his left being (for he dressed by easy stages) thrust into an old slipper. Horses, dogs, and drink, had brought him there pell-mell. There was a rusty spur on the solitary boot, which he occasionally jerked into the empty air, at the same time giving the boot a smart blow, and muttering some of the sounds by which a sportsman encourages his horse. He was riding, in imagination, some desperate steeplechase at that moment. Poor wretch! He never rode a match on the swiftest animal in his costly stud, with half the speed at which he had torn along the course that ended in the Fleet. On the opposite side of the room an old man was seated on a small wooden box, with his eyes riveted on the floor, and his face settled into an expression of the deepest and most hopeless despair. A young girl--his little granddaughter--was hanging about him: endeavouring, with a thousand childish devices, to engage his attention; but the old man neither saw nor heard her. The voice that had been music to him, and the eyes that had been light, fell coldly on his senses. His limbs were shaking with disease, and the palsy had fastened on his mind. There were two or three other men in the room, congregated in a little knot, and noisily talking among themselves. There was a lean and haggard woman, too--a prisoner's wife--who was watering, with great solicitude, the wretched stump of a dried-up, withered plant, which, it was plain to see, could never send forth a green leaf again: too true an emblem, perhaps, of the office she had come there to discharge. Such were the objects which presented themselves to Mr. Pickwick's view, as he looked round him in amazement. The noise of some one stumbling hastily into the room, roused him. Turning his eyes towards the door, they encountered the new comer; and in him, through his rags and dirt, he recognised the familiar features of Mr. Job Trotter. "Mr. Pickwick!" exclaimed Job aloud. "Eh?" said Jingle, starting from his seat. "Mr.----! So it is--queer place--strange thing--serves me right--very." Mr. Jingle thrust his hands into the place where his trousers pockets used to be, and, dropping his chin upon his breast, sank back into his chair. Mr. Pickwick was affected; the two men looked so very miserable. The sharp involuntary glance Jingle had cast at a small piece of raw loin of mutton, which Job had brought in with him, said more of their reduced state than two hours' explanation could have done. Mr. Pickwick looked mildly at Jingle, and said: "I should like to speak to you in private. Will you step out for an instant?" "Certainly," said Jingle, rising hastily. "Can't step far--no danger of over-walking yourself here--Spike park--grounds pretty--romantic, but not extensive--open for public inspection--family always in town--housekeeper desperately careful--very." "You have forgotten your coat," said Mr. Pickwick, as they walked out to the staircase, and closed the door after them. "Eh?" said Jingle. "Spout--dear relation--Uncle Tom--couldn't help it--must eat, you know. Wants of nature--and all that." "What do you mean?" "Gone, my dear sir--last coat--can't help it. Lived on a pair of boots--whole fortnight. Silk umbrella--ivory handle--week--fact--honour--ask Job--knows it." "Lived for three weeks upon a pair of boots, and a silk umbrella with an ivory handle!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, who had only heard of such things in shipwrecks, or read of them in _Constable's Miscellany_. "True," said Jingle, nodding his head. "Pawnbroker's shop--duplicates here--small sums--mere nothing--all rascals." "Oh," said Mr. Pickwick, much relieved by this explanation; "I understand you. You have pawned your wardrobe." "Everything--Job's too--all shirts gone--never mind--saves washing. Nothing soon--lie in bed--starve--die--Inquest--little bone-house--poor prisoner--common necessaries--hush it up--gentlemen of the jury--warden's tradesmen--keep it snug--natural death--coroner's order--workhouse funeral--serve him right--all over--drop the curtain." Jingle delivered this singular summary of his prospects in life, with his accustomed volubility, and with various twitches of the countenance to counterfeit smiles. Mr. Pickwick easily perceived that his recklessness was assumed, and looking him full, but not unkindly in the face, saw that his eyes were moist with tears. "Good fellow," said Jingle, pressing his hand, and turning his head away. "Ungrateful dog--boyish to cry--can't help it--bad fever--weak--ill--hungry. Deserved it all--but suffered much--very." Wholly unable to keep up appearances any longer, and perhaps rendered worse by the effort he had made, the dejected stroller sat down on the stairs, and, covering his face with his hands, sobbed like a child. "Come, come," said Mr. Pickwick, with considerable emotion, "we'll see what can be done, when I know all about the matter. Here, Job; where is that fellow?" "Here, sir," replied Job, presenting himself on the staircase. We have described him, by-the-bye, as having deeply sunken eyes, in the best of times. In his present state of want and distress, he looked as if those features had gone out of town altogether. "Here, sir," cried Job. "Come here, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, trying to look stern, with four large tears running down his waistcoat. "Take that, sir." Take what? In the ordinary acceptation of such language, it should have been a blow. As the world runs, it ought to have been a sound, hearty cuff; for Mr. Pickwick had been duped, deceived, and wronged by the destitute outcast who was now wholly in his power. Must we tell the truth? It was something from Mr. Pickwick's waistcoat-pocket, which chinked as it was given into Job's hand, and the giving of which, somehow or other, imparted a sparkle to the eye, and a swelling to the heart, of our excellent old friend, as he hurried away. Sam had returned when Mr. Pickwick reached his own room, and was inspecting the arrangements that had been made for his comfort, with a kind of grim satisfaction which was very pleasant to look upon. Having a decided objection to his master's being there at all, Mr. Weller appeared to consider it a high moral duty not to appear too much pleased with anything that was done, said, suggested, or proposed. "Well, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Well, sir?" replied Mr. Weller. "Pretty comfortable now, eh, Sam?" "Pretty vell, sir," responded Sam, looking round him in a disparaging manner. "Have you seen Mr. Tupman and our other friends?" "Yes, I _have_ seen 'em, sir, and they're a comin' to-morrow, and wos wery much surprised to hear they warn't to come to-day," replied Sam. "You have brought the things I wanted?" Mr. Weller in reply pointed to various packages which he had arranged, as neatly as he could, in a corner of the room. "Very well, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, after a little hesitation; "listen to what I am going to say, Sam." "Cert'nly, sir," rejoined Mr. Weller, "fire away, sir." "I have felt from the first, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, with much solemnity, "that this is not the place to bring a young man to." "Nor an old 'un, neither, sir," observed Mr. Weller. "You're quite right, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick; "but old men may come here, through their own heedlessness and unsuspicion; and young men may be brought here by the selfishness of those they serve. It is better for those young men, in every point of view, that they should not remain here. Do you understand me, Sam?" "Vy no, sir, I do +NOT+," replied Mr. Weller, doggedly. "Try, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "Vell, sir," rejoined Sam, after a short pause, "I think I see your drift; and if I do see your drift, it's my 'pinion that you're a comin' it a great deal too strong, as the mail coachman said to the snow-storm, ven it overtook him." "I see you comprehend me, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "Independently of my wish that you should not be idling about a place like this for years to come, I feel that for a debtor in the Fleet to be attended by his man-servant is a monstrous absurdity. Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, "for a time, you must leave me." "Oh, for a time, eh, sir?" rejoined Mr. Weller, rather sarcastically. "Yes, for the time that I remain here," said Mr. Pickwick. "Your wages I shall continue to pay. Any one of my three friends will be happy to take you, were it only out of respect to me. And if I ever do leave this place, Sam," added Mr. Pickwick, with assumed cheerfulness: "if I do, I pledge you my word that you shall return to me instantly." "Now I'll tell you wot it is, sir," said Mr. Weller, in a grave and solemn voice, "this here sort o' thing won't do at all, so don't let's hear no more about it." "I am serious and resolved, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "You air, air you, sir?" inquired Mr. Weller, firmly. "Wery good, sir. Then so am I." Thus speaking, Mr. Weller fixed his hat on his head with great precision, and abruptly left the room. "Sam!" cried Mr. Pickwick, calling after him, "Sam! Here!" But the long gallery ceased to re-echo the sound of footsteps. Sam Weller was gone. CHAPTER XV [Illustration] _Showing how Mr. Samuel Weller got into Difficulties_ In a lofty room, ill-lighted and worse ventilated, situated in Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, there sit nearly the whole year round, one, two, three, or four gentlemen in wigs, as the case may be, with little writing-desks before them, constructed after the fashion of those used by the judges of the land, barring the French polish. There is a box of barristers on their right hand; there is an enclosure of insolvent debtors on their left; and there is an inclined plane of most especially dirty faces in their front. These gentlemen are the Commissioners of the Insolvent Court, and the place in which they sit is the Insolvent Court itself. It is, and has been, time out of mind, the remarkable fate of this Court to be, somehow or other, held and understood by the general consent of all the destitute shabby-genteel people in London, as their common resort and place of refuge daily. It is always full. The steams of beer and spirits perpetually ascend to the ceiling, and, being condensed by the heat, roll down the walls like rain; there are more old suits of clothes in it at one time than will be offered for sale in all Houndsditch in a twelvemonth; more unwashed skins and grizzly beards than all the pumps and shaving-shops between Tyburn and Whitechapel could render decent, between sunrise and sunset. It must not be supposed that any of these people have the least shadow of business in, or the remotest connection with, the place they so indefatigably attend. If they had, it would be no matter of surprise, and the singularity of the thing would cease. Some of them sleep during the greater part of the sitting; others carry small portable dinners wrapped in pocket-handkerchiefs, or sticking out of their worn-out pockets, and munch and listen with equal relish; but no one among them was ever known to have the slightest personal interest in any case that was ever brought forward. Whatever they do, there they sit from the first moment to the last. When it is heavy rainy weather, they all come in, wet through; and at such times the vapours of the Court are like those of a fungus-pit. A casual visitor might suppose this place to be a Temple dedicated to the Genius of Seediness. There is not a messenger or process-server attached to it, who wears a coat that was made for him; not a tolerably fresh or wholesome-looking man in the whole establishment, except a little white-headed, apple-faced tipstaff, and even he, like an ill-conditioned cherry preserved in brandy, seems to have artificially dried and withered up into a state of preservation to which he can lay no natural claim. The very barristers' wigs are ill-powdered, and their curls lack crispness. But the attorneys, who sit at a large bare table below the Commissioners, are, after all, the greatest curiosities. The professional establishment of the more opulent of these gentlemen, consists of a blue bag and a boy; generally a youth of the Jewish persuasion. They have no fixed offices, their legal business being transacted in the parlours of public-houses, or the yards of prisons: whither they repair in crowds, and canvass for customers after the manner of omnibus cads. They are of a greasy and mildewed appearance; and if they can be said to have any vices at all, perhaps drinking and cheating are the most conspicuous among them. Their residences are usually on the outskirts of "the Rules," chiefly lying within a circle of one mile from the obelisk in St. George's Fields. Their looks are not prepossessing, and their manners are peculiar. Mr. Solomon Pell, one of this learned body, was a fat, flabby, pale man, in a surtout which looked green one minute and brown the next: with a velvet collar of the same chameleon tints. His forehead was narrow, his face wide, his head large, and his nose all on one side, as if Nature, indignant with the propensities she observed in him at his birth, had given it an angry tweak which it had never recovered. Being short-necked and asthmatic, however, he respired principally through this feature; so, perhaps, what it wanted in ornament, it made up in usefulness. "I'm sure to bring him through it," said Mr. Pell. "Are you though?" replied the person to whom the assurance was pledged. "Certain sure," replied Pell; "but if he'd gone to any irregular practitioner, mind you, I wouldn't have answered for the consequences." "Ah!" said the other, with open mouth. "No, that I wouldn't," said Mr. Pell; and he pursed up his lips, frowned, and shook his head mysteriously. Now, the place where this discourse occurred, was the public-house just opposite to the Insolvent Court: and the person with whom it was held, was no other than the elder Mr. Weller, who had come there to comfort and console a friend, whose petition to be discharged under the Act was to be that day heard, and whose attorney he was at that moment consulting. "And vere is George?" inquired the old gentleman. Mr. Pell jerked his head in the direction of a back parlour: whither Mr. Weller at once repairing, was immediately greeted in the warmest and most flattering manner by some half-dozen of his professional brethren, in token of their gratification at his arrival. The insolvent gentleman, who had contracted a speculative but imprudent passion for horsing long stages, which had led to his present embarrassments, looked extremely well, and was soothing the excitement of his feelings with shrimps and porter. The salutation between Mr. Weller and his friends was strictly confined to the freemasonry of the craft; consisting of a jerking round of the right wrist, and a tossing of the little finger into the air at the same time. We once knew two famous coachmen (they are dead now, poor fellows) who were twins, and between whom an unaffected and devoted attachment existed. They passed each other on the Dover road, every day, for twenty-four years, never exchanging any other greeting than this; and yet, when one died, the other pined away, and soon afterwards followed him! "Vell, George," said Mr. Weller senior, taking off his upper coat, and seating himself with his accustomed gravity, "how is it? All right behind, and full inside?" "All right, old feller," replied the embarrassed gentleman. "Is the grey mare made over to anybody?" inquired Mr. Weller, anxiously. George nodded in the affirmative. "Vell, that's all right," said Mr. Weller. "Coach taken care on also?" "Con-signed in a safe quarter," replied George, wringing the heads off half a dozen shrimps, and swallowing them without any more ado. "Wery good, wery good," said Mr. Weller. "Alvays see to the drag ven you go down hill. Is the vay-bill all clear and straight for'erd?" "The schedule, sir," said Pell, guessing at Mr. Weller's meaning, "the schedule is as plain and satisfactory as pen and ink can make it." Mr. Weller nodded in a manner which bespoke his inward approval of these arrangements; and then, turning to Mr. Pell, said, pointing to his friend George: "Ven do you take his cloths off?" "Why," replied Mr. Pell, "he stands third on the opposed list, and I should think it would be his turn in about half an hour. I told my clerk to come over and tell us when there was a chance." Mr. Weller surveyed the attorney from head to foot with great admiration, and said emphatically: "And what'll you take, sir?" "Why, really," replied Mr. Pell, "you're very--. Upon my word and honour, I'm not in the habit of--. It's so very early in the morning, that, actually, I am almost--. Well, you may bring me three penn'orth of rum, my dear." The officiating damsel, who had anticipated the order before it was given, set the glass of spirits before Pell, and retired. "Gentlemen," said Mr. Pell, looking round upon the company, "success to your friend! I don't like to boast, gentlemen; it's not my way; but I can't help saying, that, if your friend hadn't been fortunate enough to fall into the hands that--but I won't say what I was going to say. Gentlemen, my service to you." Having emptied the glass in a twinkling, Mr. Pell smacked his lips, and looked complacently round on the assembled coachmen, who evidently regarded him as a species of divinity. "Let me see," said the legal authority. "What was I a saying, gentlemen?" "I think you was remarkin' as you wouldn't have no objection to another o' the same, sir," said Mr. Weller, with grave facetiousness. "Ha ha!" laughed Mr. Pell. "Not bad, not bad. A professional man, too! At this time of the morning, it would be rather too good a--. Well, I don't know, my dear--you _may_ do that again, if you please. Hem!" This last sound was a solemn and dignified cough, in which Mr. Pell, observing an indecent tendency to mirth in some of his auditors, considered it due to himself to indulge. "The late Lord Chancellor, gentlemen, was very fond of me," said Mr. Pell. "And wery creditable in him, too," interposed Mr. Weller. "Hear, hear," assented Mr. Pell's client. "Why shouldn't he be?" "Ah! Why, indeed!" said a very red-faced man, who had said nothing yet, and who looked extremely unlikely to say anything more. "Why shouldn't he?" A murmur of assent ran through the company. "I remember, gentlemen," said Pell, "dining with him on one occasion;--there was only us two, but everything as splendid as if twenty people had been expected--the great seal on a dumb-waiter at his right hand, and a man in a bag-wig and suit of armour guarding the mace with a drawn sword and silk stockings--which is perpetually done, gentlemen, night and day, when he said, 'Pell,' he said, 'no false delicacy, Pell. You're a man of talent; you can get anybody through the Insolvent Court, Pell; and your country should be proud of you.' Those were his very words. 'My Lord,' I said, 'you flatter me.' 'Pell,' he said, 'if I do, I'm damned.'" "Did he say that?" inquired Mr. Weller. "He did," replied Pell. "Vell, then," said Mr. Weller, "I say Parliament ought to ha' took it up; and if he'd been a poor man, they _would_ ha' done it." "But, my dear friend," argued Mr. Pell, "it was in confidence." "In what?" said Mr. Weller. "In confidence," "Oh! wery good," replied Mr. Weller, after a little reflection. "If he damned his-self in confidence, o' course that was another thing." "Of course it was," said Mr. Pell. "The distinction's obvious, you will perceive." "Alters the case entirely," said Mr. Weller. "Go on, sir." "No, I will not go on, sir," said Mr. Pell, in a low and serious tone. "You have reminded me, sir, that this conversation was private--private and confidential, gentlemen. Gentlemen, I am a professional man. It may be that I am a good deal looked up to in my profession--it may be that I am not. Most people know. I say nothing. Observations have already been made, in this room, injurious to the reputation of my noble friend. You will excuse me, gentlemen; I was imprudent. I feel that I have no right to mention this matter without his concurrence. Thank you, sir, thank you." Thus delivering himself, Mr. Pell thrust his hands into his pockets, and, frowning grimly around, rattled three halfpence with terrible determination. This virtuous resolution had scarcely been formed, when the boy and the blue bag, who were inseparable companions, rushed violently into the room, and said (at least the boy did, for the blue bag took no part in the announcement) that the case was coming on directly. The intelligence was no sooner received than the whole party hurried across the street, and began to fight their way into Court--a preparatory ceremony, which has been calculated to occupy, in ordinary cases, from twenty-five minutes to thirty. Mr. Weller, being stout, cast himself at once into the crowd, with the desperate hope of ultimately turning up in some place which would suit him. His success was not quite equal to his expectations; for having neglected to take his hat off, it was knocked over his eyes by some unseen person, upon whose toes he had alighted with considerable force. Apparently, this individual regretted his impetuosity immediately afterwards; for, muttering an indistinct exclamation of surprise, he dragged the old man out into the hall, and, after a violent struggle, released his head and face. [Illustration: _After a violent struggle, released his head and face_] "Samivel!" exclaimed Mr. Weller, when he was thus enabled to behold his rescuer. Sam nodded. "You're a dutiful and affectionate little boy, you are, ain't you?" said Mr. Weller, "to come a bonnetin' your father in his old age?" "How should I know who you wos?" responded the son. "Do you s'pose I wos to tell you by the weight o' your foot?" "Vell, that's wery true, Sammy," replied Mr. Weller, mollified at once; "but wot are you a doin' on here? Your gov'ner can't do no good here, Sammy. They won't pass that werdick, they won't pass it, Sammy." And Mr. Weller shook his head, with legal solemnity. "Wot a perwerse old file it is!" exclaimed Sam, "alvays a goin' on about werdicks and alleybis, and that. Who said anything about the werdick?" Mr. Weller made no reply, but once more shook his head most learnedly. "Leave off rattlin' that 'ere nob o' yourn, if you don't want it to come off the springs altogether," said Sam, impatiently, "and behave reasonable. I vent all the vay down to the Markis o' Granby, arter you, last night." "Did you see the Marchioness o' Granby, Sammy?" inquired Mr. Weller, with a sigh. "Yes, I did," replied Sam. "How wos the dear creetur a lookin'?" "Wery queer," said Sam. "I think she's a injurin' herself gradivally vith too much o' that 'ere pine-apple rum, and other strong medicines o' the same natur." "You don't mean that, Sammy?" said the senior, earnestly. "I do, indeed," replied the junior. Mr. Weller seized his son's hand, clasped it, and let it fall. There was an expression on his countenance in doing so--not of dismay or apprehension, but partaking more of the sweet and gentle character of hope. A gleam of resignation, and even of cheerfulness, passed over his face too, as he slowly said, "I ain't quite certain, Sammy; I wouldn't like to say I wos altogether positive, in case of any subsekent disappintment, but I rayther think, my boy, I rayther think, that the shepherd's got the liver complaint!" "Does he look bad?" inquired Sam. "He's uncommon pale," replied his father, "'cept about the nose, which is redder than ever. His appetite is wery so-so, but he imbibes wunderful." Some thoughts of the rum appeared to obtrude themselves on Mr. Weller's mind, as he said this; for he looked gloomy and thoughtful; but he very shortly recovered, as was testified by a perfect alphabet of winks, in which he was only wont to indulge when particularly pleased. "Vell now," said Sam, "about my affair. Just open them ears o' yourn, and don't say nothin' till I've done." With this brief preface, Sam related, as succinctly as he could, the last memorable conversation he had had with Mr. Pickwick. "Stop there by himself, poor creetur!" exclaimed the elder Mr. Weller, "without nobody to take his part! It can't be done, Samivel, it can't be done." "O' course it can't," asserted Sam; "I know'd that, afore I came." "Wy, they'll eat him up alive, Sammy," exclaimed Mr. Weller. Sam nodded his concurrence in the opinion. "He goes in rayther raw, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, metaphorically, "and he'll come out, done so ex-ceedin' brown, that his most familiar friends won't know him. Roast pigeon's nothin' to it, Sammy." Again Sam Weller nodded. "It oughtn't to be, Samivel," said Mr. Weller, gravely. "It mustn't be," said Sam. "Cert'nly not," said Mr. Weller. "Vell now," said Sam, "you've been a prophesyin' away, wery fine, like a red-faced Nixon as the sixpenny books gives picters on." "Who wos he, Sammy?" inquired Mr. Weller. "Never mind who he was," retorted Sam; "he warn't a coachman; that's enough for you." "I know'd a ostler o' that name," said Mr. Weller, musing. "It warn't him," said Sam. "This here gen'l'm'n was a prophet." "Wot's a prophet?" inquired Mr. Weller, looking sternly on his son. "Wy, a man as tells what's a goin' to happen," replied Sam. "I wish I'd know'd him, Sammy," said Mr. Weller. "P'raps he might ha' throw'd a small light on that 'ere liver complaint as we wos a speakin' on, just now. Hows'ever, if he's dead, and ain't left the bisness to nobody, there's an end on it. Go on, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, with a sigh. "Well," said Sam, "you've been a prophesyin' avay, about wot'll happen to the gov'nor if he's left alone. Don't you see any vay o' takin' care on him?" "No, I don't, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, with a reflective visage. "No vay at all?" inquired Sam. "No vay," said Mr. Weller, "unless"--and a gleam of intelligence lighted up his countenance as he sunk his voice to a whisper, and applied his mouth to the ear of his offspring--"unless it is getting him out in a turn-up bedstead, unbeknown to the turnkeys, Sammy, or dressin' him up like a old 'ooman vith a green wail." Sam Weller received both of these suggestions with unexpected contempt, and again propounded his question. "No," said the old gentleman; "if he von't let you stop there I see no vay at all. It's no thoroughfare, Sammy, no thoroughfare." "Well, then, I'll tell you wot it is," said Sam, "I'll trouble you for the loan of five-and-twenty pound." "What good 'ull that do?" inquired Mr. Weller. "Never mind," replied Sam. "P'raps you may ask for it, five minits artervards; p'raps I may say I von't pay, and cut up rough. You von't think o' arrestin' your own son for the money, and sendin' him off to the Fleet, will you, you unnat'ral wagabone?" At this reply of Sam's the father and son exchanged a complete code of telegraphic nods and gestures, after which, the elder Mr. Weller sat himself down on a stone step, and laughed till he was purple. "Wot a old image it is!" exclaimed Sam, indignant at this loss of time. "What are you a settin' down there for, conwertin' your face into a street-door knocker, ven there's so much to be done? Where's the money?" "In the boot, Sammy, in the boot," replied Mr. Weller, composing his features. "Hold my hat, Sammy." Having divested himself of this incumbrance, Mr. Weller gave his body a sudden wrench to one side, and, by a dexterous twist, contrived to get his right hand into a most capacious pocket, from whence, after a great deal of panting and exertion, he extricated a pocket-book of the large octavo size, fastened by a huge leathern strap. From this ledger he drew forth a couple of whip-lashes, three or four buckles, a little sample-bag of corn, and finally a small roll of very dirty bank-notes: from which he selected the required amount, which he handed over to Sam. "And now, Sammy," said the old gentleman, when the whip-lashes and the buckles, and the samples, had been all put back, and the book once more deposited at the bottom of the same pocket, "now, Sammy, I know a gen'l'm'n here, as'll do the rest o' the bisness for us, in no time--a limb o' the law, Sammy, as has got brains like the frogs, dispersed all over his body, and reachin' to the wery tips of his fingers; a friend of the Lord Chancellorship's, Sammy, who'd only have to tell him what he wanted, and he'd lock you up for life, if that wos all." "I say," said Sam, "none o' that." "None o' wot?" inquired Mr. Weller. "Wy, none o' them unconstitootional ways o' doing it," retorted Sam. "The have-his-carcase, next to the perpetual motion, is vun of the blessedest things as wos ever made. I've read that 'ere in the newspapers, wery of'en." "Well, wot's that got to do vith it?" inquired Mr. Weller. "Just this here," said Sam, "that I'll patronise the inwention, and go in, that vay. No visperin's to the Chancellorship, I don't like the notion. It mayn't be altogether safe, vith reference to gettin' out agin." Deferring to his son's feeling upon this point, Mr. Weller at once sought the erudite Solomon Pell, and acquainted him with his desire to issue a writ, instantly, for the sum of twenty-five pounds, and costs of process; to be executed without delay upon the body of one Samuel Weller; the charges thereby incurred to be paid in advance to Solomon Pell. The attorney was in high glee, for the embarrassed coach-horser was ordered to be discharged forthwith. He highly approved of Sam's attachment to his master; declared that it strongly reminded him of his own feelings of devotion to his friend the Chancellor; and at once led the elder Mr. Weller down to the Temple, to swear the affidavit of debt, which the boy, with the assistance of the blue bag, had drawn up on the spot. Meanwhile, Sam, having been formally introduced to the white-washed gentleman and his friends, as the offspring of Mr. Weller, of the Belle Savage, was treated with marked distinction, and invited to regale himself with them in honour of the occasion; an invitation which he was by no means backward in accepting. The mirth of gentlemen of this class is of a grave and quiet character, usually; but the present instance was one of peculiar festivity, and they relaxed in proportion. After some rather tumultuous toasting of the Chief Commissioner and Mr. Solomon Pell, who had that day displayed such transcendent abilities, a mottled-faced gentleman in a blue shawl proposed that somebody should sing a song. The obvious suggestion was, that the mottled-faced gentleman, being anxious for a song, should sing it himself; but this the mottled-faced gentleman sturdily, and somewhat offensively, declined to do. Upon which, as is not unusual in such cases, a rather angry colloquy ensued. "Gentlemen," said the coach-horser, "rather than disturb the harmony of this delightful occasion, perhaps Mr. Samuel Weller will oblige the company." "Raly, gentlemen," said Sam, "I'm not wery much in the habit o' singin' without the instrument: but anythin' for a quiet life, as the man said when he took the sitivation at the light-house." With this prelude, Mr. Samuel Weller burst at once into the following wild and beautiful legend, which, under the impression that it is not generally known, we take the liberty of quoting. We would beg to call particular attention to the monosyllable at the end of the second and fourth lines, which not only enables the singer to take breath at those points, but greatly assists the metre. ROMANCE I Bold Turpin vunce, on Hounslow Heath, His bold mare Bess bestrode--er; Ven there he see'd the Bishop's coach A-coming along the road--er; So he gallops close to the 'orses' legs, And he claps his head vithin; And the Bishop says, "Sure as eggs is eggs, This here's the bold Turpin!" +Chorus+ And the Bishop says, "Sure as eggs is eggs, This here's the bold Turpin!" II Says Turpin, "You shall eat your words, With a sarse of leaden bul-let;" So he puts a pistol to his mouth, And he fires it down his gullet. The coachman he not likin' the job, Set off at a full gal-lop, But Dick put a couple of balls in his nob, And perwailed on him to stop. +Chorus+ (_sarcastically_) But Dick put a couple of balls in his nob, And perwailed on him to stop. "I maintain that that 'ere song's personal to the cloth," said the mottled-faced gentleman, interrupting it at this point. "I demand the name o' that coachman." "Nobody know'd," replied Sam. "He hadn't got his card in his pocket." "I object to the introduction o' politics," said the mottled-faced gentleman. "I submit that, in the present company, that 'ere song's political; and, wot's much the same, that it ain't true. I say that that coachman did _not_ run away; but that he died game--game as pheasants; and I won't hear nothin' said to the contrairey." As the mottled-faced gentleman spoke with great energy and determination: and as the opinions of the company seemed divided on the subject: it threatened to give rise to fresh altercation, when Mr. Weller and Mr. Pell most opportunely arrived. "All right, Sammy," said Mr. Weller. "The officer will be here at four o'clock," said Mr. Pell. "I suppose you won't run away meanwhile, eh? Ha! ha!" "P'raps my cruel pa 'ull relent afore then," replied Sam, with a broad grin. "Not I," said the elder Mr. Weller. "Do," said Sam. "Not on no account," replied the inexorable creditor. "I'll give bills for the amount, at sixpence a month," said Sam. "I won't take 'em," said Mr. Weller. "Ha, ha, ha! very good, very good," said Mr. Solomon Pell, who was making out his little bill of costs; "a very amusing incident indeed! Benjamin, copy that." And Mr. Pell smiled again, as he called Mr. Weller's attention to the amount. "Thank you, thank you," said the professional gentleman, taking up another of the greasy notes as Mr. Weller took it from the pocket-book. "Three ten and one ten is five. Much obliged to you, Mr. Weller. Your son is a most deserving young man, very much so indeed, sir. It's a very pleasant trait in a young man's character, very much so," added Mr. Pell, smiling smoothly round, as he buttoned up the money. "Wot a game it is!" said the elder Mr. Weller, with a chuckle. "A reg'lar prodigy son!" "Prodigal, prodigal son, sir," suggested Mr. Pell, mildly. "Never mind, sir," said Mr. Weller, with dignity. "I know wot's o'clock, sir. Ven I don't, I'll ask you, sir." By the time the officer arrived, Sam had made himself so extremely popular, that the congregated gentlemen determined to see him to prison in a body. So, off they set; the plaintiff and defendant walking arm-in-arm; the officer in front; and eight stout coachmen bringing up the rear. At Serjeant's Inn Coffee-house the whole party halted to refresh, and, the legal arrangements being completed, the procession moved on again. Some little commotion was occasioned in Fleet Street, by the pleasantry of the eight gentlemen in the flank, who persevered in walking four abreast; it was also found necessary to leave the mottled-faced gentleman behind, to fight a ticket-porter, it being arranged that his friends should call for him as they came back. Nothing but these little incidents occurred on the way. When they reached the gate of the Fleet, the cavalcade, taking the time from the plaintiff, gave three tremendous cheers for the defendant, and, after having shaken hands all round, left him. [Illustration: _The cavalcade gave three tremendous cheers._] Sam, having been formally delivered into the warden's custody, to the intense astonishment of Roker, and to the evident emotion of even the phlegmatic Neddy, passed at once into the prison, walked straight to his master's room, and knocked at the door. "Come in," said Mr. Pickwick. Sam appeared, pulled off his hat, and smiled. "Ah, Sam, my good lad!" said Mr. Pickwick, evidently delighted to see his humble friend again; "I had no intention of hurting your feelings yesterday, my faithful fellow, by what I said. Put down your hat, Sam, and let me explain my meaning, a little more at length." "Won't presently do, sir?" inquired Sam. "Certainly," said Mr. Pickwick; "but why not now?" "I'd rayther not now, sir," rejoined Sam. "Why?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "'Cause--" said Sam, hesitating. "Because of what?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, alarmed at his follower's manner. "Speak out, Sam." "'Cause," rejoined Sam; "'cause I've got a little bisness as I want to do." "What business?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, surprised at Sam's confused manner. "Nothin' partickler, sir," replied Sam. "Oh, if it's nothing particular," said Mr. Pickwick, with a smile, "you can speak with me first." "I think I'd better see arter it at once," said Sam, still hesitating. Mr. Pickwick looked amazed, but said nothing. "The fact is," said Sam, stopping short. "Well!" said Mr. Pickwick. "Speak out, Sam." "Why, the fact is," said Sam, with a desperate effort, "p'raps I'd better see arter my bed afore I do anythin' else." "_Your bed!_" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, in astonishment. "Yes, my bed, sir," replied Sam. "I'm a pris'ner. I was arrested, this here wery arternoon, for debt." "You arrested for debt!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, sinking into a chair. "Yes, for debt, sir," replied Sam. "And the man as puts me in, 'ull never let me out, till you go yourself." "Bless my heart and soul!" ejaculated Mr. Pickwick. "What do you mean?" "Wot I say, sir," rejoined Sam. "If it's forty year to come, I shall be a prisoner, and I'm very glad on it, and if it had been Newgate, it would ha' been just the same. Now the murder's out, and damme, there's an end on it!" With these words, which he repeated with great emphasis and violence, Sam Weller dashed his hat upon the ground, in a most unusual state of excitement; and then, folding his arms, looked firmly and fixedly in his master's face. CHAPTER XVI [Illustration] _Treats of divers little Matters which occurred in the Fleet, and of Mr. Winkle's Mysterious Behaviour; and shows how the poor Chancery Prisoner obtained his Release at last_ Mr. Pickwick felt a great deal too much touched by the warmth of Sam's attachment, to be able to exhibit any manifestation of anger or displeasure at the precipitate course he had adopted, in voluntarily consigning himself to a debtor's prison, for an indefinite period. The only point on which he persevered in demanding any explanation, was, the name of Sam's detaining creditor; but this Mr. Weller as perseveringly withheld. "It ain't o' no use, sir," said Sam, again and again. "He's a ma-licious, bad-disposed, vorldly-minded, spiteful, windictive creetur, with a hard heart as there ain't no soft'nin'. As the wirtuous clergyman remarked of the old gen'l'm'n with the dropsy, ven he said that upon the whole he thought he'd rayther leave his property to his vife than build a chapel vith it." "But consider, Sam," Mr. Pickwick remonstrated, "the sum is so small that it can very easily be paid; and having made up my mind that you shall stop with me, you should recollect how much more useful you would be, if you could go outside the walls." "Wery much obliged to you, sir," replied Mr. Weller gravely; "but I'd rayther not." "Rather not do what, Sam?" "Wy, I'd rayther not let myself down to ask a favour o' this here unremorseful enemy." "But it is no favour asking him to take his money, Sam," reasoned Mr. Pickwick. "Beg your pardon, sir," rejoined Sam; "but it 'ud be a wery great favour to pay it, and he don't deserve none; that's where it is, sir." Here Mr. Pickwick, rubbing his nose with an air of some vexation, Mr. Weller thought it prudent to change the theme of the discourse. "I takes my determination on principle, sir," remarked Sam, "and you takes yours on the same ground; vich puts me in mind o' the man as killed his-self on principle, vich o' course you've heerd on, sir." Mr. Weller paused when he arrived at this point, and cast a comical look at his master out of the corners of his eyes. "There is no 'of course' in the case, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, gradually breaking into a smile in spite of the uneasiness which Sam's obstinacy had given him. "The fame of the gentleman in question never reached my ears." "No, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Weller. "You astonish me, sir; he wos a clerk in a Gov'ment office, sir." "Was he?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Yes, he wos, sir," rejoined Mr. Weller; "and a wery pleasant gen'l'm'n too--one o' the precise and tidy sort, as puts their feet in little india-rubber fire-buckets ven it's vet weather, and never has no other bosom friends but hare-skins; he saved up his money on principle, wore a clean shirt ev'ry day on principle; never spoke to none of his relations on principle, 'fear they shou'd want to borrow money of him; and wos altogether, in fact, an uncommon agreeable character. He had his hair cut on principle vunce a fortnight, and contracted for his clothes on the economic principle--three suits a year, and send back the old uns. Being a wery reg'lar gen'l'm'n, he din'd ev'ry day at the same place, were it wos one and nine to cut off the joint, and a wery good one and nine's worth he used to cut, as the landlord often said, with the tears a tricklin' down his face: let alone the way he used to poke the fire in the vinter time, which wos a dead loss o' fourpence ha'penny a day: to say nothin' at all o' the aggrawation o' seein' him do it. So uncommon grand with it too! '_Post_ arter the next gen'l'm'n,' he sings out ev'ry day ven he comes in. 'See arter the _Times_, Thomas; let me look at the _Mornin' Herald_, wen it's out o' hand; don't forget to bespeak the _Chronicle_; and just bring the _'Tizer_, vill you?' and then he'd set vith his eyes fixed on the clock, and rush out, just a quarter of a minit afore the time, to waylay the boy as wos a comin' in with the evenin' paper, vich he'd read with such intense interest and persewerance as worked the other customers up to the wery confines o' desperation and insanity, 'specially one i-rascible old gen'l'm'n as the vaiter wos always obliged to keep a sharp eye on, at sich times, 'fear he should be tempted to commit some rash act with the carving-knife. Vell, sir, here he'd stop, occupyin' the best place for three hours, and never takin' nothin' arter his dinner, but sleep, and then he'd go away to a coffee-house a few streets off, and have a small pot of coffee and four crumpets, arter wich he'd walk home to Kensington and go to bed. One night he wos took very ill; sends for a doctor; doctor comes in a green fly, with a kind o' Robinson Crusoe set o' steps, as he could let down ven he got out, and pull up arter him ven he got in, to perwent the necessity o' the coachman's gettin' down, and thereby undeceivin' the public by lettin' em see that it wos only a livery coat as he'd got on, and not the trousers to match. 'Wot's the matter?' said the doctor. 'Wery ill,' says the patient. 'Wot have you been a eatin' on?' says the doctor. 'Roast weal,' says the patient. 'Wot's the last thing you dewoured?' says the doctor. 'Crumpets,' says the patient. 'That's it!' says the doctor. 'I'll send you a box of pills directly, and don't you never take no more of 'em,' he says. 'No more o' wot?' says the patient--'Pills?' 'No; crumpets,' says the doctor. 'Wy?' says the patient, starting up in bed; 'I've eat four crumpets ev'ry night for fifteen year, on principle.' 'Well then, you'd better leave 'em off, on principle,' says the doctor. 'Crumpets is wholesome, sir,' says the patient. 'Crumpets is _not_ wholesome, sir,' says the doctor, wery fierce. 'But they're so cheap,' says the patient, comin' down a little, 'and so wery fillin' at the price.' 'They'd be dear to you, at any price; dear if you wos paid to eat 'em,' says the doctor. 'Four crumpets a night,' he says, 'vill do your business in six months!' The patient looks him full in the face, and turns it over in his mind for a long time, and at last he says, 'Are you sure o' that 'ere, sir?' 'I'll stake my professional reputation on it,' says the doctor. 'How many crumpets, at a sittin', do you think, 'ud kill me off at once?' says the patient. 'I don't know,' says the doctor. 'Do you think half-a-crown's vurth 'ud do it?' says the patient. 'I think it might,' says the doctor. 'Three shillin's vurth 'ud be sure to do it, I s'pose?' says the patient. 'Certainly,' says the doctor. 'Wery good,' says the patient; 'good night.' Next mornin' he gets up, has a fire lit, orders in three shillin's vurth o' crumpets, toasts 'em all, eats' em all, and blows his brains out." "What did he do that for?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, abruptly, for he was considerably startled by this tragical termination of the narrative. "Wot did he do it for, sir?" reiterated Sam. "Vy, in support of his great principle that crumpets wos wholesome, and to show that he wouldn't be put out of his way for nobody!" With such like shiftings and changings of the discourse, did Mr. Weller meet his master's questioning on the night of his taking up his residence in the Fleet. Finding all gentle remonstrance useless, Mr. Pickwick at length yielded a reluctant consent to his taking lodgings by the week of a bald-headed cobbler, who rented a small slip-room in one of the upper galleries. To this humble apartment Mr. Weller moved a mattress and bedding which he hired of Mr. Roker; and by the time he lay down upon it at night, was as much at home as if he had been bred in the prison, and his whole family had vegetated therein for three generations. "Do you always smoke arter you goes to bed, old cock?" inquired Mr. Weller of his landlord, when they had both retired for the night. "Yes, I does, young bantam," replied the cobbler. "Will you allow me to in-quire vy you make up your bed under that 'ere deal table?" said Sam. "'Cause I was always used to a four-poster afore I came here, and I find the legs of the table answer just as well," replied the cobbler. "You're a character, sir," said Sam. "I haven't got anything of the kind belonging to me," rejoined the cobbler, shaking his head; "and if you want to meet with a good one, I'm afraid you'll find some difficulty in suiting yourself at this register office." The above short dialogue took place as Mr. Weller lay extended on his mattress at one end of the room, and the cobbler on his, at the other; the apartment being illumined by the light of a rush candle, and the cobbler's pipe, which was glowing below the table, like a red-hot coal. The conversation, brief as it was, predisposed Mr. Weller strongly in his landlord's favour; and raising himself on his elbow he took a more lengthened survey of his appearance than he had yet had either time or inclination to make. He was a sallow man--all cobblers are; and had a strong bristly beard--all cobblers have. His face was a queer, good-tempered, crooked-featured piece of workmanship, ornamented with a couple of eyes that must have worn a very joyous expression at one time, for they sparkled yet. The man was sixty, by years, and Heaven knows how old by imprisonment, so that his having any look approaching to mirth or contentment, was singular enough. He was a little man, and being half doubled up as he lay in bed, looked about as long as he ought to have been without his legs. He had a great red pipe in his mouth, and was smoking, and staring at the rushlight, in a state of enviable placidity. "Have you been here long?" inquired Sam, breaking the silence which had lasted for some time. "Twelve year," replied the cobbler, biting the end of his pipe as he spoke. "Contempt?" inquired Sam. The cobbler nodded. "Well then," said Sam, with some sternness, "wot do you persewere in bein' obstinit for, vastin' your precious life away, in this here magnified pound? Vy don't you give in, and tell the Chancellorship that you're wery sorry for makin' his court contemptible, and you won't do so no more?" The cobbler put his pipe in the corner of his mouth, while he smiled, and then brought it back to its old place again; but said nothing. "Vy don't you?" said Sam, urging his question strenuously. "Ah," said the cobbler, "you don't quite understand these matters. What do you suppose ruined me, now?" "Vy," said Sam, trimming the rushlight, "I s'pose the beginnin' wos, that you got into debt, eh?" "Never owed a farden," said the cobbler; "try again." "Well, perhaps," said Sam, "you bought houses, vich is delicate English for goin' mad: or took to buildin', which is a medical term for bein' incurable." The cobbler shook his had and said, "Try again." "You didn't go to law, I hope?" said Sam, suspiciously. "Never in my life," replied the cobbler. "The fact is, I was ruined by having money left me." "Come, come," said Sam, "that von't do. I wish some rich enemy 'ud try to vork _my_ destruction in that 'ere vay. I'd let him." "Oh, I dare say you don't believe it," said the cobbler, quietly smoking his pipe. "I wouldn't if I was you; but it's true for all that." "How wos it?" inquired Sam, half induced to believe the fact already, by the look the cobbler gave him. "Just this," replied the cobbler; "an old gentleman that I worked for, down in the country, and a humble relation of whose I married--she's dead, God bless her, and thank Him for it!--was seized with a fit and went off." "Where?" inquired Sam, who was growing sleepy after the numerous events of the day. "How should I know where he went?" said the cobbler, speaking through his nose in an intense enjoyment of his pipe. "He went off dead." "Oh, that indeed," said Sam. "Well?" "Well," said the cobbler, "he left five thousand pound behind him." "And wery gen-teel in him so to do," said Sam. "One of which," continued the cobbler, "he left to me, 'cause I'd married his relation, you see." "Wery good," murmured Sam. "And being surrounded by a great number of nieces and nevys, as was always a quarrelling and fighting among themselves for the property, he makes me his executor, and leaves the rest to me: in trust, to divide it among 'em as the will prowided." "Wot do you mean by leavin' it on trust?" inquired Sam, waking up a little. "If it ain't ready money, where's the use on it?" "It's a law term, that's all," said the cobbler. "I don't think that," said Sam, shaking his head. "There's wery little trust at that shop. Hows'ever, go on." "Well," said the cobbler: "when I was going to take out a probate of the will, the nieces and nevys, who was desperately disappointed at not getting all the money, enters a caveat against it." "What's that?" inquired Sam. "A legal instrument, which is as much as to say, it's no go," replied the cobbler. "I see," said Sam, "a sort of brother-in-law o' the have-his-carcase. Well?" "But," continued the cobbler, "finding that they couldn't agree among themselves, and consequently couldn't get up a case against the will, they withdrew the caveat, and I paid all the legacies. I'd hardly done it, when one nevy brings an action to set the will aside. The case comes on some months afterwards afore a deaf old gentleman, in a back room somewhere down by St. Paul's Churchyard; and arter four counsels had taken a day apiece to bother him regularly, he takes a week or two to consider, and read the evidence in six vollums, and then gives his judgment that how the testator was not quite right in his head, and I must pay all the money back again, and all the costs. I appealed; the case came on before three or four very sleepy gentlemen, who had heard it all before in the other court, where they're lawyers without work; the only difference being, that there they're called doctors, and in the other places delegates, if you understand that; and they very dutifully confirmed the decision of the old gentleman below. After that, we went into Chancery, where we are still, and where I shall always be. My lawyers have had all my thousand pound long ago; and what between the estate, as they call it, and the costs, I'm here for ten thousand, and shall stop here, till I die, mending shoes. Some gentlemen have talked of bringing it before parliament, and I dare say would have done it, only they hadn't time to come to me, and I hadn't power to go to them, and they got tired of my long letters, and dropped the business. And this is God's truth, without one word of suppression or exaggeration, as fifty people, both in this place and out of it, very well know." The cobbler paused to ascertain what effect his story had produced on Sam; but finding that he had dropped asleep, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, sighed, put it down, drew the bedclothes over his head, and went to sleep too. Mr. Pickwick was sitting at breakfast, alone, next morning (Sam being busily engaged in the cobbler's room, polishing his master's shoes and brushing the black gaiters) when there came a knock at the door, which, before Mr. Pickwick could cry "Come in!" was followed by the appearance of a head of hair and a cotton-velvet cap, both of which articles of dress he had no difficulty in recognising as the personal property of Mr. Smangle. "How are you?" said that worthy, accompanying the inquiry with a score or two of nods; "I say--do you expect anybody this morning? Three men--devilish gentlemanly fellows--have been asking after you down-stairs, and knocking at every door on the Hall flight; for which they've been most infernally blown up by the collegians that had the trouble of opening 'em." "Dear me! How very foolish of them," said Mr. Pickwick, rising. "Yes; I have no doubt they are some friends whom I rather expected to see yesterday." "Friends of yours!" exclaimed Smangle, seizing Mr. Pickwick by the hand. "Say no more. Curse me, they're friends of mine from this minute, and friends of Mivins's too. Infernal pleasant, gentlemanly dog, Mivins, isn't he?" said Smangle, with great feeling. "I know so little of the gentleman," said Mr. Pickwick, hesitating, "that I----" "I know you do," interposed Smangle, clasping Mr. Pickwick by the shoulder. "You shall know him better. You'll be delighted with him. That man, sir," said Smangle, with a solemn countenance, "has comic powers that would do honour to Drury Lane Theatre." "Has he indeed?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Ah, by Jove he has!" replied Smangle. "Hear him come the four cats in the wheelbarrow--four distinct cats, sir, I pledge you my honour. Now you know that's infernal clever! Damme, you can't help liking a man, when you see these traits about him. He's only one fault--that little failing I mentioned to you, you know." As Mr. Smangle shook his head in a confidential and sympathising manner at this juncture, Mr. Pickwick felt that he was expected to say something, so he said "Ah!" and looked restlessly at the door. "Ah!" echoed Mr. Smangle, with a long-drawn sigh. "He's delightful company, that man is, sir. I don't know better company anywhere; but he has that one drawback. If the ghost of his grandfather, sir, was to rise before him this minute, he'd ask him for the loan of his acceptance on an eighteenpenny stamp." "Dear me!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. "Yes," added Mr. Smangle; "and if he'd the power of raising him again, he would, in two months and three days from this time, to renew the bill!" "Those are very remarkable traits," said Mr. Pickwick; "but I'm afraid that while we are talking here, my friends may be in a state of great perplexity at not finding me." "I'll show 'em the way," said Smangle, making for the door. "Good day. I won't disturb you while they're here, you know. By-the-bye----" As Mr. Smangle pronounced the last three words, he stopped suddenly, re-closed the door which he had opened, and, walking softly back to Mr. Pickwick, stepped close up to him on tip-toe, and said in a very soft whisper: "You couldn't make it convenient to lend me half-a-crown till the latter end of next week, could you?" Mr. Pickwick could scarcely forbear smiling, but managing to preserve his gravity, he drew forth the coin, and placed it in Mr. Smangle's palm; upon which that gentleman, with many nods and winks, implying profound mystery, disappeared in quest of the three strangers, with whom he presently returned; and having coughed thrice, and nodded as many times, as an assurance to Mr. Pickwick that he would not forget to pay, he shook hands all round, in an engaging manner, and at length took himself off. "My dear friends," said Mr. Pickwick, shaking hands alternately with Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass, who were the three visitors in question, "I am delighted to see you." The triumvirate were much affected. Mr. Tupman shook his head deploringly; Mr. Snodgrass drew forth his handkerchief with undisguised emotion; and Mr. Winkle retired to the window, and sniffed aloud. "Mornin', gen'l'm'n," said Sam, entering at the moment with the shoes and gaiters. "Avay with melincholly, as the little boy said ven his school-missis died. Velcome to the College, gen'l'm'n." "This foolish fellow," said Mr. Pickwick, tapping Sam on the head as he knelt down to button up his master's gaiters: "this foolish fellow has got himself arrested in order to be near me." "What!" exclaimed the three friends. "Yes, gen'l'm'n," said Sam, "I'm a--stand steady, sir, if you please--I'm a pris'ner, gen'l'm'n. Con-fined, as the lady said." "A prisoner!" exclaimed Mr. Winkle, with unaccountable vehemence. "Hallo, sir!" responded Sam, looking up. "Wot's the matter, sir?" "I had hoped, Sam, that--nothing, nothing," said Mr. Winkle precipitately. There was something so very abrupt and unsettled in Mr. Winkle's manner, that Mr. Pickwick involuntarily looked at his two friends for an explanation. "We don't know," said Mr. Tupman, answering this mute appeal aloud. "He has been much excited for two days past and his whole demeanour very unlike what it usually is. We feared there must be something the matter, but he resolutely denies it." "No, no," said Mr. Winkle, colouring beneath Mr. Pickwick's gaze; "there is really nothing. I assure you there is nothing, my dear sir. It will be necessary for me to leave town, for a short time, on private business, and I had hoped to have prevailed upon you to allow Sam to accompany me." Mr. Pickwick looked more astonished than before. "I think," faltered Mr. Winkle, "that Sam would have had no objection to do so; but, of course, his being a prisoner here, renders it impossible. So I must go alone." As Mr. Winkle said these words, Mr. Pickwick felt, with some astonishment, that Sam's fingers were trembling at the gaiters as if he were rather surprised or startled. Sam looked up at Mr. Winkle, too, when he had finished speaking; and though the glance they exchanged was instantaneous, they seemed to understand each other. "Do you know anything of this, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick sharply. "No, I don't, sir," replied Mr. Weller, beginning to button with extraordinary assiduity. "Are you sure, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Vy, sir," responded Mr. Weller; "I'm sure so far, that I've never heerd anythin' on the subject afore this moment. If I makes any guess about it," added Sam, looking at Mr. Winkle, "I haven't got any right to say what it is, 'fear it should be a wrong 'un." "I have no right to make any further inquiry into the private affairs of a friend, however intimate a friend," said Mr. Pickwick, after a short silence; "at present let me merely say that I do not understand this at all. There. We have had quite enough of the subject." Thus expressing himself, Mr. Pickwick led the conversation to different topics, and Mr. Winkle gradually appeared more at ease, though still very far from being completely so. They had all so much to converse about, that the morning very quickly passed away; and when, at three o'clock, Mr. Weller produced upon the little dining-table a roast leg of mutton and an enormous meat pie, with sundry dishes of vegetables, and pots of porter, which stood upon the chairs or the sofa-bedstead, or where they could, everybody felt disposed to do justice to the meal, notwithstanding that the meat had been purchased, and dressed, and the pie made, and baked, at the prison cookery hard by. To these succeeded a bottle or two of very good wine, for which a messenger was despatched by Mr. Pickwick to the Horn Coffee-house in Doctors' Commons. The bottle or two, indeed, might be more properly described as a bottle or six, for by the time it was drunk and tea over, the bell began to ring for strangers to withdraw. But if Mr. Winkle's behaviour had been unaccountable in the morning, it became perfectly unearthly and solemn when, under the influence of his feelings and his share of the bottle or six, he prepared to take leave of his friend. He lingered behind, until Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass had disappeared, and then fervently clenched Mr. Pickwick's hand, with an expression of face in which deep and mighty resolve was fearfully blended with the very concentrated essence of gloom. "Good night, my dear sir!" said Mr. Winkle between his set teeth. "Bless you, my dear fellow!" replied the warm-hearted Mr. Pickwick, as he returned the pressure of his young friend's hand. "Now then!" cried Mr. Tupman from the gallery. "Yes, yes, directly," replied Mr. Winkle. "Good night!" "Good night," said Mr. Pickwick. There was another good night, and another, and half-a-dozen more after that, and still Mr. Winkle had fast hold of his friend's hand, and was looking into his face with the same strange expression. "_Is_ anything the matter?" said Mr. Pickwick at last, when his arm was quite sore with shaking. "Nothing," said Mr. Winkle. "Well then, good night," said Mr. Pickwick, attempting to disengage his hand. "My friend, my benefactor, my honoured companion," murmured Mr. Winkle, catching at his wrist. "Do not judge me harshly; do not, when you hear that, driven to extremity by hopeless obstacles, I----" "Now then," said Mr. Tupman, reappearing at the door. "Are you coming, or are we to be locked in?" "Yes, yes, I am ready," replied Mr. Winkle. And with a violent effort he tore himself away. As Mr. Pickwick was gazing down the passage after them in silent astonishment, Sam Weller appeared at the stair-head, and whispered for one moment in Mr. Winkle's ear. "Oh, certainly, depend upon me," said that gentleman aloud. "Thankee, sir. You won't forget, sir?" said Sam. "Of course not," replied Mr. Winkle. "Wish you luck, sir," said Sam, touching his hat. "I should very much liked to ha' joined you, sir; but the gov'nor o' course is pairamount." "It is very much to your credit that you remain here," said Mr. Winkle. With these words they disappeared down-stairs. "Very extraordinary," said Mr. Pickwick, going back into his room, and seating himself at the table in a musing attitude. "What _can_ that young man be going to do?" He had sat ruminating about the matter for some time, when the voice of Roker, the turnkey, demanded whether he might come in. "By all means," said Mr. Pickwick. "I've brought you a softer pillow, sir," said Roker, "instead of the temporary one you had last night." "Thank you," said Mr. Pickwick. "Will you take a glass of wine?" "You're wery good, sir," replied Mr. Roker, accepting the proffered glass. "Yours, sir." "Thank you," said Mr. Pickwick. "I'm sorry to say that your landlord's every bad to-night, sir," said Roker, setting down the glass, and inspecting the lining of his hat preparatory to putting it on again. "What! The Chancery prisoner!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. "He won't be a Chancery prisoner wery long, sir," replied Roker, turning his hat round, so as to get the maker's name right side upwards, as he looked into it. "You make my blood run cold," said Mr. Pickwick. "What do you mean?" "He's been consumptive for a long time past," said Mr. Roker, "and he's taken wery bad in the breath to-night. The doctor said, six months ago, that nothing but change of air could save him." "Great Heaven!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick; "has this man been slowly murdered by the law for six months!" "I don't know about that," replied Roker, weighing the hat by the brims in both hands. "I suppose he'd have been took the same, wherever he was. He went into the infirmary this morning; the doctor says his strength is to be kept up as much as possible; and the warden's sent him wine and broth and that, from his own house. It's not the warden's fault, you know, sir." "Of course not," replied Mr. Pickwick, hastily. "I'm afraid, however," said Roker, shaking his head, "that it's all up with him. I offered Neddy two sixpenn'orths to one upon it just now, but he wouldn't take it, and quite right. Thankee, sir. Good night, sir." "Stay," said Mr. Pickwick, earnestly. "Where is this infirmary?" "Just over where you slept, sir," replied Roker. "I'll show you, if you like to come." Mr. Pickwick snatched up his hat without speaking, and followed at once. The turnkey led the way in silence; and gently raising the latch of the room door, motioned Mr. Pickwick to enter. It was a large, bare, desolate room, with a number of stump bedsteads made of iron; on one of which lay stretched the shadow of a man; wan, pale, and ghastly. His breathing was hard and thick, and he moaned painfully as it came and went. At the bedside sat a short old man in a cobbler's apron, who, by the aid of a pair of horn spectacles, was reading from the Bible aloud. It was the fortunate legatee. The sick man laid his hand upon his attendant's arm, and motioned him to stop. He closed the book and laid it on the bed. "Open the window," said the sick man. He did so. The noise of carriages and carts, the rattle of wheels, the cries of men and boys, all the busy sounds of a mighty multitude instinct with life and occupation, blended into one deep murmur, floated into the room. Above the hoarse loud hum arose, from time to time, a boisterous laugh; or a scrap of some jingling song, shouted forth by one of the giddy crowd, would strike upon the ear for an instant, and then be lost amidst the roar of voices and the tramp of footsteps; the breaking of the billows of the restless sea of life that rolled heavily on without. Melancholy sounds to a quiet listener at any time; how melancholy to the watcher by the bed of death! "There is no air here," said the sick man faintly. "The place pollutes it. It was fresh round about, when I walked there, years ago; but it grows hot and heavy in passing these walls. I cannot breathe it." "We have breathed it together for a long time," said the old man. "Come, come." There was a short silence, during which the two spectators approached the bed. The sick man drew a hand of his old fellow-prisoner towards him, and pressing it affectionately between both his own, retained it in his grasp. "I hope," he gasped after a while, so faintly that they bent their ears close over the bed to catch the half-formed sounds his pale lips gave vent to: "I hope my merciful Judge will bear in mind my heavy punishment on earth. Twenty years, my friend, twenty years in this hideous grave! My heart broke when my child died, and I could not even kiss him in his little coffin. My loneliness since then, in all this noise and riot, has been very dreadful. May God forgive me! He has seen my solitary, lingering death." He folded his hands, and murmuring something more they could not hear, fell into a sleep--only a sleep at first, for they saw him smile. They whispered together for a little time, and the turnkey, stooping over the pillow, drew hastily back. "He has got his discharge, by G--!" said the man. He had. But he had grown so like death in life, that they knew not when he died. CHAPTER XVII [Illustration] _Descriptive of an Affecting Interview between Mr. Samuel Weller and a Family Party. Mr. Pickwick makes a Tour of the Diminutive World he inhabits, and resolves to mix with it, in future, as little as possible._ A few mornings after his incarceration, Mr. Samuel Weller, having arranged his master's room with all possible care, and seen him comfortably seated over his books and papers, withdrew to employ himself for an hour or two to come, as he best could. It was a fine morning, and it occurred to Sam that a pint of porter in the open air would lighten his next quarter of an hour or so, as well as any little amusement in which he could indulge. Having arrived at this conclusion, he betook himself to the tap. Having purchased the beer, and obtained, moreover, the day-but-one-before-yesterday's paper, he repaired to the skittle-ground, and seating himself on a bench, proceeded to enjoy himself in a very sedate and methodical manner. First of all, he took a refreshing draught of the beer, and then he looked up at the window, and bestowed a Platonic wink on a young lady who was peeling potatoes thereat. Then he opened the paper, and folded it so as to get the police reports outwards; and this being a vexatious and difficult thing to do, when there is any wind stirring, he took another draught of the beer when he had accomplished it. Then he read two lines of the paper, and stopped short to look at a couple of men who were finishing a game of rackets, which being concluded, he cried out "wery good" in an approving manner, and looked round upon the spectators, to ascertain whether their sentiments coincided with his own. This involved the necessity of looking up at the windows also; and as the young lady was still there, it was an act of common politeness to wink again, and to drink to her good health in dumb show, in another draught of the beer, which Sam did; and having frowned hideously upon a small boy who had noted this latter proceeding with open eyes, he threw one leg over the other, and holding the newspaper in both hands, began to read in real earnest. He had hardly composed himself into the needful state of abstraction, when he thought he heard his own name proclaimed in some distant passage. Nor was he mistaken, for it quickly passed from mouth to mouth, and in a few seconds the air teemed with shouts of "Weller!" "Here!" roared Sam, in a stentorian voice. "Wot's the matter? Who wants him? Has an express come to say that his country-house is afire?" "Somebody wants you in the hall," said a man who was standing by. "Just mind that 'ere paper and the pot, old feller, will you?" said Sam. "I'm a comin'. Blessed, if they was a callin' me to the bar they couldn't make more noise about it!" Accompanying these words with a gentle rap on the head of the young gentleman before noticed, who, unconscious of his close vicinity to the person in request, was screaming "Weller!" with all his might, Sam hastened across the ground, and ran up the steps into the hall. Here, the first object that met his eyes was his beloved father sitting on a bottom stair, with his hat in his hand, shouting out "Weller!" in his very loudest tone, at half-minute intervals. "Wot are you a roarin' at?" said Sam impetuously, when the old gentleman had discharged himself of another shout; "makin' yourself so precious hot that you looks like a aggrawated glass-blower. Wot's the matter?" "Aha!" replied the old gentleman, "I began to be afeerd that you'd gone for a walk round the Regency Park, Sammy." "Come," said Sam, "none o' them taunts agin the wictim o' avarice, and come off that 'ere step. Wot are you a settin' down there for? I don't live there." "I've got such a game for you, Sammy," said the elder Mr. Weller, rising. "Stop a minit," said Sam, "you're all vite behind." "That's right, Sammy, rub it off," said Mr. Weller, as his son dusted him. "It might look personal here, if a man walked about with whitevash on his clothes, eh, Sammy?" As Mr. Weller exhibited in this place unequivocal symptoms of an approaching fit of chuckling, Sam interposed to stop it. "Keep quiet, do," said Sam, "there never vos such a old picter-card born. What are you bustin' vith, now?" "Sammy," said Mr. Weller, wiping his forehead, "I'm afeerd that vun o' these days I shall laugh myself into a appleplexy, my boy." "Vell then, wot do you do it for?" said Sam. "Now; wot have you got to say?" "Who do you think's come here with me, Samivel?" said Mr. Weller, drawing back a pace or two, pursing up his mouth, and extending his eyebrows. "Pell?" said Sam. Mr. Weller shook his head, and his red cheek expanded with the laughter that was endeavouring to find a vent. "Mottled-faced man, p'r'aps?" suggested Sam. Again Mr. Weller shook his head. "Who then?" asked Sam. "Your mother-in-law," said Mr. Weller; and it was lucky he did say it, or his cheeks must inevitably have cracked from their most unnatural distension. "Your mother-in-law, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, "and the red-nosed man, my boy; and the red-nosed man. Ho! ho! ho!" With this, Mr. Weller launched into convulsions of laughter, while Sam regarded him with a broad grin gradually overspreading his whole countenance. "They've come to have a little serious talk with you, Samivel," said Mr. Weller, wiping his eyes. "Don't let out nothin' about the unnat'ral creditor, Sammy." "Wot! don't they know who it is?" inquired Sam. "Not a bit on it," replied his father. "Vere are they?" said Sam, reciprocating all the old gentleman's grins. "In the snuggery," rejoined Mr. Weller. "Catch the red-nosed man a goin' anyvere but vere the liquors is; not he, Samivel, not he. Ve'd a wery pleasant ride along the road from the Markis this mornin', Sammy," said Mr. Weller, when he felt himself equal to the task of speaking in an articulate manner. "I drove the old piebald in that 'ere little shay-cart as belonged to your mother-in-law's first wenter, into vich a harm-cheer wos lifted for the shepherd; and I'm blest," said Mr. Weller, with a look of deep scorn: "I'm blest if they didn't bring a portable flight o' steps out into the road a front o' our door, for him to get up by." [Illustration: "_I drove the old piebald._"] "You don't mean that?" said Sam. "I _do_ mean that, Sammy," replied his father, "and I vish you could ha' seen how tight he held on by the sides wen he did get up, as if he wos afeerd o' being precipitayted down full six foot, and dashed into a million o' hatoms. He tumbled in at last, however, and avay ve vent; and I rayther think, I say I rayther think, Samivel, that he found his-self a little jolted ven ve turned the corners." "Wot! I s'pose you happened to drive up agin a post or two?" said Sam. "I'm afeerd," replied Mr. Weller, in a rapture of winks, "I'm afeerd I took vun or two on 'em, Sammy; he wos a flyin' out o' the harm-cheer all the way." Here the old gentleman shook his head from side to side, and was seized with a hoarse internal rumbling, accompanied with a violent swelling of the countenance, and a sudden increase in the breadth of all his features; symptoms which alarmed his son not a little. "Don't be frightened, Sammy, don't be frightened," said the old gentleman, when by dint of much struggling, and various convulsive stamps upon the ground, he had recovered his voice. "It's only a kind o' quiet laugh as I'm a tryin' to come, Sammy." "Well, if that's wot it is," said Sam, "you'd better not try to come it agin. You'll find it rayther a dangerous inwention." "Don't you like it, Sammy?" inquired the old gentleman. "Not at all," replied Sam. "Well," said Mr. Weller, with the tears still running down his cheeks, "it 'ud ha' been a wery great accommodation to me if I could ha' done it, and 'ud ha' saved a good many vords atween your mother-in-law and me, sometimes; but I am afeerd you're right, Sammy: it's too much in the appleplexy line--a deal too much, Samivel." This conversation brought them to the door of the snuggery, into which Sam--pausing for an instant to look over his shoulder, and cast a sly leer at his respected progenitor, who was still giggling behind--at once led the way. "Mother-in-law," said Sam, politely saluting the lady, "wery much obliged to you for this here wisit. Shepherd, how air you?" "Oh, Samuel!" said Mrs. Weller. "This is dreadful." "Not a bit of it, mum," replied Sam. "Is it, shepherd?" Mr. Stiggins raised his hands, and turned up his eyes, till the whites--or rather the yellows--were alone visible; but made no reply in words. "Is this here gen'l'm'n troubled vith any painful complaint?" said Sam, looking to his mother-in-law for explanation. "The good man is grieved to see you here, Samuel," replied Mrs. Weller. "Oh, that's it, is it?" said Sam. "I was afeerd, from his manner, that he might a' forgotten to take pepper with that 'ere last cowcumber he eat. Set down, sir, ve make no extra charge for the settin' down, as the king remarked ven he blowed up his ministers." "Young man," said Mr. Stiggins ostentatiously, "I fear you are not softened by imprisonment." "Beg your pardon, sir," replied Sam; "wot wos you graciously pleased to hobserve?" "I apprehend, young man, that your nature is no softer for this chastening," said Mr. Stiggins, in a loud voice. "Sir," replied Sam, "you're wery kind to say so. I hope my natur is _not_ a soft vun, sir. Wery much obliged to you for your good opinion, sir." At this point of the conversation, a sound, indecorously approaching to a laugh, was heard to proceed from the chair in which the elder Mr. Weller was seated; upon which Mrs. Weller, on a hasty consideration of all the circumstances of the case, considered it her bounden duty to become gradually hysterical. "Weller," said Mrs. W. (the old gentleman was seated in a corner); "Weller! Come forth." "Wery much obleeged to you, my dear," replied Mr. Weller; "but I'm quite comfortable vere I am." Upon this Mrs. Weller burst into tears. "Wot's gone wrong, mum?" said Sam. "Oh, Samuel!" replied Mrs. Weller, "your father makes me wretched. Will nothing do him good?" "Do you hear this here?" said Sam. "Lady wants to know vether nothin' 'ull do you good." "Wery much indebted to Mrs. Weller for her po-lite inquiries, Sammy," replied the old gentleman. "I think a pipe vould benefit me a good deal. Could I be accommodated, Sammy?" Here Mrs. Weller let fall some more tears, and Mr. Stiggins groaned. "Hallo! Here's this unfort'nate gen'l'm'n took ill agin," said Sam, looking round. "Vere do you feel it now, sir?" "In the same place, young man," rejoined Mr. Stiggins: "in the same place." "Vere may that be, sir?" inquired Sam, with great outward simplicity. "In the buzzim, young man," replied Mr. Stiggins, placing his umbrella on his waistcoat. At this affecting reply, Mrs. Weller, being wholly unable to suppress her feelings, sobbed aloud, and stated her conviction that the red-nosed man was a saint; whereupon Mr. Weller senior ventured to suggest, in an undertone, that he must be the representative of the united parishes of St. Simon Without and St. Walker Within. "I'm afeerd, mum," said Sam, "that this here gen'l'm'n, with the twist in his countenance, feels rayther thirsty, with the melancholy spectacle afore him. Is it the case, mum?" The worthy lady looked at Mr. Stiggins for a reply; that gentleman, with many rollings of the eye, clenched his throat with his right hand, and mimicked the act of swallowing, to intimate that he was athirst. "I am afraid, Samuel, that his feelings have made him so, indeed," said Mrs. Weller, mournfully. "Wot's your usual tap, sir?" replied Sam. "Oh, my dear young friend," replied Mr. Stiggins, "all taps is vanities!" "Too true, too true, indeed," said Mrs. Weller, murmuring a groan, and shaking her head assentingly. "Well," said Sam, "I des-say they may be, sir; but which is your partickler wanity? Vich wanity do you like the flavour on best, sir?" "Oh, my dear young friend," replied Mr. Stiggins, "I despise them all. If," said Mr. Stiggins, "if there is any one of them less odious than another, it is the liquor called rum. Warm, my dear young friend, with three lumps of sugar to the tumbler." "Wery sorry to say, sir," said Sam, "that they don't allow that partickler wanity to be sold in this here establishment." "Oh, the hardness of heart of these inveterate men!" ejaculated Mr. Stiggins. "Oh, the accursed cruelty of these inhuman persecutors!" With these words Mr. Stiggins again cast up his eyes, and rapped his breast with his umbrella; and it is but justice to the reverend gentleman to say, that his indignation appeared very real and unfeigned indeed. After Mrs. Weller and the red-nosed gentleman had commented on this inhuman usage in a very forcible manner, and had vented a variety of pious and holy execrations against its authors, the latter recommended a bottle of port wine, warmed with a little water, spice, and sugar, as being grateful to the stomach, and savouring less of vanity than many other compounds. It was accordingly ordered to be prepared. Pending its preparation the red-nosed man and Mrs. Weller looked at the elder W. and groaned. "Well, Sammy," said that gentleman, "I hope you'll find your spirits rose by this here lively wisit. Wery cheerful and improvin' conwersation, ain't it, Sammy?" "You're a reprobate," replied Sam; "and I desire you won't address no more o' them ungraceful remarks to me." So far from being edified by this very proper reply, the elder Mr. Weller at once relapsed into a broad grin; and this inexorable conduct causing the lady and Mr. Stiggins to close their eyes, and rock themselves to and fro on their chairs in a troubled manner, he furthermore indulged in several acts of pantomime, indicative of a desire to pummel and wring the nose of the aforesaid Stiggins; the performance of which appeared to afford him great mental relief. The old gentleman very narrowly escaped detection in one instance: Mr. Stiggins happening to give a start on the arrival of the negus, brought his head in smart contact with the clenched fist with which Mr. Weller had been describing imaginary fireworks in the air, within two inches of his ear, for some minutes. "Wot are you a reachin' out your hand for the tumbler in that 'ere sawage way for?" said Sam, with great promptitude. "Don't you see you've hit the gen'l'm'n?" "I didn't go to do it, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, in some degree abashed by the very unexpected occurrence of the incident. "Try an in'ard application, sir," said Sam, as the red-nosed gentleman rubbed his head with a rueful visage. "Wot do you think o' that, for a go o' wanity warm, sir?" Mr. Stiggins made no verbal answer, but his manner was expressive. He tasted the contents of the glass which Sam had placed in his hand; put his umbrella on the floor, and tasted it again: passing his hand placidly across his stomach twice or thrice; he then drank the whole at a breath, and smacking his lips, held out the tumbler for more. Nor was Mrs. Weller behind-hand in doing justice to the composition. The good lady began by protesting that she couldn't touch a drop--then took a small drop--then a large drop--then a great many drops; and her feelings being of the nature of those substances which are powerfully affected by the application of strong waters, she dropped a tear with every drop of negus, and so got on, melting the feelings down, until at length she had arrived at a very pathetic and decent pitch of misery. The elder Mr. Weller observed these signs and tokens with many manifestations of disgust, and when, after a second jug of the same, Mr. Stiggins began to sigh in a dismal manner, he plainly evinced his disapprobation of the whole proceedings, by sundry incoherent ramblings of speech, among which frequent angry repetitions of the word "gammon" were alone distinguishable to the ear. "I'll tell you wot it is, Samivel, my boy," whispered the old gentleman into his son's ear, after a long and steadfast contemplation of his lady and Mr. Stiggins; "I think there must be somethin' wrong in your mother-in-law's inside, as vell as in that o' the red-nosed man." "Wot do you mean?" said Sam. "I mean this here, Sammy," replied the old gentleman, "that wot they drink don't seem no nourishment to 'em; it all turns to warm water, and comes a pourin' out o' their eyes. 'Pend upon it, Sammy, it's a constitootional infirmity." Mr. Weller delivered this scientific opinion with many confirmatory frowns and nods; which Mrs. Weller remarking, and concluding that they bore some disparaging reference either to herself or to Mr. Stiggins, or to both, was on the point of becoming infinitely worse, when Mr. Stiggins, getting on his legs as well as he could, proceeded to deliver an edifying discourse for the benefit of the company, but more especially of Mr. Samuel, whom he adjured in moving terms to be upon his guard in that sink of iniquity into which he was cast; to abstain from all hypocrisy and pride of heart; and to take in all things exact pattern and copy by him (Stiggins), in which case he might calculate on arriving, sooner or later, at the comfortable conclusion that, like him, he was a most estimable and blameless character, and that all his acquaintance and friends were hopelessly abandoned and profligate wretches. Which consideration, he said, could not but afford him the liveliest satisfaction. He furthermore conjured him to avoid, above all things, the vice of intoxication, which he likened unto the filthy habits of swine, and to those poisonous and baleful drugs which, being chewed in the mouth, are said to filch away the memory. At this point of his discourse, the reverend and red-nosed gentleman became singularly incoherent, and staggering to and fro in the excitement of his eloquence, was fain to catch at the back of a chair to preserve his perpendicular. Mr. Stiggins did not desire his hearers to be upon their guard against those false prophets and wretched mockers of religion, who, without sense to expound its first doctrines, or hearts to feel its first principles, are more dangerous members of society than the common criminal; imposing, as they necessarily do, upon the weakest and worst informed, casting scorn and contempt on what should be held most sacred, and bringing into partial disrepute large bodies of virtuous and well-conducted persons of many excellent sects and persuasions. But as he leant over the back of the chair for a considerable time, and closing one eye, winked a good deal with the other, it is presumed that he thought all this, but kept it to himself. During the delivery of the oration, Mrs. Weller sobbed and wept at the end of the paragraphs; while Sam, sitting cross-legged on a chair and resting his arms on the top-rail, regarded the speaker with great suavity and blandness of demeanour; occasionally bestowing a look of recognition on the old gentleman, who was delighted at the beginning, and went to sleep about half-way. "Brayvo; wery pretty!" said Sam, when the red-nosed man, having finished, pulled his worn gloves on: thereby thrusting his fingers through the broken tops till the knuckles were disclosed to view. "Wery pretty." "I hope it may do you good, Samuel," said Mrs. Weller, solemnly. "I think it vill, mum," replied Sam. "I wish I could hope that it would do your father good," said Mrs. Weller. "Thankee, my dear," said Mr. Weller senior. "How do _you_ find yourself arter it, my love?" "Scoffer!" exclaimed Mrs. Weller. "Benighted man!" said the Reverend Mr. Stiggins. "If I don't get no better light than that 'ere moonshine o' yourn, my worthy creetur," said the elder Mr. Weller, "it's wery likely as I shall continey to be a night coach till I'm took off the road altogether. Now, Mrs. We, if the piebald stands at livery much longer, he'll stand at nothing as we go back, and p'r'aps that 'ere harm-cheer 'ull be tipped over into some hedge or another, with the shepherd in it." At this supposition, the Reverend Mr. Stiggins, in evident consternation, gathered up his hat and umbrella, and proposed an immediate departure, to which Mrs. Weller assented. Sam walked with them to the lodge-gate, and took a dutiful leave. "A-do, Samivel," said the old gentleman. "Wot's a-do?" inquired Sammy. "Well, good-bye, then," said the old gentleman. "Oh, that's wot you're a aimin' at, is it?" said Sam. "Good-bye!" "Sammy," whispered Mr. Weller, looking cautiously round; "my duty to your gov'ner, and tell him if he thinks better o' this here bis'ness, to commoonicate vith me. Me and a cab'net-maker has devised a plan for gettin' him out. A pianner, Samivel, a pianner!" said Mr. Weller, striking his son on the chest with the back of his hand, and falling back a step or two. "Wot do you mean?" said Sam. "A pianner forty, Samivel," rejoined Mr. Weller, in a still more mysterious manner, "as we can have on hire; vun as von't play, Sammy." "And wot 'ud be the good o' that?" said Sam. "Let him send to my friend, the cab'net-maker, to fetch it back, Sammy," replied Mr. Weller. "Are you avake now?" "No," rejoined Sam. "There ain't no vurks in it," whispered his father. "It 'ull hold him easy, vith his hat and shoes on, and breathe through the legs, vich his holler. Have a passage ready taken for 'Merriker. The 'Merrikin gov'ment will never give him up, ven they find as he's got money to spend, Sammy. Let the gov'ner stop there, till Mrs. Bardell's dead, or Mr. Dodson and Fogg's hung (which last ewent I think is the most likely to happen first, Sammy), and then let him come back and write a book about the 'Merrikins, as'll pay all his expenses and more, if he blows 'em up enough." Mr. Weller delivered this hurried abstract of his plot with great vehemence of whisper; then, as if fearful of weakening the effect of the tremendous communication, by any further dialogue, he gave the coachman's salute, and vanished. Sam had scarcely recovered his usual composure of countenance, which had been greatly disturbed by the secret communication of his respected relative, when Mr. Pickwick accosted him. "Sam," said that gentleman. "Sir?" replied Mr. Weller. "I am going for a walk round the prison, and I wish you to attend me. I see a prisoner we know coming this way, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, smiling. "Wich, sir?" inquired Mr. Weller; "the gen'l'm'n vith the head o' hair, or the interestin' captive in the stockin's?" "Neither," rejoined Mr. Pickwick. "He is an older friend of yours, Sam." "O' mine, sir?" exclaimed Mr. Weller. "You recollect the gentleman very well, I dare say, Sam," replied Mr. Pickwick, "or else you are more unmindful of your old acquaintances than I think you are. Hush! not a word, Sam; not a syllable. Here he is." As Mr. Pickwick spoke, Jingle walked up. He looked less miserable than before, being clad in a half-worn suit of clothes, which, with Mr. Pickwick's assistance, had been released from the pawnbroker's. He wore clean linen too, and had had his hair cut. He was very pale and thin, however; and as he crept slowly up, leaning on a stick, it was easy to see that he had suffered severely from illness and want, and was still very weak. He took off his hat as Mr. Pickwick saluted him, and seemed much humbled and abashed at sight of Sam Weller. Following close at his heels, came Mr. Job Trotter, in the catalogue of whose vices, want of faith and attachment to his companion could at all events find no place. He was still ragged and squalid, but his face was not quite so hollow as on his first meeting with Mr. Pickwick a few days before. As he took off his hat to our benevolent old friend, he murmured some broken expressions of gratitude, and muttered something about having been saved from starving. "Well, well," said Mr. Pickwick, impatiently interrupting him, "you can follow with Sam. I want to speak to you, Mr. Jingle. Can you walk without his arm?" "Certainly, sir--all ready--not too fast--legs--shaky--head queer round and round--earthquaky sort of feeling--very." "Here, give me your arm," said Mr. Pickwick. "No, no," replied Jingle; "won't indeed--rather not." "Nonsense," said Mr. Pickwick; "lean upon me, I desire, sir." Seeing that he was confused and agitated, and uncertain what to do, Mr. Pickwick cut the matter short by drawing the invalided stroller's arm through his, and leading him away, without saying another word about it. During the whole of this time, the countenance of Mr. Samuel Weller had exhibited an expression of the most overwhelming and absorbing astonishment that the imagination can portray. After looking from Job to Jingle, and from Jingle to Job, in profound silence, he softly ejaculated the words, "Well, I _am_ damn'd!" Which he repeated at least a score of times: after which exertion, he appeared wholly bereft of speech, and again cast his eyes, first upon the one and then upon the other, in mute perplexity and bewilderment. "Now, Sam!" said Mr. Pickwick, looking back. "I'm a comin', sir," replied Mr. Weller, mechanically following his master; and still he lifted not his eyes from Mr. Job Trotter, who walked at his side, in silence. Job kept his eyes fixed on the ground for some time. Sam, with his glued to Job's countenance, ran up against the people who were walking about, and fell over little children, and stumbled against steps and railings, without appearing at all sensible of it, until Job, looking stealthily up, said: "How do you do, Mr. Weller?" "It _is_ him!" exclaimed Sam: and having established Job's identity beyond all doubt, he smote his leg, and vented his feelings in a long shrill whistle. "Things has altered with me, sir," said Job. "I should think they had," exclaimed Mr. Weller, surveying his companion's rags with undisguised wonder. "This is rayther a change for the worse, Mr. Trotter, as the gen'l'm'n said wen he got two doubtful shillin's and sixpenn'orth o' pocket pieces for a good half-crown." "It is indeed," replied Job, shaking his head. "There is no deception now, Mr. Weller. Tears," said Job, with a look of momentary slyness, "tears are not the only proofs of distress, nor the best ones." "No, they ain't," replied Sam, expressively. "They may be put on, Mr. Weller," said Job. "I know they may," said Sam; "some people, indeed, has 'em always ready laid on, and can pull out the plug wenever they likes." "Yes," replied Job; "but _these_ sort of things are not so easily counterfeited, Mr. Weller, and it is a more painful process to get them up." As he spoke, he pointed to his sallow, sunken cheeks, and, drawing up his coat sleeves, disclosed an arm which looked as if the bone could be broken at a touch: so sharp and brittle did it appear beneath its thin covering of flesh. "Wot have you been a doin' to yourself?" said Sam, recoiling. "Nothing," replied Job. "Nothin'!" echoed Sam. "I have been doin' nothing for many weeks past," said Job; "and eating and drinking almost as little." Sam took one comprehensive glance at Mr. Trotter's thin face and wretched apparel; and then, seizing him by the arm, commenced dragging him away with great violence. "Where are you going, Mr. Weller?" said Job, vainly struggling in the powerful grasp of his old enemy. "Come on," said Sam; "come on!" He deigned no further explanation until they reached the tap; and then called for a pot of porter which was speedily produced. "Now," said Sam, "drink that up, ev'ry drop on it, and then turn the pot upside down, to let me see as you've took the med'cine." "But, my dear Mr. Weller," remonstrated Job. "Down vith it!" said Sam peremptorily. Thus admonished, Mr. Trotter raised the pot to his lips, and, by gentle and almost imperceptible degrees, tilted it into the air. He paused once, and only once, to draw a long breath, but without raising his face from the vessel, which, in a few moments thereafter, he held out at arm's length, bottom upward. Nothing fell upon the ground but a few particles of froth, which slowly detached themselves from the rim, and trickled lazily down. "Well done!" said Sam. "How do you find yourself arter it?" "Better, sir. I think I am better," responded Job. "O' course you air," said Sam, argumentatively. "It's like puttin' gas in a balloon. I can see with the naked eye that you gets stouter under the operation. Wot do you say to another o' the same di-mensions?" "I would rather not, I am much obliged to you, sir," replied Job, "much rather not." "Vell then, wot do you say to some wittles?" inquired Sam. "Thanks to your worthy governor, sir," said Mr. Trotter, "we have half a leg of mutton, baked, at a quarter before three, with the potatoes under it to save boiling." "Wot! Has _he_ been a purwidin' for you?" asked Sam emphatically. "He has, sir," replied Job. "More than that, Mr. Weller; my master being very ill, he got us a room--we were in a kennel before--and paid for it, sir; and come to look at us, at night, when nobody should know. Mr. Weller," said Job, with real tears in his eyes for once, "I could serve that gentleman till I fell down dead at his feet." "I say!" said Sam, "I'll trouble you, my friend! None o' that!" Job Trotter looked amazed. "None o' that, I say, young feller," repeated Sam firmly. "No man serves him but me. And now we're upon it, I'll let you into another secret besides that," said Sam, as he paid for the beer. "I never heerd, mind you, nor read of it in story-books, nor see in picters, any angel in tights and gaiters--not even in spectacles, as I remember, though that may ha' been done for anythin' I know to the contrairey--but mark my vords, Job Trotter, he's a reg'lar thorough-bred angel for all that; and let me see the man as wenturs to tell me he knows a better vun." With this defiance, Mr. Weller buttoned up his change in a side pocket, and, with many confirmatory nods and gestures by the way, proceeded in search of the subject of discourse. They found Mr. Pickwick, in company with Jingle, talking very earnestly, and not bestowing a look on the groups who were congregated on the racket-ground; they were very motley groups too, and worth the looking at if it were only in idle curiosity. "Well," said Mr. Pickwick, as Sam and his companion drew nigh, "you will see how your health becomes, and think about it meanwhile. Make the statement out for me when you feel yourself equal to the task, and I will discuss the subject with you when I have considered it. Now, go to your room. You are tired, and not strong enough to be out long." Mr. Alfred Jingle, without one spark of his old animation--with nothing even of the dismal gaiety which he had assumed when Mr. Pickwick first stumbled on him in his misery--bowed low without speaking, and, motioning to Job not to follow him just yet, crept slowly away. "Curious scene this, is it not, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick, looking good-humouredly round. "Wery much so, sir," replied Sam. "Wonders 'ull never cease," added Sam, speaking to himself. "I'm wery much mistaken if that 'ere Jingle worn't a doin' somethin' in the water-cart way!" The area formed by the wall in that part of the Fleet in which Mr. Pickwick stood was just wide enough to make a good racket-court; one side being formed, of course, by the wall itself, and the other by that portion of the prison which looked (or rather would have looked, but for the wall) towards St. Paul's Cathedral. Sauntering or sitting about, in every possible attitude of listless idleness, were a great number of debtors, the major part of whom were waiting in prison until their day of "going up" before the Insolvent Court should arrive; while others had been remanded for various terms, which they were idling away as they best could. Some were shabby, some were smart, many dirty, a few clean; but there they all lounged, and loitered, and slunk about, with as little spirit or purpose as the beasts in a menagerie. Lolling from the windows which commanded a view of this promenade, were a number of persons, some in noisy conversation with their acquaintance below, others playing at ball with some adventurous throwers outside, others looking on at the racket-players, or watching the boys as they cried the game. Dirty, slipshod women passed and re-passed on their way to the cooking-house in one corner of the yard; children screamed, and fought, and played together, in another; the tumbling of the skittles, and the shouts of the players, mingled perpetually with these and a hundred other sounds; and all was noise and tumult--save in a little miserable shed a few yards off, where lay, all quiet and ghastly, the body of the Chancery prisoner who had died the night before, awaiting the mockery of an inquest. The body! It is the lawyer's term for the restless whirling mass of cares and anxieties, affections, hopes, and griefs, that make up the living man. The law _had_ his body; and there it lay, clothed in grave-clothes, an awful witness to its tender mercy. "Would you like to see a whistling-shop, sir?" inquired Job Trotter. "What do you mean?" was Mr. Pickwick's counter inquiry. "A vistlin' shop, sir," interposed Mr. Weller. "What is that, Sam? A bird-fancier's?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Bless your heart, no, sir," replied Job; "a whistling-shop, sir, is where they sell spirits." Mr. Job Trotter briefly explained here that all persons being prohibited under heavy penalties from conveying spirits into debtors' prisons, and such commodities being highly prized by the ladies and gentlemen confined therein, it had occurred to some speculative turnkey to connive, for certain lucrative considerations, at two or three prisoners retailing the favourite article of gin, for their own profit and advantage. "This plan you see, sir, has been gradually introduced into all the prisons for debt," said Mr. Trotter. "And it has this wery great advantage," said Sam, "that the turnkeys takes wery good care to seize hold o' ev'rybody but them as pays 'em, that attempts the willainy, and ven it gets in the papers they're applauded for their wigilance; so it cuts two ways--frightens other people from the trade, and elewates their own characters." "Exactly so, Mr. Weller," observed Job. "Well, but are these rooms never searched to ascertain whether any spirits are concealed in them?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Cert'nly they are, sir," replied Sam; "but the turnkeys knows beforehand, and gives the word to the wistlers, and you _may_ whistle for it ven you go to look." By this time, Job had tapped at a door, which was opened by a gentleman with an uncombed head, who bolted it after them when they had walked in, and grinned; upon which Job grinned, and Sam also; whereupon Mr. Pickwick, thinking it might be expected of him, kept on smiling to the end of the interview. The gentleman with the uncombed head appeared quite satisfied with this mute announcement of their business, and, producing a flat stone bottle, which might hold about a couple of quarts, from beneath his bedstead, filled out three glasses of gin, which Job Trotter and Sam disposed of in a most workmanlike manner. "Any more?" said the whistling gentleman. "No more," replied Job Trotter. Mr. Pickwick paid, the door was unbolted, and out they came; the uncombed gentleman bestowing a friendly nod upon Mr. Roker, who happened to be passing at the moment. From this spot, Mr. Pickwick wandered along all the galleries, up and down all the staircases, and once again round the whole area of the yard. The great body of the prison population appeared to be Mivins, and Smangle, and the parson, and the butcher, and the leg, over and over, and over again. There were the same squalor, the same turmoil and noise, the same general characteristics, in every corner; in the best and the worst alike. The whole place seemed restless and troubled; and the people were crowding and flitting to and fro, like the shadows in an uneasy dream. "I have seen enough," said Mr. Pickwick, as he threw himself into a chair in his little compartment. "My head aches with these scenes, and my heart too. Henceforth I will be a prisoner in my own room." And Mr. Pickwick steadfastly adhered to this determination. For three long months he remained shut up, all day; only stealing out at night, to breathe the air, when the greater part of his fellow-prisoners were in bed or carousing in their rooms. His health was beginning to suffer from the closeness of the confinement, but neither the often-repeated entreaties of Perker and his friends, nor the still more frequently-repeated warnings and admonitions of Mr. Samuel Weller, could induce him to alter one jot of his inflexible resolution. CHAPTER XVIII [Illustration] _Records a touching Act of delicate Feeling, not unmixed with Pleasantry, achieved and performed by Messrs. Dodson and Fogg_ It was within a week of the close of the month of July, that a hackney cabriolet, number unrecorded, was seen to proceed at a rapid pace up Goswell Street; three people were squeezed into it besides the driver, who sat in his own particular little dickey at the side; over the apron were hung two shawls, belonging to two small vixenish-looking ladies under the apron; between whom, compressed into a very small compass, was stowed away a gentleman of heavy and subdued demeanour, who, whenever he ventured to make an observation, was snapped up short by one of the vixenish ladies before-mentioned. Lastly, the two vixenish ladies and the heavy gentleman were giving the driver contradictory directions, all tending to the one point that he should stop at Mrs. Bardell's door; which the heavy gentleman, in direct opposition to, and defiance of, the vixenish ladies, contended was a green door and not a yellow one. "Stop at the house with the green door, driver," said the heavy gentleman. "Oh! You perwerse creetur!" exclaimed one of the vixenish ladies. "Drive to the 'ouse with the yellow door, cabmin." Upon this, the cabman, who in a sudden effort to pull up at the house with the green door had pulled the horse up so high that he nearly pulled him backward into the cabriolet, let the animal's fore-legs down to the ground again, and paused. "Now vere am I to pull up?" inquired the driver. "Settle it among yourselves. All I ask is, vere?" Here the contest was renewed with increased violence; and the horse being troubled with a fly on his nose, the cabman humanely employed his leisure in lashing him about on the head, on the counter-irritation principle. "Most wotes carries the day!" said one of the vixenish ladies at length. "The 'ouse with the yellow door, cabmin." But after the cabriolet had dashed up, in splendid style, to the house with the yellow door: "making," as one of the vixenish ladies triumphantly said, "acterrally more noise than if one had come in one's own carriage"--and after the driver had dismounted to assist the ladies in getting out--the small round head of Master Thomas Bardell was thrust out of the one pair window of a house with a red door, a few numbers off. "Aggrawatin' thing!" said the vixenish lady last mentioned, darting a withering glance at the heavy gentleman. "My dear, it's not my fault," said the gentleman. "Don't talk to me, you creetur, don't," retorted the lady. "The house with the red door, cabmin. Oh! If ever a woman was troubled with a ruffinly creetur, that takes a pride and pleasure in disgracing his wife on every possible occasion afore strangers, I am that woman!" "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Raddle," said the other little woman, who was no other than Mrs. Cluppins. "What have I been a doing of?" asked Mr. Raddle. "Don't talk to me, don't, you brute, for fear I should be perwoked to forgit my sect and strike you!" said Mrs. Raddle. While this dialogue was going on, the driver was most ignominiously leading the horse, by the bridle, up to the house with the red door, which Master Bardell had already opened. Here was a mean and low way of arriving at a friend's house! No dashing up, with all the fire and fury of the animal; no jumping down of the driver; no loud knocking at the door; no opening of the apron with a crash at the very last moment, for fear of the ladies sitting in a draught; and then the man handing the shawls out, afterwards, as if he were a private coachman! The whole edge of the thing had been taken off; it was flatter than walking. "Well, Tommy," said Mrs. Cluppins, "how's your poor dear mother?" "Oh, she's very well," replied Master Bardell. "She's in the front parlour, all ready. I'm ready too, I am." Here Master Bardell put his hands in his pockets, and jumped off and on the bottom step of the door. "Is anybody else a goin', Tommy?" said Mrs. Cluppins, arranging her pelerine. "Mrs. Sanders is going, she is," replied Tommy. "I'm going too, I am." "Drat the boy!" said little Mrs. Cluppins. "He thinks of nobody but himself. Here, Tommy, dear." "Well?" said Master Bardell. "Who else is a goin', lovey?" said Mrs. Cluppins in an insinuating manner. "Oh! Mrs. Rogers is a goin'," replied Master Bardell, opening his eyes very wide as he delivered the intelligence. "What! The lady as has taken the lodgings?" ejaculated Mrs. Cluppins. Master Bardell put his hands deeper down into his pockets, and nodded exactly thirty-five times, to imply that it was the lady lodger, and no other. "Bless us!" said Mrs. Cluppins. "It's quite a party!" "Ah, if you knew what was in the cupboard, you'd say so," replied Master Bardell. "What is there, Tommy?" said Mrs. Cluppins, coaxingly. "You'll tell _me_, Tommy, I know." "No, I won't," replied Master Bardell, shaking his head, and applying himself to the bottom step again. "Drat the child!" muttered Mrs. Cluppins. "What a prowokin' little wretch it is! Come, Tommy, tell your dear Cluppy." "Mother said I wasn't to," rejoined Master Bardell. "I'm a goin' to have some, I am." Cheered by this prospect, the precocious boy applied himself to his infantile treadmill with increased vigour. The above examination of a child of tender years took place while Mr. and Mrs. Raddle and the cab-driver were having an altercation concerning the fare: which, terminating at this point in favour of the cabman, Mrs. Raddle came up tottering. "Lauk, Mary Ann! what's the matter?" said Mrs. Cluppins. "It's put me all over in such a tremble, Betsy," replied Mrs. Raddle. "Raddle ain't like a man; he leaves everythink to me." This was scarcely fair upon the unfortunate Mr. Raddle, who had been thrust aside by his good lady in the commencement of the dispute, and peremptorily commanded to hold his tongue. He had no opportunity of defending himself, however, for Mrs. Raddle gave unequivocal signs of fainting; which being perceived from the parlour window, Mrs. Bardell, Mrs. Sanders, the lodger, and the lodger's servant, darted precipitately out, and conveyed her into the house: all talking at the same time, and giving utterance to various expressions of pity and condolence, as if she were one of the most suffering mortals on earth. Being conveyed into the front parlour, she was there deposited on a sofa; and the lady from the first floor running up _to_ the first floor, returned with a bottle of sal volatile, which, holding Mrs. Raddle tight round the neck, she applied in all womanly kindness and pity to her nose, until that lady with many plunges and struggles was fain to declare herself decidedly better. "Ah, poor thing!" said Mrs. Rogers, "I know what her feelin's is, too well." "Ah, poor thing! so do I," said Mrs. Sanders: and then all the ladies moaned in unison, and said they knew what it was, and they pitied her from their hearts, they did. Even the lodger's little servant, who was thirteen years old, and three feet high, murmured her sympathy. "But what's been the matter?" said Mrs. Bardell. "Ah, what has decomposed you, ma'am?" inquired Mrs. Rogers. "I have been a good deal flurried," replied Mrs. Raddle, in a reproachful manner. Thereupon the ladies cast indignant looks at Mr. Raddle. "Why, the fact is," said that unhappy gentleman, stepping forward, "when we alighted at this door, a dispute arose with the driver of the cabrioily----" A loud scream from his wife, at the mention of this word, rendered all further explanation inaudible. "You'd better leave us to bring her round, Raddle," said Mrs. Cluppins. "She'll never get better as long as you're here." All the ladies concurred in this opinion; so Mr. Raddle was pushed out of the room, and requested to give himself an airing in the back yard. Which he did for about a quarter of an hour, when Mrs. Bardell announced to him with a solemn face that he might come in now, but that he must be very careful how he behaved towards his wife. She knew he didn't mean to be unkind; but Mary Ann was very far from strong, and, if he didn't take care, he might lose her when he least expected it, which would be a very dreadful reflection for him afterwards; and so on. All this Mr. Raddle heard with great submission, and presently returned to the parlour in a most lamb-like manner. "Why, Mrs. Roger, ma'am," said Mrs. Bardell, "you've never been introduced, I declare! Mr. Raddle, ma'am; Mrs. Cluppins, ma'am; Mrs. Raddle, ma'am." "Which is Mrs. Cluppins's sister," suggested Mrs. Sanders. "Oh, indeed!" said Mrs. Rogers, graciously; for she was the lodger, and her servant was in waiting, so she was more gracious than intimate, in right of her position. "Oh, indeed!" Mrs. Raddle smiled sweetly, Mr. Raddle bowed, and Mrs. Cluppins said "she was sure she was very happy to have a opportunity of being known to a lady which she had heerd so much in favour of, as Mrs. Rogers." A compliment which the last-named lady acknowledged with graceful condescension. "Well, Mr. Raddle," said Mrs. Bardell; "I'm sure you ought to feel very much honoured at you and Tommy being the only gentlemen to escort so many ladies all the way to the Spaniards, at Hampstead. Don't you think he ought, Mrs. Rogers, ma'am?" "Oh, certainly, ma'am," said Mrs. Rogers; after whom all the other ladies responded "Oh, certainly." "Of course I feel it, ma'am," said Mr. Raddle, rubbing his hands, and evincing a slight tendency to brighten up a little. "Indeed, to tell you the truth, I said, as we was a coming along in the cabrioily----" At the recapitulation of the word which awakened so many painful recollections, Mrs. Raddle applied her handkerchief to her eyes again, and uttered a half-suppressed scream; so Mrs. Bardell frowned upon Mr. Raddle, to intimate that he had better not say anything more, and desired Mrs. Rogers's servant, with an air, to "put on the wine." This was the signal for displaying the hidden treasures of the closet, which comprised sundry plates of oranges and biscuits, and a bottle of old crusted port--that at one and nine--with another of the celebrated East India sherry at fourteen-pence, which were all produced in honour of the lodger, and afforded unlimited satisfaction to everybody. After great consternation had been excited in the mind of Mrs. Cluppins, by an attempt on the part of Tommy to recount how he had been cross-examined regarding the cupboard then in action (which was fortunately nipped in the bud by his imbibing half a glass of the old crusted "the wrong way," and thereby endangering his life for some seconds), the party walked forth in quest of a Hampstead stage. This was soon found, and in a couple of hours they all arrived safely in the Spaniards' Tea-gardens, where the luckless Mr. Raddle's very first act nearly occasioned his good lady a relapse; it being neither more nor less than to order tea for seven, whereas (as the ladies one and all remarked), what could have been easier than for Tommy to have drank out of anybody's cup--or everybody's, if that was all--when the waiter wasn't looking: which would have saved one head of tea, and the tea just as good! However, there was no help for it, and the tea-tray came, with seven cups and saucers, and bread and butter on the same scale. Mrs. Bardell was unanimously voted into the chair, and Mrs Rogers being stationed on her right hand, and Mrs. Raddle on her left, the meal proceeded with great merriment and success. "How sweet the country is, to be sure!" sighed Mrs. Rogers; "I almost wish I lived in it always." "Oh, you wouldn't like that, ma'am," replied Mrs. Bardell, rather hastily; for it was not at all advisable, with reference to the lodgings, to encourage such notions; "you wouldn't like it, ma'am." "Oh! I should think you was a deal too lively and sought-after to be content with the country, ma'am," said little Mrs. Cluppins. "Perhaps I am, ma'am. Perhaps I am," sighed the first-floor lodger. "For lone people as have got nobody to care for them, or take care of them, or as have been hurt in their mind, or that kind of thing," observed Mr. Raddle, plucking up a little cheerfulness, and looking round, "the country is all very well. The country for a wounded spirit, they say." Now, of all the things in the world that the unfortunate man could have said, any would have been preferable to this. Of course Mrs. Bardell burst into tears, and requested to be led from the table instantly; upon which the affectionate child began to cry too, most dismally. "Would anybody believe, ma'am," exclaimed Mrs. Raddle, turning fiercely to the first-floor lodger, "that a woman could be married to such a unmanly creetur, which can tamper with a woman's feelings as he does, every hour in the day, ma'am?" "My dear," remonstrated Mr. Raddle, "I didn't mean anything, my dear." "You didn't mean!" repeated Mrs. Raddle, with great scorn and contempt. "Go away. I can't bear the sight on you, you brute." "You must not flurry yourself, Mary Ann," interposed Mrs. Cluppins. "You really must consider yourself, my dear, which you never do. Now go away, Raddle, there's a good soul, or you'll only aggravate her." "You had better take your tea by yourself, sir, indeed," said Mrs. Rogers, again applying the smelling-bottle. Mrs. Sanders, who according to custom was very busy with the bread and butter, expressed the same opinion, and Mr. Raddle quietly retired. After this, there was a great hoisting up of Master Bardell, who was rather a large size for hugging, into his mother's arms: in which operation he got his boots in the tea-board, and occasioned some confusion among the cups and saucers. But that description of fainting fits, which is contagious among ladies, seldom lasts long; so when he had been well kissed and a little cried over, Mrs. Bardell recovered, set him down again, wondered how she could have been so foolish, and poured out some more tea. It was at this moment that the sound of approaching wheels was heard, and that the ladies, looking up, saw a hackney-coach stop at the garden-gate. "More company!" said Mrs. Sanders. "It's a gentleman," said Mrs. Raddle. "Well, if it ain't Mr. Jackson, the young man from Dodson and Fogg's!" cried Mrs. Bardell. "Why, gracious! Surely Mr. Pickwick can't have paid the damages." "Or hoffered marriage!" said Mrs. Cluppins. "Dear me, how slow the gentleman is," exclaimed Mrs. Rogers: "Why doesn't he make haste!" [Illustration: _A shabby man in black leggings_] As the lady spoke these words, Mr. Jackson turned from the coach where he had been addressing some observations to a shabby man in black leggings, who had just emerged from the vehicle with a thick ash-stick in his hand, and made his way to the place where the ladies were seated; winding his hair round the brim of his hat as he came along. "Is anything the matter? Has anything taken place, Mr. Jackson?" said Mrs. Bardell, eagerly. "Nothing whatever, ma'am," replied Mr. Jackson. "How de do, ladies? I have to ask pardon, ladies, for intruding--but the law, ladies, the law." With this apology Mr. Jackson smiled, made a comprehensive bow, and gave his hair another wind. Mrs. Rogers whispered Mrs. Raddle that he was really an elegant young man. "I called in Goswell Street," resumed Jackson, "and hearing that you were here, from the slavey, took a coach and came on. Our people want you down in the city directly, Mrs. Bardell." "Lor!" ejaculated that lady, starting at the sudden nature of the communication. "Yes," said Jackson, biting his lips. "It's very important and pressing business which can't be postponed on any account. Indeed, Dodson expressly said so to me, and so did Fogg. I've kept the coach on purpose for you to go back in." "How very strange!" exclaimed Mrs. Bardell. The ladies agreed that it _was_ very strange, but were unanimously of opinion that it must be very important, or Dodson and Fogg would never have sent; and further, that the business being urgent, she ought to repair to Dodson and Fogg's without any delay. There was a certain degree of pride and importance about being wanted by one's lawyers in such a monstrous hurry, that was by no means displeasing to Mrs. Bardell, especially as it might be reasonably supposed to enhance her consequence in the eyes of the first-floor lodger. She simpered a little, affected extreme vexation and hesitation, and at last arrived at the conclusion that she supposed she must go. "But won't you refresh yourself after your walk, Mr. Jackson?" said Mrs. Bardell, persuasively. "Why, really there ain't much time to lose," replied Jackson; "and I've got a friend here," he continued, looking towards the man with the ash stick. "Oh, ask your friend to come here, sir," said Mrs. Bardell. "Pray ask your friend here, sir." "Why, thankee, I'd rather not," said Mr. Jackson, with some embarrassment of manner. "He's not much used to ladies' society, and it makes him bashful. If you'll order the waiter to deliver him anything short, he won't drink it off at once, won't he--only try him!" Mr. Jackson's fingers wandered playfully round his nose, at this portion of his discourse, to warn his hearers that he was speaking ironically. The waiter was at once despatched to the bashful gentleman, and the bashful gentleman took something; Mr. Jackson also took something, and the ladies took something, for hospitality's sake. Mr. Jackson then said he was afraid it was time to go; upon which, Mrs. Sanders, Mrs. Cluppins, and Tommy (who it was arranged should accompany Mrs. Bardell: leaving the others to Mr. Raddle's protection), got into the coach. "Isaac," said Jackson, as Mrs. Bardell prepared to get in: looking up at the man with the ash stick, who was seated on the box, smoking a cigar. "Well?" "_This_ is Mrs. Bardell." "Oh, I knowed that long ago," said the man. Mrs. Bardell got in, Mr. Jackson got in after her, and away they drove. Mrs. Bardell could not help ruminating on what Mr. Jackson's friend had said. Shrewd creatures, those lawyers. Lord bless us, how they find people out! "Sad thing about these costs of our people's, ain't it," said Jackson, when Mrs. Cluppins and Mrs. Sanders had fallen asleep; "your bill of costs, I mean?" "I'm very sorry they can't get them," replied Mrs. Bardell. "But if you law-gentlemen do these things on speculation, why you must get a loss now and then, you know." "You gave them a _cognovit_ for the amount of your costs, after the trial, I'm told?" said Jackson. "Yes. Just as a matter of form," replied Mrs. Bardell. "Certainly," replied Jackson, drily. "Quite a matter of form. Quite." On they drove, and Mrs. Bardell fell asleep. She was awakened, after some time, by the stopping of the coach. "Bless us!" said the lady. "Are we at Freeman's Court?" "We're not going quite so far," replied Jackson. "Have the goodness to step out." Mrs. Bardell, not yet thoroughly awake, complied. It was a curious place: a large wall, with a gate in the middle, and a gaslight burning inside. "Now, ladies," cried the man with the ash stick, looking into the coach, and shaking Mrs. Sanders to wake her, "Come!" Rousing her friend, Mrs. Sanders alighted. Mrs. Bardell, leaning on Jackson's arm, and leading Tommy by the hand, had already entered the porch. They followed. The room they turned into was even more odd-looking than the porch. Such a number of men standing about! And they stared so! "What place is this?" inquired Mrs. Bardell, pausing. "Only one of our public offices," replied Jackson, hurrying her through a door, and looking round to see that the other women were following. "Look sharp, Isaac!" "Safe and sound," replied the man with the ash stick. The door swung heavily after them, and they descended a small flight of steps. "Here we are at last. All right and tight, Mrs. Bardell!" said Jackson, looking exultingly around. "What do you mean?" said Mrs. Bardell, with a palpitating heart. "Just this," replied Jackson, drawing her a little on one side; "don't be frightened, Mrs. Bardell. There never was a more delicate man than Dodson, ma'am, or a more humane man than Fogg. It was their duty, in the way of business, to take you in execution for them costs; but they were anxious to spare your feelings as much as they could. What a comfort it must be to you, to think how it's been done! This is the Fleet, ma'am. Wish you good night, Mrs. Bardell. Good night, Tommy!" As Jackson hurried away, in company with the man with the ash stick, another man with a key in his hand, who had been looking on, led the bewildered female to a second short flight of steps leading to the doorway. Mrs. Bardell screamed violently; Tommy roared; Mrs. Cluppins shrunk within herself; and Mrs. Sanders made off, without more ado. For, there stood the injured Mr. Pickwick, taking his nightly allowance of air; and beside him leant Samuel Weller, who, seeing Mrs. Bardell, took his hat off with mock reverence, while his master turned indignantly on his heel. "Don't bother the woman," said the turnkey to Weller: "she's just come in." "A pris'ner" said Sam, quickly replacing his hat. "Who's the plaintives? What for? Speak up, old feller." "Dodson and Fogg," replied the man; "execution on cognovit for costs." "Here Job, Job!" shouted Sam, dashing into the passage. "Run to Mr. Perker's, Job. _I_ want him directly. I see some good in this. Here's a game. Hooray! vere's the gov'nor." But there was no reply to these inquiries, for Job had started furiously off, the instant he received his commission, and Mrs. Bardell had fainted in real downright earnest. CHAPTER XIX [Illustration] _Is chiefly devoted to Matters of Business, and the Temporal Advantage of Dodson and Fogg. Mr. Winkle reappears under extraordinary Circumstances. Mr. Pickwick's Benevolence proves stranger than his Obstinacy_ Job Trotter, abating nothing of his speed, ran up Holborn: sometimes in the middle of the road, sometimes on the pavement, sometimes in the gutter, as the chances of getting along varied with the press of men, women, children, and coaches, in each division of the thoroughfare; regardless of all obstacles, he stopped not for an instant until he reached the gate of Gray's Inn. Notwithstanding all the expedition he had used, however, the gate had been closed a good half-hour when he reached it, and by the time he had discovered Mr. Perker's laundress, who lived with a married daughter, who had bestowed her hand upon a non-resident waiter, who occupied the one-pair of some number in some street closely adjoining to some brewery somewhere behind Gray's Inn Lane, it was within fifteen minutes of closing the prison for the night. Mr. Lowten had still to be ferreted out from the back parlour of the Magpie and Stump; and Job had scarcely accomplished this object, and communicated Sam Weller's message, when the clock struck ten. "There," said Lowten, "it's too late now. You can't get in to-night; you've got the key of the street, my friend." "Never mind me," replied Job. "I can sleep anywhere. But won't it be better to see Mr. Perker to-night, so that we may be there the first thing in the morning?" "Why," responded Lowten, after a little consideration, "if it was in anybody else's case, Perker wouldn't be best pleased at my going up to his house; but as it's Mr. Pickwick's, I think I may venture to take a cab and charge it to the office." Deciding on this line of conduct, Mr. Lowten took up his hat, and, begging the assembled company to appoint a deputy chairman during his temporary absence, led the way to the nearest coachstand. Summoning the cab of most promising appearance, he directed the driver to repair to Montague Place, Russell Square. Mr. Perker had had a dinner party that day, as was testified by the appearance of lights in the drawing-room windows, the sound of an improved grand piano, and an improvable cabinet voice issuing therefrom, and a rather overpowering smell of meat which pervaded the steps and entry. In fact a couple of very good country agencies happening to come up to town, at the same time, an agreeable little party had been got together to meet them comprising Mr. Snicks the Life Office Secretary, Mr. Prosee the eminent counsel, three solicitors, one commissioner of bankrupts, a special pleader from the Temple, a small-eyed peremptory young gentleman his pupil, who had written a lively book about the law of demises, with a vast quantity of marginal notes and references; and several other eminent and distinguished personages. From this society, little Mr. Perker detached himself, on his clerk being announced in a whisper; and repairing to the dining-room, there found Mr. Lowten and Job Trotter looking very dim and shadowy by the light of a kitchen candle, which the gentleman who condescended to appear in plush shorts and cottons for a quarterly stipend, had, with a becoming contempt for the clerk and all things appertaining to "the office," placed upon the table. "Now, Lowten," said little Mr. Perker, shutting the door, "what's the matter? No important letter come in a parcel, is there?" "No, sir," replied Lowten. "This is a messenger from Mr. Pickwick, sir." "From Pickwick, eh?" said the little man, turning quickly to Job. "Well, what is it?" "Dodson and Fogg have taken Mrs. Bardell in execution for her costs, sir," said Job. "No!" exclaimed Perker, putting his hands in his pockets, and reclining against the sideboard. "Yes," said Job. "It seems they got a cognovit out of her, for the amount of 'em, directly after the trial." "By Jove!" said Perker, taking both hands out of his pockets, and striking the knuckles of his right against the palm of his left, emphatically, "those are the cleverest scamps I ever had anything to do with!" "The sharpest practitioners _I_ ever knew, sir," observed Lowten. "Sharp!" echoed Perker. "There's no knowing where to have them." "Very true, sir, there is not," replied Lowten; and then, both master and man pondered for a few seconds, with animated countenances, as if they were reflecting upon one of the most beautiful and ingenious discoveries that the intellect of man had ever made. When they had in some measure recovered from their trance of admiration, Job Trotter discharged himself of the rest of his commission. Perker nodded his head thoughtfully, and pulled out his watch. "At ten precisely, I will be there," said the little man. "Sam is quite right. Tell him so. Will you take a glass of wine, Lowten?" "No, thank you, sir." "You mean yes, I think," said the little man, turning to the sideboard for a decanter and glasses. As Lowten _did_ mean yes, he said no more on the subject, but inquired of Job, in an audible whisper, whether the portrait of Perker which hung opposite the fireplace, wasn't a wonderful likeness, to which Job of course replied that it was. The wine being by this time poured out, Lowten drank to Mrs. Perker and the children, and Job to Perker. The gentleman in the plush shorts and cottons considering it no part of his duty to show the people from the office out, consistently declined to answer the bell, and they showed themselves out. The attorney betook himself to his drawing-room, the clerk to the Magpie and Stump, and Job to Covent Garden Market to spend the night in a vegetable basket. Punctually at the appointed hour next morning, the good-humoured little attorney tapped at Mr. Pickwick's door, which was opened with great alacrity by Sam Weller. "Mr. Perker, sir," said Sam, announcing the visitor to Mr. Pickwick, who was sitting at the window in a thoughtful attitude. "Wery glad you've looked in accidentally, sir. I rather think the gov'ner wants to have a word and a half with you, sir." Perker bestowed a look of intelligence on Sam, intimating that he understood he was not to say he had been sent for: and beckoning him to approach, whispered briefly in his ear. "You don't mean that 'ere, sir?" said Sam, starting back in excessive surprise. Perker nodded and smiled. Mr. Samuel Weller looked at the little lawyer, then at Mr. Pickwick, then at the ceiling, then at Perker again; grinned, laughed outright, and, finally, catching up his hat from the carpet, without further explanation, disappeared. "What does this mean?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, looking at Perker with astonishment. "What has put Sam into this most extraordinary state?" "Oh, nothing, nothing," replied Perker. "Come, my dear sir, draw up your chair to the table. I have a good deal to say to you." "What papers are those?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, as the little man deposited on the table a small bundle of documents tied with red tape. "The papers in Bardell and Pickwick," replied Perker, undoing the knot with his teeth. Mr. Pickwick grated the legs of his chair against the ground; and throwing himself into it, folded his hands and looked sternly--if Mr. Pickwick ever could look sternly--at his legal friend. "You don't like to hear the name of the cause?" said the little man, still busying himself with the knot. "No, I do not indeed," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Sorry for that," resumed Perker, "because it will form the subject of our conversation." "I would rather that the subject should be never mentioned between us, Perker," interposed Mr. Pickwick, hastily. "Pooh, pooh, my dear sir," said the little man, untying the bundle, and glancing eagerly at Mr. Pickwick out of the corners of his eyes. "It must be mentioned. I have come on purpose. Now, are you ready to hear what I have to say, my dear sir? No hurry; if you are not, I can wait. I have this morning's paper here. Your time shall be mine. There!" Hereupon, the little man threw one leg over the other, and made a show of beginning to read with great composure and application. "Well, well," said Mr. Pickwick with a sigh, but softening into a smile at the same time. "Say what you have to say; it's the old story, I suppose?" "With a difference, my dear sir; with a difference," rejoined Perker, deliberately folding up the paper and putting it into his pocket again. "Mrs. Bardell, the plaintiff in the action, is within these walls, sir." "I know it," was Mr. Pickwick's reply. "Very good," retorted Perker. "And you know how she comes here, I suppose; I mean on what grounds, and at whose suit?" "Yes; at least I have heard Sam's account of the matter," said Mr. Pickwick, with affected carelessness. "Sam's account of the matter," replied Mr. Perker, "is, I will venture to say, a perfectly correct one. Well now, my dear sir, the first question I have to ask, is, whether this woman is to remain here?" "To remain here!" echoed Mr. Pickwick. "To remain here, my dear sir," rejoined Perker, leaning back in his chair and looking steadily at his client. "How can you ask me?" said that gentleman. "It rests with Dodson and Fogg; you know that very well." "I know nothing of the kind," retorted Perker, firmly. "It does _not_ rest with Dodson and Fogg; you know the men, my dear sir, as well as I do. It rest solely, wholly, and entirely with you." "With me!" ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, rising nervously from his chair, and reseating himself directly afterwards. The little man gave a double knock on the lid of his snuff-box, opened it, took a great pinch, shut it up again, and repeated the words, "With you." "I say, my dear sir," resumed the little man, who seemed to gather confidence from the snuff; "I say that her speedy liberation or perpetual imprisonment rests with you, and with you alone. Hear me out, my dear sir, if you please, and do not be so very energetic, for it will only put you into a perspiration and do no good whatever. I say," continued Perker, checking off each position on a different finger, as he laid it down; "I say that nobody but you can rescue her from this den of wretchedness; and that you can only do that, by paying the costs of this suit--both of plaintiff and defendant--into the hands of these Freeman's Court sharks. Now pray be quiet, my dear sir." Mr. Pickwick, whose face had been undergoing most surprising changes during this speech, and who was evidently on the verge of a strong burst of indignation, calmed his wrath as well as he could. Perker, strengthening his argumentative powers with another pinch of snuff, proceeded. "I have seen the woman, this morning. By paying the costs, you can obtain a full release and discharge from the damages; and further--this I know is a far greater object of consideration with you, my dear sir--a voluntary statement, under her hand, in the form of a letter to me, that this business was, from the very first, fomented, and encouraged, and brought about, by these men, Dodson and Fogg: that she deeply regrets ever having been the instrument of annoyance or injury to you; and that she entreats me to intercede with you, and implore your pardon." "If I pay her costs for her," said Mr. Pickwick, indignantly. "A valuable document, indeed!" "No '_if_' in the case, my dear sir," said Perker, triumphantly. "There is the very letter I speak of. Brought to my office by another woman at nine o'clock this morning, before I had set foot in this place, or held any communication with Mrs. Bardell, upon my honour." Selecting the letter from the bundle, the little lawyer laid it at Mr. Pickwick's elbow, and took snuff for two consecutive minutes, without winking. "Is this all you have to say to me?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, mildly. "Not quite," replied Perker. "I cannot undertake to say, at this moment, whether the wording of the cognovit, the nature of the ostensible consideration, and the proof we can get together about the whole conduct of the suit, will be sufficient to justify an indictment for conspiracy. I fear not, my dear sir; they are too clever for that, I doubt. I do mean to say, however, that the whole facts, taken together, will be sufficient to justify you, in the minds of all reasonable men. And now, my dear sir, I put it to you. This one hundred and fifty pounds, or whatever it may be--take it in round numbers--is nothing to you. A jury has decided against you; well, their verdict is wrong, but still they decided as they thought right, and it _is_ against you. You have now an opportunity, on easy terms, of placing yourself in a much higher position than you ever could, by remaining here; which would only be imputed, by people who didn't know you, to sheer dogged, wrongheaded, brutal obstinacy: nothing else, my dear sir, believe me. Can you hesitate to avail yourself of it, when it restores you to your friends, your old pursuits, your health and amusements; when it liberates your faithful and attached servant, whom you otherwise doom to imprisonment for the whole of your life; and above all, when it enables you to take the very magnanimous revenge--which I know, my dear sir, is one after your own heart--of releasing this woman from a scene of misery and debauchery to which no man should ever be consigned, if I had my will, but the infliction of which on any woman, is even more frightful and barbarous. Now I ask you, my dear sir, not only as your legal adviser, but as your very true friend, will you let slip the occasion of attaining all these objects, and doing all this good, for the paltry consideration of a few pounds finding their way into the pockets of a couple of rascals, to whom it makes no manner of difference, except that the more they gain, the more they'll seek, and so the sooner be led into some piece of knavery that must end in a crash? I have put these considerations to you, my dear sir, very feebly and imperfectly, but I ask you to think of them. Turn them over in your mind as long as you please. I wait here most patiently for your answer." Before Mr. Pickwick could reply; before Mr. Perker had taken one twentieth part of the snuff with which so unusually long an address imperatively required to be followed up; there was a low murmuring of voices outside, and then a hesitating knock at the door. "Dear, dear," exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, who had been evidently roused by his friend's appeal; "what an annoyance that door is! Who is that?" "Me, sir," replied Sam Weller, putting in his head. "I can't speak to you just now, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "I am engaged at this moment, Sam." "Beg your pardon, sir," rejoined Mr. Weller. "But here's a lady here, sir, as says she's somethin' wery partickler to disclose." "I can't see any lady," replied Mr. Pickwick, whose mind was filled with visions of Mrs. Bardell. "I vouldn't make too sure o' that, sir," urged Mr. Weller, shaking his head. "If you know'd who was near, sir, I rayther think you'd change your note. As the hawk remarked to himself with a cheerful laugh, ven he heard the robin redbreast a singin' round the corner." "Who is it?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Will you see her, sir?" asked Mr. Weller, holding the door in his hand as if he had some curious live animal on the other side. "I suppose I must," said Mr. Pickwick, looking at Perker. "Well then, all in to begin!" cried Sam. "Sound the gong, draw up the curtain, and enter the two con-spiraytors." As Sam Weller spoke, he threw the door open, and there rushed tumultuously into the room, Mr. Nathaniel Winkle: leading after him by the hand, the identical young lady who at Dingley Dell had worn the boots with the fur round the tops, and who, now a very pleasing compound of blushes and confusion and lilac silk and a smart bonnet and a rich lace veil, looked prettier than ever. "Miss Arabella Allen!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, rising from his chair. "No," replied Mr. Winkle, dropping on his knees, "Mrs. Winkle. Pardon, my dear friend, pardon!" Mr. Pickwick could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses, and perhaps would not have done so, but for the corroborative testimony afforded by the smiling countenance of Perker, and the bodily presence, in the background, of Sam and the pretty housemaid, who appeared to contemplate the proceedings with the liveliest satisfaction. "Oh, Mr. Pickwick!" said Arabella, in a low voice, as if alarmed at the silence. "Can you forgive my imprudence?" Mr. Pickwick returned no verbal response to this appeal; but he took off his spectacles in great haste, and seizing both the young lady's hands in his, kissed her a great number of times--perhaps a greater number than was absolutely necessary--and then, still retaining one of her hands, told Mr. Winkle he was an audacious young dog, and bade him get up. This, Mr. Winkle, who had been for some seconds scratching his nose with the brim of his hat, in a penitent manner, did; whereupon Mr. Pickwick slapped him on the back several times, and then shook hands heartily with Perker, who, not to be behind-hand in the compliments of the occasion, saluted both the bride and the pretty housemaid with right good will, and, having wrung Mr. Winkle's hand most cordially, wound up his demonstrations of joy by taking snuff enough to set any half-dozen men, with ordinarily constructed noses, a sneezing for life. "Why, my dear girl," said Mr. Pickwick, "how has all this come about? Come! Sit down and let me hear all. How well she looks, doesn't she, Perker?" added Mr. Pickwick, surveying Arabella's face with a look of as much pride and exultation, as if she had been his daughter. "Delightful, my dear sir," replied the little man. "If I were not a married man myself, I should be disposed to envy you, you dog." Thus expressing himself, the little lawyer gave Mr. Winkle a poke in the chest, which that gentleman reciprocated; after which they both laughed very loudly, but not so loudly as Mr. Samuel Weller, who had just relieved his feelings by kissing the pretty housemaid, under cover of the cupboard-door. "I can never be grateful enough to you, Sam, I am sure," said Arabella, with the sweetest smile imaginable. "I shall not forget your exertions in the garden at Clifton." "Don't say nothin' wotever about it, ma'am," replied Sam. "I only assisted natur', ma'am; as the doctor said to the boy's mother, arter he'd bled him to death." "Mary, my dear, sit down," said Mr. Pickwick, cutting short these compliments. "Now then; how long have you been married, eh?" Arabella looked bashfully at her lord and master, who replied, "Only three days." "Only three days, eh?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Why, what have you been doing these three months?" "Ah, to be sure!" interposed Perker; "come! Account for this idleness. You see Pickwick's only astonishment is, that it wasn't all over months ago." "Why the fact is," replied Mr. Winkle, looking at his blushing young wife, "that I could not persuade Bella to run away, for a long time. And when I had persuaded her, it was a long time more, before we could find an opportunity. Mary had to give a month's warning too, before she could leave her place next door, and we couldn't possibly have done it without her assistance." "Upon my word," exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, who by this time had resumed his spectacles, and was looking from Arabella to Winkle, and from Winkle to Arabella, with as much delight depicted in his countenance as warm-heartedness and kindly feeling can communicate to the human face: "Upon my word! you seem to have been very systematic in your proceedings. And is your brother acquainted with all this, my dear?" "Oh no, no," replied Arabella, changing colour. "Dear Mr. Pickwick, he must only know it from you--from your lips alone. He is so violent, so prejudiced, and has been so--so anxious in behalf of his friend, Mr. Sawyer," added Arabella, looking down, "that I fear the consequences dreadfully." "Ah, to be sure," said Perker, gravely. "You must take the matter in hand for them, my dear sir. These young men will respect you, when they would listen to nobody else. You must prevent mischief, my dear sir. Hot blood, hot blood." And the little man took a warning pinch, and shook his head doubtfully. "You forget, my love," said Mr. Pickwick, gently, "you forget that I am a prisoner." "No, indeed I do not, my dear sir," replied Arabella. "I never have forgotten it. I have never ceased to think how great your sufferings must have been in this shocking place. But I hoped that what no consideration for yourself would induce you to do, a regard to our happiness might. If my brother hears of this, first, from you, I feel certain we shall be reconciled. He is my only relation in the world, Mr. Pickwick, and unless you plead for me I fear I have lost even him. I have done wrong, very, very wrong, I know." Here poor Arabella hid her face in her handkerchief, and wept bitterly. Mr. Pickwick's nature was a good deal worked upon by these same tears; but when Mrs. Winkle, drying her eyes, took to coaxing and entreating in the sweetest tones of a very sweet voice, he became particularly restless, and evidently undecided how to act. As was evinced by sundry nervous rubbings of his spectacle-glasses, nose, tights, head, and gaiters. Taking advantage of these symptoms of indecision, Mr. Perker (to whom, it appeared, the young couple had driven straight that morning) urged with legal point and shrewdness that Mr. Winkle senior was still unacquainted with the important rise in life's flight of steps which his son had taken; that the future expectations of the said son depended entirely upon the said Winkle senior continuing to regard him with undiminished feelings of affection and attachment, which it was very unlikely he would, if this great event were long kept a secret from him; that Mr. Pickwick, repairing to Bristol to seek Mr. Allen, might, with equal reason, repair to Birmingham to seek Mr. Winkle senior; lastly, that Mr. Winkle senior had good right and title to consider Mr. Pickwick as in some degree the guardian and adviser of his son, and that it consequently behoved that gentleman, and was indeed due to his personal character, to acquaint the aforesaid Winkle senior personally, and by word of mouth, with the whole circumstances of the case, and with the share he had taken in the transaction. Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass arrived, most opportunely, in this stage of the pleadings, and as it was necessary to explain to them all that had occurred, together with the various reasons pro and con, the whole of the arguments were gone over again, after which everybody urged every argument in his own way, and at his own length. And at last Mr. Pickwick, fairly argued and remonstrated out of all his resolutions, and being in imminent danger of being argued and remonstrated out of his wits, caught Arabella in his arms, and declaring that she was a very amiable creature, and that he didn't know how it was, but he had always been very fond of her from the first, said he could never find it in his heart to stand in the way of young people's happiness, and they might do with him as they pleased. Mr. Weller's first act, on hearing this concession, was to despatch Job Trotter to the illustrious Mr. Pell, with an authority to deliver to the bearer the formal discharge which his prudent parent had had the foresight to leave in the hands of that learned gentleman, in case it should be, at any time, required on an emergency; his next proceeding was, to invest his whole stock of ready money in the purchase of five-and-twenty gallons of mild porter: which he himself dispensed on the racket-ground to everybody who would partake of it; this done, he hurra'd in divers parts of the building until he lost his voice, and then quietly relapsed into his usual collected and philosophical condition. At three o'clock that afternoon, Mr. Pickwick took a last look at his little room, and made his way, as well as he could, through the throng of debtors who pressed eagerly forward to shake him by the hand, until he reached the lodge steps. He turned here, to look about him, and his eyes lightened as he did so. In all the crowd of wan, emaciated faces, he saw not one which was not the happier for his sympathy and charity. "Perker," said Mr. Pickwick, beckoning one young man towards him, "this is Mr. Jingle, whom I spoke to you about." "Very good, my dear sir," replied Perker, looking hard at Jingle. "You will see me again, young man, to-morrow. I hope you may live to remember and feel deeply what I shall have to communicate, sir." Jingle bowed respectfully, trembled very much as he took Mr. Pickwick's proffered hand, and withdrew. "Job you know, I think?" said Mr. Pickwick, presenting that gentleman. "I know the rascal," replied Perker, good-humouredly. "See after your friend, and be in the way to-morrow at one. Do you hear? Now, is there anything more?" "Nothing," rejoined Mr. Pickwick. "You have delivered the little parcel I gave you for your old landlord, Sam?" "I have, sir," replied Sam. "He bust out a cryin', sir, and said you wos wery gen'rous and thoughtful, and he only wished you could have him innokilated for a gallopin' consumption, for his old friend, as had lived here so long, wos dead, and he'd noweres to look for another." "Poor fellow, poor fellow!" said Mr. Pickwick. "God bless you, my friends!" As Mr. Pickwick uttered this adieu, the crowd raised a loud shout. Many among them were pressing forward to shake him by the hand again, when he drew his arm through Perker's, and hurried from the prison: far more sad and melancholy, for the moment, than when he had first entered it. Alas! how many sad and unhappy beings had he left behind! A happy evening was that, for, at least, one party in the George and Vulture; and light and cheerful were two of the hearts that emerged from its hospitable door next morning. The owners thereof were Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller, the former of whom was speedily deposited inside a comfortable post coach, with a little dickey behind, in which the latter mounted with great agility. "Sir," called out Mr. Weller to his master. "Well, Sam?" replied Mr. Pickwick, thrusting his head out of the window. "I wish them horses had been three months and better in the Fleet, sir." "Why, Sam?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Vy, sir," exclaimed Mr. Weller, rubbing his hands, "how they would go if they had been!" CHAPTER XX [Illustration] _Relates how Mr. Pickwick, with the assistance of Samuel Weller, essayed to soften the Heart of Mr. Benjamin Allen, and to mollify the Wrath of Mr. Robert Sawyer_ Mr. Ben Allen and Mr. Bob Sawyer sat together in the little surgery behind the shop, discussing minced veal and future prospects, when the discourse, not unnaturally, turned upon the practice acquired by Bob the aforesaid, and his present chances of deriving a competent independence from the honourable profession to which he had devoted himself. "--Which, I think," observed Mr. Bob Sawyer, pursuing the thread of the subject, "which I think, Ben, are rather dubious." "What's rather dubious?" inquired Mr. Ben Allen, at the same time sharpening his intellects with a draught of beer. "What's dubious?" "Why, the chances," responded Mr. Bob Sawyer. "I forgot," said Mr. Ben Allen. "The beer has reminded me that I forgot, Bob--yes; they _are_ dubious." "It's wonderful how the poor people patronise me," said Mr. Bob Sawyer, reflectively. "They knock me up at all hours of the night; they take medicine to an extent which I should have conceived impossible; they put on blisters and leeches with a perseverance worthy of a better cause; they make additions to their families, in a manner which is quite awful. Six of those last-named little promissory notes, all due on the same day, Ben, and all entrusted to me!" "It's very gratifying, isn't it?" said Mr. Ben Allen, holding his plate for some more minced veal. "Oh, very," replied Bob; "only not quite so much so, as the confidence of patients with a shilling or two to spare would be. This business was capitally described in the advertisement, Ben. It is a practice, a very extensive practice--and that's all." "Bob," said Mr. Ben Allen, laying down his knife and fork, and fixing his eyes on the visage of his friend: "Bob, I'll tell you what it is." "What is it?" inquired Mr. Bob Sawyer. "You must make yourself, with as little delay as possible, master of Arabella's one thousand pounds." "Three per cent. consolidated Bank annuities, now standing in her name in the book or books of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England," added Bob Sawyer, in legal phraseology. "Exactly so," said Ben. "She has it when she comes of age, or marries. She wants a year of coming of age, and if you plucked up a spirit she needn't want a month of being married." "She's a very charming and delightful creature," quoth Mr. Robert Sawyer, in reply; "and has only one fault that I know of, Ben. It happens, unfortunately, that that single blemish is a want of taste. She don't like me." "It's my opinion that she don't know what she does like," said Mr. Ben Allen, contemptuously. "Perhaps not," remarked Mr. Bob Sawyer. "But it's my opinion that she does know what she doesn't like, and that's of more importance." "I wish," said Mr. Ben Allen, setting his teeth together, and speaking more like a savage warrior who fed on raw wolf's flesh which he carved with his fingers, than a peaceable young gentleman who ate minced veal with a knife and fork, "I wish I knew whether any rascal really has been tampering with her, and attempting to engage her affections. I think I should assassinate him, Bob." "I'd put a bullet in him, if I found him out," said Mr. Sawyer, stopping in the course of a long draught of beer, and looking malignantly out of the porter pot. "If that didn't do his business, I'd extract it afterwards, and kill him that way." Mr. Benjamin Allen gazed abstractedly on his friend for some minutes in silence, and then said: "You have never proposed to her, point-blank, Bob?" "No. Because I saw it would be of no use," replied Mr. Robert Sawyer. "You shall do it, before you are twenty-four hours older," retorted Ben, with desperate calmness. "She _shall_ have you, or I'll know the reason why. I'll exert my authority." "Well," said Mr. Bob Sawyer, "we shall see." "We _shall_ see, my friend," replied Mr. Ben Allen fiercely. He paused for a few seconds, and added in a voice broken by emotion, "You have loved her from a child, my friend. You loved her when we were boys at school together, and, even then, she was wayward, and slighted your young feelings. Do you recollect, with all the eagerness of a child's love, one day pressing upon her acceptance two small caraway-seed biscuits and one sweet apple, neatly folded into a circular parcel with the leaf of a copybook?" "I do," replied Bob Sawyer. "She slighted that, I think?" said Ben Allen. "She did," rejoined Bob. "She said I had kept the parcel so long in the pockets of my corduroys that the apple was unpleasantly warm." "I remember," said Mr. Allen, gloomily. "Upon which we ate it ourselves, in alternate bites." Bob Sawyer intimated his recollection of the circumstance last alluded to, by a melancholy frown; and the two friends remained for some time absorbed, each in his own meditations. While these observations were being exchanged between Mr. Bob Sawyer and Mr. Benjamin Allen; and while the boy in the grey livery, marvelling at the unwonted prolongation of the dinner, cast an anxious look, from time to time, towards the glass door, distracted by inward misgivings regarding the amount of minced veal which would be ultimately reserved for his individual cravings; there rolled soberly on through the streets of Bristol, a private fly, painted of a sad green colour, drawn by a chubby sort of brown horse, and driven by a surly-looking man with his legs dressed like the legs of a groom, and his body attired in the coat of a coachman. Such appearances are common to many vehicles belonging to, and maintained by, old ladies of economic habits; and in this vehicle sat an old lady who was its mistress and proprietor. "Martin!" said the old lady, calling to the surly man, out of the front window. "Well?" said the surly man, touching his hat to the old lady. "Mr. Sawyer's," said the old lady. "I was going there," said the surly man. The old lady nodded the satisfaction which this proof of the surly man's foresight imparted to her feelings; and the surly man giving a smart lash to the chubby horse, they all repaired to Mr. Bob Sawyer's together. "Martin!" said the old lady, when the fly stopped at the door of Mr. Robert Sawyer late Nockemorf. "Well?" said Martin. "Ask the lad to step out and mind the horse." "I'm going to mind the horse myself," said Martin, laying his whip on the roof of the fly. "I can't permit it on any account," said the old lady; "your testimony will be very important, and I must take you into the house with me. You must not stir from my side during the whole interview. Do you hear?" "I hear," replied Martin. "Well; what are you stopping for?" "Nothing," replied Martin. So saying, the surly man leisurely descended from the wheel, on which he had been poising himself on the tips of the toes of his right foot, and having summoned the boy in the grey livery, opened the coach-door, flung down the steps, and thrusting in a hand enveloped in a dark wash-leather glove, pulled out the old lady with as much concern in his manner as if she were a bandbox. "Dear me!" exclaimed the old lady. "I am so flurried, now I have got here, Martin, that I'm all in a tremble." Mr. Martin coughed behind the dark wash-leather glove, but expressed no sympathy; so the old lady, composing herself, trotted up Mr. Bob Sawyer's steps, and Mr. Martin followed. Immediately on the old lady's entering the shop, Mr. Benjamin Allen and Mr. Bob Sawyer, who had been putting the spirits and water out of sight, and upsetting nauseous drugs to take off the smell of the tobacco-smoke, issued hastily forth in a transport of pleasure and affection. "My dear aunt," exclaimed Mr. Ben Allen, "how kind of you to look in upon us! Mr. Sawyer, aunt; my friend Mr. Bob Sawyer whom I have spoken to you about, regarding--you know, aunt." And here Mr. Ben Allen, who was not at the moment extraordinarily sober, added the word "Arabella," in what was meant to be a whisper, but which was an especially audible and distinct tone of speech, which nobody could avoid hearing, if anybody were so disposed. "My dear Benjamin," said the old lady, struggling with a great shortness of breath, and trembling from head to foot: "don't be alarmed, my dear, but I think I had better speak to Mr. Sawyer alone for a moment. Only for one moment." "Bob," said Mr. Allen, "will you take my aunt into the surgery?" "Certainly," responded Bob, in a most professional voice. "Step this way, my dear ma'am. Don't be frightened, ma'am. We shall be able to set you to rights in a very short time, I have no doubt, ma'am. Here, my dear ma'am. Now then!" With this, Mr. Bob Sawyer, having handed the old lady to a chair, shut the door, drew another chair close to her, and waited to hear detailed the symptoms of some disorder from which he saw in perspective a long train of profits and advantages. The first thing the old lady did, was to shake her head a great many times and begin to cry. "Nervous," said Bob Sawyer, complacently. "Camphor-julep and water three times a day, and composing draught at night." "I don't know how to begin, Mr. Sawyer," said the old lady. "It is so very painful and distressing." "You need not begin, ma'am," rejoined Mr. Bob Sawyer. "I can anticipate all you would say. The head is in fault." "I should be very sorry to think it was the heart," said the old lady, with a slight groan. "Not the slightest danger of that, ma'am," replied Bob Sawyer. "The stomach is the primary cause." "Mr. Sawyer!" exclaimed the old lady, starting. "Not the least doubt of it, ma'am," rejoined Bob, looking wondrous wise. "Medicine, in time, my dear ma'am, would have prevented it all." "Mr. Sawyer," said the old lady, more flurried than before, "this conduct is either great impertinence to one in my situation sir, or it arises from your not understanding the object of my visit. If it had been in the power of medicine, or any foresight I could have used, to prevent what has occurred, I should certainly have done so. I had better see my nephew at once," said the old lady, twirling her reticule indignantly, and rising as she spoke. "Stop a moment, ma'am," said Bob Sawyer; "I'm afraid I have not understood you. What _is_ the matter, ma'am?" "My niece, Mr. Sawyer," said the old lady: "your friend's sister." "Yes, ma'am," said Bob, all impatience; for the old lady, although much agitated, spoke with the most tantalising deliberation, as old ladies often do. "Yes, ma'am." "Left my home, Mr. Sawyer, three days ago, on a pretended visit to my sister, another aunt of hers, who keeps the large boarding-school just beyond the third mile-stone where there is a very large laburnum tree and an oak gate," said the old lady, stopping in this place to dry her eyes. "Oh, devil take the laburnum tree! ma'am," said Bob, quite forgetting his professional dignity in his anxiety. "Get on a little faster; put a little more steam on, ma'am, pray." "This morning," said the old lady, slowly, "this morning she----" "She came back, ma'am, I suppose," said Bob, with great animation. "Did she come back?" "No, she did not; she wrote," replied the old lady. "What did she say?" inquired Bob, eagerly. "She said, Mr. Sawyer," replied the old lady,--"and it is this I want you to prepare Benjamin's mind for, gently and by degrees; she said that she was--I have got the letter in my pocket, Mr. Sawyer, but my glasses are in the carriage, and I should only waste your time if I attempted to point out the passage to you, without them; she said, in short, Mr. Sawyer, that she was married." "What!" said, or rather shouted, Mr. Bob Sawyer. "Married," repeated the old lady. Mr. Bob Sawyer stopped to hear no more; but darting from the surgery into the outer shop, cried in a stentorian voice, "Ben, my boy, she's bolted!" Mr. Ben Allen, who had been slumbering behind the counter, with his head half a foot or so below his knees, no sooner heard this appalling communication, than he made a precipitate rush at Mr. Martin, and, twisting his hand in the neckcloth of that taciturn servitor, expressed an intention of choking him where he stood. This intention, with a promptitude often the effect of desperation, he at once commenced carrying into execution, with much vigour and surgical skill. Mr. Martin, who was a man of few words and possessed but little power of eloquence or persuasion, submitted to this operation with a very calm and agreeable expression of countenance, for some seconds; finding, however, that it threatened speedily to lead to a result, which would place it beyond his power to claim any wages, board or otherwise, in all time to come, he muttered an inarticulate remonstrance and felled Mr. Benjamin Allen to the ground. As that gentleman had his hands entangled in his cravat, he had no alternative but to follow him to the floor. There they both lay struggling, when the shop door opened, and the party was increased by the arrival of two most unexpected visitors; to wit, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Samuel Weller. [Illustration: _He felled Mr. Benjamin Allen to the ground_] The impression at once produced on Mr. Weller's mind by what he saw, was, that Mr. Martin was hired by the establishment of Sawyer late Nockemorf, to take strong medicine, or to go into fits and be experimentalised upon, or to swallow poison now and then with the view of testing the efficacy of some new antidotes, or to do something or other to promote the great science of medicine, and gratify the ardent spirit of inquiry burning in the bosoms of its two young professors. So without presuming to interfere, Sam stood perfectly still, and looked on, as if he were mightily interested in the result of the then pending experiment. Not so Mr. Pickwick. He at once threw himself on the astonished combatants, with his accustomed energy, and loudly called upon the bystanders to interpose. This roused Mr. Bob Sawyer, who had been hitherto quite paralysed by the frenzy of his companion. With that gentleman's assistance, Mr. Pickwick raised Ben Allen to his feet. Mr. Martin, finding himself alone on the floor, got up, and looked about him. "Mr. Allen," said Mr. Pickwick, "what is the matter, sir?" "Never mind, sir!" replied Mr. Allen, with haughty defiance. "What is it?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, looking at Bob Sawyer. "Is he unwell?" Before Bob could reply, Mr. Ben Allen seized Mr. Pickwick by the hand, and murmured in sorrowful accents, "My sister, my dear sir; my sister." "Oh, is that all?" said Mr. Pickwick. "We shall easily arrange that matter, I hope. Your sister is safe and well, and I am here, my dear sir, to----" "Sorry to do anythin' as may cause an interruption to such wery pleasant proceedin's, as the king said ven he dissolved the parliament," interposed Mr. Weller, who had been peeping through the glass door; "but there's another experiment here, sir. Here's a wenerable old lady a lyin' on the carpet waiting for dissection, or galwinism, or some other rewivin' and scientific inwention." "I forgot," exclaimed Mr. Ben Allen. "It is my aunt." "Dear me!" said Mr. Pickwick. "Poor lady! Gently, Sam, gently." "Strange sitivation for one o' the family," observed Sam Weller, hoisting the aunt into a chair. "Now, depitty Sawbones, bring out the wollatilly!" The latter observation was addressed to the boy in grey, who, having handed over the fly to the care of the street-keeper, had come back to see what all the noise was about. Between the boy in grey, and Mr. Bob Sawyer, and Mr. Benjamin Allen (who having frightened his aunt into a fainting fit, was affectionately solicitous for her recovery), the old lady was, at length, restored to consciousness; then Mr. Ben Allen, turning with a puzzled countenance to Mr. Pickwick, asked him what he was about to say, when he had been so alarmingly interrupted. "We are all friends here, I presume?" said Mr. Pickwick, clearing his voice, and looking towards the man of few words with the surly countenance who drove the fly with the chubby horse. This reminded Mr. Bob Sawyer that the boy in grey was looking on, with eyes wide open, and greedy ears. The incipient chemist having been lifted up by his coat collar, and dropped outside the door, Bob Sawyer assured Mr. Pickwick that he might speak without reserve. "Your sister, my dear sir," said Mr. Pickwick, turning to Benjamin Allen, "is in London; well and happy." "Her happiness is no object to me, sir," said Mr. Benjamin Allen, with a flourish of the hand. "Her husband _is_ an object to _me_, sir," said Bob Sawyer. "He shall be an object to me sir, at twelve paces, and a very pretty object I'll make of him, sir--a mean-spirited scoundrel!" This, as it stood, was a very pretty denunciation, and magnanimous withal; but Mr. Bob Sawyer rather weakened its effect, by winding up with some general observations concerning the punching of heads and knocking out of eyes, which were commonplace by comparison. "Stay, sir," said Mr. Pickwick; "before you apply those epithets to the gentleman in question, consider, dispassionately, the extent of his fault, and above all remember that he is a friend of mine." "What!" said Mr. Bob Sawyer. "His name!" cried Ben Allen. "His name!" "Mr. Nathaniel Winkle," said Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Benjamin Allen deliberately crushed his spectacles beneath the heel of his boot, and having picked up the pieces, and put them into three separate pockets, folded his arms, bit his lips, and looked in a threatening manner at the bland features of Mr. Pickwick. "Then it's you, is it, sir, who have encouraged and brought about this match?" inquired Mr. Benjamin Allen at length. "And it's this gentleman's servant, I suppose," interrupted the old lady, "who has been skulking about my house, and endeavouring to entrap my servants to conspire against their mistress. Martin!" "Well?" said the surly man, coming forward. "Is that the young man you saw in the lane, whom you told me about, this morning?" Mr. Martin, who, as it has already appeared, was a man of few words, looked at Sam Weller, nodded his head, and growled forth, "That's the man!" Mr. Weller, who was never proud, gave a smile of friendly recognition as his eyes encountered those of the surly groom, and admitted, in courteous terms, that he had "knowed him afore." "And this is the faithful creature," exclaimed Mr. Ben Allen, "whom I had nearly suffocated! Mr. Pickwick, how dare you allow your fellow to be employed in the abduction of my sister? I demand that you explain this matter, sir." "Explain it, sir!" cried Mr. Bob Sawyer, fiercely. "It's a conspiracy," said Ben Allen. "A regular plant," added Mr. Bob Sawyer. "A disgraceful imposition," observed the old lady. "Nothing but a do," remarked Martin. "Pray hear me," urged Mr. Pickwick, as Mr. Ben Allen fell into a chair that patients were bled in, and gave way to his pocket-handkerchief. "I have rendered no assistance in this matter, beyond that of being present at one interview between the young people, which I could not prevent, and from which I conceived my presence would remove any slight colouring of impropriety that it might otherwise have had; this is the whole share I have taken in the transaction, and I had no suspicion that an immediate marriage was even contemplated. Though mind," added Mr. Pickwick, hastily checking himself, "mind I do not say I should have prevented it, if I _had_ known that it was intended." "You hear that, all of you; you hear that?" said Mr. Benjamin Allen. "I hope they do," mildly observed Mr. Pickwick, looking round, "and," added that gentleman: his colour mounting as he spoke: "I hope they hear this, sir, also. That from what has been stated to me, sir, I assert that you were by no means justified in attempting to force your sister's inclinations as you did, and that you should rather have endeavoured by your kindness and forbearance to have supplied the place of other nearer relations whom she has never known, from a child. As regards my young friend, I must beg to add, that in every point of worldly advantage, he is, at least, on an equal footing with yourself, if not on a much better one, and that unless I hear this question discussed with becoming temper and moderation, I decline hearing any more said upon the subject." "I wish to make a wery few remarks in addition to wot has been put forard by the honourable gen'l'm'n as has jist give over," said Mr. Weller, stepping forth, "which is this here: a indiwidual in company has called me a feller." "That has nothing whatever to do with the matter, Sam," interposed Mr. Pickwick. "Pray hold your tongue." "I ain't a goin' to say nothin' on that ere pint, sir," replied Sam, "but merely this here. P'raps that gen'l'm'n may think as there wos a priory 'tachment; but there worn't nothin' o' the sort, for the young lady said, in the wery beginnin' o' keepin' company, that she couldn't abide him. Nobody's cut him out, and it 'ud ha' been jist the wery same for him if the young lady had never seen Mr. Vinkle. That's wot I wished to say, sir, and I hope I've now made that 'ere gen'l'm'n's mind easy." A short pause followed these consolatory remarks of Mr. Weller. Then Mr. Ben Allen, rising from his chair, protested that he would never see Arabella's face again: while Mr. Bob Sawyer, despite Sam's flattering assurance, vowed dreadful vengeance on the happy bridegroom. But, just when matters were at their height, and threatening to remain so, Mr. Pickwick found a powerful assistant in the old lady, who, evidently much struck by the mode in which he had advocated her niece's cause, ventured to approach Mr. Benjamin Allen with a few comforting reflections, of which the chief were, that after all, perhaps, it was well it was no worse; the least said the soonest mended, and upon her word she did not know that it was so very bad after all; what was over couldn't be begun, and what couldn't be cured must be endured: with various other assurances of the like novel and strengthening description. To all of these, Mr. Benjamin Allen replied that he meant no disrespect to his aunt, or anybody there, but if it were all the same to them, and they would allow him to have his own way, he would rather have the pleasure of hating his sister till death, and after it. At length, when this determination had been announced half a hundred times, the old lady, suddenly bridling up and looking very majestic, wished to know what she had done that no respect was to be paid to her years or station, and that she should be obliged to beg and pray, in that way, of her own nephew, whom she remembered about five-and-twenty years before he was born, and whom she had known personally, when he hadn't a tooth in his head? To say nothing of her presence on the first occasion of his having his hair cut, and assistance at numerous other times and ceremonies during his babyhood, of sufficient importance to found a claim upon his affection, obedience, and sympathies, for ever. While the good lady was bestowing this objurgation on Mr. Ben Allen, Bob Sawyer and Mr. Pickwick had retired in close conversation to the inner room, where Mr. Sawyer was observed to apply himself several times to the mouth of a black bottle, under the influence of which, his features gradually assumed a cheerful, and even jovial expression. And at last he emerged from the room, bottle in hand, and, remarking that he was very sorry to say he had been making a fool of himself, begged to propose the health and happiness of Mr. and Mrs. Winkle, whose felicity, so far from envying, he would be the first to congratulate them upon. Hearing this, Mr. Ben Allen suddenly arose from his chair, and, seizing the black bottle, drank the toast so heartily, that, the liquor being strong, he nearly became as black in the face as the bottle. Finally, the black bottle went round till it was empty, and there was so much shaking of hands and interchanging of compliments, that even the metal-visaged Mr. Martin condescended to smile. "And now," said Bob Sawyer, rubbing his hands, "we'll have a jolly night." "I am sorry," said Mr. Pickwick, "that I must return to my inn. I have not been accustomed to fatigue lately, and my journey has tired me exceedingly." "You'll take some tea, Mr. Pickwick?" said the old lady, with irresistible sweetness. "Thank you, I would rather not," replied that gentleman. The truth is, that the old lady's evidently increasing admiration was Mr. Pickwick's principal inducement for going away. He thought of Mrs. Bardell; and every glance of the old lady's eyes threw him into a cold perspiration. As Mr. Pickwick could by no means be prevailed upon to stay, it was arranged at once, on his own proposition, that Mr. Benjamin Allen should accompany him on his journey to the elder Mr. Winkle's, and that the coach should be at the door at nine o'clock next morning. He then took his leave, and, followed by Samuel Weller, repaired to the Bush. It is worthy of remark, that Mr. Martin's face was horribly convulsed as he shook hands with Sam at parting, and that he gave vent to a smile and an oath simultaneously: from which tokens it has been inferred by those who were best acquainted with that gentleman's peculiarities, that he expressed himself much pleased with Mr. Weller's society, and requested the honour of his further acquaintance. "Shall I order a private room, sir?" inquired Sam, when they reached the Bush. "Why, no, Sam," replied Mr. Pickwick; "as I dined in the coffee-room, and shall go to bed soon, it is hardly worth while. See who there is in the travellers' room, Sam." Mr. Weller departed on his errand, and presently returned to say, there was only a gentleman with one eye; and that he and the landlord were drinking a bowl of bishop together. "I will join them," said Mr. Pickwick. "He's a queer customer, the vun-eyed vun, sir," observed Mr. Weller, as he led the way. "He's a gammonin' that 'ere landlord, he is, sir, till he don't rightly know vether he's a standing on the soles of his boots or the crown of his hat." The individual to whom this observation referred, was sitting at the upper end of the room when Mr. Pickwick entered, and was smoking a large Dutch pipe, with his eye intently fixed on the round face of the landlord: a jolly-looking old personage, to whom he had recently been relating some tale of wonder, as was testified by sundry disjointed exclamations of, "Well, I wouldn't have believed it! The strangest thing I ever heard! Couldn't have supposed it possible!" and other expressions of astonishment which burst spontaneously from his lips, as he returned the fixed gaze of the one-eyed man. "Servant, sir," said the one-eyed man to Mr. Pickwick. "Fine night, sir." "Very much so indeed," replied Mr. Pickwick, as the waiter placed a small decanter of brandy and some hot water before him. While Mr. Pickwick was mixing his brandy and water, the one-eyed man looked round at him earnestly, from time to time, and at length said: "I think I've seen you before." "I don't recollect you," rejoined Mr. Pickwick. "I daresay not," said the one-eyed man. "You didn't know me, but I knew two friends of yours that were stopping at the Peacock at Eatanswill, at the time of the Election." "Oh, indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. "Yes," rejoined the one-eyed man. "I mentioned a little circumstance to them about a friend of mine of the name of Tom Smart. Perhaps you have heard them speaking of it." "Often," rejoined Mr. Pickwick, smiling. "He was your uncle, I think?" "No, no; only a friend of my uncle's," replied the one-eyed man. "He was a wonderful man, that uncle of yours, though," remarked the landlord, shaking his head. "Well, I think he was, I think I may say he was," answered the one-eyed man. "I could tell you a story about that same uncle, gentlemen, that would rather surprise you." "Could you?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Let us hear it, by all means." The one-eyed bagman ladled out a glass of negus from the bowl, and drank it; smoked a long whiff out of the Dutch pipe; and then, calling to Sam Weller, who was lingering near the door, that he needn't go away, unless he wanted to, because the story was no secret, fixed his eye upon the landlord's and proceeded, in the words of the next chapter. CHAPTER XXI [Illustration] _Containing the Story of the Bagman's Uncle_ "My uncle, gentlemen," said the bagman, "was one of the merriest, pleasantest, cleverest fellows that ever lived. I wish you had known him, gentlemen. On second thoughts, gentlemen, I _don't_ wish you had known him, for if you had, you would have been all, by this time, in the ordinary course of nature, if not dead, at all events so near it, as to have taken to stopping at home and giving up company: which would have deprived me of the inestimable pleasure of addressing you at this moment. Gentlemen, I wish your fathers and mothers had known my uncle. They would have been amazingly fond of him, especially your respectable mothers; I know they would. If any two of his numerous virtues predominated over the many that adorned his character, I should say they were his mixed punch and his after-supper song. Excuse my dwelling on these melancholy reflections of departed worth; you won't see a man like my uncle every day in the week. "I have always considered it a great point in my uncle's character, gentlemen, that he was the intimate friend and companion of Tom Smart, of the great house of Bilson and Slum, Cateaton Street, City. My uncle collected for Tiggin and Welps, but for a long time he went pretty near the same journey as Tom; and the very first night they met, my uncle took a fancy for Tom, and Tom took a fancy for my uncle. They made a bet of a new hat before they had known each other half an hour, who should brew the best quart of punch and drink it the quickest. My uncle was judged to have won the making, but Tom Smart beat him in the drinking by about half a salt-spoonful. They took another quart a-piece to drink each other's health in, and were staunch friends ever afterwards. There's a destiny in these things, gentlemen: we can't help it. "In personal appearance, my uncle was a trifle shorter than the middle size; he was a thought stouter, too, than the ordinary run of people, and perhaps his face might be a shade redder. He had the jolliest face you ever saw, gentlemen: something like Punch, with a handsomer nose and chin; his eyes were always twinkling and sparkling with good humour; and a smile--not one of your unmeaning wooden grins, but a real, merry, hearty, good-tempered smile--was perpetually on his countenance. He was pitched out of his gig once, and knocked, head first, against a mile-stone. There he lay, stunned, and so cut about the face with some gravel which had been heaped up alongside it, that, to use my uncle's own strong expression, if his mother could have revisited the earth, she wouldn't have known him. Indeed, when I come to think of the matter, gentlemen, I feel pretty sure she wouldn't, for she died when my uncle was two years and seven months old, and I think it's very likely that, even without the gravel, his top-boots would have puzzled the good lady not a little: to say nothing of his jolly red face. However, there he lay, and I have heard my uncle say many a time, that the man said who picked him up that he was smiling as merrily as if he had tumbled out for a treat, and that after they had bled him, the first glimmerings of returning animation were, his jumping up in bed, bursting out into a loud laugh, kissing the young woman who held the basin, and demanding a mutton chop and a pickled walnut. He was very fond of pickled walnuts, gentlemen. He said he always found that, taken without vinegar, they relished the beer. "My uncle's great journey was in the fall of the leaf, at which time he collected debts, and took orders, in the north: going from London to Edinburgh, from Edinburgh to Glasgow, from Glasgow back to Edinburgh, and thence to London by the smack. You are to understand that his second visit to Edinburgh was for his own pleasure. He used to go back for a week, just to look up his old friends; and what with breakfasting with this one, lunching with that, dining with a third, and supping with another, a pretty tight week he used to make of it. I don't know whether any of you, gentlemen, ever partook of a real, substantial, hospitable Scotch breakfast, and then went to a slight lunch of a bushel of oysters, a dozen or so of bottled ale, and a noggin or two of whisky to close up with. If you ever did, you will agree with me that it requires a pretty strong head to go out to dinner and supper afterwards. "But, bless your hearts and eyebrows, all this sort of thing was nothing to my uncle! He was so well seasoned that it was mere child's play. I have heard him say that he could see the Dundee people out, any day, and walk home afterwards without staggering; and yet the Dundee people have as strong heads and as strong punch, gentleman, as you are likely to meet with, between the poles. I have heard of a Glasgow man and a Dundee man drinking against each other for fifteen hours at a sitting. They were both suffocated, as nearly as could be ascertained, at the same moment, but with this trifling exception, gentlemen, they were not a bit the worse for it. "One night, within four-and-twenty hours of the time when he had settled to take shipping for London, my uncle supped at the house of a very old friend of his, a Bailie Mac something and four syllables after it, who lived in the old town of Edinburgh. There were the bailie's wife, and the bailie's three daughters, and the bailie's grown-up son, and three or four stout, bushy eye-browed, canny old Scotch fellows, that the bailie had got together to do honour to my uncle, and help to make merry. It was a glorious supper. There were kippered salmon, and Finnan haddocks, and a lamb's head, and a haggis--a celebrated Scotch dish, gentlemen, which my uncle used to say always looked to him, when it came to the table, very much like a cupid's stomach--and a great many other things besides, that I forget the names of, but very good things notwithstanding. The lassies were pretty and agreeable; the bailie's wife was one of the best creatures that ever lived; and my uncle was in thoroughly good cue. The consequence of which was, that the young ladies tittered and giggled, and the old lady laughed out loud, and the bailie and the other old fellows roared till they were red in the face, the whole mortal time. I don't quite recollect how many tumblers of whisky toddy each man drank after supper; but this I know, that about one o'clock in the morning, the bailie's grown-up son became insensible while attempting the first verse of 'Willie brewed a peak o' maut;' and he having been, for half an hour before, the only other man visible above the mahogany, it occurred to my uncle that it was almost time to think about going: especially as drinking had set in at seven o'clock: in order that he might get home at a decent hour. But, thinking it might not be quite polite to go just then, my uncle voted himself into the chair, mixed another glass, rose to propose his own health, addressed himself in a neat and complimentary speech, and drank the toast with great enthusiasm. Still nobody woke; so my uncle took a little drop more--neat this time, to prevent the toddy from disagreeing with him--and, laying violent hands on his hat, sallied forth into the street. "It was a wild, gusty night when my uncle closed the bailie's door, and settling his hat firmly on his head to prevent the wind from taking it, thrust his hands into his pockets, and looking upward, took a short survey of the state of the weather. The clouds were drifting over the moon at their giddiest speed: at one time wholly obscuring her: at another, suffering her to burst forth in full splendour and shed her light on all the subjects around: anon, driving over her again, with increased velocity, and shrouding everything in darkness. 'Really, this won't do,' said my uncle, addressing himself to the weather, as if he felt himself personally offended. 'This is not at all the kind of thing for my voyage. It will not do, at any price,' said my uncle very impressively. Having repeated this, several times, he recovered his balance with some difficulty--for he was rather giddy with looking up into the sky so long--and walked merrily on. "The bailie's house was in the Canongate, and my uncle was going to the other end of Leith Walk, rather better than a mile's journey. On either side of him, there shot up against the dark sky, tall, gaunt, straggling houses, with time-stained fronts, and windows that seemed to have shared the lot of eyes in mortals, and to have grown dim and sunken with age. Six, seven, eight storeys high, were the houses; storey piled above storey, as the children build with cards--throwing their dark shadows over the roughly paved road, and making the dark night darker. A few oil lamps were scattered at long distances, but they only served to mark the dirty entrance to some narrow close, or to show where a common stair communicated, by steep and intricate windings, with the various flats above. Glancing at all these things with the air of a man who had seen them too often before, to think them worthy of much notice now, my uncle walked up the middle of the street, with a thumb in each waistcoat pocket, indulging from time to time in various snatches of song, chanted forth with such good will and spirit, that the quiet honest folk started from their first sleep and lay trembling in bed till the sound died away in the distance; when, satisfying themselves that it was only some drunken ne'er-do-weel finding his way home, they covered themselves up warm and fell asleep again. "I am particular in describing how my uncle walked up the middle of the street, with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, gentlemen, because, as he often used to say (and with great reason too), there is nothing at all extraordinary in this story, unless you distinctly understand at the beginning that he was not by any means of a marvellous or romantic turn. "Gentlemen, my uncle walked on with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, taking the middle of the street to himself, and singing, now a verse of a love-song, and then a verse of a drinking one, and when he was tired of both, whistling melodiously, until he reached the North Bridge, which, at this point, connects the old and new towns of Edinburgh. Here he stopped for a minute, to look at the strange irregular clusters of lights piled one above the other, and twinkling afar off so high, that they looked like stars, gleaming from the castle walls on the one side and the Calton Hill on the other, as if they illuminated veritable castles in the air; while the old picturesque town slept heavily on, in gloom and darkness, below: its palace and chapel of Holyrood, guarded day and night, as a friend of my uncle's used to say, by old Arthur's Seat, towering, surly and dark, like some gruff genius, over the ancient city he has watched so long. I say, gentlemen, my uncle stopped here, for a minute, to look about him; and then, paying a compliment to the weather, which had a little cleared up, though the moon was sinking, walked on again, as royally as before; keeping the middle of the road with great dignity, and looking as if he would very much like to meet somebody who would dispute possession of it with him. There was nobody at all disposed to contest the point, as it happened; and so, on he went, with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, like a lamb. "When my uncle reached the end of Leith Walk, he had to cross a pretty large piece of waste ground which separated him from a short street which he had to turn down, to go direct to his lodging. Now, in this piece of waste ground, there was, at that time, an enclosure belonging to some wheelwright who contracted with the Post-office for the purchase of old worn-out mail coaches; and my uncle, being very fond of coaches, old, young, or middle-aged, all at once took it into his head to step out of his road for no other purpose than to peep between the palings at these mails--about a dozen of which he remembered to have seen, crowded together in a very forlorn and dismantled state, inside. My uncle was a very enthusiastic, emphatic sort of person, gentlemen; so, finding that he could not obtain a good peep between the palings, he got over them, and sitting himself quietly down on an old axletree, began to contemplate the mail coaches with a great deal of gravity. "There might be a dozen of them, or there might be more--my uncle was never quite certain on this point, and being a man of very scrupulous veracity about numbers, didn't like to say--but there they stood, all huddled together in the most desolate condition imaginable. The doors had been torn from their hinges and removed; the linings had been stripped off: only a shred hanging here and there by a rusty nail; the lamps were gone, the poles had long since vanished, the iron-work was rusty, the paint was worn away; the wind whistled through the chinks in the bare wood-work; and the rain, which had collected on the roofs, fell, drop by drop, into the insides with a hollow and melancholy sound. They were the decaying skeletons of departed mails, and in that lonely place, at that time of night, they looked chill and dismal. "My uncle rested his head upon his hands, and thought of the busy bustling people who had rattled about, years before, in the old coaches, and were now as silent and changed; he thought of the numbers of people to whom one of those crazy, mouldering vehicles had borne, night after night, for many years, and through all weathers, the anxiously expected intelligence, the eagerly looked-for remittance, the promised assurance of health and safety, the sudden announcement of sickness and death. The merchant, the lover, the wife, the widow, the mother, the schoolboy, the very child who tottered to the door at the postman's knock--how had they all looked forward to the arrival of the old coach. And where were they all now! "Gentlemen, my uncle used to _say_ that he thought all this at the time, but I rather suspect he learnt it out of some book afterwards, for he distinctly stated that he fell into a kind of doze, as he sat on the old axletree looking at the decayed mail coaches, and that he was suddenly awakened by some deep church-bell striking two. Now, my uncle was never a fast thinker, and if he had thought all these things, I am quite certain it would have taken him till full half-past two o'clock, at the very least. I am, therefore, decidedly of opinion, gentlemen, that my uncle fell into a kind of doze, without having thought about anything at all. "Be this as it may, a church bell struck two. My uncle woke, rubbed his eyes, and jumped up in astonishment. "In one instant after the clock struck two, the whole of this deserted and quiet spot had become a scene of most extraordinary life and animation. The mail coach doors were on their hinges, the lining was replaced, the iron-work was as good as new, the paint was restored, the lamps were alight, cushions and great-coats were on every box, porters were thrusting parcels into every boot, guards were stowing away letter-bags, hostlers were dashing pails of water against the renovated wheels; numbers of men were rushing about, fixing poles into every coach; passengers arrived, portmanteaus were handed up, horses were put to; in short, it was perfectly clear that every mail there was to be off directly. Gentlemen, my uncle opened his eyes so wide at all this, that, to the very last moment of his life, he used to wonder how it fell out that he had ever been able to shut 'em again. "'Now then!' said a voice, as my uncle felt a hand on his shoulder, 'you're booked for inside. You'd better get in.' "'_I_ booked!' said my uncle, turning round. "'Yes, certainly.' "My uncle, gentlemen, could say nothing; he was so very much astonished. The queerest thing of all was, that although there was such a crowd of persons, and although fresh faces were pouring in every moment, there was no telling where they came from. They seemed to start up, in some strange manner, from the ground, or the air, and disappear in the same way. When a porter had put his luggage in the coach, and received his fare, he turned round and was gone; and before my uncle had well begun to wonder what had become of him, half a dozen fresh ones started up, and staggered along under the weight of parcels which seemed big enough to crush them. The passengers were all dressed so oddly too! Large, broad-skirted, laced coats with great cuffs and no collars; and wigs, gentlemen--great formal wigs with a tie behind. My uncle could make nothing of it. "'Now, _are_ you going to get in?' said the person who had addressed my uncle before. He was dressed as a mail guard, with a wig on his head and most enormous cuffs to his coat, and had a lantern in one hand, and a huge blunderbuss in the other, which he was going to stow away in his little arm-chest. '_Are_ you going to get in, Jack Martin?' said the guard, holding the lantern to my uncle's face. "'Hallo!' said my uncle, falling back a step or two. 'That's familiar!' "'It's so on the way-bill,' replied the guard. "'Isn't there a "Mister" before it?' said my uncle. For he felt, gentlemen, that for a guard he didn't know to call him Jack Martin, was a liberty which the Post-office wouldn't have sanctioned if they had known it. "'No, there is not,' rejoined the guard, coolly. "'Is the fare paid?' inquired my uncle. "'Of course it is,' rejoined the guard. "'It is, is it?' said my uncle. 'Then here goes! Which coach?' "'This,' said the guard, pointing to an old-fashioned Edinburgh and London Mail, which had the steps down, and the door open. 'Stop! here are the other passengers. Let them get in first.' "As the guard spoke, there all at once appeared, right in front of my uncle, a young gentleman in a powdered wig, and a sky-blue coat trimmed with silver, made very full and broad in the skirts, which were lined with buckram. Tiggin and Welps were in the printed calico and waistcoatpiece line, gentlemen, so my uncle knew all the materials at once. He wore knee breeches, and a kind of leggings rolled up over his silk stockings, and shoes with buckles; he had ruffles at his wrists, a three-cornered hat on his head, and a long taper sword by his side. The flaps of his waistcoat came half-way down his thighs, and the ends of his cravat reached to his waist. He stalked gravely to the coach door, pulled off his hat, and held it above his head at arm's length: cocking his little finger in the air at the same time, as some affected people do, when they take a cup of tea. Then he drew his feet together, and made a low grave bow, and then put out his left hand. My uncle was just going to step forward, and shake it heartily, when he perceived that these attentions were directed, not towards him, but to a young lady who had just then appeared at the foot of the steps, attired in an old-fashioned green velvet dress with a long waist and stomacher. She had no bonnet on her head, gentlemen, which was muffled in a black silk hood, but she looked round for an instant as she prepared to get into the coach, and such a beautiful face as she disclosed, my uncle had never seen--not even in a picture. She got into the coach, holding up her dress with one hand; and, as my uncle always said, with a round oath, when he told the story, he wouldn't have believed it possible that legs and feet could have been brought to such a state of perfection unless he had seen them with his own eyes. "But, in this one glimpse of the beautiful face, my uncle saw that the young lady cast an imploring look upon him, and that she appeared terrified and distressed. He noticed, too, that the young fellow in the powdered wig, notwithstanding his show of gallantry, which was all very fine and grand, clasped her tight by the wrist when she got in, and followed himself immediately afterwards. An uncommonly ill-looking fellow, in a close brown wig and a plum-coloured suit, wearing a very large sword, and boots up to his hips, belonged to the party; and when he sat himself down next to the young lady, who shrunk into a corner at his approach, my uncle was confirmed in his original impression that something dark and mysterious was going forward, or, as he always said himself, that 'there was a screw loose somewhere.' It's quite surprising how quickly he made up his mind to help the lady at any peril, if she needed help. "'Death and lightning!' exclaimed the young gentleman, laying his hand upon his sword as my uncle entered the coach. "'Blood and thunder!' roared the other gentleman. With this, he whipped his sword out, and made a lunge at my uncle without further ceremony. My uncle had no weapon about him, but with great dexterity he snatched the ill-looking gentleman's three-cornered hat from his head, and, receiving the point of his sword right through the crown, squeezed the sides together, and held it tight. "'Pink him behind!' cried the ill-looking gentleman to his companion, as he struggled to regain his sword. "'He had better not,' cried my uncle, displaying the heel of one of his shoes, in a threatening manner, 'I'll kick his brains out if he has any, or fracture his skull if he hasn't.' Exerting all his strength at this moment, my uncle wrenched the ill-looking man's sword from his grasp, and flung it clean out of the coach-window: upon which the younger gentleman vociferated 'Death and lightning!' again, and laid his hand upon the hilt of his sword, in a very fierce manner, but didn't draw it. Perhaps, gentlemen, as my uncle used to say with a smile, perhaps he was afraid of alarming the lady. "'Now, gentlemen,' said my uncle, taking his seat deliberately, 'I don't want to have any death, with or without lightning, in a lady's presence, and we have had quite blood and thundering enough for one journey; so, if you please, we'll sit in our places like quiet insides. Here, guard, pick up that gentleman's carving-knife.' "As quickly as my uncle said the words, the guard appeared at the coach-window, with the gentleman's sword in his hand. He held up his lantern, and looked earnestly in my uncle's face, as he handed it in: when, by its light, my uncle saw, to his great surprise, that an immense crowd of mail-coach guards swarmed round the window, every one of whom had his eyes earnestly fixed upon him too. He had never seen such a sea of white faces, red bodies, and earnest eyes, in all his born days. "'This is the strangest sort of thing I ever had anything to do with,' thought my uncle; 'allow me to return you your hat, sir.' "The ill-looking gentleman received his three-cornered hat in silence, looked at the hole in the middle with an inquiring air, and finally stuck it on the top of his wig with a solemnity the effect of which was a trifle impaired by his sneezing violently at the moment, and jerking it off again. "'All right!' cried the guard with the lantern, mounting into his little seat behind. Away they went. My uncle peeped out of the coach-window as they emerged from the yard, and observed that the other mails, with coachmen, guards, horses, and passengers complete, were driving round and round in circles, at a slow trot of about five miles an hour. My uncle burnt with indignation, gentlemen. As a commercial man, he felt that the mail-bags were not to be trifled with, and he resolved to memorialise the Post-office on the subject, the very instant he reached London. "At present, however, his thoughts were occupied with the young lady who sat in the farthest corner of the coach, with her face muffled closely in her hood; the gentleman with the sky-blue coat sitting opposite to her; the other man in the plum-coloured suit, by her side; and both watching her intently. If she so much as rustled the folds of her hood, he could hear the ill-looking man clap his hand upon his sword, and could tell by the other's breathing (it was so dark he couldn't see his face) that he was looking as big as if he were going to devour her at a mouthful. This roused my uncle more and more, and he resolved, come what come might, to see the end of it. He had great admiration for bright eyes, and sweet faces, and pretty legs and feet; in short, he was fond of the whole sex. It runs in our family, gentlemen--so am I. "Many were the devices which my uncle practised, to attract the lady's attention, or at all events, to engage the mysterious gentlemen in conversation. They were all in vain; the gentlemen wouldn't talk, and the lady didn't dare. He thrust his head out of the coach-window at intervals, and bawled out to know why they didn't go faster? But he called till he was hoarse; nobody paid the least attention to him. He leant back in the coach, and thought of the beautiful face, and the feet and legs. This answered better; it wiled away the time, and kept him from wondering where he was going, and how it was that he found himself in such an odd situation. Not that this would have worried him much, any way--he was a mighty free and easy, roving, devil-may-care sort of person, was my uncle, gentlemen. "All of a sudden the coach stopped. 'Hallo!' said my uncle, 'what's in the wind now?' "'Alight here,' said the guard, letting down the steps. "'Here!' cried my uncle. "'Here,' rejoined the guard. "'I'll do nothing of the sort,' said my uncle. "'Very well, then stop where you are,' said the guard. "'I will,' said my uncle. "'Do,' said the guard. The other passengers had regarded this colloquy with great attention, and finding that my uncle was determined not to alight, the younger man squeezed past him to hand the lady out. At this moment the ill-looking man was inspecting the hole in the crown of his three-cornered hat. As the young lady brushed past, she dropped one of her gloves into my uncle's hand, and softly whispered, with her lips so close to his face that he felt her warm breath on his nose, the single word 'Help!' Gentlemen, my uncle leaped out of the coach at once with such violence that it rocked on the springs again. "'Oh! You've thought better of it, have you?' said the guard when he saw my uncle standing on the ground. "My uncle looked at the guard for a few seconds, in some doubt whether it wouldn't be better to wrench his blunderbuss from him, fire it in the face of the man with the big sword, knock the rest of the company over the head with the stock, snatch up the young lady, and go off in the smoke. On second thoughts, however, he abandoned this plan, as being a shade too melodramatic in the execution, and followed the two mysterious men, who, keeping the lady between them, were now entering an old house in front of which the coach had stopped. They turned into the passage, and my uncle followed. "Of all the ruinous and desolate places my uncle had ever beheld, this was the most so. It looked as if it had once been a large house of entertainment; but the roof had fallen in, in many places, and the stairs were steep, rugged, and broken. There was a huge fireplace in the room into which they walked, and the chimney was blackened with smoke; but no warm blaze lighted it up now. The white feathery dust of burnt wood was still strewed over the hearth, but the stove was cold, and all was dark and gloomy. "'Well,' said my uncle, as he looked about him, 'a mail travelling at the rate of six miles and a half an hour, and stopping for an indefinite period at such a hole as this, is rather an irregular sort of proceeding, I fancy. This shall be made known. I'll write to the papers.' "My uncle said this in a pretty loud voice, and in an open, unreserved sort of manner, with the view of engaging the two strangers in conversation if he could. But, neither of them took any more notice of him than whispering to each other, and scowling at him as they did so. The lady was at the farther end of the room, and once she ventured to wave her hand, as if beseeching my uncle's assistance. "At length the two strangers advanced a little, and the conversation began in earnest. "'You don't know this is a private room, I suppose, fellow?" said the gentleman in sky-blue. "'No, I do not, fellow,' rejoined my uncle. 'Only if this is a private room specially ordered for the occasion, I should think the public room must be a _very_ comfortable one;' with this my uncle sat himself down in a high-backed chair, and took such an accurate measure of the gentleman with his eyes, that Tiggin and Welps could have supplied him with printed calico for a suit, and not an inch too much or too little, from that estimate alone. "'Quit this room,' said both the men together, grasping their swords. "'Eh?' said my uncle, not at all appearing to comprehend their meaning. "'Quit the room, or you are a dead man,' said the ill-looking fellow with the large sword, drawing it at the same time and flourishing it in the air. "'Down with him!' cried the gentleman in sky-blue, drawing his sword also, and falling back two or three yards. 'Down with him!' The lady gave a loud scream. "Now, my uncle was always remarkable for great boldness, and great presence of mind. All the time that he had appeared so indifferent to what was going on, he had been looking slyly about, for some missile or weapon of defence, and at the very instant when the swords were drawn, he espied, standing in the chimney corner, an old basket-hilted rapier in a rusty scabbard. At one bound, my uncle caught it in his hand, drew it, flourished it gallantly above his head, called aloud to the lady to keep out of the way, hurled the chair at the man in sky-blue, and the scabbard at the man in plum-colour, and taking advantage of the confusion, fell upon them both, pell-mell. "Gentlemen, there is an old story--none the worse for being true--regarding a fine young Irish gentleman, who being asked if he could play the fiddle, replied he had no doubt he could, but he couldn't exactly say, for certain, because he had never tried. This is not inapplicable to my uncle and his fencing. He had never had a sword in his hand before, except once when he played Richard the Third at a private theatre: upon which occasion it was arranged with Richmond that he was to be run through, from behind, without showing fight at all. But here he was, cutting and slashing with two experienced swordsmen: thrusting and guarding and poking and slicing, and acquitting himself in the most manful and dexterous manner possible, although up to that time he had never been aware that he had the least notion of the science. It only shows how true the old saying is, that a man never knows what he can do, till he tries, gentlemen. "The noise of the combat was terrific; each of the three combatants swearing like troopers, and their swords clashing with as much noise as if all the knives and steels in Newport market were rattling together, at the same time. When it was at its very height, the lady (to encourage my uncle most probably) withdrew her hood entirely from her face, and disclosed a countenance of such dazzling beauty, that he would have fought against fifty men, to win one smile from it, and die. He had done wonders before, but now he began to powder away like a raving mad giant. "At this very moment, the gentleman in sky-blue turning round, and seeing the young lady with her face uncovered, vented an exclamation of rage and jealousy, and, turning his weapon against her beautiful bosom, pointed a thrust at her heart, which caused my uncle to utter a cry of apprehension that made the building ring. The lady stepped lightly aside, and snatching the young man's sword from his hand, before he had recovered his balance, drove him to the wall, and running it through him, and the panelling, up to the very hilt, pinned him there, hard and fast. It was a splendid example. My uncle, with a loud shout of triumph, and a strength that was irresistible, made his adversary retreat in the same direction, and plunging the old rapier into the very centre of a large red flower in the pattern of his waistcoat, nailed him beside his friend; there they both stood, gentlemen, jerking their arms and legs about, in agony, like the toy-shop figures that are moved by a piece of packthread. My uncle always said, afterwards, that this was one of the surest means he knew of, for disposing of an enemy; but it was liable to one objection on the ground of expense, inasmuch as it involved the loss of a sword for every man disabled. "'The mail, the mail!' cried the lady, running up to my uncle and throwing her beautiful arms round his neck; 'we may yet escape.' "'_May!_' cried my uncle; 'why, my dear, there's nobody else to kill, is there?' My uncle was rather disappointed, gentlemen, for he thought a little quiet bit of love-making would be agreeable after the slaughtering, if it were only to change the subject. "'We have not an instant to lose here,' said the young lady. 'He (pointing to the young gentleman in sky-blue) is the only son of the powerful Marquess of Filletoville.' "'Well then, my dear, I'm afraid he'll never come to the title,' said my uncle, looking coolly at the young gentleman as he stood fixed up against the wall, in the cockchafer fashion I have described. 'You have cut off the entail, my love.' "'I have been torn from my home and friends by these villains,' said the young lady, her features glowing with indignation. 'That wretch would have married me by violence in another hour.' "'Confound his impudence!' said my uncle, bestowing a very contemptuous look on the dying heir of Filletoville. "'As you may guess from what you have seen,' said the young lady, 'the party were prepared to murder me if I appealed to any one for assistance. If their accomplices find us here, we are lost. Two minutes hence may be too late. The mail!' With these words, overpowered by her feelings, and the exertion of sticking the young Marquess of Filletoville, she sunk into my uncle's arms. My uncle caught her up, and bore her to the house-door. There stood the mail, with four long-tailed, flowing-maned, black horses, ready harnessed; but no coachman, no guard, no hostler, even, at the horses' heads. "Gentlemen, I hope I do no injustice to my uncle's memory when I express my opinion, that although he was a bachelor, he _had_ held some ladies in his arms, before this time; I believe, indeed, that he had rather a habit of kissing barmaids; and I know, that in one or two instances, he had been seen, by credible witnesses, to hug a landlady in a very perceptible manner. I mention the circumstance to show what a very uncommon sort of person this beautiful young lady must have been, to have affected my uncle in the way she did; he used to say, that as her long dark hair trailed over his arm, and her beautiful dark eyes fixed themselves upon his face when she recovered, he felt so strange and nervous that his legs trembled beneath him. But, who can look in a sweet soft pair of dark eyes, without feeling queer? _I_ can't, gentlemen. I am afraid to look at some eyes I know, and that's the truth of it. "'You will never leave me?' murmured the young lady. "'Never,' said my uncle. And he meant it, too. "'My dear preserver!' exclaimed the young lady. 'My dear, kind, brave preserver!' "'Don't,' said my uncle, interrupting her. "'Why?' inquired the young lady. "'Because your mouth looks so beautiful when you speak,' rejoined my uncle, 'that I'm afraid I shall be rude enough to kiss it.' "The young lady put up her hand as if to caution my uncle not to do so, and said--no, she didn't say anything--she smiled. When you are looking at a pair of the most delicious lips in the world and see them gently break into a roguish smile--if you are very near them, and nobody else by--you cannot better testify your admiration of their beautiful form and colour than by kissing them at once. My uncle did so, and I honour him for it. "'Hark!' cried the young lady, starting. 'The noise of wheels and horses!' "'So it is,' said my uncle, listening. He had a good ear for wheels, and the trampling of hoofs; but there appeared to be so many horses and carriages rattling towards them, from a distance, that it was impossible to form a guess at their number. The sound was like that of fifty breaks, with six blood cattle in each. "'We are pursued!' cried the young lady, clasping her hands. 'We are pursued. I have no hope but in you!' "There was such an expression of terror in her beautiful face that my uncle made up his mind at once. He lifted her into the coach, told her not to be frightened, pressed his lips to hers once more, and then advising her to draw up the window to keep the cold air out, mounted the box. "'Stay, love,' cried the young lady. "'What's the matter?' said my uncle from the coach-box. "'I want to speak to you,' said the young lady; 'only a word. Only one word, dearest.' "'Must I get down?' inquired my uncle. The lady made no answer, but she smiled again. Such a smile, gentlemen! It beat the other one, all to nothing. My uncle descended from his perch in a twinkling. "'What is it, my dear?' said my uncle, looking in at the coach window. The lady happened to bend forward at the same time, and my uncle thought she looked more beautiful than she had done yet. He was very close to her just then, gentlemen, so he really ought to know. "'What is it, my dear?' said my uncle. "'Will you never love any one but me; never marry any one beside?' said the young lady. "My uncle swore a great oath that he would never marry anybody else, and the young lady drew in her head, and pulled up the window. He jumped upon the box, squared his elbows, adjusted the ribbons, seized the whip which lay on the roof, gave one flick to the off leader, and away went the four long-tailed, flowing-maned black horses, at fifteen good English miles an hour, with the old mail coach behind them. Whew! How they tore along. "The noise behind grew louder. The faster the old mail went, the faster came the pursuers--man, horses, dogs, were leagued in the pursuit. The noise was frightful, but above all rose the voice of the young lady, urging my uncle on, and shrieking, 'Faster! Faster!' "They whirled past the dark trees, as feathers would be swept before a hurricane. Houses, gates, churches, haystacks, objects of every kind they shot by, with a velocity and noise like roaring waters suddenly let loose. Still the noise of pursuit grew louder, and still my uncle could hear the young lady wildly screaming, 'Faster! Faster!' "My uncle plied whip and rein, and the horses flew onward till they were white with foam; and yet the noise behind increased; and yet the young lady cried, 'Faster! Faster!' My uncle gave a loud stamp on the boot in the energy of the moment, and--found that it was grey morning, and he was sitting in the wheelwright's yard, on the box of an old Edinburgh mail, shivering with the cold and wet, and stamping his feet to warm them! He got down, and looked eagerly inside for the beautiful young lady. Alas! There was neither door nor seat to the coach. It was a mere shell. [Illustration: "_My uncle gave a loud stamp on the boot in the energy of the moment_"] "Of course my uncle knew very well that there was some mystery in the matter, and that everything had passed exactly as he used to relate it. He remained staunch to the great oath he had sworn to the beautiful young lady: refusing several eligible landladies on her account, and dying a bachelor at last. He always said, what a curious thing it was that he should have found out, by such a mere accident as his clambering over the palings, that the ghosts of mail-coaches and horses, guards, coachmen, and passengers, were in the habit of making journeys regularly every night. He used to add, that he believed he was the only living person who had ever been taken as a passenger on one of these excursions. And I think he was right, gentlemen--at least I never heard of any other." * * * * * "I wonder what these ghosts of mail-coaches carry in their bags?" said the landlord, who had listened to the whole story with profound attention. "The dead letters, of course," said the bagman. "Oh, ah! To be sure," rejoined the landlord. "I never thought of that." CHAPTER XXII [Illustration] _How Mr. Pickwick sped upon his Mission, and how he was Reinforced in the Outset by a most unexpected Auxiliary_ The horses were put to punctually at a quarter before nine next morning, and Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller having each taken his seat, the one inside and the other out, the postilion was duly directed to repair in the first instance to Mr. Bob Sawyer's house for the purpose of taking up Mr. Benjamin Allen. It was with feelings of no small astonishment, when the carriage drew up before the door with the red lamp, and the very legible inscription of "Sawyer, late Nockemorf," that Mr. Pickwick saw, on popping his head out of the coach window, the boy in the grey livery very busily engaged in putting up the shutters: the which, being an unusual and un-business-like proceeding at that hour in the morning, at once suggested to his mind two inferences; the one, that some good friend and patient of Mr. Bob Sawyer's was dead; the other, that Mr. Bob Sawyer himself was bankrupt. "What is the matter?" said Mr. Pickwick to the boy. "Nothing's the matter, sir," replied the boy, expanding his mouth to the whole breadth of his countenance. "All right, all right!" cried Bob Sawyer, suddenly appearing at the door with a small leathern knapsack, limp and dirty, in one hand, and a rough coat and shawl thrown over the other arm. "I'm going, old fellow." "You!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. "Yes," replied Bob Sawyer, "and a regular expedition we'll make of it. Here, Sam! Look out!" Thus briefly bespeaking Mr. Weller's attention, Mr. Bob Sawyer jerked the leathern knapsack into the dickey, where it was immediately stowed away, under the seat, by Sam, who regarded the proceeding with great admiration. This done, Mr. Bob Sawyer, with the assistance of the boy, forcibly worked himself into a rough coat, which was a few sizes too small for him, and then advancing to the coach window thrust in his head, and laughed boisterously. "What a start it is, isn't it?" cried Bob, wiping the tears out of his eyes, with one of the cuffs of the rough coat. "My dear sir," said Mr. Pickwick, with some embarrassment, "I had no idea of your accompanying us." "No, that's just the very thing," replied Bob, seizing Mr. Pickwick by the lappel of the coat. "That's the joke." "Oh, that's the joke?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Of course," replied Bob. "It's the whole point of the thing, you know--that, and leaving the business to take care of itself, as it seems to have made up its mind not to take care of me." With this explanation of the phenomenon of the shutters, Mr. Bob Sawyer pointed to the shop, and relapsed into an ecstasy of mirth. "Bless me, you are surely not mad enough to think of leaving your patients without anybody to attend them!" remonstrated Mr. Pickwick in a very serious tone. "Why not?" asked Bob, in reply. "I shall save by it, you know. None of them ever pay. Besides," said Bob, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper, "they will be all the better for it; for, being nearly out of drugs, and not able to increase my account just now, I should have been obliged to give them calomel all round, and it would have been certain to have disagreed with some of them. So it's all for the best." There was a philosophy, and a strength of reasoning, about this reply, which Mr. Pickwick was not prepared for. He paused a few moments, and added, less firmly than before: "But this chaise, my young friend, will only hold two; and I am pledged to Mr. Allen." "Don't think of me for a minute," replied Bob. "I've arranged it all; Sam and I will share the dickey between us. Look here. This little bill is to be wafered on the shop door: 'Sawyer, late Nockemorf. Inquire of Mrs. Cripps, over the way.' Mrs. Cripps is my boy's mother. 'Mr. Sawyer's very sorry,' says Mrs. Cripps, 'couldn't help it--fetched away early this morning to a consultation of the very first surgeons in the country--couldn't do without him--would have him at any price--tremendous operation.' The fact is," said Bob in conclusion, "it'll do me more good than otherwise, I expect. If it gets into one of the local papers, it will be the making of me. Here's Ben; now then, jump in!" With these hurried words Mr. Bob Sawyer pushed the postboy on one side, jerked his friend into the vehicle, slammed the door, put up the steps, wafered the bill on the street door, locked it, put the key in his pocket, jumped into the dickey, gave the word for starting, and did the whole with such extraordinary precipitation, that before Mr. Pickwick had well begun to consider whether Mr. Bob Sawyer ought to go or not, they were rolling away, with Mr. Bob Sawyer thoroughly established as part and parcel of the equipage. So long as their progress was confined to the streets of Bristol, the facetious Bob kept his professional green spectacles on, and conducted himself with becoming steadiness and gravity of demeanour; merely giving utterance to divers verbal witticisms for the exclusive behoof and entertainment of Mr. Samuel Weller. But when they emerged on the open road, he threw off his green spectacles and his gravity together, and performed a great variety of practical jokes, which were calculated to attract the attention of the passers-by, and to render the carriage and those it contained objects of more than ordinary curiosity; the least conspicuous among these feats being, a most vociferous imitation of a key-bugle, and the ostentatious display of a crimson silk pocket-handkerchief attached to a walking-stick, which was occasionally waved in the air with various gestures indicative of supremacy and defiance. "I wonder," said Mr. Pickwick, stopping in the midst of a most sedate conversation with Ben Allen, bearing reference to the numerous good qualities of Mr. Winkle and his sister: "I wonder what all the people we pass can see in us to make them stare so?" "It's a neat turn-out," replied Ben Allen, with something of pride in his tone. "They're not used to see this sort of thing every day, I daresay." "Possibly," replied Mr. Pickwick. "It may be so. Perhaps it is." Mr. Pickwick might very probably have reasoned himself into the belief that it really was: had he not, just then happening to look out of the coach window, observed that the looks of the passengers betokened anything but respectful astonishment, and that various telegraphic communications appeared to be passing between them and some persons outside the vehicle: whereupon it occurred to him that these demonstrations might be, in some remote degree, referable to the humorous deportment of Mr. Robert Sawyer. "I hope," said Mr. Pickwick, "that our volatile friend is committing no absurdities in that dickey behind?" "Oh dear no," replied Ben Allen. "Except when he's elevated, Bob's the quietest creature breathing." Here a prolonged imitation of a key-bugle broke upon the ear, succeeded by cheers and screams, all of which evidently proceeded from the throat and lungs of the quietest creature breathing, or in plainer designation, of Mr. Bob Sawyer himself. Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Ben Allen looked expressively at each other, and the former gentleman taking off his hat, and leaning out of the coach window until nearly the whole of his waistcoat was outside it, was at length enabled to catch a glimpse of his facetious friend. Mr. Bob Sawyer was seated: not in the dickey, but on the roof of the chaise, with his legs as far asunder as they would conveniently go, wearing Mr. Samuel Weller's hat on one side of his head, and bearing, in one hand, a most enormous sandwich, while, in the other, he supported a goodly-sized case-bottle, to both of which he applied himself with intense relish: varying the monotony of the occupation by an occasional howl, or the interchange of some lively badinage with any passing stranger. The crimson flag was carefully tied in an erect position to the rail of the dickey; and Mr. Samuel Weller, decorated with Bob Sawyer's hat, was seated in the centre thereof, discussing a twin sandwich, with an animated countenance, the expression of which betokened his entire and perfect approval of the whole arrangement. This was enough to irritate a gentleman of Mr. Pickwick's sense of propriety, but it was not the whole extent of the aggravation, for a stage-coach, full inside and out, was meeting them at the moment, and the astonishment of the passengers was very palpably evinced. The congratulations of an Irish family, too, who were keeping up with the chaise, and begging all the time, were of a rather boisterous description; especially those of its male head, who appeared to consider the display as part and parcel of some political or other procession of triumph. "Mr. Sawyer!" cried Mr. Pickwick, in a state of great excitement. "Mr. Sawyer, sir!" "Hallo!" responded that gentleman, looking over the side of the chaise with all the coolness in life. "Are you mad, sir?" demanded Mr. Pickwick. "Not a bit of it," replied Bob; "only cheerful." "Cheerful, sir!" ejaculated Mr. Pickwick. "Take down that scandalous red handkerchief, I beg. I insist, sir. Sam, take it down." Before Sam could interpose, Mr. Bob Sawyer gracefully struck his colours, and having put them in his pocket, nodded in a courteous manner to Mr. Pickwick, wiped the mouth of the case-bottle, and applied it to his own; thereby informing him, without any unnecessary waste of words, that he devoted that draught to wishing him all manner of happiness and prosperity. Having done this, Bob replaced the cork with great care, and looking benignantly down on Mr. Pickwick, took a large bite out of the sandwich, and smiled. "Come," said Mr. Pickwick, whose momentary anger was not quite proof against Bob's immovable self-possession, "pray let us have no more of this absurdity." "No, no," replied Bob, once more exchanging hats with Mr. Weller; "I didn't mean to do it, only I got so enlivened with the ride that I couldn't help it." "Think of the look of the thing," expostulated Mr. Pickwick; "have some regard to appearances." "Oh, certainly," said Bob, "it's not the sort of thing at all. All over, governor." Satisfied with this assurance, Mr. Pickwick once more drew his head into the chaise and pulled up the glass; but he had scarcely resumed the conversation which Mr. Bob Sawyer had interrupted, when he was somewhat startled by the apparition of a small dark body, of an oblong form, on the outside of the window, which gave sundry taps against it, as if impatient of admission. "What's this?" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. "It looks like a case-bottle;" remarked Ben Allen, eyeing the object in question through his spectacles with some interest; "I rather think it belongs to Bob." The impression was perfectly accurate; for Mr. Bob Sawyer, having attached the case-bottle to the end of the walking-stick, was battering the window with it in token of his wish that his friends inside would partake of its contents, in all good fellowship and harmony. "What's to be done?" said Mr. Pickwick, looking at the bottle. "This proceeding is more absurd than the other." "I think it would be best to take it in," replied Mr. Ben Allen; "it would serve him right to take it and keep it, wouldn't it?" "It would," said Mr. Pickwick: "shall I?" "I think it the most proper course we could possibly adopt," replied Ben. This advice quite coinciding with his own opinion, Mr. Pickwick gently let down the window and disengaged the bottle from the stick: upon which the latter was drawn up, and Mr. Bob Sawyer was heard to laugh heartily. "What a merry dog it is!" said Mr. Pickwick, looking round at his companion with the bottle in his hand. "He is," said Mr. Allen. "You cannot possibly be angry with him," remarked Mr. Pickwick. "Quite out of the question," observed Benjamin Allen. During this short interchange of sentiments, Mr. Pickwick had, in an abstracted mood, uncorked the bottle. "What is it?" inquired Ben Allen, carelessly. "I don't know," replied Mr. Pickwick, with equal carelessness. "It smells, I think, like milk-punch." "Oh, indeed?" said Ben. "I _think_ so," rejoined Mr. Pickwick, very properly guarding himself against the possibility of stating an untruth: "mind, I could not undertake to say certainly, without tasting it." "You had better do so," said Ben, "we may as well know what it is." "Do you think so?" replied Mr. Pickwick. "Well; if you are curious to know, of course I have no objection." Ever willing to sacrifice his own feelings to the wishes of his friend, Mr. Pickwick at once took a pretty long taste. "What is it?" inquired Ben Allen, interrupting him with some impatience. "Curious," said Mr. Pickwick, smacking his lips, "I hardly know now. Oh yes!" said Mr. Pickwick, after a second taste. "It _is_ punch." Mr. Ben Allen looked at Mr. Pickwick; Mr. Pickwick looked at Mr. Ben Allen; Mr. Ben Allen smiled; Mr. Pickwick did not. "It would serve him right," said the last-named gentleman, with some severity, "it would serve him right to drink it every drop." "The very thing that occurred to me," said Ben Allen. "Is it indeed?" rejoined Mr. Pickwick. "Then here's his health!" With these words, that excellent person took a most energetic pull at the bottle, and handed it to Ben Allen, who was not slow to imitate his example. The smiles became mutual, and the milk-punch was gradually and cheerfully disposed of. "After all," said Mr. Pickwick, as he drained the last drop, "his pranks are really very amusing: very entertaining indeed." "You may say that," rejoined Mr. Ben Allen. In proof of Bob Sawyer's being one of the funniest fellows alive, he proceeded to entertain Mr. Pickwick with a long and circumstantial account how that gentleman once drank himself into a fever and got his head shaved; the relation of which pleasant and agreeable history was only stopped by the stoppage of the chaise at the Bell at Berkeley Heath, to change horses. "I say! We're going to dine here, aren't we?" said Bob, looking in at the window. "Dine!" said Mr. Pickwick. "Why, we have only come nineteen miles, and have eighty-seven and a half to go." "Just the reason why we should take something to enable us to bear up against the fatigue," remonstrated Mr. Bob Sawyer. "Oh, it's quite impossible to dine at half-past eleven o'clock in the day," replied Mr. Pickwick, looking at his watch. "So it is," rejoined Bob, "lunch is the very thing. Hallo, you sir! Lunch for three, directly, and keep the horses back for a quarter of an hour. Tell them to put everything they have cold on the table and some bottled ale, and let us taste your very best Madeira." Issuing these orders with monstrous importance and bustle, Mr. Bob Sawyer at once hurried into the house to superintend the arrangements; in less than five minutes he returned and declared them to be excellent. The quality of the lunch fully justified the eulogium which Bob had pronounced, and very great justice was done to it, not only by that gentleman, but Mr. Ben Allen and Mr. Pickwick also. Under the auspices of the three, the bottled ale and the Madeira were promptly disposed of; and when (the horses being once more put to) they resumed their seats, with the case-bottle full of the best substitute for milk-punch that could be procured on so short a notice, the key-bugle sounded, and the red flag waved, without the slightest opposition on Mr. Pickwick's part. At the Hop Pole at Tewkesbury, they stopped to dine; upon which occasion there was more bottled ale, with some more Madeira, and some port besides; and here the case-bottle was replenished for the third time. Under the influence of these combined stimulants, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Ben Allen fell fast asleep for thirty miles, while Bob and Mr. Weller sang duets in the dickey. It was quite dark when Mr. Pickwick roused himself sufficiently to look out of the window. The straggling cottages by the roadside, the dingy hue of every object visible, the murky atmosphere, the paths of cinders and brick-dust, the deep-red glow of furnace fires in the distance, the volumes of dense smoke issuing heavily forth from the high toppling chimneys, blackening and obscuring everything around; the glare of distant lights, the ponderous waggons which toiled along the road, laden with clashing rods of iron, or piled with heavy goods--all betokened their rapid approach to the great working town of Birmingham. As they rattled through the narrow thoroughfares leading to the heart of the turmoil, the sights and sounds of earnest occupation struck more forcibly on the senses. The streets were thronged with working-people. The hum of labour resounded from every house, lights gleamed from the long casement windows in the attic stories, and the whirl of wheels and noise of machinery shook the trembling walls. The fires, whose lurid, sullen light had been visible for miles, blazed fiercely up, in the great works and factories of the town. The din of hammers, the rushing of steam, and the dead heavy clanking of engines, was the harsh music which arose from every quarter. The postboy was driving briskly through the open streets, and past the handsome and well-lighted shops which intervene between the outskirts of the town and the Old Royal Hotel, before Mr. Pickwick had begun to consider the very difficult and delicate nature of the commission which had carried him thither. The delicate nature of this commission, and the difficulty of executing it in a satisfactory manner, were by no means lessened by the voluntary companionship of Mr. Bob Sawyer. Truth to tell, Mr. Pickwick felt that his presence on the occasion, however considerate and gratifying, was by no means an honour he would willingly have sought; in fact, he would cheerfully have given a reasonable sum of money to have had Mr. Bob Sawyer removed to any place at not less than fifty miles distance, without delay. Mr. Pickwick had never held any personal communication with Mr. Winkle senior, although he had once or twice corresponded with him by letter, and returned satisfactory answers to his inquiries concerning the moral character and behaviour of his son; he felt nervously sensible that to wait upon him, for the first time, attended by Bob Sawyer and Ben Allen, both slightly fuddled, was not the most ingenious and likely means that could have been hit upon to prepossess him in his favour. "However," said Mr. Pickwick, endeavouring to reassure himself, "I must do the best I can. I must see him to-night, for I faithfully promised to do so. If they persist in accompanying me, I must make the interview as brief as possible, and be content to hope that, for their own sakes, they will not expose themselves." As he comforted himself with these reflections, the chaise stopped at the door of the Old Royal. Ben Allen having been partially awakened from a stupendous sleep, and dragged out by the collar by Mr. Samuel Weller, Mr. Pickwick was enabled to alight. They were shown to a comfortable apartment, and Mr. Pickwick at once propounded a question to the waiter concerning the whereabout of Mr. Winkle's residence. "Close by, sir," said the waiter, "not above five hundred yards, sir. Mr. Winkle is a wharfinger, sir, at the canal, sir. Private residence is not--oh dear no, sir, _not_ five hundred yards, sir." Here the waiter blew a candle out, and made a feint of lighting it again, in order to afford Mr. Pickwick an opportunity of asking any further questions, if he felt so disposed. "Take anything now, sir?" said the waiter, lighting the candle in desperation at Mr. Pickwick's silence. "Tea or coffee, sir? Dinner, sir?" "Nothing now." "Very good, sir. Like to order supper, sir?" "Not just now." "_Very_ good, sir." Here, he walked softly to the door, and then stopping short, turned round and said, with great suavity: "Shall I send the chambermaid, gentlemen?" "You may, if you please," replied Mr. Pickwick. "If _you_ please, sir." "And bring some soda water," said Bob Sawyer. "Soda water, sir? Yes, sir." With his mind apparently relieved from an overwhelming weight, by having at last got an order for something, the waiter imperceptibly melted away. Waiters never walk or run. They have a peculiar and mysterious power of skimming out of rooms, which other mortals possess not. Some slight symptoms of vitality having been awakened in Mr. Ben Allen by the soda water, he suffered himself to be prevailed upon to wash his face and hands, and to submit to be brushed by Sam. Mr. Pickwick and Bob Sawyer having also repaired the disorder which the journey had made in their apparel, the three started forth, arm in arm, to Mr. Winkle's; Bob Sawyer impregnating the atmosphere with tobacco smoke as he walked along. About a quarter of a mile off, in a quiet, substantial-looking street, stood an old red-brick house with three steps before the door, and a brass plate upon it, bearing, in fat Roman capitals, the words, "Mr. Winkle." The steps were very white, and the bricks were very red, and the house was very clean; and here stood Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Benjamin Allen, and Mr. Bob Sawyer, as the clock struck ten. A smart servant girl answered the door, and started on beholding the three strangers. "Is Mr. Winkle at home, my dear?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "He is just going to supper, sir," replied the girl. "Give him that card, if you please," rejoined Mr. Pickwick. "Say I am sorry to trouble him at so late an hour; but I am anxious to see him to-night, and have only just arrived." The girl looked timidly at Mr. Bob Sawyer, who was expressing his admiration of her personal charms by a variety of wonderful grimaces; and casting an eye at the hats and great-coats which hung in the passage, called another girl to mind the door while she went upstairs. The sentinel was speedily relieved; for the girl returned immediately, and begging pardon of the gentlemen for leaving them in the street, ushered them into a floor-clothed back parlour, half office and half dressing-room, in which the principal useful and ornamental articles of furniture were a desk, a wash-hand stand and shaving glass, a boot-rack and boot-jack, a high stool, four chairs, a table, and an old eight-day clock. Over the mantelpiece were the sunken doors of an iron safe, while a couple of hanging shelves for books, an almanack, and several files of dusty papers, decorated the walls. "Very sorry to leave you standing at the door, sir," said the girl, lighting a lamp, and addressing Mr. Pickwick with a winning smile, "but you was quite strangers to me; and we have such a many trampers that only come to see what they can lay their hands on, that really----" "There is not the least occasion for any apology, my dear," said Mr. Pickwick, good-humouredly. "Not the slightest, my love," said Bob Sawyer, playfully stretching forth his arms, and skipping from side to side, as if to prevent the young lady's leaving the room. The young lady was not at all softened by these allurements, for she at once expressed her opinion that Mr. Bob Sawyer was an "odous creetur;" and, on his becoming rather more pressing in his attentions, imprinted her fair fingers upon his face, and bounced out of the room with many expressions of aversion and contempt. Deprived of the young lady's society, Mr. Bob Sawyer proceeded to divert himself by peeping into the desk, looking into all the table-drawers, feigning to pick the lock of the iron safe, turning the almanack with its face to the wall, trying on the boots of Mr. Winkle senior over his own, and making several other humorous experiments upon the furniture, all of which afforded Mr. Pickwick unspeakable horror and agony, and yielded Mr. Bob Sawyer proportionate delight. At length the door opened, and a little old gentleman in a snuff-coloured suit, with a head and face the precise counterpart of those belonging to Mr. Winkle junior, excepting that he was rather bald, trotted into the room with Mr. Pickwick's card in one hand, and a silver candlestick in the other. "Mr. Pickwick, sir, how do you do?" said Winkle the elder, putting down the candlestick and proffering his hand. "Hope I see you well, sir? Glad to see you. Be seated, Mr. Pickwick, I beg, sir. This gentleman is----" "My friend, Mr. Sawyer," interposed Mr. Pickwick, "your son's friend." "Oh," said Mr. Winkle the elder, looking rather grimly at Bob. "I hope _you_ are well, sir?" "Right as a trivet, sir," replied Bob Sawyer. [Illustration: _Mr. Winkle senior_] "This other gentleman," cried Mr. Pickwick, "is, as you will see, when you have read the letter with which I am entrusted, a very near relative or, I should rather say, a very particular friend of your son's. His name is Allen." "_That_ gentleman?" inquired Mr. Winkle, pointing with the card towards Ben Allen, who had fallen asleep in an attitude which left nothing of him visible but his spine and his coat collar. Mr. Pickwick was on the point of replying to the question, and reciting Mr. Benjamin Allen's name and honourable distinctions at full length, when the sprightly Mr. Bob Sawyer, with a view of rousing his friend to a sense of his situation, inflicted a startling pinch upon the fleshy part of his arm, which caused him to jump up with a shriek. Suddenly aware that he was in the presence of a stranger, Mr. Ben Allen advanced and, shaking Mr. Winkle most affectionately by both hands for about five minutes, murmured, in some half-intelligible fragments of sentences, the great delight he felt in seeing him, and a hospitable inquiry whether he felt disposed to take anything after his walk, or would prefer waiting "till dinner time;" which done, he sat down and gazed about him with a petrified stare, as if he had not the remotest idea where he was, which indeed he had not. All this was most embarrassing to Mr. Pickwick, the more especially as Mr. Winkle senior evinced palpable astonishment at the eccentric--not to say extraordinary--behaviour of his two companions. To bring the matter to an issue at once, he drew a letter from his pocket, and presenting it to Mr. Winkle senior, said: "This letter, sir, is from your son. You will see, by its contents, that on your favourable and fatherly consideration of it, depend his future happiness and welfare. Will you oblige me by giving it the calmest and coolest perusal, and by discussing the subject afterwards with me, in the tone and spirit in which alone it ought to be discussed? You may judge of the importance of your decision to your son, and his intense anxiety upon the subject, by my waiting upon you without any previous warning, at so late an hour; and," added Mr. Pickwick, glancing slightly at his two companions, "and under such unfavourable circumstances." With this prelude, Mr. Pickwick placed four closely written sides of extra superfine wire-woven penitence in the hands of the astounded Mr. Winkle senior. Then reseating himself in his chair, he watched his looks and manner: anxiously, it is true, but with the open front of a gentleman who feels he has taken no part which he need excuse or palliate. The old wharfinger turned the letter over; looked at the front, back, and sides; made a microscopic examination of the fat little boy on the seal; raised his eyes to Mr. Pickwick's face; and then, seating himself on the high stool, and drawing the lamp closer to him, broke the wax, unfolded the epistle, and lifting it to the light, he prepared to read. Just at this moment, Mr. Bob Sawyer, whose wit had lain dormant for some minutes, placed his hands upon his knees, and made a face after the portrait of the late Mr. Grimaldi, as clown. It so happened that Mr. Winkle senior, instead of being deeply engaged in reading the letter, as Mr. Bob Sawyer thought, chanced to be looking over the top of it at no less a person than Mr. Bob Sawyer himself; rightly conjecturing that the face aforesaid was made in ridicule and derision of his own person, he fixed his eyes on Bob with such expressive sternness, that the late Mr. Grimaldi's lineaments gradually resolved themselves into a very fine expression of humility and confusion. "Did you speak, sir?" inquired Mr. Winkle senior, after an awful silence. "No, sir," replied Bob, with no remains of the clown about him, save and except the extreme redness of his cheeks. "You are sure you did not, sir?" said Mr. Winkle senior. "Oh dear yes, sir, quite," replied Bob. "I thought you did, sir," rejoined the old gentleman, with indignant emphasis. "Perhaps you _looked_ at me, sir?" "Oh no, sir! not at all," replied Bob, with extreme civility. "I am very glad to hear it, sir," said Mr. Winkle senior. Having frowned upon the abashed Bob with great magnificence, the old gentleman again brought the letter to the light, and began to read it seriously. Mr. Pickwick eyed him intently as he turned from the bottom line of the first page to the top line of the second, and from the bottom of the second to the top of the third, and from the bottom of the third to the top of the fourth; but not the slightest alteration of countenance afforded a clue to the feelings with which he received the announcement of his son's marriage, which Mr. Pickwick knew was in the very first half-dozen lines. He read the letter to the last word; folded it again with all the carefulness and precision of a man of business; and, just when Mr. Pickwick expected some great outbreak of feeling, dipped a pen in the inkstand, and said as quietly as if he were speaking on the most ordinary counting-house topic: "What is Nathaniel's address, Mr. Pickwick?" "The George and Vulture, at present," replied that gentleman. "George and Vulture. Where is that?" "George Yard, Lombard Street." "In the City?" "Yes." The old gentleman methodically indorsed the address on the back of the letter; and then, placing it in the desk, which he locked, said as he got off the stool and placed the bunch of keys in his pocket: "I suppose there is nothing else which need detain us, Mr. Pickwick?" "Nothing else, my dear sir!" observed that warm-hearted person in indignant amazement. "Nothing else! Have you no opinion to express on this momentous event in our young friend's life? No assurance to convey to him, through me, of the continuance of your affection and protection? Nothing to say which will cheer and sustain him, and the anxious girl who looks to him for comfort and support? My dear sir, consider." "I will consider," replied the old gentleman. "I have nothing to say just now. I am a man of business, Mr. Pickwick. I never commit myself hastily in any affair, and from what I see of this, I by no means like the appearance of it. A thousand pounds is not much, Mr. Pickwick." "You're very right, sir," interposed Ben Allen, just awake enough to know that he had spent _his_ thousand pounds without the smallest difficulty. "You're an intelligent man. Bob, he's a very knowing fellow this." "I am very happy to find that _you_ do me the justice to make the admission, sir," said Mr. Winkle senior, looking contemptuously at Ben Allen, who was shaking his head profoundly. "The fact is, Mr. Pickwick, that when I gave my son a roving license for a year or so, to see something of men and manners (which he has done under your auspices), so that he might not enter into life a mere boarding-school milk-sop to be gulled by everybody, I never bargained for this. He knows that, very well, so if I withdraw my countenance from him on this account, he has no call to be surprised. He shall hear from me, Mr. Pickwick. Good night, sir. Margaret, open the door." All this time, Bob Sawyer had been nudging Mr. Ben Allen to say something on the right side; Ben accordingly now burst, without the slightest preliminary notice, into a brief but impassioned piece of eloquence. "Sir," said Mr. Ben Allen, staring at the old gentleman, out of a pair of very dim and languid eyes, and working his right arm vehemently up and down, "you--you ought to be ashamed of yourself." "As the lady's brother, of course you are an excellent judge of the question," retorted Mr. Winkle senior. "There; that's enough. Pray say no more, Mr. Pickwick. Good night, gentlemen!" With these words the old gentleman took up the candlestick, and opening the room door, politely motioned towards the passage. "You will regret this, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, setting his teeth close together to keep down his choler; for he felt how important the effect might prove to his young friend. "I am at present of a different opinion," calmly replied Mr. Winkle senior. "Once again, gentlemen, I wish you a good night." Mr. Pickwick walked, with angry strides, into the street. Mr. Bob Sawyer, completely quelled by the decision of the old gentleman's manner, took the same course. Mr. Ben Allen's hat rolled down the steps immediately afterwards, and Mr. Ben Allen's body followed it directly. The whole party went silent and supperless to bed; and Mr. Pickwick thought, just before he fell asleep, that if he had known Mr. Winkle senior had been quite so much of a man of business, it was extremely probable he might never have waited upon him, on such an errand. CHAPTER XXIII [Illustration] _In which Mr. Pickwick encounters an old Acquaintance. To which fortunate Circumstance the Reader is mainly indebted for Matter of thrilling Interest herein set down, concerning two great Public Men of Might and Power_ The morning which broke upon Mr. Pickwick's sight, at eight o'clock, was not at all calculated to elevate his spirits, or to lessen the depression which the unlooked-for result of his embassy inspired. The sky was dark and gloomy, the air was damp and raw, the streets were wet and sloppy. The smoke hung sluggishly above the chimney-tops as if it lacked the courage to rise, and the rain came slowly and doggedly down, as if it had not even the spirit to pour. A game-cock in the stable-yard, deprived of every spark of his accustomed animation, balanced himself dismally on one leg in a corner; a donkey, moping with drooping head under the narrow roof of an outhouse, appeared from his meditative and miserable countenance to be contemplating suicide. In the street, umbrellas were the only things to be seen, and the clicking of pattens and splashing of rain-drops, were the only sounds to be heard. The breakfast was interrupted by very little conversation; even Mr. Bob Sawyer felt the influence of the weather, and the previous day's excitement. In his own expressive language he was "floored." So was Mr. Ben Allen. So was Mr. Pickwick. In protracted expectation of the weather clearing up, the last evening paper from London was read and re-read with an intensity of interest only known in cases of extreme destitution; every inch of the carpet was walked over, with similar perseverance; the windows were looked out of, often enough to justify the imposition of an additional duty upon them; all kinds of topics of conversation were started and failed; and at length Mr. Pickwick, when noon had arrived, without a change for the better, rang the bell resolutely and ordered out the chaise. Although the roads were miry, and the drizzling rain came down harder than it had done yet, and although the mud and wet splashed in at the open windows of the carriage to such an extent that the discomfort was almost as great to the pair of insides as to the pair of outsides, still there was something in the motion, and the sense of being up and doing, which was so infinitely superior to being pent in a dull room, looking at the dull rain dripping into a dull street, that they all agreed, on starting, that the change was a great improvement, and wondered how they could possibly have delayed making it, as long as they had done. When they stopped to change at Coventry, the steam ascended from the horses in such clouds as wholly to obscure the hostler, whose voice was however heard to declare from the mist, that he expected the first Gold Medal from the Humane Society on their next distribution of rewards, for taking the postboy's hat off; the water descending from the brim of which the invisible gentleman declared must inevitably have drowned him (the postboy), but for his great presence of mind in tearing it promptly from his head, and drying the gasping man's countenance with a wisp of straw. "This is pleasant," said Bob Sawyer, turning up his coat collar, and pulling the shawl over his mouth to concentrate the fumes of a glass of brandy just swallowed. "Wery," replied Sam, composedly. "You don't seem to mind it?" observed Bob. "Vy, I don't exactly see no good my mindin' on it 'ud do, sir," replied Sam. "That's an unanswerable reason, anyhow," said Bob. "Yes, sir," rejoined Mr. Weller. "Wotever is, is right, as the young nobleman sveetly remarked ven they put him down in the pension list 'cos his mother's uncle's vife's grandfather vunce lit the king's pipe vith a portable tinder-box." "Not a bad notion that, Sam," said Mr. Bob Sawyer, approvingly. "Just wot the young nobleman said ev'ry quarter-day arterward for the rest of his life," replied Mr. Weller. "Wos you ever called in," inquired Sam, glancing at the driver, after a short silence, and lowering his voice to a mysterious whisper, "wos you ever called in, ven you wos 'prentice to a sawbones, to wisit a postboy?" "I don't remember that I ever was," replied Bob Sawyer. "You never see a postboy in that 'ere hospital as you _walked_ (as they says o' the ghosts), did you?" demanded Sam. "No," replied Bob Sawyer. "I don't think I ever did." "Never know'd a churchyard vere there wos a postboy's tombstone, or see a dead postboy, did you?" inquired Sam, pursuing his catechism. "No," rejoined Bob, "I never did." "No!" rejoined Sam, triumphantly. "Nor never vill; and there's another thing that no man never see, and that's a dead donkey. No man never see a dead donkey, 'cept the gen'l'm'n in the black silk smalls as know'd a young 'ooman as kep' a goat; and that wos a French donkey, so wery likely he warn't vun o' the reg'lar breed." "Well, what has that got to do with the postboys?" asked Bob Sawyer. "This here," replied Sam. "Without goin' so far as to as-sert, as some wery sensible people do, that postboys and donkeys is both immortal, wot I say is this; that venever they feels theirselves gettin' stiff and past their work, they just rides off together, vun postboy to a pair in the usual way; wot becomes on 'em nobody knows, but it's wery probable as they starts avay to take their pleasure in some other world, for there ain't a man alive as ever see, either a donkey or a postboy, a takin' his pleasure in this!" Expatiating upon this learned and remarkable theory, and citing many curious statistical and other facts in its support, Sam Weller beguiled the time until they reached Dunchurch, where a dry postboy and fresh horses were procured; the next stage was Daventry, and the next Towcester; and at the end of each stage it rained harder than it had done at the beginning. "I say," remonstrated Bob Sawyer, looking in at the coach window, as they rolled up before the door of the Saracen's Head, Towcester, "this won't do, you know." "Bless me!" said Mr. Pickwick, just awakening from a nap, "I'm afraid you're wet." "Oh you are, are you?" returned Bob. "Yes, I am, a little that way. Uncomfortably damp, perhaps." Bob did look dampish, inasmuch as the rain was streaming from his neck, elbows, cuffs, skirts, and knees; and his whole apparel shone so with the wet, that it might have been mistaken for a full suit of prepared oilskin. "I _am_ rather wet," said Bob, giving himself a shake, and casting a little hydraulic shower around, like a Newfoundland dog just emerged from the water. "I think it's quite impossible to go on to-night," interposed Ben. "Out of the question, sir," remarked Sam Weller, coming to assist in the conference; "it's cruelty to animals, sir, to ask 'em to do it. There's beds here, sir," said Sam, addressing his master, "everything clean and comfortable. Wery good little dinner, sir, they can get ready in half-an-hour--pair of fowls, sir, and a weal cutlet; French beans, 'taturs, tart, and tidiness. You'd better stop vere you are sir, if I might recommend. Take advice, sir, as the doctor said." The host of the Saracen's Head opportunely appeared at this moment, to confirm Mr. Weller's statement relative to the accommodations of the establishment, and to back his entreaties with a variety of dismal conjectures regarding the state of the roads, the doubt of fresh horses being to be had at the next stage, the dead certainty of its raining all night, the equally mortal certainty of its clearing up in the morning, and other topics of inducement familiar to innkeepers. "Well," said Mr. Pickwick; "but I must send a letter to London by some conveyance, so that it may be delivered the very first thing in the morning, or I must go forward at all hazards." The landlord smiled his delight. Nothing could be easier than for the gentleman to inclose a letter in a sheet of brown paper, and send it on, either by the mail or the night coach from Birmingham. If the gentleman were particularly anxious to have it left as soon as possible, he might write outside, "To be delivered immediately," which was sure to be attended to; or "Pay the bearer half-a-crown extra for instant delivery," which was surer still. "Very well," said Mr. Pickwick, "then we will stop here." "Lights in the Sun, John; make up the fire; the gentlemen are wet!" cried the landlord. "This way, gentlemen; don't trouble yourselves about the postboy now, sir. I'll send him to you when you ring for him, sir. Now, John, the candles." The candles were brought, the fire was stirred up, and a fresh log of wood thrown on. In ten minutes' time, a waiter was laying the cloth for dinner, the curtains were drawn, the fire was blazing brightly, and everything looked (as everything always does, in all decent English inns) as if the travellers had been expected, and their comforts prepared, for days beforehand. Mr. Pickwick sat down at a side table, and hastily indited a note to Mr. Winkle, merely informing him that he was detained by stress of weather, but would certainly be in London next day; until when he deferred any account of his proceedings. This note was hastily made into a parcel, and dispatched to the bar per Mr. Samuel Weller. Sam left it with the landlady, and was returning to pull his master's boots off, after drying himself by the kitchen fire, when, glancing casually through a half-opened door, he was arrested by the sight of a gentleman with a sandy head who had a large bundle of newspapers lying on the table before him, and was perusing the leading article of one with a settled sneer which curled up his nose and all his other features into a majestic expression of haughty contempt. "Hallo!" said Sam, "I ought to know that 'ere head and them features; the eye-glass, too, and the broad-brimmed tile! Eatansvill to vit, or I'm a Roman." Sam was taken with a troublesome cough, at once, for the purpose of attracting the gentleman's attention; the gentleman starting at the sound, raised his head and his eye-glass, and disclosed to view the profound and thoughtful features of Mr. Pott, of the _Eatanswill Gazette_. "Beggin' your pardon, sir," said Sam, advancing with a bow, "my master's here, Mr. Pott." "Hush, hush!" cried Pott, drawing Sam into the room, and closing the door, with a countenance of mysterious dread and apprehension. "Wot's the matter, sir?" inquired Sam, looking vacantly about him. "Not a whisper of my name," replied Pott; "this is a buff neighbourhood. If the excited and irritable populace knew I was here, I should be torn to pieces." "No! Vould you, sir?" inquired Sam. "I should be the victim of their fury," replied Pott. "Now, young man, what of your master?" "He's a stopping here to-night on his vay to town, vith a couple of friends," replied Sam. "Is Mr. Winkle one of them?" inquired Pott, with a slight frown. "No, sir. Mr. Vinkle stops at home now," rejoined Sam. "He's married." "Married!" exclaimed Pott, with frightful vehemence. He stopped, smiled darkly, and added, in a low, vindictive tone: "It serves him right!" Having given vent to this cruel ebullition of deadly malice and cold-blooded triumph over a fallen enemy, Mr. Pott inquired whether Mr. Pickwick's friends were "blue"? Receiving a most satisfactory answer in the affirmative from Sam, who knew as much about the matter as Pott himself, he consented to accompany him to Mr. Pickwick's room, where a hearty welcome awaited him. An agreement to club dinners together was at once made and ratified. "And how are matters going on in Eatanswill?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, when Pott had taken a seat near the fire, and the whole party had got their wet boots off, and dry slippers on. "Is the _Independent_ still in being?" "The _Independent_, sir," replied Pott, "is still dragging on a wretched and lingering career. Abhorred and despised by even the few who are cognizant of its miserable and disgraceful existence; stifled by the very filth it so profusely scatters; rendered deaf and blind by the exhalations of its own slime; the obscene journal, happily unconscious of its degraded state, is rapidly sinking beneath that treacherous mud which, while it seems to give it a firm standing with the low and debased classes of society, is, nevertheless, rising above its detested head, and will speedily engulf it for ever." Having delivered this manifesto (which formed portion of his last week's leader) with a vehement articulation, the editor paused to take breath and looked majestically at Bob Sawyer. "You are a young man, sir," said Pott. Mr. Bob Sawyer nodded. "So are you, sir," said Pott, addressing Mr. Ben Allen. Ben admitted the soft impeachment. "And are both deeply imbued with those blue principles, which, as long as I live, I have pledged myself to the people of these kingdoms to support and to maintain?" suggested Pott. "Why, I don't exactly know about that," replied Bob Sawyer. "I am----" "Not buff, Mr. Pickwick," interrupted Pott, drawing back his chair, "your friend is not buff, sir?" "No, no," rejoined Bob, "I'm a kind of plaid at present; a compound of all sorts of colours." "A waverer," said Pott, solemnly, "a waverer. I should like to show you a series of eight articles, sir, that have appeared in the _Eatanswill Gazette_. I think I may venture to say that you would not be long in establishing your opinions on a firm and solid blue basis, sir." "I dare say I should turn very blue, long before I got to the end of them," responded Bob. Mr. Pott looked dubiously at Bob Sawyer for some seconds, and, turning to Mr. Pickwick, said: "You have seen the literary articles which have appeared at intervals in the _Eatanswill Gazette_ in the course of the last three months, and which have excited such general--I may say such universal--attention and admiration?" "Why," replied Mr. Pickwick, slightly embarrassed by the question, "the fact is, I have been so much engaged in other ways, that I really have not had an opportunity of perusing them." "You should do so, sir," said Pott, with a severe countenance. "I will," said Mr. Pickwick. "They appeared in the form of a copious review of a work on Chinese metaphysics, sir," said Pott. "Oh," observed Mr. Pickwick; "from your pen, I hope?" "From the pen of my critic, sir," rejoined Pott, with dignity. "An abstruse subject, I should conceive," said Mr. Pickwick. "Very, sir," responded Pott, looking intensely sage. "He _crammed_ for it, to use a technical but expressive term; he read up for the subject, at my desire, in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_." "Indeed!" said Mr. Pickwick. "I was not aware that that valuable work contained any information respecting Chinese metaphysics." "He read, sir," rejoined Pott, laying his hand on Mr. Pickwick's knee, and looking round with a smile of intellectual superiority, "he read for metaphysics under the letter M, and for China under the letter C, and combined his information, sir." Mr. Pott's features assumed so much additional grandeur at the recollection of the power and research displayed in the learned effusions in question, that some minutes elapsed before Mr. Pickwick felt emboldened to renew the conversation; at length, as the editor's countenance gradually relaxed into its customary expression of moral supremacy, he ventured to resume the discourse by asking: "Is it fair to inquire what great object has brought you so far from home?" "That object which actuates and animates me in all my gigantic labours, sir," replied Pott, with a calm smile; "my country's good." "I supposed it was some public mission," observed Mr. Pickwick. "Yes, sir," resumed Pott, "it is." Here, bending towards Mr. Pickwick, he whispered in a deep, hollow voice, "A buff ball, sir, will take place in Birmingham to-morrow evening." "God bless me!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. "Yes, sir, and supper," added Pott. "You don't say so!" ejaculated Mr. Pickwick. Pott nodded portentously. Now, although Mr. Pickwick feigned to stand aghast at this disclosure, he was so little versed in local politics that he was unable to form an adequate comprehension of the importance of the dire conspiracy it referred to; observing which, Mr. Pott, drawing forth the last number of the _Eatanswill Gazette_, and referring to the same, delivered himself of the following paragraph: "+Hole-and-Corner Buffery.+ "A reptile contemporary has recently sweltered forth his black venom in the vain and hopeless attempt of sullying the fair name of our distinguished and excellent representative, the Honourable Mr. Slumkey--that Slumkey whom we, long before he gained his present noble and exalted position, predicted would one day be, as he now is, at once his country's brightest honour, and her proudest boast: alike her bold defender and her honest pride--our reptile contemporary, we say, has made himself merry, at the expense of a superbly embossed plated coal-scuttle, which has been presented to that glorious man by his enraptured constituents, and towards the purchase of which, the nameless wretch insinuates, the Honourable Mr. Slumkey himself contributed, through a confidential friend of his butler's, more than three-fourths of the whole sum subscribed. Why, does not the crawling creature see, that even if this be the fact, the Honourable Mr. Slumkey only appears in a still more amiable and radiant light than before, if that be possible? Does not even _his_ obtuseness perceive that this amiable and touching desire to carry out the wishes of the constituent body, must for ever endear him to the hearts and souls of such of his fellow-townsmen as are not worse than swine; or, in other words, who are not as debased as our contemporary himself? But such is the wretched trickery of hole-and-corner Buffery! These are not its only artifices. Treason is abroad. We boldly state, now that we are goaded to the disclosure, and we throw ourselves on the country and its constables for protection--we boldly state that secret preparations are at this moment in progress for a Buff ball; which is to be held in a Buff town, in the very heart and centre of a Buff population; which is to be conducted by a Buff master of the ceremonies; which is to be attended by four ultra Buff members of Parliament, and the admission to which is to be by Buff tickets! Does our fiendish contemporary wince? Let him writhe, in impotent malice, as we pen the words, +We will be there.+" * * * * * "There, sir," said Pott, folding up the paper quite exhausted, "that is the state of the case!" The landlord and waiter entering at the moment with dinner, caused Mr. Pott to put his finger on his lips, in token that he considered his life in Mr. Pickwick's hands, and depended on his secrecy. Messrs. Bob Sawyer and Benjamin Allen, who had irreverently fallen asleep during the reading of the quotation from the _Eatanswill Gazette_, and the discussion which followed it, were roused by the mere whispering of the talismanic word "Dinner" in their ears: and to dinner they went with good digestion waiting on appetite, and health on both, and a waiter on all three. In the course of the dinner and the sitting which succeeded it, Mr. Pott descending, for a few moments, to domestic topics, informed Mr. Pickwick that the air of Eatanswill not agreeing with his lady, she was then engaged in making a tour of different fashionable watering-places with a view to the recovery of her wonted health and spirits; this was a delicate veiling of the fact that Mrs. Pott, acting upon her often-repeated threat of separation, had, in virtue of an arrangement negotiated by her brother, the Lieutenant, and concluded by Mr. Pott, permanently retired with the faithful body-guard upon one moiety or half-part of the annual income and profits arising from the editorship and sale of the _Eatanswill Gazette_. While the great Mr. Pott was dwelling upon this and other matters, enlivening the conversation from time to time with various extracts from his own lucubrations, a stern stranger, calling from the window of a stage-coach, outward bound, which halted at the inn to deliver packages, requested to know whether, if he stopped short on his journey and remained there for the night, he could be furnished with the necessary accommodation of a bed and bedstead. "Certainly, sir," replied the landlord. "I can, can I?" inquired the stranger, who seemed habitually suspicious in look and manner. "No doubt of it, sir," replied the landlord. "Good," said the stranger. "Coachman, I get down here. Guard, my carpet-bag!" Bidding the other passengers good night, in a rather snappish manner, the stranger alighted. He was a shortish gentleman, with very stiff black hair cut in the porcupine or blacking-brush style, and standing stiff and straight all over his head; his aspect was pompous and threatening; his manner was peremptory; his eyes were sharp and restless; and his whole bearing bespoke a feeling of great confidence in himself, and a consciousness of immeasurable superiority over all other people. This gentleman was shown into the room originally assigned to the patriotic Mr. Pott; and the waiter remarked, in dumb astonishment at the singular coincidence, that he had no sooner lighted the candles than the gentleman, diving into his hat, drew forth a newspaper, and began to read it with the very same expression of indignant scorn, which, upon the majestic features of Pott, had paralysed his energies an hour before. The man observed too, that whereas Mr. Pott's scorn had been roused by a newspaper headed the _Eatanswill Independent_, this gentleman's withering contempt was awakened by a newspaper entitled the _Eatanswill Gazette_. "Send the landlord," said the stranger. "Yes, sir," rejoined the waiter. The landlord was sent, and came. "Are you the landlord?" inquired the gentleman. "I am, sir," replied the landlord. "Do you know me?" demanded the gentleman. "I have not that pleasure, sir," rejoined the landlord. "My name is Slurk," said the gentleman. The landlord slightly inclined his head. "Slurk, sir," repeated the gentleman, haughtily. "Do you know me now, man?" The landlord scratched his head, looked at the ceiling, and at the stranger, and smiled feebly. "Do you know me, man?" inquired the stranger, angrily. The landlord made a strong effort, and at length replied: "Well, sir, I do _not_ know you." "Great Heaven!" said the stranger, dashing his clenched fist upon the table. "And this is popularity!" The landlord took a step or two towards the door; the stranger fixing his eyes upon him, resumed: "This," said the stranger, "this is gratitude for years of labour and study in behalf of the masses. I alight wet and weary; no enthusiastic crowds press forward to greet their champion; the church-bells are silent; the very name elicits no responsive feeling in their torpid bosoms. It is enough," said the agitated Mr. Slurk, pacing to and fro, "to curdle the ink in one's pen, and induce one to abandon their cause for ever." "Did you say brandy and water, sir?" said the landlord, venturing a hint. "Rum," said Mr. Slurk, turning fiercely upon him. "Have you got a fire anywhere?" "We can light one directly, sir," said the landlord. "Which will throw out no heat until it is bed-time," interrupted Mr. Slurk. "Is there anybody in the kitchen?" Not a soul. There was a beautiful fire. Everybody had gone, and the house door was closed for the night. "I will drink my rum and water," said Mr. Slurk, "by the kitchen fire." So, gathering up his hat and newspaper, he stalked solemnly behind the landlord to that humble apartment, and throwing himself on a settle by the fireside, resumed his countenance of scorn, and began to read and drink in silent dignity. Now, some demon of discord, flying over the Saracen's Head at that moment, on casting down his eyes in mere idle curiosity, happened to behold Slurk established comfortably by the kitchen fire, and Pott slightly elevated with wine in another room; upon which the malicious demon, darting down into the last-mentioned apartment with inconceivable rapidity, passed at once into the head of Mr. Bob Sawyer, and prompted him for his (the demon's) own evil purposes to speak as follows: "I say, we've let the fire out. It's uncommonly cold after the rain, isn't it?" "It really is," replied Mr. Pickwick, shivering. "It wouldn't be a bad notion to have a cigar by the kitchen fire, would it?" said Bob Sawyer, still prompted by the demon aforesaid. "It would be particularly comfortable, _I_ think," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Mr. Pott, what do you say?" Mr. Pott yielded a ready assent; and all four travellers, each with his glass in his hand, at once betook themselves to the kitchen, with Sam Weller heading the procession to show them the way. The stranger was still reading; he looked up and started. Mr. Pott started. "What's the matter?" whispered Mr. Pickwick. "That reptile!" replied Pott. "What reptile?" said Mr. Pickwick, looking about him for fear he should tread on some overgrown black beetle or dropsical spider. "That reptile," whispered Pott, catching Mr. Pickwick by the arm, and pointing towards the stranger. "That reptile Slurk, of the _Independent_!" "Perhaps we had better retire," whispered Mr. Pickwick. "Never, sir," rejoined Pott, pot-valiant in a double sense, "never." With these words, Mr. Pott took up his position on an opposite settle, and selecting one from a little bundle of newspapers began to read against his enemy. Mr. Pott, of course, read the _Independent_, and Mr. Slurk, of course, read the _Gazette_; and each gentleman audibly expressed his contempt of the other's compositions by bitter laughs and sarcastic sniffs; whence they proceeded to more open expressions of opinion, such as "absurd," "wretched," "atrocity," "humbug," "knavery," "dirt," "filth," "slime," "ditch-water," and other critical remarks of the like nature. Both Mr. Bob Sawyer and Mr. Ben Allen had beheld these symptoms of rivalry and hatred, with a degree of delight which imparted great additional relish to the cigars at which they were puffing most vigorously. The moment they began to flag, the mischievous Mr. Bob Sawyer, addressing Slurk with great politeness, said: "Will you allow me to look at your paper, sir, when you have quite done with it?" "You will find very little to repay you for your trouble in this contemptible _thing_, sir," replied Slurk, bestowing a Satanic frown on Pott. "You shall have this presently," said Pott, looking up pale with rage and quivering in his speech from the same cause. "Ha! ha! you will be amused with this _fellow's_ audacity." Terrific emphasis was laid on this "thing" and "fellow;" and the faces of both editors began to glow with defiance. "The ribaldry of this miserable man is despicably disgusting," said Pott, pretending to address Bob Sawyer, and scowling upon Slurk. Here, Mr. Slurk laughed very heartily, and folding up the paper so as to get at a fresh column conveniently, said that the blockhead really amused him. "What an impudent blunderer this fellow is," said Pott, turning from pink to crimson. "Did you ever read any of this man's foolery, sir?" inquired Slurk, of Bob Sawyer. "Never," replied Bob; "is it very bad?" "Oh, shocking! shocking!" rejoined Slurk. "Really! Dear me, this is too atrocious!" exclaimed Pott, at this juncture; still feigning to be absorbed in his reading. "If you can wade through a few sentences of malice, meanness, falsehood, perjury, treachery, and cant," said Slurk, handing the paper to Bob, "you will, perhaps, be somewhat repaid by a laugh at the style of this ungrammatical twaddler." "What's that you said, sir?" inquired Mr. Pott, looking up, trembling all over with passion. "What's that to you, sir?" replied Slurk. "Ungrammatical twaddler, was it, sir?" said Pott. "Yes, sir, it was," replied Slurk; "and _blue bore_, sir, if you like that better; ha! ha!" Mr. Pott retorted not a word to this jocose insult, but deliberately folded up his copy of the _Independent_, flattened it carefully down, crushed it beneath his boot, spat upon it with great ceremony, and flung it into the fire. "There, sir," said Pott, retreating from the stove, "and that's the way I would serve the viper who produces it, if I were not, fortunately for him, restrained by the laws of my country." "Serve him so, sir!" cried Slurk, starting up. "Those laws shall never be appealed to by him, sir, in such a case. Serve him so, sir!" "Hear! hear!" said Bob Sawyer. "Nothing can be fairer," observed Mr. Ben Allen. "Serve him so, sir!" reiterated Slurk, in a loud voice. Mr. Pott darted a look of contempt, which might have withered an anchor. "Serve him so, sir!" reiterated Slurk, in a louder voice than before. "I will not, sir," rejoined Pott. "Oh, you won't, won't you, sir?" said Mr. Slurk, in a taunting manner; "you hear this, gentlemen! He won't; not that he's afraid; oh no! he _won't_. Ha! ha!" "I consider you, sir," said Mr. Pott, moved by this sarcasm, "I consider you a viper. I look upon you, sir, as a man who has placed himself beyond the pale of society, by his most audacious, disgraceful, and abominable public conduct. I view you, sir, personally and politically, in no other light than as a most unparalleled and unmitigated viper." The indignant _Independent_ did not wait to hear the end of this personal denunciation; for, catching up his carpet-bag, which was well stuffed with movables, he swung it in the air as Pott turned away, and, letting it fall with a circular sweep on his head, just at that particular angle of the bag where a good thick hair-brush happened to be packed, caused a sharp crash to be heard throughout the kitchen and brought him at once to the ground. "Gentlemen," cried Mr. Pickwick, as Pott started up and seized the fire-shovel, "gentlemen! Consider, for Heaven's sake--help--Sam--here--pray, gentlemen--interfere, somebody." Uttering these incoherent exclamations, Mr. Pickwick rushed between the infuriated combatants just in time to receive the carpet-bag on one side of his body, and the fire-shovel on the other. Whether the representatives of the public feeling of Eatanswill were blinded by animosity, or (being both acute reasoners) saw the advantage of having a third party between them to bear all the blows, certain it is that they paid not the slightest attention to Mr. Pickwick, but defying each other with great spirit, plied the carpet-bag and the fire-shovel most fearlessly. Mr. Pickwick would unquestionably have suffered severely for his humane interference, if Mr. Weller, attracted by his master's cries, had not rushed in at the moment, and, snatching up a meal-sack, effectually stopped the conflict by drawing it over the head and shoulders of the mighty Pott, and clasping him tight round the shoulders. "Take avay that 'ere bag from t'other madman," said Sam to Ben Allen and Bob Sawyer, who had done nothing but dodge round the group, each with a tortoise-shell lancet in his hand, ready to bleed the first man stunned. "Give it up, you wretched little creetur, or I'll smother you in it." Awed by these threats, and quite out of breath, the _Independent_ suffered himself to be disarmed; and Mr. Weller, removing the extinguisher from Pott, set him free with a caution. "You take yourself off to bed quietly," said Sam, "or I'll put you both in it, and let you fight it out vith the mouth tied, as I vould a dozen sich, if they played these games. And you have the goodness to come this here vay, sir, if you please." Thus addressing his master, Sam took him by the arm, and led him off, while the rival editors were severally removed to their beds by the landlord, under the inspection of Mr. Bob Sawyer and Mr. Benjamin Allen; breathing, as they went away, many sanguinary threats, and making vague appointments for mortal combat next day. When they came to think it over, however, it occurred to them that they could do it much better in print, so they recommenced deadly hostilities without delay; and all Eatanswill rung with their boldness on paper. They had taken themselves off in separate coaches, early next morning, before the other travellers were stirring; and the weather having now cleared up, the chaise companions once more turned their faces to London. CHAPTER XXIV [Illustration] _Involving a serious Change in the Weller Family, and the untimely Downfall of the Red-nosed Mr. Stiggins_ Considering it a matter of delicacy to abstain from introducing either Bob Sawyer or Ben Allen to the young couple, until they were fully prepared to expect them, and wishing to spare Arabella's feelings as much as possible, Mr. Pickwick proposed that he and Sam should alight in the neighbourhood of the George and Vulture, and that the two young men should for the present take up their quarters elsewhere. To this, they very readily agreed, and the proposition was accordingly acted upon; Mr. Ben Allen and Mr. Bob Sawyer betaking themselves to a sequestered pot-shop on the remotest confines of the Borough, behind the bar-door of which their names had in other days very often appeared, at the head of long and complex calculations worked in white chalk. "Dear me, Mr. Weller," said the pretty housemaid, meeting Sam at the door. "Dear _me_, I vish it vos, my dear," replied Sam, dropping behind to let his master get out of hearing. "Wot a sweet-looking creetur you are, Mary!" "Lor, Mr. Weller, what nonsense you do talk!" said Mary. "Oh! _don't_, Mr. Weller." "Don't what, my dear?" said Sam. "Why, that," replied the pretty housemaid. "Lor, do get along with you." Thus admonishing him, the pretty housemaid pushed Sam against the wall, declaring that he had tumbled her cap, and put her hair quite out of curl. "And prevented what I was going to say, besides," added Mary. "There's a letter been waiting for you four days; you hadn't been gone half an hour when it came; and more than that, it's got 'Immediate' on the outside." "Vere is it, my love?" inquired Sam. "I took care of it for you, or I dare say it would have been lost long before this," replied Mary. "There, take it; it's more than you deserve." With these words, after many pretty little coquettish doubts and fears, and wishes that she might not have lost it, Mary produced the letter from behind the nicest little muslin tucker possible, and handed it over to Sam, who thereupon kissed it with much gallantry and devotion. "My goodness me!" said Mary, adjusting the tucker and feigning unconsciousness, "you seem to have grown very fond of it all at once." To this Mr. Weller only replied by a wink, the intense meaning of which no description could convey the faintest idea of; and, sitting himself down beside Mary on a window seat, opened the letter and glanced at the contents. "Hallo!" exclaimed Sam, "wot's all this?" "Nothing the matter, I hope?" said Mary, peeping over his shoulder. "Bless them eyes o' yourn!" said Sam, looking up. "Never mind my eyes; you had much better read your letter," said the pretty housemaid; and as she said so, she made the eyes twinkle with such slyness and beauty that they were perfectly irresistible. Sam refreshed himself with a kiss, and read as follows: "_Markis Gran By dorken Wensdy_ "My dear Sammle, "I am wery sorry to have the pleasure of bein a Bear of ill news your Mother in law cort cold consekens of imprudently settin too long on the damp grass in the rain a hearin of a shepherd who warnt able to leave off till late at night owen to his havin vound his-self up vith brandy and vater and not bein able to stop his-self till he got a little sober which took a many hours to do the doctor says that if she'd svallo'd varm brandy and vater artervards insted of afore she mightn't have been no vus her veels wos immedetly greased and everythink done to set her agoin as could be inwented your farther had hopes as she vould have vorked round as usual but just as she wos a turnen the corner my boy she took the wrong road and vent down hill vith a welocity you never see and notvithstandin that the drag wos put on drectly by the medikel man it wornt of no use at all for she paid the last pike at twenty minutes afore six o'clock yesterday evenin havin done the jouney wery much under the reglar time vich praps was partly owen to her haven taken in wery little luggage by the vay your father says that if you vill come and see me Sammy he vill take it as a wery great favor for I am wery lonely Samivel n b he _vill_ have it spelt that vay vich I say ant right as there is sich a many things to settle he is sure your guvner wont object of course he vill not Sammy for I knows him better so he sends his dooty in which I join and am Samivel infernally yours +Tony Veller+." "Wot a incomprehensible letter," said Sam; "who's to know wot it means, vith all this he-ing and I-ing! It ain't my father's writin' cept this here signater in print letters; that's his." "Perhaps he got somebody to write it for him, and signed it himself afterwards," said the pretty housemaid. "Stop a minit," replied Sam, running over the letter again, and pausing here and there, to reflect, as he did so. "You've hit it. The gen'l'm'n as wrote it wos a tellin' all about the misfortun' in a proper vay, and then my father comes a lookin' over him, and complicates the whole concern by puttin' his oar in. That's just the wery sort o' thing he'd do. You're right, Mary, my dear." Having satisfied himself on this point, Sam read the letter all over once more, and, appearing to form a clear notion of its contents for the first time, ejaculated thoughtfully, as he folded it up: "And so the poor creetur's dead! I'm sorry for it. She warn't a bad disposed 'ooman, if them shepherds had let her alone. I'm wery sorry for it." Mr. Weller uttered these words in so serious a manner, that the pretty housemaid cast down her eyes and looked very grave. "Hows'ever," said Sam, putting the letter in his pocket with a gentle sigh, "it wos to be--and wos, as the old lady said arter she'd married the footman. Can't be helped now, can it, Mary?" Mary shook her head, and sighed too. "I must apply to the hemperor for leave of absence," said Sam. Mary sighed again. The letter was so very affecting. "Good-bye!" said Sam. "Good-bye," rejoined the pretty housemaid, turning her head away. "Well, shake hands, won't you?" said Sam. The pretty housemaid put out a hand which, although it was a housemaid's, was a very small one, and rose to go. "I shan't be wery long avay," said Sam. "You're always away," said Mary, giving her head the slightest possible toss in the air. "You no sooner come, Mr. Weller, than you go again." Mr. Weller drew the household beauty closer to him, and entered upon a whispering conversation, which had not proceeded far, when she turned her face round and condescended to look at him again. When they parted, it was somehow or other indispensably necessary for her to go to her room, and arrange the cap and curls before she could think of presenting herself to her mistress; which preparatory ceremony she went off to perform, bestowing many nods and smiles on Sam over the banisters as she tripped upstairs. "I shan't be avay more than a day, or two, sir, at the farthest," said Sam, when he had communicated to Mr. Pickwick the intelligence of his father's loss. "As long as may be necessary, Sam," replied Mr. Pickwick, "you have my full permission to remain." Sam bowed. "You will tell your father, Sam, that if I can be of any assistance to him in his present situation, I shall be most willing and ready to lend him any aid in my power," said Mr. Pickwick. "Thankee, sir," rejoined Sam. "I'll mention it, sir." And with some expressions of mutual good-will and interest, master and man separated. It was just seven o'clock when Samuel Weller, alighting from the box of a stage-coach which passed through Dorking, stood within a few hundred yards of the Marquis of Granby. It was a cold, dull, evening; the little street looked dreary and dismal; and the mahogany countenance of the noble and gallant Marquis seemed to wear a more sad and melancholy expression than it was wont to do, as it swung to and fro, creaking mournfully in the wind. The blinds were pulled down, and the shutters partly closed; of the knot of loungers that usually collected about the door, not one was to be seen; the place was silent and desolate. Seeing nobody of whom he could ask any preliminary questions, Sam walked softly in. Glancing round, he quickly recognised his parent in the distance. The widower was seated at a small round table in the little room behind the bar, smoking a pipe, with his eyes intently fixed upon the fire. The funeral had evidently taken place that day; for attached to his hat, which he still retained on his head, was a hatband measuring about a yard and a half in length, which hung over the top-rail of the chair and streamed negligently down. Mr. Weller was in a very abstracted and contemplative mood. Notwithstanding that Sam called him by name several times, he still continued to smoke with the same fixed and quiet countenance, and was only roused ultimately by his son's placing the palm of his hand on his shoulder. "Sammy," said Mr. Weller, "you're velcome." "I've been a callin' to you half a dozen times," said Sam, hanging his hat on a peg, "but you didn't hear me." "No, Sammy," replied Mr. Weller, again looking thoughtfully at the fire. "I wos in a referee, Sammy." "Wot about?" inquired Sam, drawing his chair up to the fire. "In a referee, Sammy," replied the elder Mr. Weller, "regarding _her_, Samivel." Here Mr. Weller jerked his head in the direction of Dorking churchyard, in mute explanation that his words referred to the late Mrs. Weller. "I wos a thinkin', Sammy," said Mr. Weller, eyeing his son, with great earnestness, over his pipe; as if to assure him that, however extraordinary and incredible the declaration might appear, it was nevertheless calmly and deliberately uttered. "I wos a thinkin', Sammy, that upon the whole I wos wery sorry she wos gone." "Vell, and so you ought to be," replied Sam. Mr. Weller nodded his acquiescence in the sentiment, and again fastening his eyes on the fire, shrouded himself in a cloud, and mused deeply. "Those wos wery sensible observations as she made, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, driving the smoke away with his hand, after a long silence. "Wot observations?" inquired Sam. "Them as she made, arter she was took ill," replied the old gentleman. "Wot wos they?" "Somethin' to this here effect. 'Veller,' she says, 'I'm afeard I've not done by you quite wot I ought to have done; you're a wery kind-hearted man, and I might ha' made your home more comfortabler. I begin to see now,' she says, 'ven it's too late, that if a married 'ooman vishes to be religious, she should begin vith dischargin' her dooties at home, and makin' them as is about her cheerful and happy, and that vile she goes to church or chapel, or wot not, at all proper times, she should be wery careful not to conwert this sort o' thing into a excuse for idleness or self-indulgence. I _have_ done this,' she says, 'and I've wasted time and substance on them as has done it more than me; but I hope ven I'm gone, Veller, that you'll think on me as I wos afore I know'd them people, and as I raly wos by natur'.' 'Susan,' says I--I wos took up wery short by this, Samivel; I von't deny it, my boy--'Susan,' I says, 'you've been a wery good vife to me, altogether; don't say nothin' at all about it: keep a good heart, my dear; and you'll live to see me punch that 'ere Stiggins's head yet.' She smiled at this, Samivel," said the old gentleman, stifling a sigh with his pipe, "but she died arter all!" "Vell," said Sam, venturing to offer a little homely consolation, after the lapse of three or four minutes, consumed by the old gentleman in slowly shaking his head from side to side and solemnly smoking; "vell, gov'ner, ve must all come to it, one day or another." "So we must, Sammy," said Mr. Weller the elder. "There's a Providence in it all," said Sam. "O' course there is," replied his father, with a nod of grave approval. "Wot 'ud become of the undertakers without it, Sammy?" Lost in the immense field of conjecture opened by this reflection, the elder Mr. Weller laid his pipe on the table, and stirred the fire with a meditative visage. While the old gentleman was thus engaged, a very buxom-looking cook, dressed in mourning, who had been bustling about in the bar, glided into the room, and bestowing many smirks of recognition upon Sam, silently stationed herself at the back of his father's chair, and announced her presence by a slight cough; the which, being disregarded, was followed by a louder one. "Hallo!" said the elder Mr. Weller, dropping the poker as he looked round, and hastily drew his chair away. "Wot's the matter now?" "Have a cup of tea, there's a good soul," replied the buxom female, coaxingly. "I von't," replied Mr. Weller, in a somewhat boisterous manner, "I'll see you"--Mr. Weller hastily checked himself, and added in a low tone, "furder fust." "Oh, dear, dear! How adversity does change people!" said the lady, looking upwards. "It's the only think 'twixt this and the doctor as shall change _my_ condition," muttered Mr. Weller. "I really never saw a man so cross," said the buxom female. "Never mind. It's all for my own good; vich is the reflection vith wich the penitent schoolboy comforted his feelin's ven they flogged him," rejoined the old gentleman. The buxom female shook her head with a compassionate and sympathising air; and, appealing to Sam, inquired whether his father really ought not to make an effort to keep up, and not give way to that lowness of spirits. "You see, Mr. Samuel," said the buxom female, "as I was telling him yesterday, he _will_ feel lonely, he can't expect but what he should, sir, but he should keep up a good heart, because, dear me, I'm sure we all pity his loss, and are ready to do anything for him; and there's no situation in life so bad, Mr. Samuel, that it can't be mended. Which is what a very worthy person said to me when my husband died." Here the speaker, putting her hand before her mouth, coughed again, and looked affectionately at the elder Mr. Weller. "As I don't rekvire any o' your conversation just now, mum, vill you have the goodness to re-tire?" inquired Mr. Weller in grave and steady voice. "Well, Mr. Weller," said the buxom female, "I'm sure I only spoke to you out of kindness." "Wery likely, mum," replied Mr. Weller. "Samivel, show the lady out, and shut the door arter her." This hint was not lost upon the buxom female; for she at once left the room, and slammed the door behind her, upon which Mr. Weller senior, falling back in his chair in a violent perspiration, said: "Sammy, if I was to stop here alone vun veek--only vun veek, my boy--that 'ere 'ooman 'ud marry me by force and wiolence afore it was over." "Wot! Is she so wery fond on you?" inquired Sam. "Fond!" replied his father, "I can't keep her avay from me. If I was locked up in a fire-proof chest vith a patent Brahmin, she'd find means to get at me, Sammy." "Wot a thing it is to be so sought arter!" observed Sam, smiling. "I don't take no pride out on it, Sammy," replied Mr. Weller, poking the fire vehemently, "it's a horrid sitiwation. I'm actiwally drove out o' house and home by it. The breath was scarcely out o' your poor mother-in-law's body, ven vun old 'ooman sends me a pot o' jam, and another a pot o' jelly, and another brews a blessed large jug o' camomile-tea, vich she brings in vith her own hands." Mr. Weller paused with an aspect of intense disgust, and, looking round, added in a whisper: "They wos all widders, Sammy, all on 'em, 'cept the camomile-tea vun, as wos a single young lady o' fifty-three." Sam gave a comical look in reply, and the old gentleman having broken an obstinate lump of coal, with a countenance expressive of as much earnestness and malice as if it had been the head of one of the widows last mentioned, said: "In short, Sammy, I feel that I ain't safe anyveres but on the box." "How are you safer there than anyveres else?" interrupted Sam. "'Cos a coachman's a privileged indiwidual," replied Mr. Weller, looking fixedly at his son. "'Cos a coachman may do vithout suspicion wot other men may not; 'cos a coachman may be on the wery amicablest terms with eighty mile o' females, and yet nobody think that he ever means to marry any vun among 'em. And wot other man can say the same, Sammy?" "Vell, there's somethin' in that," said Sam. "If your gov'ner had been a coachman," reasoned Mr. Weller, "do you suppose as that 'ere jury 'ud ever ha' conwicted him, s'posin' it possible as the matter could ha' gone to that extremity? They dustn't ha' done it." "Vy not?" said Sam, rather disparagingly. "Vy not!" rejoined Mr. Weller; "'cos it 'ud ha' gone agin their consciences. A reg'lar coachman's a sort o' con-nectin' link betwixt singleness and matrimony, and every practicable man knows it." "Wot! You mean, they're gen'ral fav'rites, and nobody takes adwantage on 'em, p'raps?" said Sam. His father nodded. "How it ever come to that 'ere pass," resumed the parent Weller, "I can't say. Vy it is that long-stage coachmen possess such insiniwations, and is alvays looked up to--a-dored I may say--by ev'ry young 'ooman in ev'ry town he vurks through, I don't know. I only know that it is so. It's a reg'lation of natur--a dispensary, as your poor mother-in-law used to say." "A dispensation," said Sam, correcting the old gentleman. "Wery good, Samivel, a dispensation if you like it better," returned Mr. Weller; "_I_ call it a dispensary, and it's alvays writ up so, at the places vere they gives you physic for nothin' in your own bottles; that's all." With these words Mr. Weller re-filled and re-lighted his pipe, and once more summing up a meditative expression of countenance, continued as follows: "Therefore, my boy, as I do not see the adwisability o' stoppin' here to be married vether I vant to or not, and as at the same time I do not wish to separate myself from them interestin' members o' society altogether, I have come to the determination o' drivin the Safety, and puttin' up vunce more at the Bell Savage, vich is my nat'ral-born element, Sammy." "And wot's to become o' the bis'ness?" inquired Sam. "The bis'ness, Samivel," replied the old gentleman, "good-vill, stock, and fixters, vill be sold by private contract; and out o' the money, two hundred pound, agreeable to rekvest o' your mother-in-law's to me a little afore she died, vill be inwested in your name in--wot do you call them things agin?" "Wot things?" inquired Sam. "Them things as is alvays a goin' up and down, in the City." "Omnibuses?" suggested Sam. "Nonsense," replied Mr. Weller. "Them things as is alvays a fluctooatin', and gettin' theirselves inwolved somehow or another vith the national debt, and the checquers bills, and all that." "Oh! the funds," said Sam. "Ah!" rejoined Mr. Weller, "the funs; two hundred pounds o' the money is to be inwested for you, Samivel, in the funs; four and a half per cent. reduced counsels, Sammy." "Wery kind o' the old lady to think o' me," said Sam, "and I'm wery much obliged to her." "The rest vill be inwested in my name," continued the elder Mr. Weller; "and ven I'm took off the road, it'll come to you, so take care you don't spend it all at vunst, my boy, and mind that no widder gets a inklin' o' your fortun', or you're done." Having delivered this warning, Mr. Weller resumed his pipe with a more serene countenance; the disclosure of these matters appearing to have eased his mind considerably. "Somebody's a tappin' at the door," said Sam. "Let 'em tap," replied his father, with dignity. Sam acted upon the direction. There was another tap, and another, and then a long row of taps; upon which Sam inquired why the tapper was not admitted. "Hush," whispered Mr. Weller, with apprehensive looks, "don't take no notice on 'em, Sammy, it's vun o' the widders, p'raps." No notice being taken of the taps, the unseen visitor, after a short lapse, ventured to open the door and peep in. It was no female head that was thrust in at the partially opened door, but the long black locks and red face of Mr. Stiggins. Mr. Weller's pipe fell from his hands. The reverend gentleman gradually opened the door by almost imperceptible degrees, until the aperture was just wide enough to admit of the passage of his lank body, when he glided into the room and closed it after him with great care and gentleness. Turning towards Sam, and raising his hands and eyes in token of the unspeakable sorrow with which he regarded the calamity that had befallen the family, he carried the high-backed chair to his old corner by the fire, and, seating himself on the very edge, drew forth a brown pocket-handkerchief, and applied the same to his optics. While this was going forward, the elder Mr. Weller sat back in his chair, with his eyes wide open, his hands planted on his knees, and his whole countenance expressive of absorbing and overwhelming astonishment. Sam sat opposite him in perfect silence, waiting, with eager curiosity, for the termination of the scene. Mr. Stiggins kept the brown pocket-handkerchief before his eyes for some minutes, moaning decently meanwhile, and then, mastering his feelings by a strong effort, put it in his pocket and buttoned it up. After this he stirred the fire; after that, he rubbed his hands and looked at Sam. "Oh, my young friend," said Mr. Stiggins, breaking the silence in a very low voice, "here's a sorrowful affliction!" Sam nodded very slightly. "For the man of wrath, too!" added Mr. Stiggins; "it makes a vessel's heart bleed!" Mr. Weller was overheard by his son to murmur something relative to making a vessel's nose bleed; but Mr. Stiggins heard him not. "Do you know, young man," whispered Mr. Stiggins, drawing his chair closer to Sam, "whether she has left Emanuel anything?" "Who's he?" inquired Sam. "The chapel," replied Mr. Stiggins; "our chapel; our fold, Mr. Samuel." "She hasn't left the fold nothin', nor the shepherd nothin', nor the animals nothin'," said Sam, decisively; "nor the dogs neither." Mr. Stiggins looked slyly at Sam; glanced at the old gentleman, who was sitting with his eyes closed, as if asleep; and drawing his chair still nearer, said: "Nothing for _me_, Mr. Samuel?" Sam shook his head. "I think there's something," said Stiggins, turning as pale as he could turn. "Consider, Mr. Samuel; no little token?" "Not so much as the vorth o' that 'ere old umberella o' yourn," replied Sam. "Perhaps," said Mr. Stiggins, hesitatingly, after a few moments' deep thought, "perhaps she recommended me to the care of the man of wrath, Mr. Samuel?" "I think that's wery likely, from what he said," rejoined Sam; "he wos speakin' about you, jist now." "Was he, though?" exclaimed Stiggins, brightening up. "Ah! He's changed, I dare say. We might live very comfortably together now, Mr. Samuel, eh? I could take care of his property when you are away--good care, you see." Heaving a long-drawn sigh, Mr. Stiggins paused for a response. Sam nodded, and Mr. Weller the elder gave vent to an extraordinary sound, which being neither a groan, nor a grunt, nor a gasp, nor a growl, seemed to partake in some degree of the character of all four. Mr. Stiggins, encouraged by this sound, which he understood to betoken remorse or repentance, looked about him, rubbed his hands, wept, smiled, wept again, and then, walking softly across the room to a well-remembered shelf in one corner, took down a tumbler, and with great deliberation put four lumps of sugar in it. Having got thus far, he looked about him again, and sighed grievously; with that, he walked softly into the bar, and presently returning with the tumbler half full of pine-apple rum, advanced to the kettle which was singing gaily on the hob, mixed his grog, stirred it, sipped it, sat down, and taking a long and hearty pull at the rum and water, stopped for breath. The elder Mr. Weller, who still continued to make various strange and uncouth attempts to appear asleep, offered not a single word during these proceedings; but when Stiggins stopped for breath, he darted upon him, and snatching the tumbler from his hand, threw the remainder of the rum and water in his face, and the glass itself into the grate. Then, seizing the reverend gentleman firmly by the collar, he suddenly fell to kicking him most furiously: accompanying every application of his top-boots to Mr. Stiggins's person, with sundry violent and incoherent anathemas upon his limbs, eyes, and body. "Sammy," said Mr. Weller, "put my hat on tight for me." Sam dutifully adjusted the hat with the long hatband more firmly on his father's head, and the old gentleman, resuming his kicking with greater agility than before, tumbled with Mr. Stiggins through the bar, and through the passage, out at the front door, and so into the street; the kicking continuing the whole way, and increasing in vehemence, rather than diminishing, every time the top-boot was lifted. It was a beautiful and exhilarating sight to see the red-nosed man writhing in Mr. Weller's grasp, and his whole frame quivering with anguish as kick followed kick in rapid succession; it was a still more exciting spectacle to behold Mr. Weller, after a powerful struggle, immersing Mr. Stiggins's head in a horse-trough full of water, and holding it there, until he was half suffocated. "There!" said Mr. Weller, throwing all his energy into one most complicated kick, as he at length permitted Mr. Stiggins to withdraw his head from the trough, "send any vun o' them lazy shepherds here, and I'll pound him to a jelly first, and drownd him artervards! Sammy, help me in, and fill me a small glass of brandy. I'm out o' breath, my boy." [Illustration: _It was a beautiful and exhilarating sight to see the red-nosed man writhing in Mr. Weller's grasp._] CHAPTER XXV [Illustration] _Comprising the final Exit of Mr. Jingle and Job Trotter; with a great Morning of Business in Gray's Inn Square. Concluding with a Double Knock at Mr. Perker's Door_ When Arabella, after some gentle preparation, and many assurances that there was not the least occasion for being low-spirited, was at length made acquainted by Mr. Pickwick with the unsatisfactory result of his visit to Birmingham, she burst into tears, and sobbing aloud, lamented in moving terms that she should have been the unhappy cause of any estrangement between a father and his son. "My dear girl," said Mr. Pickwick, kindly, "it is no fault of yours. It was impossible to foresee that the old gentleman would be so strongly prepossessed against his son's marriage, you know. I am sure," added Mr. Pickwick, glancing at her pretty face, "he can have very little idea of the pleasure he denies himself." "Oh, my dear Mr. Pickwick," said Arabella, "what shall we do, if he continues to be angry with us?" "Why, wait patiently, my dear, until he thinks better of it," replied Mr. Pickwick, cheerfully. "But, dear Mr. Pickwick, what is to become of Nathaniel if his father withdraws his assistance?" urged Arabella. "In that case, my love," rejoined Mr. Pickwick, "I will venture to prophesy that he will find some other friend who will not be backward in helping him to start in the world." The significance of this reply was not so well disguised by Mr. Pickwick but that Arabella understood it. So, throwing her arms round his neck, and kissing him affectionately, she sobbed louder than before. "Come, come," said Mr. Pickwick, taking her hand, "we will wait here a few days longer, and see whether he writes or takes any other notice of your husband's communication. If not, I have thought of half a dozen plans, any one of which would make you happy at once. There, my dear, there!" With these words, Mr. Pickwick gently pressed Arabella's hand and bade her dry her eyes, and not distress her husband. Upon which, Arabella, who was one of the best little creatures alive, put her handkerchief in her reticule, and by the time Mr. Winkle joined them, exhibited in full lustre the same beaming smiles and sparkling eyes that had originally captivated him. "This is a distressing predicament for these young people," thought Mr. Pickwick, as he dressed himself next morning. "I'll walk up to Perker's and consult him about the matter." As Mr. Pickwick was further prompted to betake himself to Gray's Inn Square by an anxious desire to come to a pecuniary settlement with the kind-hearted little attorney without further delay, he made a hurried breakfast, and executed his intention so speedily, that ten o'clock had not struck when he reached Gray's Inn. It still wanted ten minutes to the hour when he had ascended the staircase on which Perker's chambers were. The clerks had not arrived yet, and he beguiled the time by looking out of the staircase window. The healthy light of a fine October morning made even the dingy old houses brighten up a little: some of the dusty windows actually looking almost cheerful as the sun's rays gleamed upon them. Clerk after clerk hastened into the square by one or other of the entrances, and looking up at the Hall clock, accelerated or decreased his rate of walking according to the time at which his office hours nominally commenced; the half-past nine o'clock people suddenly becoming very brisk, and the ten o'clock gentlemen falling into a pace of most aristocratic slowness. The clock struck ten, and clerks poured in faster than ever, each one in a greater perspiration than his predecessor. The noise of unlocking and opening doors echoed and re-echoed on every side; heads appeared as if by magic in every window; the porters took up their stations for the day; the slipshod laundresses hurried off; the postman ran from house to house; and the whole legal hive was in a bustle. "You're early, Mr. Pickwick," said a voice behind him. "Ah, Mr. Lowten," replied that gentleman, looking round, and recognising his old acquaintance. "Precious warm walking, isn't it?" said Lowten, drawing a Bramah key from his pocket, with a small plug therein, to keep the dust out. "You appear to feel it so," rejoined Mr. Pickwick, smiling at the clerk, who was literally red-hot. "I've come along rather, I can tell you," replied Lowten. "It went the half-hour as I came through the Polygon. I'm here before _him_, though, so I don't mind." Comforting himself with this reflection, Mr. Lowten extracted the plug from the door-key, and having opened the door, re-plugged and re-pocketed his Bramah, and picked up the letters which the postman had dropped through the box. He then ushered Mr. Pickwick into the office. Here, in the twinkling of an eye, he divested himself of his coat, put on a threadbare garment which he took out of a desk, hung up his hat, pulled forth a few sheets of cartridge and blotting paper in alternate layers, and sticking a pen behind his ear, rubbed his hands with an air of great satisfaction. "There you see, Mr. Pickwick," he said, "now I'm complete. I've got my office coat on, and my pad out, and let him come as soon as he likes. You haven't got a pinch of snuff about you, have you?" "No, I have not," replied Mr. Pickwick. "I'm sorry for it," said Lowten. "Never mind. I'll run out presently, and get a bottle of soda. Don't I look rather queer about the eyes, Mr. Pickwick?" The individual appealed to, surveyed Mr. Lowten's eyes from a distance, and expressed his opinion that no unusual queerness was perceptible in those features. "I'm glad of it," said Lowten. "We were keeping it up pretty tolerably at the Stump last night, and I'm rather out of sorts this morning. Perker's been about that business of yours, by-the-bye." "What business?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Mrs. Bardell's costs?" "No, I don't mean that," replied Mr. Lowten. "About getting that customer that we paid the ten shillings in the pound to the bill discounter for, on your account--to get him out of the Fleet, you know--about getting him to Demerara." "Oh! Mr. Jingle?" said Mr. Pickwick, hastily. "Yes. Well?" "Well, it's all arranged," said Lowten, mending his pen. "The agent at Liverpool said he had been obliged to you many times when you were in business, and he would be glad to take him on your recommendation." "That's well," said Mr. Pickwick. "I am delighted to hear it." "But I say," resumed Lowten, scraping the back of the pen preparatory to making a fresh split, "_what_ a soft chap that other is!" "Which other?" "Why, that servant, or friend, or whatever he is; _you_ know; Trotter." "Ah?" said Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. "I always thought him the reverse." "Well, and so did I, from what little I saw of him," replied Lowten, "it only shows how one may be deceived. What do you think of _his_ going to Demerara, too?" "What! And giving up what was offered him here!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. "Treating Perker's offer of eighteen bob a-week, and a rise if he behaved himself, like dirt," replied Lowten. "He said he must go along with the other one, and so they persuaded Perker to write again, and they've got him something on the same estate; not near so good, Perker says, as a convict would get in New South Wales, if he appeared at his trial in a new suit of clothes." "Foolish fellow," said Mr. Pickwick, with glistening eyes. "Foolish fellow." "Oh, it's worse than foolish; it's downright sneaking, you know," replied Lowten, nibbing the pen with a contemptuous face. "He says that he's the only friend he ever had, and he's attached to him, and all that. Friendship's a very good thing in its way: we are all very friendly and comfortable at the Stump, for instance, over our grog, where every man pays for himself; but damn hurting yourself for anybody else, you know! No man should have more than two attachments--the first, to number one, and the second to the ladies; that's what I say--ha! ha!" Mr. Lowten concluded with a loud laugh, half in jocularity, and half in derision, which was prematurely cut short by the sound of Perker's footsteps on the stairs: at the first approach of which he vaulted on his stool with an agility most remarkable, and wrote intensely. The greeting between Mr. Pickwick and his professional adviser was warm and cordial; the client was scarcely ensconced in the attorney's arm-chair, however, when a knock was heard at the door, and a voice inquired whether Mr. Perker was within. "Hark!" said Perker, "that's one of our vagabond friends--Jingle himself, my dear sir. Will you see him?" "What do you think?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, hesitating. "Yes, I think you had better. Here, you sir, what's your name, walk in, will you?" In compliance with this unceremonious invitation, Jingle and Job walked into the room, but, seeing Mr. Pickwick, stopped short in some confusion. "Well," said Perker, "don't you know that gentleman?" "Good reason to," replied Mr. Jingle, stepping forward. "Mr. Pickwick--deepest obligations--life preserver--made a man of me--you shall never repent it, sir." "I am happy to hear you say so," said Mr. Pickwick. "You look much better." "Thanks to you, sir--great change--Majesty's Fleet--unwholesome place--very," said Jingle, shaking his head. He was decently and cleanly dressed, and so was Job, who stood bolt upright behind him, staring at Mr. Pickwick with a visage of iron. "When do they go to Liverpool?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, half aside to Perker. "This evening, sir, at seven o'clock," said Job, taking one step forward. "By the heavy coach from the city, sir." "Are your places taken?" "They are, sir," replied Job. "You have fully made up your mind to go?" "I have, sir," answered Job. "With regard to such an outfit as was indispensable for Jingle," said Perker, addressing Mr. Pickwick aloud, "I have taken upon myself to make an arrangement for the deduction of a small sum from his quarterly salary, which, being made only for one year, and regularly remitted, will provide for that expense. I entirely disapprove of your doing anything for him, my dear sir, which is not dependent on his own exertions and good conduct." "Certainly," interposed Jingle, with great firmness. "Clear head--man of the world--quite right--perfectly." "By compounding with his creditor, releasing his clothes from the pawnbroker's, relieving him in prison, and paying for his passage," continued Perker, without noticing Jingle's observation, "you have already lost upwards of fifty pounds." "Not lost," said Jingle, hastily. "Pay it all--stick to business--cash up--every farthing. Yellow fever perhaps--can't help that--if not--" Here Mr. Jingle paused, and striking the crown of his hat with great violence, passed his hand over his eyes, and sat down. "He means to say," said Job, advancing a few paces, "that if he is not carried off by the fever, he will pay the money back again. If he lives, he will, Mr. Pickwick. I will see it done. I know he will, sir," said Job, with energy. "I could undertake to swear it." "Well, well," said Mr. Pickwick, who had been bestowing a score or two of frowns upon Perker, to stop his summary of benefits conferred, which the little attorney obstinately disregarded, "you must be careful not to play any more desperate cricket matches, Mr. Jingle, or to renew your acquaintance with Sir Thomas Blazo, and I have little doubt of your preserving your health." Mr. Jingle smiled at this sally, but looked rather foolish notwithstanding; so Mr. Pickwick changed the subject by saying: "You don't happen to know, do you, what has become of another friend of yours--a more humble one, whom I saw at Rochester?" "Dismal Jemmy?" inquired Jingle. "Yes." Jingle shook his head. "Clever rascal--queer fellow, hoaxing genius--Job's brother." "Job's brother!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. "Well, now I look at him closely, there _is_ a likeness." "We were always considered like each other, sir," said Job, with a cunning look just lurking in the corners of his eyes, "only I was really of a serious nature, and he never was. He emigrated to America, sir, in consequence of being too much sought after to be comfortable; and has never been heard of since." "That accounts for my not having received the 'page from the romance of real life' which he promised me one morning when he appeared to be contemplating suicide on Rochester Bridge, I suppose," said Mr. Pickwick, smiling. "I need not inquire whether his dismal behaviour was natural or assumed." "He could assume anything, sir," said Job. "You may consider yourself very fortunate in having escaped him so easily. On intimate terms he would have been even more dangerous acquaintance than--" Job looked at Jingle, hesitated, and finally added, "than--than--myself even." "A hopeful family yours, Mr. Trotter," said Perker, sealing a letter which he had just finished writing. "Yes, sir," replied Job. "Very much so." "Well," said the little man, laughing; "I hope you are going to disgrace it. Deliver this letter to the agent when you reach Liverpool, and let me advise you, gentlemen, not to be too knowing in the West Indies. If you throw away this chance, you will both richly deserve to be hanged, as I sincerely trust you will be. And now you had better leave Mr. Pickwick and me alone, for we have other matters to talk over, and time is precious." As Perker said this, he looked towards the door, with an evident desire to render the leave-taking as brief as possible. It was brief enough on Mr. Jingle's part. He thanked the little attorney in a few hurried words for the kindness and promptitude with which he had rendered his assistance, and, turning to his benefactor, stood for a few seconds as if irresolute what to say or how to act. Job Trotter relieved his perplexity; for, with a humble and grateful bow to Mr. Pickwick, he took his friend gently by the arm, and led him away. "A worthy couple!" said Perker, as the door closed behind them. "I hope they may become so," said Mr. Pickwick. "What do you think? Is there any chance of their permanent reformation?" Perker shrugged his shoulders doubtfully, but observing Mr. Pickwick's anxious and disappointed look, rejoined: "Of course there is a chance. I hope it may prove a good one. They are unquestionably penitent now; but then, you know, they have the recollection of very recent suffering fresh upon them. What they may become, when that fades away, is a problem that neither you nor I can solve. However, my dear sir," added Perker, laying his hand on Mr. Pickwick's shoulder, "your object is equally honourable, whatever the result is. Whether that species of benevolence which is so very cautious and long-sighted that it is seldom exercised at all, lest its owner should be imposed upon, and so wounded in his self-love, be real charity or a worldly counterfeit, I leave to wiser heads than mine to determine. But if those two fellows were to commit a burglary to-morrow, my opinion of this action would be equally high." With these remarks, which were delivered in a much more animated and earnest manner than is usual in legal gentlemen, Perker drew his chair to his desk, and listened to Mr. Pickwick's recital of old Mr. Winkle's obstinacy. "Give him a week," said Perker, nodding his head prophetically. "Do you think he will come round?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "I think he will," rejoined Perker. "If not, we must try the young lady's persuasion; and that is what anybody but you would have done first." Mr. Perker was taking a pinch of snuff with various grotesque contractions of countenance, eulogistic of the persuasive powers appertaining unto young ladies, when the murmur of inquiry and answer was heard in the outer office, and Lowten tapped at the door. "Come in!" cried the little man. The clerk came in, and shut the door after him, with great mystery. "What's the matter?" inquired Perker. "You're wanted, sir." "Who wants me?" Lowten looked at Mr. Pickwick, and coughed. "Who wants me? Can't you speak, Mr. Lowten?" "Why, sir," replied Lowten, "it's Dodson; and Fogg is with him." "Bless my life!" said the little man, looking at his watch. "I appointed them to be here, at half-past eleven, to settle that matter of yours, Pickwick. I gave them an undertaking on which they sent down your discharge; it's very awkward, my dear sir; what will you do? Would you like to step into the next room?" The next room being the identical room in which Messrs. Dodson and Fogg were, Mr. Pickwick replied that he would remain where he was: the more especially as Messrs. Dodson and Fogg ought to be ashamed to look him in the face, instead of his being ashamed to see them. Which latter circumstance he begged Mr. Perker to note, with a glowing countenance and many marks of indignation. "Very well, my dear sir, very well," replied Perker. "I can only say that if you expect either Dodson or Fogg to exhibit any symptom of shame or confusion at having to look you, or anybody else, in the face, you are the most sanguine man in your expectations that I ever met with. Show them in, Mr. Lowten." Mr. Lowten disappeared with a grin, and immediately returned ushering in the firm, in due form of precedence: Dodson first, and Fogg afterwards. "You have seen Mr. Pickwick, I believe?" said Perker to Dodson, inclining his pen in the direction where that gentleman was seated. "How do you do, Mr. Pickwick?" said Dodson in a loud voice. "Dear me," cried Fogg, "how do you do, Mr. Pickwick? I hope you are well, sir. I thought I knew the face," said Fogg, drawing up a chair and looking round him with a smile. Mr. Pickwick bent his head very slightly, in answer to these salutations, and, seeing Fogg pull a bundle of papers from his coat-pocket, rose and walked to the window. "There's no occasion for Mr. Pickwick to move, Mr. Perker," said Fogg, untying the red tape which encircled the little bundle, and smiling again more sweetly than before. "Mr. Pickwick is pretty well acquainted with these proceedings. There are no secrets between us, I think. He! he! he!" "Not many, I think," said Dodson. "Ha! ha! ha!" Then both the partners laughed together--pleasantly and cheerfully, as men who are going to receive money, often do. "We shall make Mr. Pickwick pay for peeping," said Fogg, with considerable native humour, as he unfolded his papers. "The amount of the taxed costs is one hundred and thirty-three, six, four, Mr. Perker." There was a great comparing of papers, and turning over of leaves, by Fogg and Perker, after this statement of profit and loss. Meanwhile, Dodson said in an affable manner to Mr. Pickwick: "I don't think you are looking quite so stout as when I had the pleasure of seeing you last, Mr. Pickwick." "Possibly not, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick, who had been flashing forth looks of fierce indignation, without producing the smallest effect on either of the sharp practitioners; "I believe I am not, sir. I have been persecuted and annoyed by Scoundrels of late, sir." Perker coughed violently, and asked Mr. Pickwick whether he wouldn't like to look at the morning paper? To which inquiry Mr. Pickwick returned a most decided negative. "True," said Dodson, "I dare say you _have_ been annoyed in the Fleet; there are some odd gentry there. Whereabouts were your apartments, Mr. Pickwick?" "My one room," replied that much injured gentleman, "was on the Coffee Room flight." "Oh, indeed!" said Dodson. "I believe that is a very pleasant part of the establishment." "Very," replied Mr. Pickwick, dryly. There was a coolness about all this, which, to a gentleman of an excitable temperament, had, under the circumstances, rather an exasperating tendency. Mr. Pickwick restrained his wrath by gigantic efforts; but when Perker wrote a cheque for the whole amount, and Fogg deposited it in a small pocket-book with a triumphant smile playing over his pimply features which communicated itself likewise to the stern countenance of Dodson, he felt the blood in his cheeks tingling with indignation. "Now, Mr. Dodson," said Fogg, putting up the pocket-book and drawing on his gloves, "I am at your service." "Very good," said Dodson, rising, "I am quite ready." "I am very happy," said Fogg, softened by the cheque, "to have had the pleasure of making Mr. Pickwick's acquaintance. I hope you don't think quite so ill of us, Mr. Pickwick, as when we first had the pleasure of seeing you." "I hope not," said Dodson, with the high tone of calumniated virtue. "Mr. Pickwick now knows us better, I trust: whatever your opinion of gentlemen of our profession may be, I beg to assure you, sir, that I bear no ill-will or vindictive feeling towards you for the sentiments you thought proper to express in our office in Freeman's Court, Cornhill, on the occasion to which my partner has referred." "Oh no, no; nor I," said Fogg, in a most forgiving manner. "Our conduct, sir," said Dodson, "will speak for itself, and justify itself, I hope, upon every occasion. We have been in the profession some years, Mr. Pickwick, and have been honoured with the confidence of many excellent clients. I wish you good morning, sir." "_Good_ morning, Mr. Pickwick," said Fogg. So saying, he put his umbrella under his arm, drew off his right glove, and extended the hand of reconciliation to that most indignant gentleman: who, thereupon, thrust his hands beneath his coat tails, and eyed the attorney with looks of scornful amazement. "Lowten!" cried Perker at this moment. "Open the door." "Wait one instant," said Mr. Pickwick, "Perker, I _will_ speak." "My dear sir, pray let the matter rest where it is," said the little attorney, who had been in a state of nervous apprehension during the whole interview; "Mr. Pickwick, I beg!" "I will not be put down, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick, hastily. "Mr. Dodson, you have addressed some remarks to me." Dodson turned round, bent his head meekly, and smiled. "Some remarks to me," repeated Mr. Pickwick, almost breathless; "and your partner has tendered me his hand, and you have both assumed a tone of forgiveness and high-mindedness, which is an extent of impudence that I was not prepared for, even in you." "What, sir!" exclaimed Dodson. "What, sir!" reiterated Fogg. "Do you know that I have been the victim of your plots and conspiracies?" continued Mr. Pickwick. "Do you know that I am the man whom you have been imprisoning and robbing? Do you know that you were the attorneys for the plaintiff, in Bardell and Pickwick?" "Yes, sir, we do know it," replied Dodson. "Of course we know it, sir," rejoined Fogg, slapping his pocket--perhaps by accident. "I see that you recollect it with satisfaction," said Mr. Pickwick, attempting to call up a sneer for the first time in his life, and failing most signally in so doing. "Although I have long been anxious to tell you, in plain terms, what my opinion of you is, I should have let even this opportunity pass, in deference to my friend Perker's wishes, but for the unwarrantable tone you have assumed, and your insolent familiarity. I say insolent familiarity, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, turning upon Fogg with a fierceness of gesture which caused that person to retreat towards the door with great expedition. "Take care, sir," said Dodson, who, though he was the biggest man of the party, had prudently intrenched himself behind Fogg, and was speaking over his head with a very pale face. "Let him assault you, Mr. Fogg; don't return it on any account." "No, no, I won't return it," said Fogg, falling back a little more as he spoke; to the evident relief of his partner, who by these means was gradually getting into the outer office. "You are," continued Mr. Pickwick, resuming the thread of his discourse, "you are a well-matched pair of mean, rascally, pettifogging robbers." "Well," interposed Perker, "is that all?" "It is all summed up in that," rejoined Mr. Pickwick; "they are mean, rascally, pettifogging robbers." "There!" said Perker in a most conciliatory tone. "My dear sirs, he has said all he has to say. Now pray go. Lowten, _is_ that door open?" Mr. Lowten, with a distant giggle, replied in the affirmative. "There, there--good morning--good morning--now pray, my dear sirs,--Mr. Lowten, the door!" cried the little man, pushing Dodson and Fogg, nothing loath, out of the office; "this way, my dear sirs,--now pray don't prolong this--dear me--Mr. Lowten--the door, sir--why don't you attend?" "If there's law in England, sir," said Dodson, looking towards Mr. Pickwick, as he put on his hat, "you shall smart for this." "You are a couple of mean----" "Remember, sir, you pay dearly for this," said Fogg. "--Rascally, pettifogging robbers!" continued Mr. Pickwick, taking not the least notice of the threats that were addressed to him. "Robbers!" cried Mr. Pickwick, running to the stair-head, as the two attorneys descended. "Robbers!" shouted Mr. Pickwick, breaking from Lowten and Perker and thrusting his head out of the staircase window. When Mr. Pickwick drew in his head again, his countenance was smiling and placid; and, walking quietly back into the office, he declared that he had now removed a great weight from his mind, and that he felt perfectly comfortable and happy. Perker said nothing at all until he had emptied his snuff-box, and sent Lowten out to fill it, when he was seized with a fit of laughing, which lasted five minutes; at the expiration of which time he said that he supposed he ought to be very angry, but he couldn't think of the business seriously yet--when he could, he would be. "Well, now," said Mr. Pickwick, "let me have a settlement with you." "Of the same kind as the last?" inquired Perker, with another laugh. "Not exactly," rejoined Mr. Pickwick, drawing out his pocket-book, and shaking the little man heartily by the hand, "I only mean a pecuniary settlement. You have done me many acts of kindness that I can never repay, and have no wish to repay, for I prefer continuing the obligation." With this preface, the two friends dived into some very complicated accounts and vouchers, which, having been duly displayed and gone through by Perker, were at once discharged by Mr. Pickwick with many professions of esteem and friendship. They had no sooner arrived at this point, than a most violent and startling knocking was heard at the door; it was not an ordinary double knock, but a constant and uninterrupted succession of the loudest single raps, as if the knocker were endowed with the perpetual motion, or the person outside had forgotten to leave off. "Dear me, what's that?" exclaimed Perker, starting. "I think it is a knock at the door," said Mr. Pickwick, as if there could be the smallest doubt of the fact! The knocker made a more energetic reply than words could have yielded, for it continued to hammer with surprising force and noise, without a moment's cessation. "Dear me!" said Perker, ringing the bell, "we shall alarm the Inn. Mr. Lowten, don't you hear a knock?" "I'll answer the door in one moment, sir," replied the clerk. The knocker appeared to hear the response, and to assert that it was quite impossible he could wait so long. It made a stupendous uproar. "It's quite dreadful," said Mr. Pickwick, stopping his ears. "Make haste, Mr. Lowten," Perker called out, "we shall have the panels beaten in." Mr. Lowten, who was washing his hands in a dark closet, hurried to the door, and turning the handle, beheld the appearance which is described in the next chapter. CHAPTER XXVI [Illustration] _Containing some Particulars relative to the Double Knock, and other Matters: among which certain Interesting Disclosures relative to Mr. Snodgrass and a Young Lady are by no means irrelevant to this History_ The object that presented itself to the eyes of the astonished clerk was a boy--a wonderfully fat boy--habited as a serving lad, standing upright on the mat, with his eyes closed as if in sleep. He had never seen such a fat boy, in or out of a travelling caravan; and this, coupled with the calmness and repose of his appearance, so very different from what was reasonably to have been expected of the inflictor of the knocks, smote him with wonder. "What's the matter?" inquired the clerk. The extraordinary boy replied not a word; but he nodded once, and seemed, to the clerk's imagination, to snore feebly. "Where do you come from?" inquired the clerk. The boy made no sign. He breathed heavily, but in all other respects was motionless. The clerk repeated the question thrice, and receiving no answer, prepared to shut the door, when the boy suddenly opened his eyes, winked several times, sneezed once, and raised his hand as if to repeat the knocking. Finding the door open, he stared about him with astonishment, and at length fixed his eyes on Mr. Lowten's face. "What the devil do you knock in that way for?" inquired the clerk, angrily. "Which way?" said the boy, in a slow and sleepy voice. "Why, like forty hackney-coachmen," replied the clerk. "Because master said I wasn't to leave off knocking till they opened the door, for fear I should go to sleep," said the boy. "Well," said the clerk, "what message have you brought?" "He's down-stairs," rejoined the boy. "Who?" "Master. He wants to know whether you're at home." Mr. Lowten bethought himself, at this juncture, of looking out of the window. Seeing an open carriage with a hearty old gentleman in it, looking up very anxiously, he ventured to beckon him; on which, the old gentleman jumped out directly. "That's your master in the carriage, I suppose?" said Lowten. The boy nodded. All further inquiries were superseded by the appearance of old Wardle, who, running up-stairs and just recognising Lowten, passed at once into Mr. Perker's room. "Pickwick!" said the old gentleman. "Your hand, my boy! Why have I never heard until the day before yesterday of your suffering yourself to be cooped up in jail? And why did you let him do it, Perker?" "I couldn't help it, my dear sir," replied Perker, with a smile and a pinch of snuff: "you know how obstinate he is." "Of course I do, of course I do," replied the old gentleman. "I am heartily glad to see him, notwithstanding. I will not lose sight of him again, in a hurry." With these words, Wardle shook Mr. Pickwick's hand once more, and having done the same by Perker, threw himself into an arm-chair, his jolly red face shining again with smiles and health. "Well!" said Wardle. "Here are pretty goings on--a pinch of your snuff, Perker, my boy--never were such times, eh?" "What do you mean?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Mean!" replied Wardle. "Why, I think the girls are all running mad; that's no news, you'll say? Perhaps it's not; but it's true, for all that." "You have not come up to London, of all places in the world, to tell us _that_, my dear sir, have you?" inquired Perker. "No, not altogether," replied Wardle; "though it was the main cause of my coming. How's Arabella?" "Very well," replied Mr. Pickwick, "and will be delighted to see you, I am sure." "Black-eyed little jilt!" replied Wardle, "I had a great idea of marrying her myself, one of these odd days. But I am glad of it too, very glad." [Illustration: _His jolly red face shining with smiles and health_] "How did the intelligence reach you?" asked Mr. Pickwick. "Oh, it came to my girls, of course," replied Wardle. "Arabella wrote, the day before yesterday, to say she had made a stolen match without her husband's father's consent, and so you had gone down to get it when his refusing it couldn't prevent the match, and all the rest of it. I thought it a very good time to say something serious to _my_ girls; so I said what a dreadful thing it was that children should marry without their parents' consent, and so forth; but, bless your hearts, I couldn't make the least impression upon them. They thought it such a much more dreadful thing that there should have been a wedding without bridesmaids, that I might as well have preached to Joe himself." Here the old gentleman stopped to laugh; and having done so, to his heart's content, presently resumed. "But this is not the best of it, it seems. This is only half the love-making and plotting that have been going forward. We have been walking on mines for the last six months, and they're sprung at last." "What do you mean?" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, turning pale; "no other secret marriage, I hope?" "No, no," replied old Wardle; "not so bad as that; no." "What then?" inquired Mr. Pickwick; "am I interested in it?" "Shall I answer that question, Perker?" said Wardle. "If you don't commit yourself by doing so, my dear sir." "Well then, you are," said Wardle. "How?" asked Mr. Pickwick, anxiously. "In what way?" "Really," replied Wardle, "you're such a fiery sort of young fellow that I am almost afraid to tell you; but, however, if Perker will sit between us to prevent mischief, I'll venture." Having closed the room-door, and fortified himself with another application to Perker's snuff-box, the old gentleman proceeded with his great disclosure in these words. "The fact is, that my daughter Bella--Bella, who married young Trundle, you know." "Yes, yes, we know," said Mr. Pickwick, impatiently. "Don't alarm me at the very beginning. My daughter Bella, Emily having gone to bed with a headache after she had read Arabella's letter to me, sat herself down by my side, the other evening, and began to talk over this marriage affair. 'Well, pa,' she says, 'what do you think of it?' 'Why, my dear,' I said, 'I suppose it's all very well; I hope it's for the best.' I answered in this way because I was sitting before the fire at the time drinking my grog rather thoughtfully, and I knew my throwing in an undecided word now and then, would induce her to continue talking. Both my girls are pictures of their dear mother, and as I grow old I like to sit with only them by me; for their voices and looks carry me back to the happiest period of my life, and make me, for the moment, as young as I used to be then, though not quite so light-hearted. 'It's quite a marriage of affection, pa,' said Bella, after a short silence. 'Yes, my dear,' said I, 'but such marriages do not always turn out the happiest.'" "I question that, mind!" interposed Mr. Pickwick, warmly. "Very good," responded Wardle, "question anything you like when it's your turn to speak, but don't interrupt me." "I beg your pardon," said Mr. Pickwick. "Granted," replied Wardle. "'I am sorry to hear you express your opinion against marriages of affection, pa,' said Bella, colouring a little. 'I was wrong; I ought not to have said so, my dear, either,' said I, patting her cheek as kindly as a rough old fellow like me could pat it, 'for your mother's was one, and so was yours.' 'It's not that I meant, pa,' said Bella. 'The fact is, pa, I wanted to speak to you about Emily.'" Mr. Pickwick started. "What's the matter now?" inquired Wardle, stopping in his narrative. "Nothing," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Pray go on." "I never could spin out a story," said Wardle, abruptly. "It must come out sooner or later, and it'll save us all a great deal of time if it comes at once. The long and the short of it is, then, that Bella at last mustered up courage to tell me that Emily was very unhappy; that she and your young friend Snodgrass had been in constant correspondence and communication ever since last Christmas; that she had very dutifully made up her mind to run away with him in laudable imitation of her old friend and schoolfellow; but that having some compunctions of conscience on the subject, inasmuch as I had always been rather kindly disposed to both of them, they had thought it better in the first instance to pay me the compliment of asking whether I would have any objection to their being married in the usual matter-of-fact manner. There now, Mr. Pickwick, if you can make it convenient to reduce your eyes to their usual size again, and to let me hear what you think we ought to do, I shall feel rather obliged to you!" The testy manner in which the hearty old gentleman uttered this last sentence was not wholly unwarranted; for Mr. Pickwick's face had settled down into an expression of blank amazement and perplexity, quite curious to behold. "Snodgrass! Since last Christmas!" were the first broken words that issued from the lips of the confounded gentleman. "Since last Christmas," replied Wardle; "that's plain enough, and very bad spectacles we must have worn, not to have discovered it before." "I don't understand it," said Mr. Pickwick, ruminating; "I really cannot understand it." "It's easy enough to understand," replied the choleric old gentleman. "If you had been a younger man, you would have been in the secret long ago; and besides," added Wardle after a moment's hesitation, "the truth is, that, knowing nothing of this matter, I have rather pressed Emily for four or five months past, to receive favourably (if she could; I would never attempt to force a girl's inclinations) the addresses of a young gentleman down in our neighbourhood. I have no doubt that, girl-like, to enhance her own value and increase the ardour of Mr. Snodgrass, she has represented this matter in very glowing colours, and that they have both arrived at the conclusion that they are a terribly persecuted pair of unfortunates, and have no resource but clandestine matrimony or charcoal. Now the question is, what's to be done?" "What have _you_ done?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "I?" "I mean, what did you do when your married daughter told you this?" "Oh, I made a fool of myself of course," rejoined Wardle. "Just so," interposed Perker, who had accompanied this dialogue with sundry twitchings of his watch-chain, vindictive rubbings of his nose, and other symptoms of impatience. "That's very natural; but how?" "I went into a great passion and frightened my mother into a fit," said Wardle. "That was judicious," remarked Perker; "and what else?" "I fretted and fumed all next day, and raised a great disturbance," rejoined the old gentleman. "At last I got tired of rendering myself unpleasant and making everybody miserable; so I hired a carriage at Muggleton, and putting my own horses in it, came up to town, under pretence of bringing Emily to see Arabella." "Miss Wardle is with you, then?" said Mr. Pickwick. "To be sure she is," replied Wardle. "She is at Osborne's hotel in the Adelphi at this moment, unless your enterprising friend has run away with her since I came out this morning." "You are reconciled, then?" said Perker. "Not a bit of it," answered Wardle; "she has been crying and moping ever since, except last night, between tea and supper, when she made a great parade of writing a letter that I pretended to take no notice of." "You want my advice in this matter, I suppose?" said Perker, looking from the musing face of Mr. Pickwick to the eager countenance of Wardle, and taking several consecutive pinches of his favourite stimulant. "I suppose so," said Wardle, looking at Mr. Pickwick. "Certainly," replied that gentleman. "Well then," said Perker, rising and pushing his chair back, "my advice is, that you both walk away together, or ride away, or get away by some means or other, for I'm tired of you, and just talk this matter over between you. If you have not settled it by the next time I see you, I'll tell you what to do." "This is satisfactory," said Wardle, hardly knowing whether to smile or be offended. "Pooh, pooh, my dear sir," returned Perker. "I know you both a great deal better than you know yourselves. You have settled it already, to all intents and purposes." Thus expressing himself, the little gentleman poked his snuff-box, first into the chest of Mr. Pickwick, and then into the waistcoat of Mr. Wardle, upon which they all three laughed, but especially the two last-named gentlemen, who at once shook hands again, without any obvious or particular reason. "You dine with me to-day," said Wardle to Perker, as he showed them out. "Can't promise, my dear sir, can't promise," replied Perker. "I'll look in, in the evening, at all events." "I shall expect you at five," said Wardle. "Now, Joe!" And Joe having been at length awakened, the two friends departed in Mr. Wardle's carriage, which in common humanity had a dickey behind for the fat boy, who, if there had been a foot-board instead, would have rolled off and killed himself in his very first nap. Driving to the George and Vulture, they found that Arabella and her maid had sent for a hackney-coach immediately on the receipt of a short note from Emily announcing her arrival in town, and had proceeded straight to the Adelphi. As Wardle had business to transact in the city, they sent the carriage and the fat boy to his hotel, with the information that he and Mr. Pickwick would return together for dinner at five o'clock. Charged with this message, the fat boy returned, slumbering as peaceably in his dickey over the stones, as if it had been a down bed on watch-springs. By some extraordinary miracle he awoke of his own accord when the coach stopped, and giving himself a good shake to stir up his faculties, went up-stairs to execute his commission. Now whether the shake had jumbled the fat boy's faculties together, instead of arranging them in proper order, or had roused such a quantity of new ideas within him as to render him oblivious of ordinary forms and ceremonies, or (which is also possible) had proved unsuccessful in preventing his falling asleep as he ascended the stairs, it is an undoubted fact that he walked into the sitting-room without previously knocking at the door; and so beheld a gentleman with his arms clasping his young mistress's waist, sitting very lovingly by her side on a sofa, while Arabella and her pretty handmaid feigned to be absorbed in looking out of a window at the other end of the room. At sight of this phenomenon, the fat boy uttered an interjection, the ladies a scream, and the gentleman an oath, almost simultaneously. "Wretched creature, what do you want here?" said the gentleman, who it is needless to say was Mr. Snodgrass. To this the fat boy, considerably terrified, briefly responded, "Missis." "What do you want me for?" inquired Emily, turning her head aside, "you stupid creature!" "Master and Mr. Pickwick is a going to dine here at five," replied the fat boy. "Leave the room!" said Mr. Snodgrass, glaring upon the bewildered youth. "No, no, no," added Emily hastily. "Bella, dear, advise me." Upon this Emily and Mr. Snodgrass, and Arabella and Mary, crowded into a corner, and conversed earnestly in whispers for some minutes, during which the fat boy dozed. "Joe," said Arabella, at length, looking round with a most bewitching smile, "how do you do, Joe?" "Joe," said Emily, "you're a very good boy; I won't forget you, Joe." "Joe," said Mr. Snodgrass, advancing to the astonished youth, and seizing his hand, "I didn't know you before. There's five shillings for you, Joe!" "I'll owe you five," said Arabella, "for old acquaintance' sake, you know;" and another most captivating smile was bestowed upon the corpulent intruder. The fat boy's perception being slow, he looked rather puzzled at first to account for this sudden prepossession in his favour, and stared about him in a very alarming manner. At length his broad face began to show symptoms of a grin of proportionately broad dimensions; and then, thrusting half-a-crown into each of his pockets, and a hand and wrist after it, he burst into a hoarse laugh: being for the first and only time in his existence. "He understands us, I see," said Arabella. "He had better have something to eat, immediately," remarked Emily. The fat boy almost laughed again when he heard this suggestion. Mary, after a little more whispering, tripped forth from the group, and said: "I am going to dine with you to-day, sir, if you have no objection." "This way," said the fat boy, eagerly. "There is such a jolly meat-pie!" With these words, the fat boy led the way down-stairs; his pretty companion captivating all the waiters and angering all the chambermaids as she followed him to the eating-room. There was the meat-pie of which the youth had spoken so feelingly, and there were, moreover, a steak, and a dish of potatoes, and a pot of porter. "Sit down," said the fat boy. "Oh my eye, how prime! I am _so_ hungry." Having apostrophised his eye, in a species of rapture, five or six times, the youth took the head of the little table, and Mary seated herself at the bottom. "Will you have some of this?" said the fat boy, plunging into the pie up to the very ferrules of the knife and fork. "A little, if you please," replied Mary. The fat boy assisted Mary to a little, and himself to a great deal, and was just going to begin eating when he suddenly laid down his knife and fork, leant forward in his chair, and letting his hands, with the knife and fork in them, fall on his knees, said, very slowly: "I say! How nice you look!" This was said in an admiring manner, and was, so far, gratifying; but still there was enough of the cannibal in the young gentleman's eyes to render the compliment a double one. "Dear me, Joseph," said Mary, affecting to blush, "what do you mean?" The fat boy gradually recovering his former position, replied with a heavy sigh, and remaining thoughtful for a few moments, drank a long draught of porter. Having achieved this feat he sighed again, and applied himself assiduously to the pie. "What a nice young lady Miss Emily is!" said Mary, after a long silence. The fat boy had by this time finished the pie. He fixed his eyes on Mary, and replied: "I knows a nicerer." "Indeed!" said Mary. "Yes, indeed!" replied the fat boy, with unwonted vivacity. "What's her name?" inquired Mary. "What's yours?" "Mary." "So's hers," said the fat boy. "You're her." The boy grinned to add point to the compliment, and put his eyes into something between a squint and a cast, which there is reason to believe he intended for an ogle. "You mustn't talk to me in that way," said Mary; "you don't mean it." "Don't I, though?" replied the fat boy; "I say!" "Well?" "Are you going to come here regular?" "No," rejoined Mary, shaking her head, "I'm going away to-night. Why?" "Oh!" said the fat boy in a tone of strong feeling; "how we should have enjoyed ourselves at meals, if you had been!" "I might come here sometimes perhaps, to see you," said Mary, plaiting the table-cloth in assumed coyness, "if you would do me a favour." The fat boy looked from the pie-dish to the steak, as if he thought a favour must be in a manner connected with something to eat; and then took out one of the half-crowns and glanced at it nervously. "Don't you understand me?" said Mary, looking slyly in his fat face. Again he looked at the half-crown, and said faintly, "No." "The ladies want you not to say anything to the old gentleman about the young gentleman having been up-stairs; and I want you too." "Is that all?" said the fat boy, evidently very much relieved as he pocketed the half-crown again. "Of course I ain't a going to." "You see," said Mary, "Mr. Snodgrass is very fond of Miss Emily, and Miss Emily's very fond of him, and if you were to tell about it, the old gentleman would carry you all away miles into the country, where you'd see nobody." "No, no, I won't tell," said the fat boy, stoutly. "That's a dear," said Mary. "Now it's time I went up-stairs and got my lady ready for dinner." "Don't go yet," urged the fat boy. "I must," replied Mary. "Good-bye, for the present." The fat boy, with elephantine playfulness, stretched out his arms to ravish a kiss; but as it required no great agility to elude him, his fair enslaver had vanished before he closed them again; upon which the apathetic youth ate a pound or so of steak with a sentimental countenance, and fell fast asleep. There was so much to say up-stairs, and there were so many plans to concert for elopement and matrimony in the event of old Wardle continuing to be cruel, that it wanted only half an hour of dinner when Mr. Snodgrass took his final adieu. The ladies ran to Emily's bedroom to dress, and the lover, taking up his hat, walked out of the room. He had scarcely got outside the door, when he heard Wardle's voice talking loudly, and looking over the banisters, beheld him, followed by some other gentlemen, coming straight up-stairs. Knowing nothing of the house, Mr. Snodgrass in his confusion stepped hastily back into the room he had just quitted, and passing from thence into an inner apartment (Mr. Wardle's bed-chamber), closed the door softly, just as the persons he had caught a glimpse of entered the sitting-room. These were Mr. Wardle, Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Nathaniel Winkle, and Mr. Benjamin Allen, whom he had no difficulty in recognising by their voices. "Very lucky I had the presence of mind to avoid them," thought Mr. Snodgrass with a smile, and walking on tiptoe to another door near the bedside; "this opens into the same passage, and I can walk quietly and comfortably away." There was only one obstacle to his walking quietly and comfortably away, which was that the door was locked and the key gone. "Let us have some of your best wine to-day, waiter," said old Wardle, rubbing his hands. "You shall have some of the very best, sir," replied the waiter. "Let the ladies know we have come in." "Yes, sir." Devoutly and ardently did Mr. Snodgrass wish that the ladies could know _he_ had come in. He ventured once to whisper "Waiter!" through the keyhole, but as the probability of the wrong waiter coming to his relief flashed upon his mind, together with a sense of the strong resemblance between his own situation and that in which another gentleman had been recently found in a neighbouring hotel (an account of whose misfortunes had appeared under the head of "Police" in that morning's paper), he sat himself on a portmanteau, and trembled violently. "We won't wait a minute for Perker," said Wardle, looking at his watch; "he is always exact. He will be here in time, if he means to come; and if he does not, it's of no use waiting. Ha! Arabella!" "My sister!" exclaimed Mr. Benjamin Allen, folding her in a most romantic embrace. "Oh, Ben dear, how you do smell of tobacco," said Arabella, rather overcome by this mark of affection. "Do I?" said Mr. Benjamin Allen. "Do I, Bella? Well, perhaps I do." Perhaps he did; having just left a pleasant little smoking party of twelve medical students, in a small back parlour with a large fire. "But I am delighted to see you," said Mr. Ben Allen. "Bless you, Bella!" "There," said Arabella, bending forward to kiss her brother; "don't take hold of me again, Ben dear, because you tumble me so." At this point of the reconciliation, Mr. Ben Allen allowed his feelings and the cigars and porter to overcome him, and looked round upon the beholders with damp spectacles. "Is nothing to be said to me?" cried Wardle with open arms. "A great deal," whispered Arabella, as she received the old gentleman's hearty caress and congratulation. "You are a hard-hearted, unfeeling, cruel monster!" "You are a little rebel," replied Wardle in the same tone, "and I am afraid I shall be obliged to forbid you the house. People like you, who get married in spite of everybody, ought not to be let loose on society. But come!" added the old gentleman, aloud, "here's the dinner, you shall sit by me. Joe; why, damn the boy, he's awake!" To the great distress of his master, the fat boy was indeed in a state of remarkable vigilance; his eyes being wide open, and looking as if they intended to remain so. There was an alacrity in his manner, too, which was equally unaccountable; every time his eyes met those of Emily or Arabella, he smirked and grinned: once Wardle could have sworn he saw him wink. This alteration in the fat boy's demeanour originated in his increased sense of his own importance, and the dignity he acquired from having been taken into the confidence of the young ladies; and the smirks, and grins, and winks, were so many condescending assurances that they might depend upon his fidelity. As these tokens were rather calculated to awaken suspicion than to allay it, and were somewhat embarrassing besides, they were occasionally answered by a frown or shake of the head from Arabella, which the fat boy considering as hints to be on his guard, expressed his perfect understanding of, by smirking, grinning, and winking, with redoubled assiduity. "Joe," said Mr. Wardle, after an unsuccessful search in all his pockets, "is my snuff-box on the sofa?" "No, sir," replied the fat boy. "Oh, I recollect; I left it on my dressing-table this morning," said Wardle. "Run into the next room and fetch it." The fat boy went into the next room; and having been absent about a minute, returned with the snuff-box, and the palest face that ever a fat boy wore. "What's the matter with the boy!" exclaimed Wardle. "Nothen's the matter with me," replied Joe, nervously. "Have you been seeing any spirits?" inquired the old gentleman. "Or taking any?" added Ben Allen. "I think you're right," whispered Wardle, across the table. "He is intoxicated, I'm sure." Ben Allen replied that he thought he was; and as that gentleman had seen a vast deal of the disease in question, Wardle was confirmed in an impression which had been hovering about his mind for half an hour, and at once arrived at the conclusion that the fat boy was drunk. "Just keep your eye upon him for a few minutes," murmured Wardle. "We shall soon find out whether he is or not." The unfortunate youth had only interchanged a dozen words with Mr. Snodgrass: that gentleman having implored him to make a private appeal to some friend to release him, and then pushed him out with the snuff-box, lest his prolonged absence should lead to a discovery. He ruminated a little with a most disturbed expression of face, and left the room in search of Mary. But Mary had gone home after dressing her mistress, and the fat boy came back again more disturbed than before. Wardle and Mr. Ben Allen exchanged glances. "Joe!" said Wardle. "Yes, sir." "What did you go away for?" The fat boy looked hopelessly in the face of everybody at table and stammered out that he didn't know. "Oh," said Wardle, "you don't know, eh? Take this cheese to Mr. Pickwick." Now, Mr. Pickwick being in the very best health and spirits, had been making himself perfectly delightful all dinner-time, and was at this moment engaged in an energetic conversation with Emily and Mr. Winkle: bowing his head, courteously, in the emphasis of his discourse, gently waving his left hand to lend force to his observations, and all glowing with placid smiles. He took a piece of cheese from the plate, and was on the point of turning round to renew the conversation, when the fat boy, stooping so as to bring his head on a level with that of Mr. Pickwick, pointed with his thumb over his shoulder, and made the most horrible and hideous face that was ever seen out of a Christmas pantomime. [Illustration: _Pointed with his thumb over his shoulder_] "Dear me!" said Mr. Pickwick, starting, "what a very--eh?" He stopped, for the fat boy had drawn himself up, and was, or pretended to be, fast asleep. "What's the matter?" inquired Wardle. "This is such an extremely singular lad!" replied Mr. Pickwick, looking uneasily at the boy. "It seems an odd thing to say, but upon my word I am afraid that, at times, he is a little deranged." "Oh! Mr. Pickwick, pray don't say so," cried Emily and Arabella, both at once. "I am not certain, of course," said Mr. Pickwick, amidst profound silence, and looks of general dismay; "but his manner to me this moment was really very alarming. Oh!" ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, suddenly jumping up with a short scream. "I beg your pardon, ladies, but at that moment he ran some sharp instrument into my leg. Really he is not safe." "He's drunk," roared old Wardle, passionately. "Ring the bell! Call the waiters! He's drunk." "I ain't," said the fat boy, falling on his knees as his master seized him by the collar. "I ain't drunk." "Then you're mad; that's worse. Call the waiters," said the old gentleman. "I ain't mad; I'm sensible," rejoined the fat boy, beginning to cry. "Then, what the devil do you run sharp instruments into Mr. Pickwick's legs for?" inquired Wardle, angrily. "He wouldn't look at me," replied the boy. "I wanted to speak to him." "What did you want to say?" asked half a dozen voices at once. The fat boy gasped, looked at the bedroom door, gasped again, and wiped two tears away with the knuckle of each of his forefingers. "What did you want to say?" demanded Wardle, shaking him. "Stop!" said Mr. Pickwick; "allow me. What did you wish to communicate to me, my poor boy?" "I want to whisper to you," replied the fat boy. "You want to bite his ear off, I suppose," said Wardle. "Don't come near him; he's vicious; ring the bell and let him be taken down-stairs." Just as Mr. Winkle caught the bell rope in his hand, it was arrested by a general expression of astonishment; the captive lover, his face burning with confusion, suddenly walked in from the bedroom, and made a comprehensive bow to the company. "Hallo!" cried Wardle, releasing the fat boy's collar, and staggering back. "What's this!" "I have been concealed in the next room, sir, since you returned," explained Mr. Snodgrass. "Emily, my girl," said Wardle, reproachfully, "I detest meanness and deceit; this is unjustifiable and indelicate in the highest degree. I don't deserve this at your hands, Emily, indeed!" "Dear papa," said Emily, "Arabella knows--everybody here knows--Joe knows--that I was no party to this concealment. Augustus, for Heaven's sake, explain it!" Mr. Snodgrass, who had only waited for a hearing, at once recounted how he had been placed in his then distressing predicament; how the fear of giving rise to domestic dissensions had alone prompted him to avoid Mr. Wardle on his entrance; how he merely meant to depart by another door, but, finding it locked, had been compelled to stay against his will. It was a painful situation to be placed in; but he now regretted it the less, inasmuch as it afforded him an opportunity of acknowledging, before their mutual friends, that he loved Mr. Wardle's daughter, deeply and sincerely; that he was proud to avow that the feeling was mutual; and that if thousands of miles were placed between them, or oceans rolled their waters, he could never for an instant forget those happy days, when first--and so on. Having delivered himself to this effect, Mr. Snodgrass bowed again, looked into the crown of his hat, and stepped towards the door. "Stop!" shouted Wardle. "Why in the name of all that's----" "Inflammable," mildly suggested Mr. Pickwick, who thought something worse was coming. "Well--that's inflammable," said Wardle, adopting the substitute, "couldn't you say all this to me in the first instance?" "Or confide in me?" added Mr. Pickwick. "Dear, dear," said Arabella, taking up the defence, "what is the use of asking all that now, especially when you know you had set your covetous old heart on a richer son-in-law, and are so wild and fierce besides, that everybody is afraid of you, except me. Shake hands with him, and order him some dinner, for goodness gracious sake, for he looks half-starved; and pray have your wine up at once, for you'll not be tolerable until you have taken two bottles at least." The worthy old gentleman pulled Arabella's ear, kissed her without the smallest scruple, kissed his daughter also with great affection, and shook Mr. Snodgrass warmly by the hand. "She is right on one point at all events," said the old gentleman, cheerfully. "Ring for the wine!" The wine came, and Perker came up-stairs at the same moment. Mr. Snodgrass had dinner at a side table, and, when he had despatched it, drew his chair next Emily, without the smallest opposition on the old gentleman's part. The evening was excellent. Little Mr. Perker came out wonderfully, told various comic stories, and sang a serious song which was almost as funny as the anecdotes. Arabella was very charming, Mr. Wardle very jovial, Mr. Pickwick very harmonious, Mr. Ben Allen very uproarious, the lovers very silent, Mr. Winkle very talkative, and all of them very happy. CHAPTER XXVII [Illustration] _Solomon Pell, assisted by a Select Committee of Coachmen, arranges the Affairs of the Elder Mr. Weller_ "Samivel," said Mr. Weller, accosting his son on the morning after the funeral, "I've found it, Sammy. I thought it wos there." "Thought vot wos were?" inquired Sam. "Your mother-in-law's vill, Sammy," replied Mr. Weller. "In wirtue o' wich, them arrangements is to be made as I told you on, last night, respectin' the funs." "Wot, didn't she tell you vere it wos?" inquired Sam. "Not a bit on it, Sammy," replied Mr. Weller. "We wos a adjestin' our little differences, and I wos a cheerin' her spirits and bearin' her up, so that I forgot to ask anythin' about it. I don't know as I should ha' done it indeed, if I had remembered it," added Mr. Weller, "for it's a rum sort o' thing, Sammy, to go a hankerin' arter anybody's property, ven you're assistin' 'em in illness. It's like helping an outside passenger up, ven he's been pitched off a coach, and puttin' your hand in his pocket, vile you ask him vith a sigh how he finds hisself, Sammy." With this figurative illustration of his meaning, Mr. Weller unclasped his pocket-book, and drew forth a dirty sheet of letter paper, on which were inscribed various characters crowded together in remarkable confusion. "This here is the dockyment, Sammy," said Mr. Weller. "I found it in the little black teapot, on the top shelf o' the bar closet. She used to keep bank notes there, 'afore she vos married, Samivel. I've seen her take the lid off, to pay a bill, many and many a time. Poor creetur, she might ha' filled all the teapots in the house vith vills, and not have inconwenienced herself neither, for she took wery little of anythin' in that vay lately, 'cept on the Temperance nights, ven they fust laid a foundation o' tea to put the spirits a-top on!" "What does it say?" inquired Sam. "Jist vot I told you, my boy," rejoined his parent. "Two hundred pound vurth o' reduced counsels to my son-in-law, Samivel, and all the rest o' my property, of ev'ry kind and description votsoever to my husband, Mr. Tony Veller, who I appint as my sole eggzekiter." "That's all, is it?" said Sam. "That's all," replied Mr. Weller. "And I s'pose as it's all right and satisfactory to you and me as is the only parties interested, ve may as vell put this bit o' paper into the fire." "Wot are you a-doin' on, you lunatic?" said Sam, snatching the paper away, as his parent, in all innocence, stirred the fire preparatory to suiting the action to the word. "You're a nice eggzeketir, you are." "Vy not?" inquired Mr. Weller, looking sternly round, with the poker in his hand. "Vy not!" exclaimed Sam. "'Cos it must be proved, and probated, and swore to, and all manner o' formalities." "You don't mean that?" said Mr. Weller, laying down the poker. Sam buttoned the will carefully in a side pocket; intimating by a look meanwhile, that he did mean it, and very seriously too. "Then I'll tell you wot it is," said Mr. Weller, after a short meditation, "this is a case for that 'ere confidential pal o' the Chancellorship's. Pell must look into this, Sammy. He's the man for a difficult question at law. Ve'll have this here brought afore the Solvent Court directly, Samivel." "I never did see such a addle-headed old creetur!" exclaimed Sam, irritably, "Old Baileys, and Solvent Courts, and alleybis, and ev'ry species o' gammon alvays a-runnin' through his brain! You'd better get your out o' door clothes on, and come to town about this bisness, than stand a-preachin' there about wot you don't understand nothin' on." "Wery good, Sammy," replied Mr. Weller, "I'm quite agreeable to anythin' as vill hexpedite business, Sammy. But mind this here, my boy, nobody but Pell--nobody but Pell as a legal adwiser." "I don't want anybody else," replied Sam. "Now are you a-comin'?" "Vait a minute, Sammy," replied Mr. Weller, who, having tied his shawl with the aid of a small glass that hung in the window, was now, by dint of the most wonderful exertions, struggling into his upper garments. "Vait a minit, Sammy; ven you grow as old as your father, you von't get into your veskit quite as easy as you do now, my boy." "If I couldn't get into it easier than that, I'm blessed if I'd vear vun at all," rejoined his son. "You think so now," said Mr. Weller, with the gravity of age, "but you'll find that as you get vider, you'll get viser. Vidth and visdom, Sammy, alvays grows together." As Mr. Weller delivered this infallible maxim--the result of many years' personal experience and observation--he contrived, by a dexterous twist of his body, to get the bottom button of his coat to perform its office. Having paused a few seconds to recover breath, he brushed his hat with his elbow, and declared himself ready. "As four heads is better than two, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, as they drove along the London Road in the chaise cart, "and as all this here property is a wery great temptation to a legal gen'l'm'n, ve'll take a couple o' friends o' mine vith us, as'll be wery soon down upon him if he comes anythin' irreg'lar; two o' them as saw you to the Fleet that day. They're the wery best judges," added Mr. Weller in a half whisper, "the wery best judges of a horse, you ever know'd." "And of a lawyer too?" inquired Sam. "The man as can form a ackerate judgment of a animal, can form a ackerate judgment of anythin'," replied his father; so dogmatically, that Sam did not attempt to controvert the position. In pursuance of this notable resolution the services of the mottled-faced gentleman and of two other very fat coachmen--selected by Mr. Weller, probably with a view to their width and consequent wisdom--were put into requisition; and this assistance having been secured, the party proceeded to the public-home in Portugal Street, whence a messenger was despatched to the Insolvent Court over the way, requiring Mr. Solomon Pell's immediate attendance. [Illustration: _A cold collation of an Abernethy biscuit and a saveloy_] The messenger fortunately found Mr. Solomon Pell in court, regaling himself, business being rather slack, with a cold collation of an Abernethy biscuit and a saveloy. The message was no sooner whispered in his ear than he thrust them in his pocket among various professional documents, and hurried over the way with such alacrity that he reached the parlour before the messenger had even emancipated himself from the court. "Gentlemen," said Mr. Pell, touching his hat, "my service to you all. I don't say it to flatter you, gentlemen, but there are not five other men in the world, that I'd have come out of that court for, to-day." "So busy, eh?" said Sam. "Busy!" replied Pell; "I'm completely sewn up, as my friend the late Lord Chancellor many a time used to say to me, gentlemen, when he came out from hearing appeals in the House of Lords. Poor fellow! he was very susceptible of fatigue; he used to feel those appeals uncommonly. I actually thought more than once that he'd have sunk under 'em; I did indeed." Here Mr. Pell shook his head and paused; on which, the elder Mr. Weller, nudging his neighbour, as begging him to mark the attorney's high connections, asked whether the duties in question produced any permanent ill effects on the constitution of his noble friend. "I don't think he ever quite recovered them," replied Pell; "in fact I'm sure he never did. 'Pell,' he used to say to me many a time, 'how the blazes you can stand the head-work you do, is a mystery to me.'--'Well,' I used to answer, '_I_ hardly know how I do it, upon my life.'--'Pell,' he'd add, sighing, and looking at me with a little envy--friendly envy, you know, gentlemen, mere friendly envy; I never minded it--'Pell, you're a wonder; a wonder.' Ah! you'd have liked him very much if you had known him, gentlemen. Bring me three penn'orth of rum, my dear." Addressing this latter remark to the waitress in a tone of subdued grief, Mr. Pell sighed, looked at his shoes, and the ceiling; and, the rum having by that time arrived, drunk it up. "However," said Pell, drawing a chair to the table, "a professional man has no right to think of his private friendships when his legal assistance is wanted. By-the-bye, gentlemen, since I saw you here before, we have had to weep over a very melancholy occurrence." Mr. Pell drew out a pocket-handkerchief, when he came to the word weep, but he made no further use of it than to wipe away a slight tinge of rum which hung upon his upper lip. "I saw it in the _Advertiser_, Mr. Weller," continued Pell. "Bless my soul, not more than fifty-two! Dear me--only think." These indications of a musing spirit were addressed to the mottled-faced man, whose eyes Mr. Pell had accidentally caught; on which, the mottled-faced man, whose apprehension of matters in general was of a foggy nature, moved uneasily in his seat, and opined that indeed, so far as that went, there was no saying how things _was_ brought about; which observation, involving one of those subtle propositions which it is so difficult to encounter in argument, was controverted by nobody. "I have heard it remarked that she was a very fine woman, Mr. Weller," said Pell in a sympathising manner. "Yes, sir, she wos," replied the elder Mr. Weller, not much relishing this mode of discussing the subject, and yet thinking that the attorney, from his long intimacy with the late Lord Chancellor, must know best on all matters of polite breeding. "She wos a wery fine 'ooman, sir, ven I first know'd her. She wos a widder sir, at that time." "Now, it's curious," said Pell, looking round with a sorrowful smile; "Mrs. Pell was a widow." "That's very extraordinary," said the mottled-faced man. "Well, it is a curious coincidence," said Pell. "Not at all," gruffly remarked the elder Mr. Weller. "More widders is married than single wimin." "Very good, very good," said Pell, "you're quite right, Mr. Weller. Mrs. Pell was a very elegant and accomplished woman; her manners were the theme of universal admiration in our neighbourhood. I was proud to see that woman dance; there was something so firm and dignified, and yet natural in her motion. Her cutting, gentlemen, was simplicity itself. Ah! well, well! Excuse my asking the question, Mr. Samuel," continued the attorney in a lower voice, "was your mother-in-law tall?" "Not wery," replied Sam. "Mrs. Pell was a tall figure," said Pell, "a splendid woman, with a noble shape, and a nose, gentlemen, formed to command and be majestic. She was very much attached to me--very much--highly connected, too. Her mother's brother, gentlemen, failed for eight hundred pounds, as a Law Stationer." "Vell," said Mr. Weller, who had grown rather restless during this discussion, "vith regard to bis'ness." The word was music to Pell's ears. He had been revolving in his mind whether any business was to be transacted, or whether he had been merely invited to partake of a glass of brandy and water, or a bowl of punch, or any similar professional compliment, and now the doubt was set at rest without his appearing at all eager for its solution. His eyes glistened as he laid his hat on the table, and said: "What is the business upon which--um? Either of these gentlemen wish to go through the court? We require an arrest; a friendly arrest will do, you know; we are all friends here, I suppose?" "Give me the dockyment, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, taking the will from his son, who appeared to enjoy the interview amazingly. "Wot we rekvire, sir, is a probe o' this here." "Probate, my dear sir, probate," said Pell. "Well, sir," replied Mr. Weller sharply, "probe and probe it, is wery much the same; if you don't understand wot I mean, sir, I dessay I can find them as does." "No offence, I hope, Mr. Weller," said Pell, meekly. "You are the executor, I see," he added, casting his eyes over the paper. "I am, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "These other gentlemen, I presume, are legatees, are they?" inquired Pell with a congratulatory smile. "Sammy is a leg-at-ease," replied Mr. Weller; "these other gen'l'm'n is friends o' mine, just come to see fair; a kind of umpires." "Oh!" said Pell, "very good. I have no objections, I'm sure. I shall want a matter of five pound of you before I begin, ha! ha! ha!" It being decided by the committee that the five pound might be advanced, Mr. Weller produced that sum; after which, a long consultation about nothing particular took place, in the course whereof Mr. Pell demonstrated to the perfect satisfaction of the gentlemen who saw fair, that unless the management of the business had been entrusted to him, it must all have gone wrong, for reasons not clearly made out, but no doubt sufficient. This important point being dispatched, Mr. Pell refreshed himself with three chops, and liquids both malt and spirituous, at the expense of the estate, and then they all went away to Doctors' Commons. The next day, there was another visit to Doctors' Commons, and a great to-do with an attesting hostler, who, being inebriated, declined swearing anything but profane oaths, to the great scandal of a proctor and surrogate. Next week, there were more visits to Doctors' Commons, and there was a visit to the Legacy Duty Office besides, and there were treaties entered into, for the disposal of the lease and business, and ratifications of the same, and inventories to be made out, and lunches to be taken, and dinners to be eaten, and so many profitable things to be done, and such a mass of papers accumulated, that Mr. Solomon Pell, and the boy, and the blue bag to boot, all got so stout that scarcely anybody would have known them for the same man, boy, and bag, that had loitered about Portugal Street, a few days before. At length all these weighty matters being arranged, a day was fixed for selling out and transferring the stock, and of waiting with that view upon Wilkins Flasher, Esq., stock-broker, of somewhere near the Bank, who had been recommended by Mr. Solomon Pell for the purpose. It was a kind of festive occasion, and the parties were attired accordingly. Mr. Weller's tops were newly cleaned and his dress was arranged with peculiar care; the mottled-faced gentleman wore at his button-hole a full-sized dahlia with several leaves; and the coats of his two friends were adorned with nosegays of laurel and other evergreens. All three were habited in strict holiday costume; that is to say, they were wrapped up to the chins, and wore as many clothes as possible, which is, and has been, a stage-coachman's idea of full dress ever since stage-coaches were invented. Mr. Pell was waiting at the usual place of meeting at the appointed time; even Mr. Pell wore a pair of gloves and a clean shirt much frayed at the collar and wristbands by frequent washings. "A quarter to two," said Pell, looking at the parlour clock. "If we are with Mr. Flasher at a quarter past, we shall just hit the best time." "What should you say to a drop o' beer, gen'l'm'n?" suggested the mottled-faced man. "And a little bit of cold beef," said the second coachman. "Or a oyster," added the third, who was a hoarse gentleman supported by very round legs. "Hear, hear!" said Pell; "to congratulate Mr. Weller, on his coming into possession of his property: eh? ha! ha!" "I'm quite agreeable, gen'l'm'n," answered Mr. Weller. "Sammy, pull the bell." Sam complied; and the porter, cold beef, and oysters being promptly produced, the lunch was done ample justice to. Where everybody took so active a part, it is almost invidious to make a distinction; but if one individual evinced greater powers than another, it was the coachman with the hoarse voice, who took an imperial pint of vinegar with his oysters, without betraying the least emotion. "Mr. Pell, sir," said the elder Mr. Weller, stirring a glass of brandy and water, of which one was placed before every gentleman when the oyster shells were removed, "Mr. Pell, sir, it wos my intention to have proposed the funs on this occasion, but Samivel has vispered to me----" Here Mr. Samuel Weller, who had silently eaten his oysters with tranquil smiles, cried "Hear!" in a very loud voice. "--Has vispered to me," resumed his father, "that it vould be better to dewote the liquor to vishin' you success and prosperity, and thankin' you for the manner in which you've brought this here business through. Here's your health, sir." "Hold hard there," interposed the mottled-faced gentleman, with sudden energy, "your eyes on me, gen'l'm'n!" Saying this, the mottled-faced gentleman rose, as did the other gentlemen. The mottled-faced gentleman reviewed the company, and slowly lifted his hand, upon which every man (including him of the mottled countenance) drew a long breath, and lifted his tumbler to his lips. In one instant the mottled-faced gentleman depressed his hand again, and every glass was set down empty. It is impossible to describe the thrilling effect produced by this striking ceremony. At once dignified, solemn, and impressive, it combined every element of grandeur. "Well, gentlemen," said Mr. Pell, "all I can say is, that such marks of confidence must be very gratifying to a professional man. I don't wish to say anything that might appear egotistical, gentlemen, but I'm very glad, for your own sakes, that you came to me; that's all. If you had gone to any low member of the profession, it's my firm conviction, and I assure you of it as a fact, that you would have found yourselves in Queer Street before this. I could have wished my noble friend had been alive to have seen my management of this case. I don't say it out of pride, but I think--however, gentlemen, I won't trouble you with that. I am generally to be found here, gentlemen, but if I'm not here, or over the way, that's my address. You'll find my terms very cheap and reasonable, and no man attends more to his clients than I do, and I hope I know a little of my profession besides. If you have any opportunity of recommending me to any of your friends, gentlemen, I shall be very much obliged to you, and so will they too, when they come to know me. _Your_ healths, gentlemen." With this expression of his feelings, Mr. Solomon Pell laid three small written cards before Mr. Weller's friends, and, looking at the clock again, feared it was time to be walking. Upon this hint Mr. Weller settled the bill, and, issuing forth, the executor, legatee, attorney, and umpires, directed their steps towards the City. The office of Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, of the Stock Exchange, was in a first floor up a court behind the Bank of England; the house of Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, was at Brixton, Surrey; the horse and stanhope of Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, were at an adjacent livery stable; the groom of Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, was on his way to the West End to deliver some game; the clerk of Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, had gone to his dinner, and Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, himself, cried, "Come in," when Mr. Pell and his companions knocked at the counting-house door. "Good morning, sir," said Pell, bowing obsequiously. "We want to make a little transfer, if you please." "Oh, come in, will you?" said Mr. Flasher. "Sit down a minute; I'll attend to you directly." "Thank you, sir," said Pell, "there's no hurry. Take a chair, Mr. Weller." Mr. Weller took a chair, and Sam took a box, and the umpires took what they could get, and looked at the almanack and one or two papers which were wafered against the wall, with as much open-eyed reverence as if they had been the finest efforts of the old masters. "Well, I'll bet you half a dozen of claret on it; come!" said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, resuming the conversation to which Mr. Pell's entrance had caused a momentary interruption. This was addressed to a very smart young gentleman who wore his hat on his right whisker, and was lounging over the desk, killing flies with a ruler. Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, was balancing himself on two legs of an office stool, spearing a wafer-box with a pen-knife, which he dropped every now and then with great dexterity into the very centre of a small red wafer that was stuck outside. Both gentlemen had very open waistcoats and very rolling collars, and very small boots, and very big rings, and very little watches, and very large guard chains, and symmetrical inexpressibles, and scented pocket-handkerchiefs. "I never bet half a dozen," said the other gentleman. "I'll take a dozen." "Done, Simmery, done!" said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. "P. P., mind," observed the other. "Of course," replied Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, entered it in a little book, with a gold pencil-case, and the other gentleman entered it also, in another little book with another gold pencil-case. "I see there's a notice up this morning about Boffer," observed Mr. Simmery. "Poor devil, he's expelled the house!" "I'll bet you ten guineas to five he cuts his throat," said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. "Stop! I bar," said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, thoughtfully. "Perhaps he may hang himself." "Very good," rejoined Mr. Simmery, pulling out the gold pencil-case again." I've no objection to take you that way. Say, makes away with himself." "Kills himself, in fact," said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. "Just so," replied Mr. Simmery, putting down. "'Flasher--ten guineas to five, Boffer kills himself.' Within what time shall we say?" "A fortnight?" suggested Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. "Confound it, no;" rejoined Mr. Simmery, stopping for an instant to smash a fly with the ruler. "Say a week." "Split the difference," said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. "Make it ten days." "Well; ten days," rejoined Mr. Simmery. So, it was entered down in the little books that Boffer was to kill himself within ten days, or Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, was to hand over to Frank Simmery, Esquire, the sum of ten guineas; and that if Boffer did kill himself within that time, Frank Simmery, Esquire, would pay to Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, five guineas, instead. "I'm very sorry he has failed," said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. "Capital dinners he gave." "Fine port he had too," remarked Mr. Simmery. "We are going to send our butler to the sale to-morrow, to pick up some of that sixty-four." "The devil you are," said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. "My man's going too. Five guineas my man outbids your man." "Done." Another entry was made in the little books, with the gold pencil-cases; and Mr. Simmery having, by this time, killed all the flies and taken all the bets, strolled away to the Stock Exchange to see what was going forward. Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, now condescended to receive Mr. Solomon's Pell's instructions, and having filled up some printed forms, requested the party to follow him to the Bank: which they did: Mr. Weller and his three friends staring at all they beheld in unbounded astonishment, and Sam encountering everything with a coolness which nothing could disturb. Crossing a court-yard which was all noise and bustle; and passing a couple of porters who seemed dressed to match the red fire-engine which was wheeled away into a corner; they passed into an office where their business was to be transacted, and where Pell and Mr. Flasher left them standing for a few moments, while they went upstairs into the Will Office. "Wot place is this here?" whispered the mottled-faced gentleman to the elder Mr. Weller. "Counsel's Office," replied the executor in a whisper. "Wot are them gen'l'men a settin' behind the counters?" asked the hoarse coachman. "Reduced counsels, I s'pose," replied Mr. Weller. "Ain't they the reduced counsels, Samivel?" "Vy, you don't suppose the reduced counsels is alive, do you?" inquired Sam, with some disdain. "How should I know?" retorted Mr. Weller; "I thought they looked wery like it. Wot are they, then?" "Clerks," replied Sam. "Wot are they all a eatin' ham sangwidges for?" inquired his father. "'Cos it's their dooty, I suppose," replied Sam, "it's a part o' the system; they're always a doin' it here, all day long!" Mr. Weller and his friends had scarcely had a moment to reflect upon this singular regulation as connected with the monetary system of the country, when they were rejoined by Pell and Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, who led them to a part of the counter above which was a round black board with a large "W." on it. "Wot's that for, sir?" inquired Mr. Weller, directing Pell's attention to the target in question. "The first letter of the name of the deceased," replied Pell. "I say," said Mr. Weller, turning round to the umpires. "There's somethin' wrong here. We's our letter--this won't do." The referees at once gave it as their decided opinion that the business could not be legally proceeded with, under the letter W, and in all probability it would have stood over for one day at least, had it not been for the prompt, though, at first sight, undutiful behaviour of Sam, who, seizing his father by the skirt of the coat, dragged him to the counter, and pinned him there, until he had affixed his signature to a couple of instruments; which from Mr. Weller's habit of printing, was a work of so much labour and time, that the officiating clerk peeled and ate three Ribston pippins while it was performing. As the elder Mr. Weller insisted on selling out his portion forthwith, they proceeded from the Bank to the gate of the Stock Exchange, to which Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, after a short absence, returned with a cheque on Smith, Payne, and Smith, for five hundred and thirty pounds; that being the sum of money to which Mr. Weller, at the market price of the day, was entitled, in consideration of the balance of the second Mrs. Weller's funded savings. Sam's two hundred pounds stood transferred to his name, and Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, having been paid his commission, dropped the money carelessly into his coat pocket and lounged back to his office. Mr. Weller was at first obstinately determined on cashing the cheque in nothing but sovereigns: but it being represented by the umpires that by so doing he must incur the expense of a small sack to carry them home in, he consented to receive the amount in five-pound notes. "My son," said Mr. Weller as they came out of the banking-house, "my son and me has a wery particular engagement this arternoon, and I should like to have this here bis'ness settled out of hand, so let's jest go straight avay someveres, vere ve can hordit the accounts." A quiet room was soon found, and the accounts were produced and audited. Mr. Pell's bill was taxed by Sam, and some charges were disallowed by the umpires; but, notwithstanding Mr. Pell's declaration, accompanied with many solemn asseverations, that they were really too hard upon him, it was by very many degrees the best professional job he had ever had, and one on which he boarded, lodged, and washed, for six months afterwards. The umpires, having partaken of a dram, shook hands and departed, as they had to drive out of town that night. Mr. Solomon Pell, finding that nothing more was going forward, either in the eating or drinking way, took a friendly leave, and Sam and his father were left alone. "There!" said Mr. Weller, thrusting his pocket-book in his side pocket. "Vith the bills for the lease, and that, there's eleven hundred and eighty pound here. Now, Samivel, my boy, turn the horses' heads to the George and Wulter!" CHAPTER XXVIII [Illustration] _An important Conference takes place between Mr. Pickwick and Samuel Weller, at which his Parent assists. An old Gentleman in a Snuff-coloured Suit arrives unexpectedly_ Mr. Pickwick was sitting alone, musing over many things, and thinking among other considerations how he could best provide for the young couple whose present unsettled condition was matter of constant regret and anxiety to him, when Mary stepped lightly into the room, and, advancing to the table, said, rather hastily: "Oh, if you please, sir, Samuel is down-stairs, and he says may his father see you?" "Surely," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Thank you, sir," said Mary, tripping towards the door again. "Sam has not been here long, has he?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Oh no, sir," replied Mary, eagerly. "He has only just come home. He is not going to ask you for any more leave, sir, he says." Mary might have been conscious that she had communicated this last intelligence with more warmth than seemed actually necessary, or she might have observed the good-humoured smile with which Mr. Pickwick regarded her, when she had finished speaking. She certainly held down her head, and examined the corner of a very smart little apron, with more closeness than there appeared any absolute occasion for. "Tell them they can come up at once, by all means," said Mr. Pickwick. Mary, apparently much relieved, hurried away with her message. Mr. Pickwick took two or three turns up and down the room; and rubbing his chin with his left hand as he did so, appeared lost in thought. "Well, well," said Mr. Pickwick at length, in a kind but somewhat melancholy tone, "it is the best way in which I could reward him for his attachment and fidelity; let it be so, in Heaven's name. It is the fate of a lonely old man, that those about him should form new and different attachments and leave him. I have no right to expect that it should be otherwise with me. No, no," added Mr. Pickwick more cheerfully, "it would be selfish and ungrateful. I ought to be happy to have an opportunity of providing for him so well. I am. Of course I am." Mr. Pickwick had been so absorbed in these reflections, that a knock at the door was three or four times repeated before he heard it. Hastily seating himself, and calling up his accustomed pleasant looks, he gave the required permission, and Sam Weller entered, followed by his father. "Glad to see you back again, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "How do you do, Mr. Weller?" "Wery hearty, thankee, sir," replied the widower; "hope I see _you_ well, sir." "Quite, I thank you," replied Mr. Pickwick. "I wanted to have a little bit o' conwersation with you, sir," said Mr. Weller, "if you could spare me five minits or so, sir." "Certainly," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Sam, give your father a chair." "Thankee, Samivel, I've got a cheer here," said Mr. Weller, bringing one forward as he spoke; "uncommon fine day it's been sir," added the old gentleman, laying his hat on the floor as he sat himself down. "Remarkably so indeed," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Very seasonable." "Seasonablest veather I ever see, sir," rejoined Mr. Weller. Here, the old gentleman was seized with a violent fit of coughing, which, being terminated, he nodded his head and winked and made several supplicatory and threatening gestures to his son, all of which Sam Weller steadily abstained from seeing. Mr. Pickwick, perceiving that there was some embarrassment on the old gentleman's part, affected to be engaged in cutting the leaves of a book that lay beside him, and waited patiently until Mr. Weller should arrive at the object of his visit. "I never see sich a aggerawatin' boy as you are, Samivel," said Mr. Weller, looking indignantly at his son; "never in all my born days." "What is he doing, Mr. Weller?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "He von't begin, sir," rejoined Mr. Weller; "he knows I ain't ekal to ex-pressin' myself ven there's anythin' partickler to be done, and yet he'll stand and see me a settin' here takin' up your walable time, and makin' a reg'lar spectacle o' myself, rayther than help me out vith a syllable. It ain't filial conduct, Samivel," said Mr. Weller, wiping his forehead; "wery far from it." "You said you'd speak," replied Sam; "how should I know you wos done up at the wery beginnin'?" "You might ha' seen I warn't able to start," rejoined his father; "I'm on the wrong side of the road, and backin' into the palin's, and all manner of unpleasantness, and yet you von't put out a hand to help me. I'm ashamed on you, Samivel." "The fact is, sir," said Sam, with a slight bow, "the gov'ner's been a drawin' his money." "Wery good, Samivel, wery good," said Mr. Weller, nodding his head with a satisfied air, "I didn't mean to speak harsh to you, Sammy. Wery good. That's the vay to begin. Come to the pint at once. Wery good indeed, Samivel." Mr. Weller nodded his head an extraordinary number of times, in the excess of his gratification, and waited in a listening attitude for Sam to resume his statement. "You may sit down, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, apprehending that the interview was likely to prove rather longer than he had expected. Sam bowed again and sat down; his father looking round, he continued: "The gov'ner, sir, has drawn out five hundred and thirty pound." "Reduced counsels," interposed Mr. Weller senior, in an undertone. "It don't much matter vether it's reduced counsels, or wot not," said Sam; "five hundred and thirty pound is the sum, ain't it?" "All right, Samivel," replied Mr. Weller. "To vich sum, he has added for the house and bis'ness----" "Lease, good-vill, stock, and fixters," interposed Mr. Weller. --"As much as makes it," continued Sam, "altogether, eleven hundred and eighty pound." "Indeed!" said Mr. Pickwick. "I am delighted to hear it. I congratulate you, Mr. Weller, on having done so well." "Vait a minit, sir," said Mr. Weller, raising his hand in a deprecatory manner. "Get on, Samivel." "This here money," said Sam, with a little hesitation, "he's anxious to put someveres, vere he knows it'll be safe, and I'm wery anxious too, for if he keeps it, he'll go a lendin' it to somebody, or inwestin' property in horses, or droppin' his pocket-book down a airy, or makin' a Egyptian mummy of his-self in some vay or another." "Wery good, Samivel," observed Mr. Weller, in as complacent a manner as if Sam had been passing the highest eulogiums on his prudence and foresight. "Wery good." "For vich reasons," continued Sam, plucking nervously at the brim of his hat; "for vich reasons, he's drawed it out to-day, and come here vith me to say, leastvays to offer, or in other vords to----" "--To say this here," said the elder Mr. Weller, impatiently, "that it ain't no use to me. I'm a goin' to vork a coach reg'lar, and han't got noveres to keep it in, unless I vos to pay the guard for takin' care on it, or to put it in vun o' the coach pockets, vich 'ud be a temptation to the insides. If you'll take care on it for me, sir, I shall be wery much obliged to you. P'raps," said Mr. Weller, walking up to Mr. Pickwick and whispering in his ear, "p'raps it'll go a little vay towards the expenses o' that 'ere conwiction. All I say is, just you keep it till I ask you for it again." With these words, Mr. Weller placed the pocket-book in Mr. Pickwick's hands, caught up his hat, and ran out of the room with a celerity scarcely to be expected from so corpulent a subject. "Stop him, Sam!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, earnestly. "Overtake him; bring him back instantly! Mr. Weller--here--come back!" Sam saw that his master's injunctions were not to be disobeyed; and catching his father by the arm as he was descending the stairs, dragged him back by main force. "My good friend," said Mr. Pickwick, taking the old man by the hand, "your honest confidence overpowers me." "I don't see no occasion for nothin' o' the kind, sir," replied Mr. Weller, obstinately. "I assure you, my good friend, I have more money than I can ever need; far more than a man at my age can ever live to spend," said Mr. Pickwick. "No man knows how much he can spend, till he tries," observed Mr. Weller. "Perhaps not," replied Mr. Pickwick; "but as I have no intention of trying any such experiments, I am not likely to come to want. I must beg you to take this back, Mr. Weller." "Wery well," said Mr. Weller with a discontented look. "Mark my vords, Sammy. I'll do something desperate vith this here property; somethin' desperate!" "You'd better not," replied Sam. Mr. Weller reflected for a short time, and then, buttoning up his coat with great determination, said: "I'll keep a pike." "Wot!" exclaimed Sam. "A pike," rejoined Mr. Weller, through his set teeth: "I'll keep a pike. Say good-bye to your father, Samivel. I devote the remainder o' my days to' a pike." This threat was such an awful one, and Mr. Weller, besides appearing fully resolved to carry it into execution, seemed so deeply mortified by Mr. Pickwick's refusal, that that gentleman after a short reflection, said: "Well, well, Mr. Weller, I will keep the money. I can do more good with it, perhaps, than you can." "Just the wery thing, to be sure," said Mr. Weller, brightening up; "o' course you can, sir." "Say no more about it," said Mr. Pickwick, locking the pocket-book in his desk; "I am heartily obliged to you, my good friend. Now sit down again. I want to ask your advice." The internal laughter occasioned by the triumphant success of his visit, which had convulsed not only Mr. Weller's face, but his arms, legs, and body also, during the locking up of the pocket-book, suddenly gave place to the most dignified gravity as he heard these words. "Wait outside a few minutes, Sam, will you?" said Mr. Pickwick. Sam immediately withdrew. Mr. Weller looked uncommonly wise and very much amazed, when Mr. Pickwick opened the discourse by saying: "You are not an advocate for matrimony, I think, Mr. Weller?" Mr. Weller shook his head. He was wholly unable to speak; vague thoughts of some wicked widow having been successful in her designs on Mr. Pickwick, choked his utterance. "Did you happen to see a young girl down-stairs when you came in just now with your son?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Yes. I see a young gal," replied Mr. Weller, shortly. "What did you think of her, now? Candidly, Mr. Weller, what did you think of her?" "I thought she wos wery plump, and vell made," said Mr. Weller, with a critical air. "So she is," said Mr. Pickwick, "so she is. What did you think of her manners, from what you saw of her?" "Wery pleasant," rejoined Mr. Weller. "Wery pleasant and conformable." The precise meaning which Mr. Weller attached to this last-mentioned adjective did not appear; but, as it was evident from the tone in which he used it that it was a favourable expression, Mr. Pickwick was as well satisfied as if he had been thoroughly enlightened on the subject. "I take a great interest in her, Mr. Weller," said Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Weller coughed. "I mean an interest in her doing well," resumed Mr. Pickwick; "a desire that she may be comfortable and prosperous. You understand?" "Wery clearly," replied Mr. Weller, who understood nothing yet. "That young person," said Mr. Pickwick, "is attached to your son." "To Samivel Veller!" exclaimed the parent. "Yes," said Mr. Pickwick. "It's nat'ral," said Mr. Weller, after some consideration, "nat'ral, but rather alarmin'. Sammy must be careful." "How do you mean?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Wery careful that he don't say nothin' to her," responded Mr. Weller. "Wery careful that he ain't led avay, in a innocent moment, to say anythink as may lead to a conwiction for breach. You're never safe vith 'em, Mr. Pickwick, ven they vunce has designs on you; there's no knowin' vere to have 'em; and vile you're a considering of it, they have you. I wos married fust that vay myself, sir, and Sammy was the consekens o' the manoover." "You give me no great encouragement to conclude what I have to say," observed Mr. Pickwick, "but I had better do so at once. This young person is not only attached to your son, Mr. Weller, but your son is attached to her." "Vell," said Mr. Weller, "this here's a pretty sort o' thing to come to a father's ears, this is!" "I have observed them on several occasions," said Mr. Pickwick, making no comment on Mr. Weller's last remark; "and entertain no doubt at all about it. Supposing I were desirous of establishing them comfortably as man and wife in some little business or situation, where they might hope to obtain a decent living, what should you think of it, Mr. Weller?" At first Mr. Weller received with wry faces a proposition involving the marriage of anybody in whom he took an interest; but, as Mr. Pickwick argued the point with him, and laid great stress on the fact that Mary was not a widow, he gradually became more tractable. Mr. Pickwick had great influence over him, and he had been much struck with Mary's appearance; having, in fact, bestowed several very unfatherly winks upon her, already. At length he said that it was not for him to oppose Mr. Pickwick's inclination, and that he would be very happy to yield to his advice; upon which Mr. Pickwick joyfully took him at his word, and called Sam back into the room. "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, clearing his throat, "your father and I have been having some conversation about you." "About you, Samivel," said Mr. Weller, in a patronising and impressive voice. "I am not so blind, Sam, as not to have seen, a long time since, that you entertain something more than a friendly feeling towards Mrs. Winkle's maid," said Mr. Pickwick. "You hear this, Samivel?" said Mr. Weller in the same judicial form of speech as before. "I hope, sir," said Sam, addressing his master: "I hope there's no harm in a young man takin' notice of a young 'ooman as is undeniably good-looking and well-conducted." "Certainly not," said Mr. Pickwick. "Not by no means," acquiesced Mr. Weller, affably but magisterially. "So far from thinking there is anything wrong, in conduct so natural," resumed Mr. Pickwick, "it is my wish to assist and promote your wishes in this respect. With this view, I have had a little conversation with your father; and finding that he is of my opinion----" "The lady not bein' a widder," interposed Mr. Weller in explanation. "The lady not being a widow," said Mr. Pickwick, smiling. "I wish to free you from the restraint which your present position imposes upon you, and to mark my sense of your fidelity and many excellent qualities, by enabling you to marry this girl at once, and to earn an independent livelihood for yourself and family. I shall be proud, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, whose voice had faltered a little hitherto, but now resumed its customary tone, "proud and happy to make your future prospects in life, my grateful and peculiar care." There was a profound silence for a short time, and then Sam said in a low husky sort of voice, but firmly withal: "I'm very much obliged to you for your goodness, sir, as is only like yourself; but it can't be done." "Can't be done!" ejaculated Mr. Pickwick in astonishment. "Samivel!" said Mr. Weller, with dignity. "I say it can't be done," repeated Sam in a louder key. "Wot's to become of you, sir?" "My good fellow," replied Mr. Pickwick, "the recent changes among my friends will alter my mode of life in future, entirely; besides, I am growing older, and want repose and quiet. My rambles, Sam, are over." "How do I know that 'ere, sir?" argued Sam. "You think so now! S'pose you wos to change your mind, vich is not unlikely, for you've the spirit o' five-and tventy in you still, what 'ud become on you vithout me? It can't be done, sir, it can't be done." "Wery good, Samivel, there's a good deal in that," said Mr. Weller, encouragingly. "I speak after long deliberation, Sam, and with the certainty that I shall keep my word," said Mr. Pickwick, shaking his head. "New scenes have closed upon me; my rambles are at an end." "Wery good," rejoined Sam. "Then, that's the wery best reason vy you should alvays have somebody by you as understands you, to keep you up and make you comfortable. If you vant a more polished sort o' feller, vell and good, have him; but vages or no vages, notice or no notice, board or no board, lodgin' or no lodgin', Sam Veller, as you took from the old inn in the Borough, sticks by you, come what come may; and let ev'rythin' and ev'rybody do their wery fiercest, nothin' shall ever perwent it!" At the close of this declaration, which Sam made with great emotion, the elder Mr. Weller rose from his chair, and, forgetting all considerations of time, place, or propriety, waved his hat above his head, and gave three vehement cheers. "My good fellow," said Mr. Pickwick, when Mr. Weller had sat down again, rather abashed at his own enthusiasm, "you are bound to consider the young woman also." "I do consider the young 'ooman, sir," said Sam. "I have considered the young 'ooman. I've spoke to her. I've told her how I'm sitivated; she's ready to wait till I'm ready, and I believe she vill. If she don't, she's not the young 'ooman I take her for, and I give her up vith readiness. You've know'd me afore, sir. My mind's made up, and nothin' can ever alter it." Who could combat this resolution? Not Mr. Pickwick. He derived, at that moment, more pride and luxury of feeling from the disinterested attachment of his humble friends, than ten thousand protestations from the greatest men living could have awakened in his heart. While this conversation was passing in Mr. Pickwick's room, a little old gentleman in a suit of snuff-coloured clothes, followed by a porter carrying a small portmanteau, presented himself below; and after securing a bed for the night, inquired of the waiter whether one Mrs. Winkle was staying there, to which question the waiter, of course, responded in the affirmative. "Is she alone?" inquired the little old gentleman. "I believe she is, sir," replied the waiter; "I can call her own maid, sir, if you----" "No, I don't want her," said the old gentleman, quickly. "Show me to her room without announcing me." "Eh, sir?" said the waiter. "Are you deaf?" inquired the little old gentleman. "No, sir." "Then listen, if you please. Can you hear me now?" "Yes, sir." "That's well. Show me to Mrs. Winkle's room, without announcing me." As the little old gentleman uttered this command, he slipped five shillings into the waiter's hand, and looked steadily at him. "Really, sir," said the waiter, "I don't know, sir, whether----" "Ah! you'll do it, I see," said the little old gentleman. "You had better do it at once. It will save time." There was something so very cool and collected in the gentleman's manner, that the waiter put the five shillings in his pocket, and led him up-stairs without a word. "This is the room, is it?" said the gentleman. "You may go." [Illustration: _A little old gentleman in a suit of snuff-coloured clothes_] The waiter complied, wondering much who the gentleman could be and what he wanted; the little old gentleman, waiting till he was out of sight, tapped at the door. "Come in," said Arabella. "Um! a pretty voice at any rate," murmured the little old gentleman; "but that's nothing." As he said this he opened the door and walked in. Arabella, who was sitting at work, rose on beholding a stranger--a little confused--but by no means ungracefully so. "Pray don't rise, ma'am," said the unknown, walking in, and closing the door after him. "Mrs. Winkle, I believe?" Arabella inclined her head. "Mrs. Nathaniel Winkle, who married the son of the old man at Birmingham?" said the stranger, eyeing Arabella with visible curiosity. Again Arabella inclined her head, and looked uneasily round as if uncertain whether to call for assistance. "I surprise you, I see, ma'am," said the old gentleman. "Rather, I confess," replied Arabella, wondering more and more. "I'll take a chair, if you'll allow me, ma'am," said the stranger. He took one, and drawing a spectacle-case from his pocket, leisurely pulled out a pair of spectacles, which he adjusted on his nose. "You don't know me, ma'am?" he said, looking so intently at Arabella that she began to feel alarmed. "No, sir," she replied timidly. "No," said the gentleman, nursing his left leg; "I don't know how you should. You know my name though, ma'am." "Do I?" said Arabella, trembling, though she scarcely knew why. "May I ask you what it is?" "Presently, ma'am, presently," said the stranger, not having yet removed his eyes from her countenance. "You have been recently married, ma'am?" "I have," replied Arabella, in a scarcely audible tone, laying aside her work, and becoming greatly agitated as a thought, that had occurred to her before, struck more forcibly upon her mind. "Without having represented to your husband the propriety of first consulting his father, on whom he is dependent, I think?" said the stranger. Arabella applied her handkerchief to her eyes. "Without an endeavour, even, to ascertain, by some indirect appeal, what were the old man's sentiments on a point in which he would naturally feel much interested?" said the stranger. "I cannot deny it, sir," said Arabella. "And without having sufficient property of your own to afford your husband any permanent assistance in exchange for the worldly advantages which you knew he would have gained if he had married agreeably to his father's wishes?" said the old gentleman. "This is what boys and girls call disinterested affection, till they have boys and girls of their own, and then they see it in a rougher and very different light!" Arabella's tears flowed fast, as she pleaded in extenuation that she was young and inexperienced; that her attachment had alone induced her to take the step to which she had resorted; and that she had been deprived of the counsel and guidance of her parents almost from infancy. "It was wrong," said the old gentleman in a milder tone, "very wrong. It was foolish, romantic, unbusiness-like." "It was my fault; all my fault, sir," replied poor Arabella, weeping. "Nonsense," said the old gentleman; "it was not your fault that he fell in love with you, I suppose? Yes it was, though," said the old gentleman, looking rather slyly at Arabella. "It was your fault. He couldn't help it." This little compliment, or the little gentleman's odd way of paying it, or his altered manner--so much kinder than it was at first--or all three together, forced a smile from Arabella in the midst of her tears. "Where's your husband?" inquired the old gentleman abruptly; stopping a smile which was just coming over his own face. "I expect him every instant, sir," said Arabella. "I persuaded him to take a walk this morning. He is very low and wretched at not having heard from his father." "Low, is he?" said the old gentleman. "Serve him right!" "He feels it on my account, I am afraid," said Arabella; "and indeed, sir, I feel it deeply on his. I have been the sole means of bringing him to his present condition." "Don't mind on his account, my dear," said the old gentleman. "It serves him right. I am glad of it--actually glad of it, as far as he is concerned." The words were scarcely out of the old gentleman's lips, when footsteps were heard ascending the stairs, which he and Arabella seemed both to recognise at the same moment. The little gentleman turned pale, and making a strong effort to appear composed, stood up, as Mr. Winkle entered the room. "Father!" cried Mr. Winkle, recoiling in amazement. "Yes, sir," replied the little old gentleman. "Well, sir, what have you got to say to me?" Mr. Winkle remained silent. "You are ashamed of yourself, I hope, sir?" said the old gentleman. Still Mr. Winkle said nothing. "Are you ashamed of yourself, sir, or are you not?" inquired the old gentleman. "No, sir," replied Mr. Winkle, drawing Arabella's arm through his. "I am not ashamed of myself, or of my wife either." "Upon my word!" cried the old gentleman, ironically. "I am very sorry to have done anything which has lessened your affection for me, sir," said Mr. Winkle; "but I will say, at the same time, that I have no reason to be ashamed of having this lady for my wife, nor you of having her for a daughter." "Give me your hand, Nat," said the old gentleman in an altered voice. "Kiss me, my love. You _are_ a very charming little daughter-in-law after all!" In a few minutes' time Mr. Winkle went in search of Mr. Pickwick, and returning with that gentleman, presented him to his father, whereupon they shook hands for five minutes incessantly. "Mr. Pickwick, I thank you most heartily for all your kindness to my son," said old Mr. Winkle, in a bluff straightforward way. "I am a hasty fellow, and when I saw you last, I was vexed and taken by surprise. I have judged for myself now, and am more than satisfied. Shall I make any more apologies, Mr. Pickwick?" "Not one," replied that gentleman. "You have done the only thing wanting to complete my happiness." Hereupon, there was another shaking of hands for five minutes longer, accompanied by a great number of complimentary speeches, which, besides being complimentary, had the additional and very novel recommendation of being sincere. Sam had dutifully seen his father to the Belle Sauvage, when, on returning, he encountered the fat boy in the court, who had been charged with the delivery of a note from Emily Wardle. "I say," said Joe, who was unusually loquacious, "what a pretty girl Mary is, isn't she? I am _so_ fond of her, I am!" Mr. Weller made no verbal remark in reply; but eyeing the fat boy for a moment, quite transfixed at his presumption, led him by the collar to the corner, and dismissed him with a harmless but ceremonious kick. After which, he walked home, whistling. [Illustration: _Dismissed him with a harmless but ceremonious kick_] CHAPTER XXIX [Illustration] _In which the Pickwick Club is finally Dissolved and Everything Concluded to the Satisfaction of Everybody_ For a whole week after the happy arrival of Mr. Winkle from Birmingham, Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller were from home all day long, only returning just in time for dinner, and then wearing an air of mystery and importance quite foreign to their natures. It was evident that very grave and eventful proceedings were on foot; but various surmises were afloat, respecting their precise character. Some (among whom was Mr. Tupman) were disposed to think that Mr. Pickwick contemplated a matrimonial alliance; but this idea the ladies most strenuously repudiated. Others rather inclined to the belief that he had projected some distant tour, and was at present occupied in effecting the preliminary arrangements; but this again was stoutly denied by Sam himself, who had unequivocally stated when cross-examined by Mary that no new journeys were to be undertaken. At length, when the brains of the whole party had been racked for six long days, by unavailing speculation, it was unanimously resolved that Mr. Pickwick should be called upon to explain his conduct, and to state distinctly why he had thus absented himself from the society of his admiring friends. With this view, Mr. Wardle invited the full circle to dinner at the Adelphi; and, the decanters having been twice sent round, opened the business. "We are all anxious to know," said the old gentleman, "what we have done to offend you, and to induce you to desert us and devote yourself to these solitary walks." "Are you?" said Mr. Pickwick. "It is singular enough that I had intended to volunteer a full explanation this very day; so, if you will give me another glass of wine, I will satisfy your curiosity." The decanters passed from hand to hand with unwonted briskness, and Mr. Pickwick, looking round on the faces of his friends with a cheerful smile, proceeded: "All the changes that have taken place among us," said Mr. Pickwick, "I mean the marriage that _has_ taken place, and the marriage that _will_ take place, with the changes they involve, rendered it necessary for me to think, soberly and at once, upon my future plans. I determined on retiring to some quiet, pretty neighbourhood in the vicinity of London; I saw a house which exactly suited my fancy; I have taken it and furnished it. It is fully prepared for my reception, and I intend entering upon it at once, trusting that I may yet live to spend many quiet years in peaceful retirement, cheered through life by the society of my friends, and followed in death by their affectionate remembrance." Here Mr. Pickwick paused, and a low murmur ran round the table. "The house I have taken," said Mr. Pickwick, "is at Dulwich. It has a large garden, and is situated in one of the most pleasant spots near London. It has been fitted up with every attention to substantial comfort; perhaps to a little elegance besides; but of that you shall judge for yourselves. Sam accompanies me there. I have engaged, on Perker's representation, a housekeeper--a very old one--and such other servants as she thinks I shall require. I propose to consecrate this little retreat by having a ceremony, in which I take a great interest, performed there. I wish, if my friend Wardle entertains no objection, that his daughter should be married from my new house, on the day I take possession of it. The happiness of young people," said Mr. Pickwick, a little moved, "has ever been the chief pleasure of my life. It will warm my heart to witness the happiness of those friends who are dearest to me, beneath my own roof." Mr. Pickwick paused again: Emily and Arabella sobbed audibly. "I have communicated, both personally and by letter, with the Club," resumed Mr. Pickwick, "acquainting them with my intention. During our long absence, it had suffered much from internal dissensions; and the withdrawal of my name, coupled with this and other circumstances, has occasioned its dissolution. The Pickwick Club exists no longer." [Illustration: "_The happiness of young people," said Mr. Pickwick, a little moved, "has ever been the chief pleasure of my life_"] "I shall never regret," said Mr. Pickwick in a low voice, "I shall never regret having devoted the greater part of two years to mixing with different varieties and shades of human character: frivolous as my pursuit of novelty may have appeared to many. Nearly the whole of my previous life having been devoted to business and the pursuit of wealth, numerous scenes of which I had no previous conception have dawned upon me--I hope to the enlargement of my mind, and the improvement of my understanding. If I have done but little good, I trust I have done less harm, and that none of my adventures will be other than a source of amusing and pleasant recollection to me in the decline of life. God bless you all!" With these words, Mr. Pickwick filled and drained a bumper with a trembling hand, and his eyes moistened as his friends rose with one accord and pledged him from their hearts. There were very few preparatory arrangements to be made for the marriage of Mr. Snodgrass. As he had neither father nor mother, and had been in his minority a ward of Mr. Pickwick's, that gentleman was perfectly well acquainted with his possessions and prospects. His account of both was quite satisfactory to Wardle--as almost any other account would have been, for the good old gentleman was overflowing with hilarity and kindness--and a handsome portion having been bestowed upon Emily, the marriage was fixed to take place on the fourth day from that time; the suddenness of which preparations reduced three dressmakers and a tailor to the extreme verge of insanity. Getting post-horses to the carriage, old Wardle started off next day, to bring his mother up to town. Communicating his intelligence to the old lady with characteristic impetuosity, she instantly fainted away; but being promptly revived, ordered the brocaded silk gown to be packed up forthwith, and proceeded to relate some circumstances of a similar nature attending the marriage of the eldest daughter of Lady Tollimglower, deceased, which occupied three hours in the recital, and were not half finished at last. Mrs. Trundle had to be informed of all the mighty preparations that were making in London, and being in a delicate state of health was informed thereof through Mr. Trundle, lest the news should be too much for her; but it was not too much for her, inasmuch as she at once wrote off to Muggleton, to order a new cap and a black satin gown, and moreover avowed her determination of being present at the ceremony. Hereupon Mr. Trundle called in the doctor, and the doctor said Mrs. Trundle ought to know best how she felt herself, to which Mrs. Trundle replied that she felt herself quite equal to it, and that she had made up her mind to go; upon which the doctor, who was a wise and discreet doctor, and knew what was good for himself as well as for other people, said that perhaps if Mrs. Trundle stopped at home she might hurt herself more by fretting, than by going, so perhaps she had better go. And she did go; the doctor with great attention sending in half a dozen of medicine, to be drunk upon the road. In addition to these points of distraction, Wardle was entrusted with two small letters to two small young ladies who were to act as bridesmaids; upon the receipt of which, the two young ladies were driven to despair by having no "things" ready for so important an occasion, and no time to make them in--a circumstance which appeared to afford the two worthy papas of the two small young ladies rather a feeling of satisfaction than otherwise. However, old frocks were trimmed, and new bonnets made, and the young ladies looked as well as could possibly have been expected of them. And as they cried at the subsequent ceremony in the proper places, and trembled at the right times, they acquitted themselves to the admiration of all beholders. How the two poor relations ever reached London--whether they walked, or got behind coaches, or procured lifts in waggons, or carried each other by turns--is uncertain; but there they were, before Wardle; and the very first people that knocked at the door of Mr. Pickwick's house, on the bridal morning, were the two poor relations, all smiles and shirt collar. They were welcomed heartily though, for riches or poverty had no influence on Mr. Pickwick; the new servants were all alacrity and readiness; Sam was in a most unrivalled state of high spirits and excitement; Mary was glowing with beauty and smart ribands. The bridegroom, who had been staying at the house for two or three days previous, sallied forth gallantly to Dulwich Church to meet the bride, attended by Mr. Pickwick, Ben Allen, Bob Sawyer, and Mr. Tupman; with Sam Weller outside, having at his button-hole a white favour, the gift of his lady-love, and clad in a new and gorgeous suit of livery invented for the occasion. They were met by the Wardles, and the Winkles, and the bride and bridesmaids, and the Trundles; and the ceremony having been performed, the coaches rattled back to Mr. Pickwick's to breakfast, where little Mr. Perker already awaited them. Here, all the light clouds of the more solemn part of the proceedings passed away; every face shone forth joyously; nothing was to be heard but congratulations and commendations. Everything was so beautiful! The lawn in front, the garden behind, the miniature conservatory, the dining-room, the drawing-room, the bedrooms, the smoking-room, and above all the study, with its pictures and easy chairs, and odd cabinets, and queer tables, and books out of number, with a large cheerful window opening upon a pleasant lawn and commanding a pretty landscape, dotted here and there with little houses almost hidden by the trees; and then the curtains, and the carpets, and the chairs, and the sofas! Everything was so beautiful, so compact, so neat, and in such exquisite taste, said everybody, that there really was no deciding what to admire most. And in the midst of all this, stood Mr. Pickwick, his countenance lighted up with smiles, which the heart of no man, woman, or child, could resist: himself the happiest of the group: shaking hands over and over again with the same people, and when his own hands were not so employed, rubbing them with pleasure; turning round in a different direction at every fresh expression of gratification or curiosity, and inspiring everybody with his looks of gladness and delight. Breakfast is announced. Mr. Pickwick leads the old lady (who has been very eloquent on the subject of Lady Tollimglower) to the top of a long table; Wardle takes the bottom; the friends arrange themselves on either side; Sam takes his station behind his master's chair; the laughter and talking cease; Mr. Pickwick, having said grace, pauses for an instant, and looks round him. As he does so, the tears roll down his cheeks, in the fulness of his joy. Let us leave our old friend in one of those moments of unmixed happiness, of which, if we seek them, there are ever some, to cheer our transitory existence here. There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast. Some men, like bats or owls, have better eyes for the darkness than for the light. We, who have no such optical powers, are better pleased to take our last parting look at the visionary companions of many solitary hours, when the brief sunshine of the world is blazing full upon them. * * * * * [Illustration: _The admiration of numerous elderly ladies of single condition._] It is the fate of most men who mingle with the world, and attain even the prime of life, to make many real friends, and lose them in the course of nature. It is the fate of all authors or chroniclers to create imaginary friends, and lose them in the course of art. Nor is this the full extent of their misfortunes; for they are required to furnish an account of them besides. In compliance with this custom--unquestionably a bad one--we subjoin a few biographical words, in relation to the party at Mr. Pickwick's assembled. Mr. and Mrs. Winkle, being fully received into favour by the old gentleman, were shortly afterwards installed in a newly-built house, not half a mile from Mr. Pickwick's. Mr. Winkle, being engaged in the City as agent or town correspondent of his father, exchanged his old costume for the ordinary dress of Englishmen, and presented all the external appearance of a civilised Christian ever afterwards. [Illustration: _Exchanged his old costume for the ordinary dress of Englishmen_] Mr. and Mrs. Snodgrass settled at Dingley Dell, where they purchased and cultivated a small farm, more for occupation than profit. Mr. Snodgrass, being occasionally abstracted and melancholy, is to this day reputed a great poet among his friends and acquaintance, although we do not find that he has ever written anything to encourage the belief. There are many celebrated characters, literary, philosophical, and otherwise, who hold a high reputation on a similar tenure. Mr. Tupman, when his friends married, and Mr. Pickwick settled, took lodgings at Richmond, where he has ever since resided. He walks constantly on the terrace during the summer months, with a youthful and jaunty air which has rendered him the admiration of the numerous elderly ladies of single condition, who reside in the vicinity. He has never proposed again. Mr. Bob Sawyer, having previously passed through the _Gazette_, passed over to Bengal, accompanied by Mr. Benjamin Allen; both gentlemen having received surgical appointments from the East India Company. They each had the yellow fever fourteen times, and then resolved to try a little abstinence; since which period, they have been doing well. Mrs. Bardell let lodgings to many conversable single gentleman, with great profit, but never brought any more actions for breach of promise of marriage. Her attorneys, Messrs. Dodson and Fogg, continue in business, from which they realise a large income, and in which they are universally considered among the sharpest of the sharp. Sam Weller kept his word, and remained unmarried, for two years. The old housekeeper dying at the end of that time, Mr. Pickwick promoted Mary to the situation, on condition of her marrying Mr. Weller at once, which she did without a murmur. From the circumstance of two sturdy little boys having been repeatedly seen at the gate of the back garden, there is reason to suppose that Sam has some family. The elder Mr. Weller drove a coach for twelve months, but, being afflicted with the gout, was compelled to retire. The contents of the pocket-book had been so well invested for him, however, by Mr. Pickwick, that he had a handsome independence to retire on, upon which he still lives at an excellent public-house near Shooter's Hill, where he is quite reverenced as an oracle: boasting very much of his intimacy with Mr. Pickwick, and retaining a most unconquerable aversion to widows. Mr. Pickwick himself continued to reside in his new house, employing his leisure hours in arranging the memoranda which he afterwards presented to the secretary of the once famous Club, or in hearing Sam Weller read aloud, with such remarks as suggested themselves to his mind, which never failed to afford Mr. Pickwick great amusement. He was much troubled at first, by the numerous applications made to him by Mr. Snodgrass, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Trundle, to act as godfather to their offspring; but he has become used to it now, and officiates as a matter of course. He never had occasion to regret his bounty to Mr. Jingle; for both that person and Job Trotter became, in time, worthy members of society, although they have always steadily objected to return to the scenes of their old haunts and temptations. Mr. Pickwick is somewhat infirm now; but he retains all his former juvenility of spirit, and may still be frequently seen contemplating the pictures in the Dulwich Gallery, or enjoying a walk about the pleasant neighbourhood on a fine day. He is known by all the poor people about, who never fail to take their hats off, as he passes, with great respect. The children idolise him, and so indeed does the whole neighbourhood. Every year he repairs to a large family merry-making at Mr. Wardle's; on this, as on all other occasions, he is invariably attended by the faithful Sam, between whom and his master there exists a steady and reciprocal attachment which nothing but death will terminate. [Illustration] Printed by +Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.+ Edinburgh & London Transcriber's note Text in italics was surrounded with _underscores_ and small capitals with +signs+. Small errors in punctuation were corrected without note, also the following changes were made, on page 11 "hd" changed to "had" (who had distinctly seen him) 11 "ther" changed to "their" (touched their foreheads) 27 "returing" changed to "returning" (Instead of returning to the office) 41 "though" changed to "thought" ("Ah, I thought not," said the Serjeant) 41 "Phunkey" changed to "Phunky" (the pleasure of seeing you before, Mr. Phunky,) 45 "Sob" changed to "Bob" (replied Bob Sawyer) 70 "Mr. Mr." changed to "Mr." (the straight-walking Mr. Anthony Humm) 84 "expeience" changed to "experience" (his professional experience) 84 "responsibilty" changed to "responsibility" (a responsibility, he would say) 88 "Drawng" changed to "Drawing" (Drawing forth two very small scraps) 95 "straghtforward" changed to "straightforward" (service to honest, straightforward men) 102 "Mesrs" changed to "Mssrs" (after doing Messrs. Dodson and Fogg's case) 102 "tha" changed to "the" (eulogiums on the conduct) 106 "cherfulness" changed to "cheerfulness" (with perfect cheerfulness and content of heart) 111 "perpared" changed to "prepared" (Mr. Pickwick prepared to ensconce himself inside) 119 "êlite" changed to "élite" (The _élite_ of Ba--ath.) 155 "tosssing" changed to "tossing" (tossing off, as he spoke) 160 "cabaliscit" changed to "cabalistic" (inscribed with a variety of cabalistic characters) 173 "litttle" changed to "little" (and divers little love passages had passed) 194 "impossibilty" changed to "impossibility" (it being a moral impossibility to swear) 215 "loking" changed to "looking" (looking lazily out from under) 220 "expreessd" changed to "expressed" (the one expressed his opinion) 222 "furnitur" changed to "furniture" (You'll want some furniture.) 230 "situate" changed to "situated" (situated in Portugal Street) 301 "mustta ke" changed to "must take" (You must take the matter in hand for them) 302 "be" changed to "he" (he became particularly restless) 363 "interupted" changed to "interrupted" (interrupted Pott, drawing back) 378 "inpuired" changed to "inquired" (inquired Sam, drawing his chair) 398 "wih" changed to "with" (have been honoured with the confidence) 416 "pantomine" changed to "pantomime" (ever seen out of a Christmas pantomime.) 437 "contuinued" changed to "continued" (makes it," continued Sam) 450 "cherful" changed to "cheerful" (with a cheerful smile). Otherwise the original of this edition was preserved, including inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation etc. 
47534	----	THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB [Illustration: _The Pickwick Club_] THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB BY CHARLES DICKENS ILLUSTRATED BY CECIL ALDIN VOLUME THE FIRST [Illustration] NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 31 West Twenty-Third Street CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE +The Pickwickians+ 1 CHAPTER II +The First Day's Journey, and the First Evening's Adventures; with their Consequences+ 7 CHAPTER III +A New Acquaintance. The Stroller's Tale. A Disagreeable Interruption, and an Unpleasant Encounter+ 39 CHAPTER IV +A Field-Day and Bivouac. More New Friends. An Invitation to the Country+ 52 CHAPTER V +A Short One. Showing, among other Matters, how Mr. Pickwick undertook to Drive, and Mr. Winkle to Ride; and how they both did it+ 66 CHAPTER VI +An Old-fashioned Card-party. The Clergyman's Verses. The Story of the Convict's Return+ 78 CHAPTER VII +How Mr. Winkle, instead of Shooting at the Pigeon and Killing the Crow, Shot at the Crow and Wounded the Pigeon; how the Dingley Dell Cricket Club played All-Muggleton, and how All-Muggleton Dined at the Dingley Dell Expense: with other Interesting and Instructive Matters+ 95 CHAPTER VIII +Strongly Illustrative of the Position, that the Course of True Love is not a Railway+ 111 CHAPTER IX +A Discovery and a Chase+ 126 CHAPTER X +Clearing up all Doubts (if any Existed) of the Disinterestedness of Mr. Jingle's Character+ 136 CHAPTER XI +Involving another Journey, and an Antiquarian Discovery. Recording Mr. Pickwick's Determination to be Present at an Election; and containing a Manuscript of the Old Clergyman's+ 152 CHAPTER XII +Descriptive of a very important Proceeding on the part of Mr. Pickwick; no less an Epoch in his Life, than in this History+ 173 CHAPTER XIII +Some Account of Eatanswill; of the State of Parties therein; and of the Election of a Member to Serve in Parliament for that Ancient, Loyal, and Patriotic Borough+ 181 CHAPTER XIV +Comprising a Brief Description of the Company at the Peacock assembled; and a Tale told by a Bagman+ 202 CHAPTER XV +In which is given a Faithful Portraiture of two Distinguished Persons; and an Accurate Description of a Public Breakfast in their House and Grounds: which Public Breakfast leads to the Recognition of an Old Acquaintance, and the Commencement of another Chapter+ 222 CHAPTER XVI +Too full of Adventure to be Briefly Described+ 238 CHAPTER XVII +Showing that an Attack of Rheumatism in some cases, acts as a Quickener to Inventive Genius+ 261 CHAPTER XVIII +Briefly illustrative of Two Points;--First, the Power of Hysterics, and, Secondly, the Force of Circumstances+ 271 CHAPTER XIX +A Pleasant Day, with an Unpleasant Termination+ 283 CHAPTER XX +Showing how Dodson and Fogg were Men of Business, and their Clerks Men of Pleasure; and how an affecting Interview took place between Mr. Weller and his Long-lost Parent; showing also what Choice Spirits assembled at the Magpie and Stump, and what a Capital Chapter the Next One will be+ 300 CHAPTER XXI +In which the Old Man launches forth into his Favourite Theme, and relates a Story about a Queer Client+ 319 CHAPTER XXII +Mr. Pickwick Journeys to Ipswich, and meets with a Romantic Adventure with a Middle-aged Lady in Yellow Curl-papers+ 338 CHAPTER XXIII +In which Mr. Samuel Weller begins to devote his Energies to the Return Match between himself and Mr. Trotter+ 357 CHAPTER XXIV +Wherein Mr. Peter Magnus grows jealous, and the Middle-aged Lady apprehensive, which brings the Pickwickians within the Grasp of the Law+ 367 CHAPTER XXV +Showing, among a variety of Pleasant Matters, how Majestic and Impartial Mr. Nupkins was, and how Mr. Weller returned Mr. Job Trotter's Shuttlecock as heavily as it came. With another Matter, which will be found in its Place+ 385 CHAPTER XXVI +Which contains a Brief Account of the Progress of the Action of Bardell against Pickwick+ 407 CHAPTER XXVII +Samuel Weller makes a Pilgrimage to Dorking, and beholds his Mother-in-law+ 415 CHAPTER XXVIII +A Good-humoured Christmas Chapter, containing an Account of a Wedding, and some other Sports beside: which although in their Way even as Good Customs as Marriage itself, are not quite so religiously kept up, in these Degenerate Times+ 426 ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR _The Pickwick Club_ _Frontispiece_ _"Wo--o!" cried Mr. Pickwick. "Wo--o!" echoed Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass from the bin_ _Facing page_ 70 _Mr. Pickwick ran to his assistance_ " 72 _"Bless my soul!" said Mr. Winkle, "I declare I forgot the cap"_ " 98 _"Love to Tuppy--won't you get up behind?--drive on, boys," replied Jingle_ " 134 _Sam at the White Hart_ " 142 _At the table sat Mr. Tupman, looking as unlike a man who had taken his leave of this world as possible_ " 156 _"She looked up in Tom's face and smiled through her tears"_ " 220 _"I won't suffer this barrow to be moved another step unless Winkle carries that gun of his in a different manner"_ " 286 _"Take example of your father, my boy, and be very careful o' widders all your life"_ " 310 _"I trust, ma'am," resumed Mr. Pickwick, "that my unblemished character and the devoted respect I entertain for your sex----"_ " 354 _"Mother-in-law," said Sam, "how are you?"_ " 418 _A distant response is heard from the yard, and Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman come running down it_ " 430 IN TEXT PAGE _Heading to Chapter I_ 1 _Heading to Chapter II_ 7 _"Weeks!" said Mr. Pickwick in astonishment--and out came the note-book again_ 9 _"What's the fun?" said a rather tall thin young man_ 11 _"My name is Winkle, sir"_ 28 _Heading to Chapter III_ 39 _Heading to Chapter IV_ 52 _"Damn that boy, he's gone to sleep again"_ 59 _Heading to Chapter V_ 66 _"T'other side, sir, if you please"_ 71 _Heading to Chapter VI_ 78 _Heading to Chapter VII_ 95 _Heading to Chapter VIII_ 111 _"He must have been fast asleep," whispered Mr. Tupman_ 115 _Heading to Chapter IX_ 126 _"Here I am; but I han't a willin"_ 127 _Heading to Chapter X_ 136 _Sam Weller at the keyhole_ 146 _Heading to Chapter XI_ 152 _"There is an inscription here," said Mr. Pickwick_ 158 _Heading to Chapter XII_ 173 _"Oh, you kind, good, playful dear"_ 176 _Heading to Chapter XIII_ 181 _"He has patted the babies on the head"_ 196 _Heading to Chapter XIV_ 202 _"No other than Tom Smart"_ 207 _Heading to Chapter XV_ 222 _Mr. Pickwick, with the Brigand on one arm, and the Troubadour on the other_ 230 _Heading to Chapter XVI_ 238 _"Looks as convivial as a live trout in a lime-basket"_ 244 _"Who's there?" screamed a numerous chorus of treble voices_ 254 _Heading to Chapter XVII_ 261 _"Open it flew, disclosing Nathaniel Pipkin"_ 268 _Heading to Chapter XVIII_ 271 _Heading to Chapter XIX_ 283 _"Who are you, you rascal?"_ 296 _Heading to Chapter XX_ 300 _Heading to Chapter XXI_ 319 _Heading to Chapter XXII_ 338 _"Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, "Where's my bedroom?"_ 355 _Heading to Chapter XXIII_ 357 _Heading to Chapter XXIV_ 367 _Heading to Chapter XXV_ 385 _"You don't mean to say you did that on purpose?"_ 405 _Heading to Chapter XXVI_ 407 _Mrs. Bardell and her two friends were getting on very well_ 410 _Heading to Chapter XXVII_ 415 _Heading to Chapter XXVIII_ 426 _"Aha!" said the fat boy_ 432 [Illustration: POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB] CHAPTER I THE PICKWICKIANS The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of the Pickwick Club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which his search among the multifarious documents confided to him has been conducted. "May 12, 1827. Joseph Smiggers, Esq., P.V.P.M.P.C.,[1] presiding. The following resolutions unanimously agreed to:-- [1] Perpetual Vice-President--Member Pickwick Club. "That this Association has heard read, with feelings of unmingled satisfaction, and unqualified approval, the paper communicated by Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C.,[2] entitled 'Speculations on the Source of the Hampstead Ponds, with some Observations on the Theory of Tittlebats'; and that this Association does hereby return its warmest thanks to the said Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., for the same. [2] General Chairman--Member Pickwick Club. "That while this Association is deeply sensible of the advantages which must accrue to the cause of science from the production to which they have just adverted,--no less than from the unwearied researches of Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., in Hornsey, Highgate, Brixton, and Camberwell,--they cannot but entertain a lively sense of the inestimable benefits which must inevitably result from carrying the speculations of that learned man into a wider field, from extending his travels, and consequently enlarging his sphere of observation, to the advancement of knowledge, and the diffusion of learning. "That, with the view just mentioned, this Association has taken into its serious consideration a proposal, emanating from the aforesaid Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., and three other Pickwickians hereinafter named, for forming a new branch of United Pickwickians, under the title of The Corresponding Society of the Pickwick Club. "That the said proposal has received the sanction and approval of this Association. "That the Corresponding Society of the Pickwick Club is therefore hereby constituted; and that Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., Tracy Tupman, Esq., M.P.C., Augustus Snodgrass, Esq., M.P.C., and Nathaniel Winkle, Esq., M.P.C., are hereby nominated and appointed members of the same; and that they be requested to forward, from time to time, authenticated accounts of their journeys and investigations, of their observations of character and manners, and of the whole of their adventures, together with all tales and papers to which local scenery or associations may give rise, to the Pickwick Club, stationed in London. "That this Association cordially recognises the principle of every member of the Corresponding Society defraying his own travelling expenses; and that it sees no objection whatever to the members of the said society pursuing their inquiries for any length of time they please, upon the same terms. "That the members of the aforesaid Corresponding Society be, and are, hereby informed, that their proposal to pay the postage of their letters, and the carriage of their parcels, has been deliberated upon by this Association: that this Association considers such proposal worthy of the great minds from which it emanated, and that it hereby signifies its perfect acquiescence therein." A casual observer, adds the Secretary, to whose notes we are indebted for the following account--a casual observer might possibly have remarked nothing extraordinary in the bald head, and circular spectacles, which were intently turned towards his (the Secretary's) face, during the reading of the above resolutions: to those who knew that the gigantic brain of Pickwick was working beneath that forehead, and that the beaming eyes of Pickwick were twinkling behind those glasses, the sight was indeed an interesting one. There sat the man who had traced to their source the mighty ponds of Hampstead, and agitated the scientific world with his Theory of Tittlebats, as calm and unmoved as the deep waters of the one on a frosty day, or as a solitary specimen of the other in the inmost recesses of an earthen jar. And how much more interesting did the spectacle become, when, starting into full life and animation, as a simultaneous call for "Pickwick" burst from his followers, that illustrious man slowly mounted into the Windsor chair, on which he had been previously seated, and addressed the club himself had founded. What a study for an artist did that exciting scene present! The eloquent Pickwick, with one hand gracefully concealed behind his coat tails, and the other waving in air, to assist his glowing declamation; his elevated position revealing those tights and gaiters, which, had they clothed an ordinary man, might have passed without observation, but which, when Pickwick clothed them--if we may use the expression--inspired involuntary awe and respect; surrounded by the men who had volunteered to share the perils of his travels, and who were destined to participate in the glories of his discoveries. On his right hand sat Mr. Tracy Tupman--the too susceptible Tupman, who to the wisdom and experience of maturer years superadded the enthusiasm and ardour of a boy, in the most interesting and pardonable of human weaknesses--love. Time and feeding had expanded that once romantic form; the black silk waistcoat had become more and more developed; inch by inch had the gold watch-chain beneath it disappeared from within the range of Tupman's vision; and gradually had the capacious chin encroached upon the borders of the white cravat: but the soul of Tupman had known no change--admiration of the fair sex was still its ruling passion. On the left of his great leader sat the poetic Snodgrass, and near him again the sporting Winkle, the former poetically enveloped in a mysterious blue cloak with a canine-skin collar, and the latter communicating additional lustre to a new green shooting coat, plaid neckerchief, and closely-fitted drabs. Mr. Pickwick's oration upon this occasion, together with the debate thereon, is entered on the Transactions of the Club. Both bear a strong affinity to the discussions of other celebrated bodies; and, as it is always interesting to trace a resemblance between the proceedings of great men, we transfer the entry to these pages. "Mr. Pickwick observed (says the Secretary) that fame was dear to the heart of every man. Poetic fame was dear to the heart of his friend Snodgrass; the fame of conquest was equally dear to his friend Tupman; and the desire of earning fame in the sports of the field, the air, and the water, was uppermost in the breast of his friend Winkle. He (Mr. Pickwick) would not deny that he was influenced by human passions, and human feelings (cheers)--possibly by human weaknesses--(loud cries of 'No'); but this he would say, that if ever the fire of self-importance broke out in his bosom, the desire to benefit the human race in preference effectually quenched it. The praise of mankind was his Swing; philanthropy was his insurance office. (Vehement cheering.) He had felt some pride--he acknowledged it freely, and let his enemies make the most of it--he had felt some pride when he presented his Tittlebatian Theory to the world; it might be celebrated or it might not. (A cry of 'It is,' and great cheering.) He would take the assertion of that honourable Pickwickian whose voice he had just heard--it was celebrated; but if the fame of that treatise were to extend to the furthest confines of the known world, the pride with which he should reflect on the authorship of that production would be as nothing compared with the pride with which he looked around him, on this, the proudest moment of his existence. (Cheers.) He was a humble individual. ('No, no.') Still he could not but feel that they had selected him for a service of great honour, and of some danger. Travelling was in a troubled state, and the minds of coachmen were unsettled. Let them look abroad, and contemplate the scenes which were enacting around them. Stage coaches were upsetting in all directions, horses were bolting, boats were overturning, and boilers were bursting. (Cheers--a voice 'No.') No! (Cheers.) Let that honourable Pickwickian who cried 'No' so loudly come forward and deny it, if he could. (Cheers.) Who was it that cried 'No'? (Enthusiastic cheering.) Was it some vain and disappointed man--he would not say haberdasher--(loud cheers)--who, jealous of the praise which had been--perhaps undeservedly--bestowed on his (Mr. Pickwick's) researches, and smarting under the censure which had been heaped upon his own feeble attempts at rivalry, now took this vile and calumnious mode of---- "Mr. +Blotton+ (of Aldgate) rose to order. Did the honourable Pickwickian allude to him? (Cries of 'Order,' 'Chair,' 'Yes,' 'No,' 'Go on,' 'Leave off,' &c.) "Mr. +Pickwick+ would not put up to be put down by clamour. He _had_ alluded to the honourable gentleman. (Great excitement.) "Mr. +Blotton+ would only say then, that he repelled the hon. gent.'s false and scurrilous accusation, with profound contempt. (Great cheering.) The hon. gent. was a humbug. (Immense confusion, and loud cries of 'Chair' and 'Order.') "Mr. +A. Snodgrass+ rose to order. He threw himself upon the chair. (Hear.) He wished to know whether this disgraceful contest between two members of that club should be allowed to continue. (Hear, hear.) "The +Chairman+ was quite sure the hon. Pickwickian would withdraw the expression he had just made use of. "Mr. +Blotton+, with all possible respect for the chair, was quite sure he would not. "The +Chairman+ felt it his imperative duty to demand of the honourable gentleman, whether he had used the expression which had just escaped him in a common sense. "Mr. +Blotton+ had no hesitation in saying that he had not--he had used the word in its Pickwickian sense. (Hear, hear.) He was bound to acknowledge that, personally, he entertained the highest regard and esteem for the honourable gentleman; he had merely considered him a humbug in a Pickwickian point of view. (Hear, hear.) "Mr. +Pickwick+ felt much gratified by the fair, candid, and full explanation of his honourable friend. He begged it to be at once understood, that his own observations had been merely intended to bear a Pickwickian construction. (Cheers.)" Here the entry terminates, as we have no doubt the debate did also, after arriving at such a highly satisfactory and intelligible point. We have no official statement of the facts which the reader will find recorded in the next chapter, but they have been carefully collated from letters and other MS. authorities, so unquestionably genuine as to justify their narration in a connected form. CHAPTER II [Illustration] _The First Day's Journey, and the First Evening's Adventures; with their Consequences_ That punctual servant of all work, the sun, had just risen, and begun to strike a light on the morning of the thirteenth of May, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, when Mr. Samuel Pickwick burst like another sun from his slumbers, threw open his chamber window, and looked out upon the world beneath. Goswell Street was at his feet, Goswell Street was on his right hand--as far as the eye could reach, Goswell Street extended on his left; and the opposite side of Goswell Street was over the way. "Such," thought Mr. Pickwick, "are the narrow views of those philosophers who, content with examining the things that lie before them, look not to the truths which are hidden beyond. As well might I be content to gaze on Goswell Street for ever, without one effort to penetrate to the hidden countries which on every side surround it." And having given vent to this beautiful reflection, Mr. Pickwick proceeded to put himself into his clothes, and his clothes into his portmanteau. Great men are seldom over-scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire; the operation of shaving, dressing, and coffee-imbibing was soon performed: and in another hour, Mr. Pickwick, with his portmanteau in his hand, his telescope in his great-coat pocket, and his note-book in his waistcoat, ready for the reception of any discoveries worthy of being noted down, had arrived at the coach-stand in St. Martin's-le-Grand. "Cab!" said Mr. Pickwick. "Here you are, sir," shouted a strange specimen of the human race, in a sackcloth coat, and apron of the same, who with a brass label and number round his neck, looked as if he were catalogued in some collection of rarities. This was the waterman. "Here you are, sir. Now, then, fust cab!" And the first cab having been fetched from the public-house, where he had been smoking his first pipe, Mr. Pickwick and his portmanteau were thrown into the vehicle. "Golden Cross," said Mr. Pickwick. "Only a bob's vorth, Tommy," cried the driver, sulkily, for the information of his friend the waterman, as the cab drove off. "How old is that horse, my friend?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, rubbing his nose with the shilling he had reserved for the fare. "Forty-two," replied the driver, eyeing him askant. "What!" ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, laying his hand upon his note-book. The driver reiterated his former statement. Mr. Pickwick looked very hard at the man's face, but his features were immovable, so he noted down the fact forthwith. "And how long do you keep him out at a time?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, searching for further information. "Two or three veeks," replied the man. "Weeks!" said Mr. Pickwick in astonishment--and out came the note-book again. "He lives at Pentonwil when he's at home," observed the driver coolly, "but we seldom takes him home, on account of his veakness." "On account of his weakness!" reiterated the perplexed Mr. Pickwick. "He always falls down when he's took out o' the cab," continued the driver, "but when he's in it, we bears him up wery tight, and takes him in wery short, so as he can't wery well fall down; and we've got a pair o' precious large wheels on, so ven he _does_ move, they run after him, and he must go on--he can't help it." Mr. Pickwick entered every word of this statement in his note-book, with the view of communicating it to the club, as a singular instance of the tenacity of life in horses, under trying circumstances. The entry was scarcely completed when they reached the Golden Cross. Down jumped the driver, and out got Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass, and Mr. Winkle, who had been anxiously waiting the arrival of their illustrious leader, crowded to welcome him. [Illustration: _"Weeks!" said Mr. Pickwick in astonishment--and out came the note-book again_] "Here's your fare," said Mr. Pickwick, holding out the shilling to the driver. What was the learned man's astonishment, when that unaccountable person flung the money on the pavement, and requested in figurative terms to be allowed the pleasure of fighting him (Mr. Pickwick) for the amount! "You are mad," said Mr. Snodgrass. "Or drunk," said Mr. Winkle. "Or both," said Mr. Tupman. "Come on!" said the cab-driver, sparring away like clock-work. "Come on--all four on you." "Here's a lark!" shouted half-a-dozen hackney coachmen. "Go to vork, Sam,"--and they crowded with great glee round the party. "What's the row, Sam?" inquired one gentleman in black calico sleeves. "Row!" replied the cabman, "what did he want my number for?" "I didn't want your number," said the astonished Mr. Pickwick. "What did you take it for, then?" inquired the cabman. "I didn't take it," said Mr. Pickwick, indignantly. "Would anybody believe," continued the cab-driver, appealing to the crowd, "would anybody believe as an informer 'ud go about in a man's cab, not only takin' down his number, but ev'ry word he says into the bargain" (a light flashed upon Mr. Pickwick--it was the note-book). "Did he though?" inquired another cabman. "Yes, did he," replied the first; "and then arter aggerawatin' me to assault him, gets three witnesses here to prove it. But I'll give it him, if I've six months for it. Come on!" and the cabman dashed his hat upon the ground, with a reckless disregard of his own private property, and knocked Mr. Pickwick's spectacles off, and followed up the attack with a blow on Mr. Pickwick's nose, and another on Mr. Pickwick's chest, and a third in Mr. Snodgrass's eye, and a fourth, by way of variety, in Mr. Tupman's waistcoat, and then danced into the road, and then back again to the pavement, and finally dashed the whole temporary supply of breath out of Mr. Winkle's body; and all in half-a-dozen seconds. "Where's an officer?" said Mr. Snodgrass. "Put 'em under the pump," suggested a hot-pieman. "You shall smart for this," gasped Mr. Pickwick. "Informers!" shouted the crowd. "Come on," cried the cabman, who had been sparring without cessation the whole time. The mob had hitherto been passive spectators of the scene, but as the intelligence of the Pickwickians being informers was spread among them, they began to canvass with considerable vivacity the propriety of enforcing the heated pastry-vendor's proposition; and there is no saying what acts of personal aggression they might have committed had not the affray been unexpectedly terminated by the interposition of a new comer. [Illustration: _"What's the fun?" said a rather tall thin young man_] "What's the fun?" said a rather tall thin young man, in a green coat, emerging suddenly from the coach-yard. "Informers!" shouted the crowd again. "We are not," roared Mr. Pickwick, in a tone which, to any dispassionate listener, carried conviction with it. "Ain't you, though,--ain't you?" said the young man, appealing to Mr. Pickwick, and making his way through the crowd by the infallible process of elbowing the countenances of its component members. That learned man in a few hurried words explained the real state of the case. "Come along, then," said he of the green coat, lugging Mr. Pickwick after him by main force, and talking the whole way. "Here, No. 924, take your fare, and take yourself off--respectable gentleman--know him well--none of your nonsense--this way, sir,--where's your friends?--all a mistake, I see--never mind--accidents will happen--best regulated families--never say die--down upon your luck--pull him up--put that in his pipe--like the flavour--damned rascals." And with a lengthened string of similar broken sentences, delivered with extraordinary volubility, the stranger led the way to the travellers' waiting-room, whither he was closely followed by Mr. Pickwick and his disciples. "Here, waiter!" shouted the stranger, ringing the bell with tremendous violence, "glasses round,--brandy and water, hot and strong, and sweet, and plenty,--eye damaged, sir? Waiter! raw beef-steak for the gentleman's eye,--nothing like raw beef-steak for a bruise, sir; cold lamp-post very good, but lamp-post inconvenient--damned odd standing in the open street half-an-hour, with your eye against a lamp-post--eh,--very good,--ha! ha!" And the stranger, without stopping to take breath, swallowed at a draught full half-a-pint of the reeking brandy and water, and flung himself into a chair with as much ease as if nothing uncommon had occurred. While his three companions were busily engaged in proffering their thanks to their new acquaintance, Mr. Pickwick had leisure to examine his costume and appearance. He was about the middle height, but the thinness of his body, and the length of his legs, gave him the appearance of being much taller. The green coat had been a smart dress garment in the days of swallow-tails, but had evidently in those times adorned a much shorter man than the stranger, for the soiled and faded sleeves scarcely reached to his wrists. It was buttoned closely up to his chin, at the imminent hazard of splitting the back; and an old stock, without a vestige of shirt collar, ornamented his neck. His scanty black trousers displayed here and there those shiny patches which bespeak long service, and were strapped very tightly over a pair of patched and mended shoes, as if to conceal the dirty white stockings, which were nevertheless distinctly visible. His long black hair escaped in negligent waves from beneath each side of his old pinched-up hat; and glimpses of his bare wrists might be observed between the tops of his gloves and the cuffs of his coat sleeves. His face was thin and haggard; but an indescribable air of jaunty impudence and perfect self-possession pervaded the whole man. Such was the individual on whom Mr. Pickwick gazed through his spectacles (which he had fortunately recovered), and to whom he proceeded, when his friends had exhausted themselves, to return in chosen terms his warmest thanks for his recent assistance. "Never mind," said the stranger, cutting the address very short, "said enough,--no more; smart chap that cabman--handled his fives well; but if I'd been your friend in the green jemmy--damn me--punch his head,--'cod I would,--pig's whisper--pieman too,--no gammon." This coherent speech was interrupted by the entrance of the Rochester coachman, to announce that "The Commodore" was on the point of starting. "Commodore!" said the stranger, starting up, "my coach,--place booked,--one outside--leave you to pay for the brandy and water,--want change for a five,--bad silver--Brummagem buttons--won't do--no go--eh?" and he shook his head most knowingly. Now it so happened that Mr. Pickwick and his three companions had resolved to make Rochester their first halting-place too; and having intimated to their new-found acquaintance that they were journeying to the same city, they agreed to occupy the seat at the back of the coach, where they could all sit together. "Up with you," said the stranger, assisting Mr. Pickwick on to the roof with so much precipitation as to impair the gravity of that gentleman's deportment very materially. "Any luggage, sir?" inquired the coachman. "Who--I? Brown paper parcel here, that's all,--other luggage gone by water,--packing cases, nailed up--big as houses--heavy, heavy, damned heavy," replied the stranger, as he forced into his pocket as much as he could of the brown paper parcel, which presented most suspicious indications of containing one shirt and a handkerchief. "Heads, heads--take care of your heads!" cried the loquacious stranger, as they came out under the low archway, which in those days formed the entrance to the coach-yard. "Terrible place--dangerous work--other day--five children--mother--tall lady eating sandwiches--forgot the arch--crash--knock--children look round--mother's head off--sandwich in her hand--no mouth to put it in--head of a family off, shocking, shocking! Looking at Whitehall, sir?--fine place--little window--somebody else's head off there, eh, sir?--he didn't keep a sharp look-out enough either--eh, sir, eh?" "I am ruminating," said Mr. Pickwick, "on the strange mutability of human affairs." "Ah! I see--in at the palace door one day, out at the window the next. Philosopher, sir?" "An observer of human nature, sir," said Mr. Pickwick. "Ah, so am I. Most people are when they've little to do and less to get. Poet, sir?" "My friend Mr. Snodgrass has a strong poetic turn," said Mr. Pickwick. "So have I," said the stranger. "Epic poem,--ten thousand lines--revolution of July--composed it on the spot--Mars by day, Apollo by night,--bang the field-piece, twang the lyre." "You were present at that glorious scene, sir?" said Mr. Snodgrass. "Present! think I was;[3] fired a musket,--fired with an idea,--rushed into wine shop--wrote it down--back again--whiz, bang--another idea--wine shop again--pen and ink--back again--cut and slash--noble time, sir. Sportsman, sir?" abruptly turning to Mr. Winkle. [3] A remarkable instance of the prophetic force of Mr. Jingle's imagination, this dialogue occurring in the year 1827, and the Revolution in 1830. "A little, sir," replied that gentleman. "Fine pursuit, sir,--fine pursuit.--Dogs, sir?" "Not just now," said Mr. Winkle. "Ah! you should keep dogs--fine animals--sagacious creatures--dog of my own once--Pointer--surprising instinct--out shooting one day--entering enclosure--whistled--dog stopped--whistled again--Ponto--no go; stock still--called him--Ponto, Ponto--wouldn't move--dog transfixed--staring at a board--looked up, saw an inscription--'Gamekeeper has orders to shoot all dogs found in this enclosure'--wouldn't pass it--wonderful dog--valuable dog that--very." "Singular circumstance that," said Mr. Pickwick. "Will you allow me to make a note of it?" "Certainly, sir, certainly--hundred more anecdotes of the same animal.--Fine girl, sir" (to Mr. Tracy Tupman, who had been bestowing sundry anti-Pickwickian glances on a young lady by the roadside). "Very!" said Mr. Tupman. "English girls not so fine as Spanish--noble creatures--jet hair--black eyes--lovely forms--sweet creatures--beautiful." "You have been in Spain, sir?" said Mr. Tracy Tupman. "Lived there--ages." "Many conquests, sir?" inquired Mr. Tupman. "Conquests! Thousands. Don Bolaro Fizzgig--Grandee--only daughter--Donna Christina--splendid creature--loved me to distraction--jealous father--high-souled daughter--handsome Englishman--Donna Christina in despair--prussic acid--stomach pump in my portmanteau--operation performed--old Bolaro in ecstasies--consent to our union--join hands and floods of tears--romantic story--very." "Is the lady in England now, sir?" inquired Mr. Tupman, on whom the description of her charms had produced a powerful impression. "Dead, sir--dead," said the stranger, applying to his right eye the brief remnant of a very old cambric handkerchief. "Never recovered the stomach pump--undermined constitution--fell a victim." "And her father?" inquired the poetic Snodgrass. "Remorse and misery," replied the stranger. "Sudden disappearance--talk of the whole city--search made everywhere--without success--public fountain in the great square suddenly ceased playing--weeks elapsed--still a stoppage--workman employed to clean it--water drawn off--father-in-law discovered sticking head first in the main pipe, with a full confession in his right boot--took him out, and the fountain played away again, as well as ever." "Will you allow me to note that little romance down, sir?" said Mr. Snodgrass, deeply affected. "Certainly, sir, certainly,--fifty more if you like to hear 'em--strange life mine--rather curious history--not extraordinary, but singular." In this strain, with an occasional glass of ale, by way of parenthesis, when the coach changed horses, did the stranger proceed, until they reached Rochester bridge, by which time the note-books, both of Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Snodgrass, were completely filled with selections from his adventures. "Magnificent ruin!" said Mr. Augustus Snodgrass, with all the poetic fervour that distinguished him, when they came in sight of the fine old castle. "What a study for an antiquarian!" were the very words which fell from Mr. Pickwick's mouth, as he applied his telescope to his eye. "Ah! fine place," said the stranger, "glorious pile--frowning walls--tottering arches--dark nooks--crumbling staircases--Old cathedral too--earthy smell--pilgrims' feet worn away the old steps--little Saxon doors--confessionals like money-takers' boxes at theatres--queer customers those monks--Popes, and Lord Treasurers, and all sorts of old fellows, with great red faces, and broken noses, turning up every day--buff jerkins too--matchlocks--Sarcophagus--fine place--old legends too--strange stories: capital;" and the stranger continued to soliloquise until they reached the Bull Inn, in the High Street, where the coach stopped. "Do you remain here, sir?" inquired Mr. Nathaniel Winkle. "Here--not I--but you'd better--good house--nice beds--Wright's next house, dear--very dear--half-a-crown in the bill if you look at the waiter--charge you more if you dine at a friend's than they would if you dined in the coffee-room--rum fellows--very." Mr. Winkle turned to Mr. Pickwick, and murmured a few words; a whisper passed from Mr. Pickwick to Mr. Snodgrass, from Mr. Snodgrass to Mr. Tupman, and nods of assent were exchanged. Mr. Pickwick addressed the stranger. "You rendered us a very important service this morning, sir," said he, "will you allow us to offer a slight mark of our gratitude by begging the favour of your company at dinner?" "Great pleasure--not presume to dictate, but broiled fowl and mushrooms--capital thing! what time?" "Let me see," replied Mr. Pickwick, referring to his watch, "it is now nearly three. Shall we say five?" "Suit me excellently," said the stranger, "five precisely--till then--care of yourselves;" and lifting the pinched-up hat a few inches from his head, and carelessly replacing it very much on one side, the stranger, with half the brown paper parcel sticking out of his pocket, walked briskly up the yard, and turned into the High Street. "Evidently a traveller in many countries, and a close observer of men and things," said Mr. Pickwick. "I should like to see his poem," said Mr. Snodgrass. "I should like to have seen that dog," said Mr. Winkle. Mr. Tupman said nothing; but he thought of Donna Christina, the stomach pump, and the fountain; and his eyes filled with tears. A private sitting-room having been engaged, bed-rooms inspected, and dinner ordered, the party walked out to view the city and adjoining neighbourhood. We do not find, from a careful perusal of Mr. Pickwick's notes on the four towns, Stroud, Rochester, Chatham, and Brompton, that his impressions of their appearance differ in any material point from those of other travellers who have gone over the same ground. His general description is easily abridged. "The principal productions of these towns," says Mr. Pickwick, "appear to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, shrimps, officers, and dockyard men. The commodities chiefly exposed for sale in the public streets are marine stores, hard-bake, apples, flat-fish, and oysters. The streets present a lively and animated appearance, occasioned chiefly by the conviviality of the military. It is truly delightful to a philanthropic mind, to see these gallant men staggering along under the influence of an overflow, both of animal and ardent spirits; more especially when we remember that the following them about, and jesting with them, affords a cheap and innocent amusement for the boy population. Nothing (adds Mr. Pickwick) can exceed their good humour. It was but the day before my arrival that one of them had been most grossly insulted in the house of a publican. The bar-maid had positively refused to draw him any more liquor; in return for which he had (merely in playfulness) drawn his bayonet, and wounded the girl in the shoulder. And yet this fine fellow was the very first to go down to the house next morning, and express his readiness to overlook the matter, and forget what had occurred. "The consumption of tobacco in these towns (continues Mr. Pickwick) must be very great: and the smell which pervades the streets must be exceedingly delicious to those who are extremely fond of smoking. A superficial traveller might object to the dirt, which is their leading characteristic; but to those who view it as an indication of traffic and commercial prosperity, it is truly gratifying." Punctual to five o'clock came the stranger, and shortly afterwards the dinner. He had divested himself of his brown paper parcel, but had made no alteration in his attire, and was, if possible, more loquacious than ever. "What's that?" he inquired, as the waiter removed one of the covers. "Soles, sir." "Soles--ah!--capital fish--all come from London--stage-coach proprietors get up political dinners--carriage of soles--dozens of baskets--cunning fellows. Glass of wine, sir?" "With pleasure," said Mr. Pickwick, and the stranger took wine, first with him, and then with Mr. Snodgrass, and then with Mr. Tupman, and then with Mr. Winkle, and then with the whole party together, almost as rapidly as he talked. "Devil of a mess on the staircase, waiter," said the stranger. "Forms going up--carpenters coming down--lamps, glasses, harps. What's going forward?" "Ball, sir," said the waiter. "Assembly, eh?" "No, sir, not Assembly, sir. Ball for the benefit of a charity, sir." "Many fine women in this town, do you know, sir?" inquired Mr. Tupman, with great interest. "Splendid--capital. Kent, sir--everybody knows Kent--apples, cherries, hops, and women. Glass of wine, sir?" "With great pleasure," replied Mr. Tupman. The stranger filled, and emptied. "I should very much like to go," said Mr. Tupman, resuming the subject of the ball, "very much." "Tickets at the bar, sir," interposed the waiter; "half a guinea each, sir." Mr. Tupman again expressed an earnest wish to be present at the festivity, but meeting with no response in the darkened eye of Mr. Snodgrass, or the abstracted gaze of Mr. Pickwick, he applied himself with great interest to the port wine and dessert, which had just been placed on the table. The waiter withdrew, and the party were left to enjoy the cosy couple of hours succeeding dinner. "Beg your pardon, sir," said the stranger, "bottle stands--pass it round--way of the sun--through the button-hole--no heeltaps," and he emptied his glass, which he had filled about two minutes before, and poured out another, with the air of a man who was used to it. The wine was passed, and a fresh supply ordered. The visitor talked, the Pickwickians listened. Mr. Tupman felt every moment more disposed for the ball. Mr. Pickwick's countenance glowed with an expression of universal philanthropy, and Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass fell fast asleep. "They're beginning up-stairs," said the stranger--"hear the company--fiddles tuning--now the harp--there they go." The various sounds which found their way down-stairs announced the commencement of the first quadrille. "How I should like to go," said Mr. Tupman again. "So should I," said the stranger,--"confounded luggage--heavy smacks--nothing to go in--odd, an't it?" Now general benevolence was one of the leading features of the Pickwickian theory, and no one was more remarkable for the zealous manner in which he observed so noble a principle than Mr. Tracy Tupman. The number of instances recorded on the Transactions of the Society, in which that excellent man referred objects of charity to the houses of other members for left-off garments, or pecuniary relief, is almost incredible. "I should be very happy to lend you a change of apparel for the purpose," said Mr. Tracy Tupman, "but you are rather slim, and I am----" "Rather fat--grown up Bacchus--cut the leaves--dismounted from the tub, and adopted kersey, eh?--not double distilled, but double milled--ha! ha! pass the wine." Whether Mr. Tupman was somewhat indignant at the peremptory tone in which he was desired to pass the wine which the stranger passed so quickly away, or whether he felt very properly scandalised at an influential member of the Pickwick Club being ignominiously compared to a dismounted Bacchus, is a fact not yet completely ascertained. He passed the wine, coughed twice, and looked at the stranger for several seconds with a stern intensity; as that individual, however, appeared perfectly collected, and quite calm under his searching glance, he gradually relaxed, and reverted to the subject of the ball. "I was about to observe, sir," he said, "that though my apparel would be too large, a suit of my friend Mr. Winkle's would perhaps fit you better." The stranger took Mr. Winkle's measure with his eye, and that feature glistened with satisfaction as he said--"Just the thing." Mr. Tupman looked round him. The wine, which had exerted its somniferous influence over Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle, had stolen upon the senses of Mr. Pickwick. That gentleman had gradually passed through the various stages which precede the lethargy produced by dinner, and its consequences. He had undergone the ordinary transitions from the height of conviviality to the depth of misery, and from the depth of misery to the height of conviviality. Like a gas lamp in the street, with the wind in the pipe, he had exhibited for a moment an unnatural brilliancy: then sunk so low as to be scarcely discernible: after a short interval he had burst out again, to enlighten for a moment, then flickered with an uncertain, staggering sort of light, and then gone out altogether. His head was sunk upon his bosom, and perpetual snoring, with a partial choke occasionally, were the only audible indications of the great man's presence. The temptation to be present at the ball, and to form his first impressions of the beauty of the Kentish ladies, was strong upon Mr. Tupman. The temptation to take the stranger with him was equally great. He was wholly unacquainted with the place and its inhabitants, and the stranger seemed to possess as great a knowledge of both as if he had lived there from his infancy. Mr. Winkle was asleep, and Mr. Tupman had had sufficient experience in such matters to know that the moment he awoke he would, in the ordinary course of nature, roll heavily to bed. He was undecided. "Fill your glass, and pass the wine," said the indefatigable visitor. Mr. Tupman did as he was requested, and the additional stimulus of the last glass settled his determination. "Winkle's bedroom is inside mine," said Mr. Tupman; "I couldn't make him understand what I wanted if I woke him now, but I know he has a dress suit in a carpet bag, and supposing you wore it to the ball, and took it off when we returned, I could replace it without troubling him at all about the matter." "Capital," said the stranger, "famous plan--damned odd situation--fourteen coats in the packing cases, and obliged to wear another man's--very good notion, that--very." "We must purchase our tickets," said Mr. Tupman. "Not worth while splitting a guinea," said the stranger, "toss who shall pay for both--I call; you spin--first time--woman--woman--bewitching woman," and down came the sovereign, with the Dragon (called by courtesy a woman) uppermost. Mr. Tupman rang the bell, purchased the tickets, and ordered chamber candlesticks. In another quarter of an hour the stranger was completely arrayed in a full suit of Mr. Nathaniel Winkle's. "It's a new coat," said Mr. Tupman, as the stranger surveyed himself with great complacency in a cheval glass, "the first that's been made with our club button," and he called his companion's attention to the large gilt button which displayed a bust of Mr. Pickwick in the centre, and the letters "P. C." on either side. "P. C.," said the stranger--"queer set out--old fellow's likeness, and 'P. C.'--What does 'P. C.' stand for--Peculiar Coat, eh?" Mr. Tupman, with rising indignation and great importance, explained the mystic device. "Rather short in the waist, an't it," said the stranger, screwing himself round to catch a glimpse in the glass of the waist buttons, which were half way up his back. "Like a general postman's coat--queer coats those--made by contract--no measuring--mysterious dispensations of Providence--all the short men get long coats--all the long men short ones." Running on in this way, Mr. Tupman's new companion adjusted his dress, or rather the dress of Mr. Winkle; and, accompanied by Mr. Tupman, ascended the staircase leading to the ball-room. "What names, sir?" said the man at the door. Mr. Tracy Tupman was stepping forward to announce his own titles, when the stranger prevented him. "No names at all;" and then he whispered Mr. Tupman, "Names won't do--not known--very good names in their way, but not great ones--capital names for a small party, but won't make an impression in public assemblies--_incog._ the thing--Gentlemen from London--distinguished foreigners--anything." The door was thrown open; and Mr. Tracy Tupman and the stranger entered the ball-room. It was a long room, with crimson-covered benches, and wax candles in glass chandeliers. The musicians were securely confined in an elevated den, and quadrilles were being systematically got through by two or three sets of dancers. Two card-tables were made up in the adjoining card-room, and two pair of old ladies, and a corresponding number of stout gentlemen, were executing whist therein. The finale concluded, the dancers promenaded the room, and Mr. Tupman and his companion stationed themselves in a corner to observe the company. "Charming women," said Mr. Tupman. "Wait a minute," said the stranger, "fun presently--nobs not come yet--queer place--Dock-yard people of upper rank don't know Dock-yard people of lower rank--Dock-yard people of lower rank don't know small gentry--small gentry don't know tradespeople--Commissioner don't know anybody." "Who's that little boy with the light hair and pink eyes, in a fancy dress?" inquired Mr. Tupman. "Hush, pray--pink eyes--fancy dress--little boy--nonsense--Ensign 97th--Honourable Wilmot Snipe--great family--Snipes--very." "Sir Thomas Clubber, Lady Clubber, and the Miss Clubbers!" shouted the man at the door in a stentorian voice. A great sensation was created throughout the room by the entrance of a tall gentleman in a blue coat and bright buttons, a large lady in blue satin, and two young ladies, on a similar scale, in fashionably-made dresses of the same hue. "Commissioner--head of the yard--great man--remarkably great man," whispered the stranger in Mr. Tupman's ear, as the charitable committee ushered Sir Thomas Clubber and family to the top of the room. The Honourable Wilmot Snipe and other distinguished gentlemen crowded to render homage to the Miss Clubbers; and Sir Thomas Clubber stood bolt upright, and looked majestically over his black neckerchief at the assembled company. "Mr. Smithie, Mrs. Smithie, and the Misses Smithie," was the next announcement. "What's Mr. Smithie?" inquired Mr. Tracy Tupman. "Something in the yard," replied the stranger. Mr. Smithie bowed deferentially to Sir Thomas Clubber, and Sir Thomas Clubber acknowledged the salute with conscious condescension. Lady Clubber took a telescopic view of Mrs. Smithie and family through her eye-glass, and Mrs. Smithie stared in her turn at Mrs. Somebody else, whose husband was not in the Dock-yard at all. "Colonel Bulder, Mrs. Colonel Bulder, and Miss Bulder," were the next arrivals. "Head of the Garrison," said the stranger, in reply to Mr. Tupman's inquiring look. Miss Bulder was warmly welcomed by the Miss Clubbers; the greeting between Mrs. Colonel Bulder and Lady Clubber was of the most affectionate description; Colonel Bulder and Sir Thomas Clubber exchanged snuff-boxes, and looked very much like a pair of Alexander Selkirks--"Monarchs of all they surveyed." While the aristocracy of the place--the Bulders, and Clubbers, and Snipes--were thus preserving their dignity at the upper end of the room, the other classes of society were imitating their example in other parts of it. The less aristocratic officers of the 97th devoted themselves to the families of the less important functionaries from the Dock-yard. The solicitors' wives and the wine-merchant's wife headed another grade (the brewer's wife visited the Bulders); and Mrs. Tomlinson, the post-office keeper, seemed by mutual consent to have been chosen the leader of the trade party. One of the most popular personages in his own circle present was a little fat man, with a ring of upright black hair round his head, and an extensive bald plain on the top of it--Doctor Slammer, surgeon to the 97th. The Doctor took snuff with everybody, chatted with everybody, laughed, danced, made jokes, played whist, did everything, and was everywhere. To these pursuits, multifarious as they were, the little Doctor added a more important one than any--he was indefatigable in paying the most unremitting and devoted attention to a little old widow, whose rich dress and profusion of ornament bespoke her a most desirable addition to a limited income. Upon the Doctor, and the widow, the eyes of both Mr. Tupman and his companion had been fixed for some time, when the stranger broke silence. "Lots of money--old girl--pompous Doctor--not a bad idea--good fun," were the intelligible sentences which issued from his lips. Mr. Tupman looked inquisitively in his face. "I'll dance with the widow," said the stranger. "Who is she?" inquired Mr. Tupman. "Don't know--never saw her in all my life--cut out the Doctor--here goes." And the stranger forthwith crossed the room; and, leaning against a mantelpiece, commenced gazing with an air of respectful and melancholy admiration on the fat countenance of the little old lady. Mr. Tupman looked on, in mute astonishment. The stranger progressed rapidly; the little Doctor danced with another lady; the widow dropped her fan, the stranger picked it up, and presented it,--a smile--a bow--a curtsey--a few words of conversation. The stranger walked boldly up to, and returned with, the master of ceremonies; a little introductory pantomime; and the stranger and Mrs. Budger took their places in a quadrille. The surprise of Mr. Tupman at this summary proceeding, great as it was, was immeasurably exceeded by the astonishment of the Doctor. The stranger was young, and the widow was flattered. The Doctor's attentions were unheeded by the widow; and the Doctor's indignation was wholly lost on his imperturbable rival. Doctor Slammer was paralysed. He, Doctor Slammer, of the 97th, to be extinguished in a moment, by a man whom nobody had ever seen before, and whom nobody knew even now! Doctor Slammer--Doctor Slammer of the 97th rejected! Impossible! It could not be! Yes, it was; there they were. What! introducing his friend! Could he believe his eyes! He looked again, and was under the painful necessity of admitting the veracity of his optics; Mrs. Budger was dancing with Mr. Tracy Tupman, there was no mistaking the fact. There was the widow before him, bouncing bodily, here and there, with unwonted vigour; and Mr. Tracy Tupman hopping about, with a face expressive of the most intense solemnity, dancing (as a good many people do) as if a quadrille were not a thing to be laughed at, but a severe trial to the feelings, which it requires inflexible resolution to encounter. Silently and patiently did the Doctor bear all this, and all the handings of negus, and watching for glasses, and darting for biscuits, and coquetting, that ensued; but, a few seconds after the stranger had disappeared to lead Mrs. Budger to her carriage, he darted swiftly from the room with every particle of his hitherto-bottled-up indignation effervescing, from all parts of his countenance, in a perspiration of passion. The stranger was returning, and Mr. Tupman was beside him. He spoke in a low tone and laughed. The little Doctor thirsted for his life. He was exulting. He had triumphed. "Sir!" said the Doctor, in an awful voice, producing a card, and retiring into an angle of the passage, "my name is Slammer, Doctor Slammer, sir--97th Regiment--Chatham Barracks--my card, sir, my card." He would have added more, but his indignation choked him. "Ah!" replied the stranger, coolly, "Slammer--much obliged--polite attention--not ill now, Slammer--but when I am--knock you up." "You--you're a shuffler! sir," gasped the furious Doctor, "a poltroon--a coward--a liar--a--a--will nothing induce you to give me your card, sir!" "Oh! I see," said the stranger, half aside, "negus too strong here--liberal landlord--very foolish--very--lemonade much better--hot rooms--elderly gentlemen--suffer for it in the morning--cruel--cruel;" and he moved on a step or two. "You are stopping in this house, sir," said the indignant little man; "you are intoxicated now, sir; you shall hear from me in the morning, sir. I shall find you out, sir; I shall find you out." "Rather you found me out than found me at home," replied the unmoved stranger. Doctor Slammer looked unutterable ferocity, as he fixed his hat on his head with an indignant knock; and the stranger and Mr. Tupman ascended to the bed-room of the latter to restore the borrowed plumage to the unconscious Winkle. That gentleman was fast asleep; the restoration was soon made. The stranger was extremely jocose; and Mr. Tracy Tupman, being quite bewildered with wine, negus, lights, and ladies, thought the whole affair an exquisite joke. His new friend departed; and, after experiencing some slight difficulty in finding the orifice in his night-cap, originally intended for the reception of his head, and finally overturning his candlestick in his struggles to put it on, Mr. Tracy Tupman managed to get into bed by a series of complicated evolutions, and shortly afterwards sank into repose. Seven o'clock had hardly ceased striking on the following morning when Mr. Pickwick's comprehensive mind was aroused from the state of unconsciousness in which slumber had plunged it, by a loud knocking at his chamber door. "Who's there?" said Mr. Pickwick, starting up in bed. "Boots, sir." "What do you want?" "Please, sir, can you tell me which gentleman of your party wears a bright blue dress coat, with a gilt button with P. C. on it?" "It's been given out to brush," thought Mr. Pickwick, "and the man has forgotten whom it belongs to. Mr. Winkle," he called out, "next room but two, on the right hand." "Thank'ee, sir," said the Boots, and away he went. "What's the matter?" cried Mr. Tupman, as a loud knocking at _his_ door aroused _him_ from his oblivious repose. "Can I speak to Mr. Winkle, sir?" replied the Boots from the outside. "Winkle--Winkle!" shouted Mr. Tupman, calling into the inner room. "Hallo!" replied a faint voice from within the bed-clothes. "You're wanted--some one at the door--" and having exerted himself to articulate thus much, Mr. Tracy Tupman turned round and fell fast asleep again. "Wanted!" said Mr. Winkle, hastily jumping out of bed, and putting on a few articles of clothing; "wanted! at this distance from town--who on earth can want me?" "Gentleman in the coffee-room, sir," replied the Boots, as Mr. Winkle opened the door and confronted him; "gentleman says he'll not detain you a moment, sir, but he can take no denial." "Very odd!" said Mr. Winkle; "I'll be down directly." He hurriedly wrapped himself in a travelling-shawl and dressing-gown, and proceeded down-stairs. An old woman and a couple of waiters were cleaning the coffee-room, and an officer in undress uniform was looking out of the window. He turned round as Mr. Winkle entered, and made a stiff inclination of the head. Having ordered the attendants to retire, and closed the door very carefully, he said, "Mr. Winkle, I presume?" "My name _is_ Winkle, sir." [Illustration: "_My name is Winkle, sir_"] "You will not be surprised, sir, when I inform you that I have called here this morning on behalf of my friend, Dr. Slammer, of the Ninety-seventh." "Doctor Slammer!" said Mr. Winkle. "Dr. Slammer. He begged me to express his opinion that your conduct of last evening was of a description which no gentleman could endure: and (he added) which no one gentleman would pursue towards another." Mr. Winkle's astonishment was too real, and too evident, to escape the observation of Dr. Slammer's friend; he therefore proceeded--"My friend, Doctor Slammer, requested me to add, that he was firmly persuaded you were intoxicated during a portion of the evening, and possibly unconscious of the extent of the insult you were guilty of. He commissioned me to say, that should this be pleaded as an excuse for your behaviour, he will consent to accept a written apology, to be penned by you, from my dictation." "A written apology!" repeated Mr. Winkle, in the most emphatic tone of amazement possible. "Of course you know the alternative," replied the visitor coolly. "Were you entrusted with this message to me by name?" inquired Mr. Winkle, whose intellects were hopelessly confused by this extraordinary conversation. "I was not present myself," replied the visitor, "and in consequence of your firm refusal to give your card to Doctor Slammer, I was desired by that gentleman to identify the wearer of a very uncommon coat--a bright blue dress coat, with a gilt button displaying a bust, and the letters 'P. C.'" Mr. Winkle actually staggered with astonishment as he heard his own costume thus minutely described. Doctor Slammer's friend proceeded--"From the inquiries I made at the bar, just now, I was convinced that the owner of the coat in question arrived here, with three gentlemen, yesterday afternoon. I immediately sent up to the gentleman who was described as appearing the head of the party, and he at once referred me to you." If the principal tower of Rochester Castle had suddenly walked from its foundation, and stationed itself opposite the coffee-room window, Mr. Winkle's surprise would have been as nothing compared with the profound astonishment with which he had heard this address. His first impression was, that his coat had been stolen. "Will you allow me to detain you one moment?" said he. "Certainly," replied the unwelcome visitor. Mr. Winkle ran hastily up-stairs, and with a trembling hand opened the bag. There was the coat in its usual place, but exhibiting, on a close inspection, evident tokens of having been worn on the preceding night. "It must be so," said Mr. Winkle, letting the coat fall from his hands. "I took too much wine after dinner, and have a very vague recollection of walking about the streets and smoking a cigar afterwards. The fact is, I was very drunk;--I must have changed my coat--gone somewhere--and insulted somebody--I have no doubt of it; and this message is the terrible consequence." Saying which, Mr. Winkle retraced his steps in the direction of the coffee-room, with the gloomy and dreadful resolve of accepting the challenge of the warlike Dr. Slammer, and abiding by the worst consequences that might ensue. To this determination Mr. Winkle was urged by a variety of considerations, the first of which was, his reputation with the club. He had always been looked up to as a high authority on all matters of amusement and dexterity, whether offensive, defensive, or inoffensive; and if, on this very first occasion of being put to the test, he shrunk back from the trial, beneath his leader's eye, his name and standing were lost for ever. Besides, he remembered to have heard it frequently surmised by the uninitiated in such matters that by an understood arrangement between the seconds, the pistols were seldom loaded with ball; and, furthermore, he reflected that if he applied to Mr. Snodgrass to act as his second, and depicted the danger in glowing terms, that gentleman might possibly communicate the intelligence to Mr. Pickwick, who would certainly lose no time in transmitting it to the local authorities, and thus prevent the killing or maiming of his follower. Such were his thoughts when he returned to the coffee-room, and intimated his intention of accepting the Doctor's challenge. "Will you refer me to a friend, to arrange the time and place of meeting?" said the officer. "Quite unnecessary," replied Mr. Winkle; "name them to me, and I can procure the attendance of a friend afterwards." "Shall we say--sunset this evening?" inquired the officer, in a careless tone. "Very good," replied Mr. Winkle, thinking in his heart it was very bad. "You know Fort Pitt?" "Yes; I saw it yesterday." "If you will take the trouble to turn into the field which borders the trench, take the foot-path to the left when you arrive at an angle of the fortification, and keep straight on, till you see me, I will precede you to a secluded place, where the affair can be conducted without fear of interruption." "_Fear_ of interruption!" thought Mr. Winkle. "Nothing more to arrange, I think," said the officer. "I am not aware of anything more," replied Mr. Winkle. "Good morning." "Good morning:" and the officer whistled a lively air as he strode away. That morning's breakfast passed heavily off. Mr. Tupman was not in a condition to rise, after the unwonted dissipation of the previous night; Mr. Snodgrass appeared to labour under a poetical depression of spirits; and even Mr. Pickwick evinced an unusual attachment to silence and soda-water. Mr. Winkle eagerly watched his opportunity; it was not long wanting. Mr. Snodgrass proposed a visit to the castle, and as Mr. Winkle was the only other member of the party disposed to walk, they went out together. "Snodgrass," said Mr. Winkle, when they had turned out of the public street, "Snodgrass, my dear fellow, can I rely upon your secrecy?" As he said this, he most devoutly and earnestly hoped he could not. "You can," replied Mr. Snodgrass. "Hear me swear----" "No, no," interrupted Winkle, terrified at the idea of his companion's unconsciously pledging himself not to give information; "don't swear, don't swear; it's quite unnecessary." Mr. Snodgrass dropped the hand which he had, in the spirit of poesy, raised towards the clouds as he made the above appeal, and assumed an attitude of attention. "I want your assistance, my dear fellow, in an affair of honour," said Mr. Winkle. "You shall have it," replied Mr. Snodgrass, clasping his friend's hand. "With a Doctor--Doctor Slammer, of the Ninety-seventh," said Mr. Winkle, wishing to make the matter appear as solemn as possible; "an affair with an officer, seconded by another officer, at sunset this evening, in a lonely field beyond Fort Pitt." "I will attend you," said Mr. Snodgrass. He was astonished, but by no means dismayed. It is extraordinary how cool any party but the principal can be in such cases. Mr. Winkle had forgotten this. He had judged of his friend's feelings by his own. "The consequences may be dreadful," said Mr. Winkle. "I hope not," said Mr. Snodgrass. "The Doctor, I believe, is a very good shot," said Mr. Winkle. "Most of these military men are," observed Mr. Snodgrass, calmly; "but so are you, an't you?" Mr. Winkle replied in the affirmative; and perceiving that he had not alarmed his companion sufficiently, changed his ground. "Snodgrass," he said, in a voice tremulous with emotion, "if I fall, you will find in a packet which I shall place in your hands a note for my--for my father." This attack was a failure also. Mr. Snodgrass was affected, but he undertook the delivery of the note as readily as if he had been a Twopenny Postman. "If I fall," said Mr. Winkle, "or if the Doctor falls, you, my dear friend, will be tried as an accessory before the fact. Shall I involve my friend in transportation--possibly for life!" Mr. Snodgrass winced a little at this, but his heroism was invincible. "In the cause of friendship," he fervently exclaimed, "I would brave all dangers." How Mr. Winkle cursed his companion's devoted friendship internally, as they walked silently along, side by side, for some minutes, each immersed in his own meditations! The morning was wearing away; he grew desperate. "Snodgrass," he said, stopping suddenly, "do _not_ let me be baulked in this matter--do _not_ give information to the local authorities--do _not_ obtain the assistance of several peace officers, to take either me or Doctor Slammer, of the Ninety-seventh Regiment, at present quartered in Chatham Barracks, into custody, and thus prevent this duel;--I say, do _not_." Mr. Snodgrass seized his friend's hand warmly, as he enthusiastically replied, "Not for worlds!" A thrill passed over Mr. Winkle's frame as the conviction that he had nothing to hope from his friend's fears, and that he was destined to become an animated target, rushed forcibly upon him. The state of the case having been formally explained to Mr. Snodgrass, and a case of satisfaction pistols, with the satisfactory accompaniments of powder, ball, and caps, having been hired from a manufacturer in Rochester, the two friends returned to their inn; Mr. Winkle to ruminate on the approaching struggle, and Mr. Snodgrass to arrange the weapons of war, and put them into proper order for immediate use. It was a dull and heavy evening when they again sallied forth on their awkward errand. Mr. Winkle was muffled up in a huge cloak to escape observation, and Mr. Snodgrass bore under his the instruments of destruction. "Have you got everything?" said Mr. Winkle, in an agitated tone. "Everything," replied Mr. Snodgrass; "plenty of ammunition, in case the shots don't take effect. There's a quarter of a pound of powder in the case, and I have got two newspapers in my pocket for the loadings." These were instances of friendship for which any man might reasonably feel most grateful. The presumption is, that the gratitude of Mr. Winkle was too powerful for utterance, as he said nothing, but continued to walk on--rather slowly. "We are in excellent time," said Mr. Snodgrass, as they climbed the fence of the first field; "the sun is just going down." Mr. Winkle looked up at the declining orb and painfully thought of the probability of his "going down" himself, before long. "There's the officer," exclaimed Mr. Winkle, after a few minutes' walking. "Where?" said Mr. Snodgrass. "There;--the gentleman in the blue cloak." Mr. Snodgrass looked in the direction indicated by the forefinger of his friend, and observed a figure, muffled up, as he had described. The officer evinced his consciousness of their presence by slightly beckoning with his hand; and the two friends followed him at a little distance, as he walked away. The evening grew more dull every moment, and a melancholy wind sounded through the deserted fields, like a distant giant whistling for his house-dog. The sadness of the scene imparted a sombre tinge to the feelings of Mr. Winkle. He started as they passed the angle of the trench--it looked like a colossal grave. The officer turned suddenly from the path, and after climbing a paling, and scaling a hedge, entered a secluded field. Two gentlemen were waiting in it; one was a little fat man, with black hair; and the other--a portly personage in a braided surtout--was sitting with perfect equanimity on a camp-stool. "The other party, and a surgeon, I suppose," said Mr. Snodgrass; "take a drop of brandy." Mr. Winkle seized the wicker bottle which his friend proffered, and took a lengthened pull at the exhilarating liquid. "My friend, sir, Mr. Snodgrass," said Mr. Winkle, as the officer approached. Doctor Slammer's friend bowed, and produced a case similar to that which Mr. Snodgrass carried. "We have nothing farther to say, sir, I think," he coldly remarked, as he opened the case; "an apology has been resolutely declined." "Nothing, sir," said Mr. Snodgrass, who began to feel rather uncomfortable himself. "Will you step forward?" said the officer. "Certainly," replied Mr. Snodgrass. The ground was measured, and preliminaries arranged. "You will find these better than your own," said the opposite second, producing his pistols. "You saw me load them. Do you object to use them?" "Certainly not," replied Mr. Snodgrass. The offer relieved him from considerable embarrassment, for his previous notions of loading a pistol were rather vague and undefined. "We may place our men, then, I think," observed the officer, with as much indifference as if the principals were chess-men, and the seconds players. "I think we may," replied Mr. Snodgrass; who would have assented to any proposition, because he knew nothing about the matter. The officer crossed to Doctor Slammer, and Mr. Snodgrass went up to Mr. Winkle. "It's all ready," he said, offering the pistol. "Give me your cloak." "You have got the packet, my dear fellow," said poor Winkle. "All right," said Mr. Snodgrass. "Be steady, and wing him." It occurred to Mr. Winkle that this advice was very like that which bystanders invariably give to the smallest boy in a street fight, namely, "Go in, and win:"--an admirable thing to recommend, if you only know how to do it. He took off his cloak, however, in silence--it always took a long time to undo that cloak--and accepted the pistol. The seconds retired, the gentleman on the camp-stool did the same, and the belligerents approached each other. Mr. Winkle was always remarkable for extreme humanity. It is conjectured that his unwillingness to hurt a fellow-creature intentionally was the cause of his shutting his eyes when he arrived at the fatal spot; and that the circumstance of his eyes being closed, prevented his observing the very extraordinary and unaccountable demeanour of Doctor Slammer. That gentleman started, stared, retreated, rubbed his eyes, stared again; and finally shouted "Stop, stop!" "What's all this?" said Doctor Slammer, as his friend and Mr. Snodgrass came running up. "That's not the man." "Not the man!" said Dr. Slammer's second. "Not the man!" said Mr. Snodgrass. "Not the man!" said the gentleman with the camp-stool in his hand. "Certainly not," replied the little Doctor. "That's not the person who insulted me last night." "Very extraordinary!" exclaimed the officer. "Very," said the gentleman with the camp-stool. "The only question is, whether the gentleman, being on the ground, must not be considered, as a matter of form, to be the individual who insulted our friend, Dr. Slammer, yesterday evening, whether he is really that individual or not:" and having delivered this suggestion, with a very sage and mysterious air, the man with the camp-stool took a large pinch of snuff, and looked profoundly round, with the air of an authority in such matters. Now Mr. Winkle had opened his eyes, and his ears too, when he heard his adversary call out for a cessation of hostilities; and perceiving by what he had afterwards said, that there was, beyond all question, some mistake in the matter, he at once foresaw the increase of reputation he should inevitably acquire by concealing the real motive of his coming out: he therefore stepped boldly forward, and said-- "I am not the person. I know it." "Then, that," said the man with the camp-stool, "is an affront to Dr. Slammer, and a sufficient reason for proceeding immediately." "Pray be quiet, Payne," said the Doctor's second. "Why did you not communicate this fact to me this morning, sir?" "To be sure--to be sure," said the man with the camp-stool, indignantly. "I entreat you to be quiet, Payne," said the other. "May I repeat my question, sir?" "Because, sir," replied Mr. Winkle, who had had time to deliberate upon his answer, "because, sir, you described an intoxicated and ungentlemanly person as wearing a coat which I have the honour, not only to wear, but to have invented--the proposed uniform, sir, of the Pickwick Club in London. The honour of that uniform I feel bound to maintain, and I therefore, without inquiry, accepted the challenge which you offered me." "My dear sir," said the good-humoured little Doctor, advancing with extended hand, "I honour your gallantry. Permit me to say, sir, that I highly admire your conduct, and extremely regret having caused you the inconvenience of this meeting, to no purpose." "I beg you won't mention it, sir," said Mr. Winkle. "I shall feel proud of your acquaintance, sir," said the little Doctor. "It will afford me the greatest pleasure to know you, sir," replied Mr. Winkle. Thereupon the Doctor and Mr. Winkle shook hands, and then Mr. Winkle and Lieutenant Tappleton (the Doctor's second), and then Mr. Winkle and the man with the camp-stool, and finally, Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass--the last-named gentleman in an excess of admiration at the noble conduct of his heroic friend. "I think we may adjourn," said Lieutenant Tappleton. "Certainly," added the Doctor. "Unless," interposed the man with the camp-stool, "unless Mr. Winkle feels himself aggrieved by the challenge; in which case, I submit, he has a right to satisfaction." Mr. Winkle, with great self-denial, expressed himself quite satisfied already. "Or possibly," said the man with the camp-stool, "the gentleman's second may feel himself affronted with some observations which fell from me at an early period of this meeting: if so, I shall be happy to give _him_ satisfaction immediately." Mr. Snodgrass hastily professed himself very much obliged with the handsome offer of the gentleman who had spoken last, which he was only induced to decline by his entire contentment with the whole proceedings. The two seconds adjusted the cases, and the whole party left the ground in a much more lively manner than they had proceeded to it. "Do you remain long here?" inquired Dr. Slammer of Mr. Winkle, as they walked on most amicably together. "I think we shall leave here the day after to-morrow," was the reply. "I trust I shall have the pleasure of seeing you and your friend at my rooms, and of spending a pleasant evening with you after this awkward mistake," said the little Doctor; "are you disengaged this evening?" "We have some friends here," replied Mr. Winkle, "and I should not like to leave them to-night. Perhaps you and your friend will join us at the Bull?" "With great pleasure," said the little Doctor; "will ten o'clock be too late to look in for half an hour?" "Oh dear no," said Mr. Winkle. "I shall be most happy to introduce you to my friends, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman." "It will give me great pleasure, I am sure," replied Dr. Slammer, little suspecting who Mr. Tupman was. "You will be sure to come?" said Mr. Snodgrass. "Oh, certainly." By this time they had reached the road. Cordial farewells were exchanged, and the party separated. Doctor Slammer and his friends repaired to the barracks, and Mr. Winkle, accompanied by Mr. Snodgrass, returned to their inn. CHAPTER III [Illustration] _A New Acquaintance. The Stroller's Tale. A Disagreeable Interruption, and an Unpleasant Encounter_ Mr. Pickwick had felt some apprehensions in consequence of the unusual absence of his two friends, which their mysterious behaviour during the whole morning had by no means tended to diminish. It was, therefore, with more than ordinary pleasure that he rose to greet them when they again entered; and with more than ordinary interest that he inquired what had occurred to detain them from his society. In reply to his questions on this point, Mr. Snodgrass was about to offer an historical account of the circumstances just now detailed, when he was suddenly checked by observing that there were present, not only Mr. Tupman and their stage-coach companion of the preceding day, but another stranger of equally singular appearance. It was a care-worn looking man, whose sallow face, and deeply sunken eyes, were rendered still more striking than nature had made them, by the straight black hair which hung in matted disorder half way down his face. His eyes were almost unnaturally bright and piercing; his cheek-bones were high and prominent; and his jaws were so long and lank, that an observer would have supposed that he was drawing the flesh of his face in, for a moment, by some contraction of the muscles, if his half-opened mouth and immovable expression had not announced that it was his ordinary appearance. Round his neck he wore a green shawl, with the large ends straggling over his chest, and making their appearance occasionally beneath the worn buttonholes of his old waistcoat. His upper garment was a long black surtout; and below it he wore wide drab trousers, and large boots, running rapidly to seed. It was on this uncouth-looking person that Mr. Winkle's eye rested, and it was towards him that Mr. Pickwick extended his hand, when he said, "A friend of our friend's here. We discovered this morning that our friend was connected with the theatre in this place, though he is not desirous to have it generally known, and this gentleman is a member of the same profession. He was about to favour us with a little anecdote connected with it when you entered." "Lots of anecdote," said the green-coated stranger of the day before, advancing to Mr. Winkle and speaking in a low and confidential tone. "Rum fellow--does the heavy business--no actor--strange man--all sorts of miseries--Dismal Jemmy we call him on the circuit." Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass politely welcomed the gentleman, elegantly designated as "Dismal Jemmy!" and calling for brandy and water, in imitation of the remainder of the company, seated themselves at the table. "Now, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, "will you oblige us by proceeding with what you were going to relate?" The dismal individual took a dirty roll of paper from his pocket, and turning to Mr. Snodgrass, who had just taken out his note-book, said in a hollow voice, perfectly in keeping with his outward man--"Are you the poet?" "I--I do a little in that way," replied Mr. Snodgrass, rather taken aback by the abruptness of the question. "Ah! poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage--strip the one of its false embellishments, and the other of its illusions, and what is there real in either to live or care for?" "Very true, sir," replied Mr. Snodgrass. "To be before the footlights," continued the dismal man, "is like sitting at a grand court show, and admiring the silken dresses of the gaudy throng--to be behind them is to be the people who make that finery, uncared for and unknown, and left to sink or swim, to starve or live, as fortune wills it." "Certainly," said Mr. Snodgrass: for the sunken eye of the dismal man rested on him, and he felt it necessary to say something. "Go on, Jemmy," said the Spanish traveller, "like black-eyed Susan--all in the Downs--no croaking--speak out--look lively." "Will you make another glass before you begin, sir?" said Mr. Pickwick. The dismal man took the hint, and having mixed a glass of brandy and water, and slowly swallowed half of it, opened the roll of paper, and proceeded, partly to read, and partly to relate, the following incident, which we find recorded on the Transactions of the club as "The Stroller's Tale." THE STROLLER'S TALE "There is nothing of the marvellous in what I am going to relate," said the dismal man; "there is nothing even uncommon in it. Want and sickness are too common in many stations of life, to deserve more notice than is usually bestowed on the most ordinary vicissitudes of human nature. I have thrown these few notes together, because the subject of them was well known to me for many years. I traced his progress downwards, step by step, until at last he reached that excess of destitution from which he never rose again. "The man of whom I speak was a low pantomime actor; and like many people of his class, an habitual drunkard. In his better days, before he had become enfeebled by dissipation and emaciated by disease, he had been in the receipt of a good salary, which, if he had been careful and prudent, he might have continued to receive for some years--not many; because these men either die early, or, by unnaturally taxing their bodily energies, lose, prematurely, those physical powers on which alone they can depend for subsistence. His besetting sin gained so fast upon him, however, that it was found impossible to employ him in the situations in which he really was useful to the theatre. The public-house had a fascination for him which he could not resist. Neglected disease and hopeless poverty were as certain to be his portion as death itself, if he persevered in the same course; yet he _did_ persevere, and the result may be guessed. He could obtain no engagement, and he wanted bread. "Everybody who is at all acquainted with theatrical matters knows what a host of shabby, poverty-stricken men hang about the stage of a large establishment--not regularly engaged actors, but ballet people, procession men, tumblers, and so forth, who are taken on during the run of a pantomime, or an Easter piece, and are then discharged, until the production of some heavy spectacle occasions a new demand for their services. To this mode of life the man was compelled to resort; and taking the chair every night at some low theatrical house, at once put him in possession of a few more shillings weekly, and enabled him to gratify his old propensity. Even this resource shortly failed him; his irregularities were too great to admit of his earning the wretched pittance he might thus have procured, and he was actually reduced to a state bordering on starvation, only procuring a trifle occasionally by borrowing it of some old companion, or by obtaining an appearance at one or other of the commonest of the minor theatres; and when he did earn anything it was spent in the old way. "About this time, and when he had been existing for upwards of a year no one knew how, I had a short engagement at one of the theatres on the Surrey side of the water, and here I saw this man whom I had lost sight of for some time; for I had been travelling in the provinces, and he had been skulking in the lanes and alleys of London. I was dressed to leave the house, and was crossing the stage on my way out, when he tapped me on the shoulder. Never shall I forget the repulsive sight that met my eye when I turned round. He was dressed for the pantomime, in all the absurdity of a clown's costume. The spectral figures in the Dance of Death, the most frightful shapes that the ablest painter ever portrayed on canvas, never presented an appearance half so ghastly. His bloated body and shrunken legs--their deformity enhanced a hundred fold by the fantastic dress--the glassy eyes, contrasting fearfully with the thick white paint with which the face was besmeared; the grotesquely ornamented head, trembling with paralysis, and the long skinny hands, rubbed with white chalk--all gave him a hideous and unnatural appearance, of which no description could convey an adequate idea, and which, to this day, I shudder to think of. His voice was hollow and tremulous, as he took me aside, and in broken words recounted a long catalogue of sickness and privations, terminating as usual with an urgent request for the loan of a trifling sum of money. I put a few shillings in his hand, and as I turned away I heard the roar of laughter which followed his first tumble on the stage. "A few nights afterwards, a boy put a dirty scrap of paper in my hand, on which were scrawled a few words in pencil, intimating that the man was dangerously ill, and begging me, after the performance, to see him at his lodging in some street--I forget the name of it now--at no great distance from the theatre. I promised to comply, as soon as I could get away; and, after the curtain fell, sallied forth on my melancholy errand. "It was late, for I had been playing in the last piece; and as it was a benefit night, the performances had been protracted to an unusual length. It was a dark cold night, with a chill damp wind, which blew the rain heavily against the windows and house fronts. Pools of water had collected in the narrow and little-frequented streets, and as many of the thinly-scattered oil-lamps had been blown out by the violence of the wind, the walk was not only a comfortless, but most uncertain one. I had fortunately taken the right course, however, and succeeded, after a little difficulty, in finding the house to which I had been directed--a coal-shed, with one storey above it, in the back room of which lay the object of my search. "A wretched-looking woman, the man's wife, met me on the stairs, and, telling me that he had just fallen into a kind of doze, led me softly in, and placed a chair for me at the bedside. The sick man was lying with his face turned towards the wall; and as he took no heed of my presence, I had leisure to observe the place in which I found myself. "He was lying on an old bedstead, which turned up during the day. The tattered remains of a checked curtain were drawn round the bed's head, to exclude the wind, which however made its way into the comfortless room through the numerous chinks in the door, and blew it to and fro every instant. There was a low cinder fire in a rusty unfixed grate; and an old three-cornered stained table, with some medicine bottles, a broken glass, and a few other domestic articles, was drawn out before it. A little child was sleeping on a temporary bed which had been made for it on the floor, and the woman sat on a chair by its side. There were a couple of shelves, with a few plates and cups and saucers: and a pair of stage shoes and a couple of foils hung beneath them. With the exception of little heaps of rags and bundles which had been carelessly thrown into the corners of the room, these were the only things in the apartment. "I had had time to note these little particulars, and to mark the heavy breathing and feverish startings of the sick man, before he was aware of my presence. In the restless attempts to procure some easy resting-place for his head, he tossed his hand out of the bed, and it fell on mine. He started up, and stared eagerly in my face. "'Mr. Hutley, John,' said his wife; 'Mr. Hutley, that you sent for to-night, you know.' "'Ah!' said the invalid, passing his hand across his forehead; 'Hutley--Hutley--let me see.' He seemed endeavouring to collect his thoughts for a few seconds, and then grasping me tightly by the wrist said, 'Don't leave me--don't leave me, old fellow. She'll murder me; I know she will.' "'Has he been long so?' said I, addressing his weeping wife. "'Since yesterday night,' she replied. 'John, John, don't you know me?' "'Don't let her come near me,' said the man, with a shudder, as she stooped over him. 'Drive her away; I can't bear her near me.' He stared wildly at her with a look of deadly apprehension, and then whispered in my ear, 'I beat her, Jem; I beat her yesterday, and many times before. I have starved her and the boy too; and now I am weak and helpless, Jem, she'll murder me for it; I know she will. If you'd seen her cry, as I have, you'd know it too. Keep her off.' He relaxed his grasp, and sank back exhausted on the pillow. "I knew but too well what all this meant. If I could have entertained any doubt of it, for an instant, one glance at the woman's pale face and wasted form would have sufficiently explained the real state of the case. 'You had better stand aside,' said I to the poor creature. 'You can do him no good. Perhaps he will be calmer, if he does not see you.' She retired out of the man's sight. He opened his eyes after a few seconds, and looked anxiously round. "'Is she gone?' he eagerly inquired. "'Yes--yes,' said I; 'she shall not hurt you.' "'I'll tell you what, Jem,' said the man, in a low voice, 'she _does_ hurt me. There's something in her eyes wakes such a dreadful fear in my heart that it drives me mad. All last night her large staring eyes and pale face were close to mine; wherever I turned, they turned: and whenever I started up from my sleep, she was at the bedside looking at me.' He drew me closer to him, as he said in a deep, alarmed whisper--'Jem, she must be an evil spirit--a devil! Hush! I know she is. If she had been a woman she would have died long ago. No woman could have borne what she has.' "I sickened at the thought of the long course of cruelty and neglect which must have occurred to produce such an impression on such a man. I could say nothing in reply; for who could offer hope, or consolation, to the abject being before me? "I sat there for upwards of two hours, during which he tossed about, murmuring exclamations of pain or impatience, restlessly throwing his arms here and there, and turning constantly from side to side. At length he fell into that state of partial unconsciousness, in which the mind wanders uneasily from scene to scene, and from place to place, without the control of reason, but still without being able to divest itself of an indescribable sense of present suffering. Finding from his incoherent wanderings that this was the case, and knowing that in all probability the fever would not grow immediately worse, I left him, promising his miserable wife that I would repeat my visit next evening, and, if necessary, sit up with the patient during the night. "I kept my promise. The last four-and-twenty hours had produced a frightful alteration. The eyes, though deeply sunk and heavy, shone with a lustre frightful to behold. The lips were parched, and cracked in many places: the hard dry skin glowed with a burning heat, and there was an almost unearthly air of wild anxiety in the man's face, indicating even more strongly the ravages of the disease. The fever was at its height. "I took the seat I had occupied the night before, and there I sat for hours, listening to sounds which must strike deep to the heart of the most callous among human beings--the awful ravings of a dying man. From what I had heard of the medical attendant's opinion, I knew there was no hope for him: I was sitting by his death-bed. I saw the wasted limbs, which a few hours before had been distorted for the amusement of a boisterous gallery, writhing under the tortures of a burning fever--I heard the clown's shrill laugh, blending with the low murmurings of the dying man. "It is a touching thing to hear the mind reverting to the ordinary occupations and pursuits of health, when the body lies before you weak and helpless; but when those occupations are of a character the most strongly opposed to anything we associate with grave and solemn ideas, the impression produced is infinitely more powerful. The theatre and the public-house were the chief themes of the wretched man's wanderings. It was evening, he fancied; he had a part to play that night; it was late, and he must leave home instantly. Why did they hold him, and prevent his going?--he should lose the money--he must go. No! they would not let him. He hid his face in his burning hands, and feebly bemoaned his own weakness, and the cruelty of his persecutors. A short pause, and he shouted out a few doggrel rhymes--the last he had ever learnt. He rose in bed, drew up his withered limbs, and rolled about in uncouth positions; he was acting--he was at the theatre. A minute's silence, and he murmured the burden of some roaring song. He had reached the old house at last: how hot the room was. He had been ill, very ill, but he was well now, and happy. Fill up his glass. Who was that, that dashed it from his lips? It was the same persecutor that had followed him before. He fell back upon his pillow and moaned aloud. A short period of oblivion, and he was wandering through a tedious maze of low-arched rooms--so low sometimes, that he must creep upon his hands and knees to make his way along; it was so close and dark, and every way he turned, some obstacle impeded his progress. There were insects too, hideous crawling things with eyes that stared upon him, and filled the very air around; glistening horribly amidst the thick darkness of the place. The walls and ceiling were alive with reptiles--the vault expanded to an enormous size--frightful figures flitted to and fro--and the faces of men he knew, rendered hideous by gibing and mouthing, peered out from among them; they were searing him with heated irons, and binding his head with cords till the blood started; and he struggled madly for life. "At the close of one of these paroxysms, when I had with great difficulty held him down in his bed, he sank into what appeared to be a slumber. Overpowered with watching and exertion, I had closed my eyes for a few minutes, when I felt a violent clutch on my shoulder. I awoke instantly. He had raised himself up, so as to seat himself in bed--a dreadful change had come over his face, but consciousness had returned, for he evidently knew me. The child who had been long since disturbed by his ravings, rose from its little bed, and ran towards its father, screaming with fright--the mother hastily caught it in her arms, lest he should injure it in the violence of his insanity; but terrified by the alteration of his features, stood transfixed by the bedside. He grasped my shoulder convulsively, and striking his breast with the other hand, made a desperate attempt to articulate. It was unavailing--he extended his arm towards them, and made another violent effort. There was a rattling noise in the throat--a glare of the eye--a short stifled groan--and he fell back--dead!" * * * * * It would afford us the highest gratification to be enabled to record Mr. Pickwick's opinion of the foregoing anecdote. We have little doubt that we should have been enabled to present it to our readers, but for a most unfortunate occurrence. Mr. Pickwick had replaced on the table the glass which, during the last few sentences of the tale, he had retained in his hand; and had just made up his mind to speak--indeed, we have the authority of Mr. Snodgrass's note-book for stating, that he had actually opened his mouth--when the waiter entered the room, and said-- "Some gentlemen, sir." It has been conjectured that Mr. Pickwick was on the point of delivering some remarks which would have enlightened the world, if not the Thames, when he was thus interrupted; for he gazed sternly on the waiter's countenance, and then looked round on the company generally, as if seeking for information relative to the new comers. "Oh!" said Mr. Winkle, rising, "some friends of mine--show them in. Very pleasant fellows," added Mr. Winkle, after the waiter had retired--"Officers of the 97th, whose acquaintance I made rather oddly this morning. You will like them very much." Mr. Pickwick's equanimity was at once restored. The waiter returned, and ushered three gentlemen into the room. "Lieutenant Tappleton," said Mr. Winkle, "Lieutenant Tappleton, Mr. Pickwick--Doctor Payne, Mr. Pickwick--Mr. Snodgrass, you have seen before; my friend Mr. Tupman, Doctor Payne--Dr. Slammer, Mr. Pickwick--Mr. Tupman, Doctor Slam--" Here Mr. Winkle suddenly paused; for strong emotion was visible on the countenance of Mr. Tupman and the Doctor. "I have met _this_ gentleman before," said the Doctor, with marked emphasis. "Indeed!" said Mr. Winkle. "And--and that person too, if I am not mistaken," said the Doctor, bestowing a scrutinising glance on the green-coated stranger. "I think I gave that person a very pressing invitation last night, which he thought proper to decline." Saying which the Doctor scowled magnanimously on the stranger, and whispered his friend Lieutenant Tappleton. "You don't say so," said that gentleman, at the conclusion of the whisper. "I do, indeed," replied Dr. Slammer. "You are bound to kick him on the spot," murmured the owner of the camp-stool with great importance. "_Do_ be quiet, Payne," interposed the Lieutenant. "Will you allow me to ask you, sir," he said, addressing Mr. Pickwick, who was considerably mystified by this very unpolite by-play, "will you allow me to ask you, sir, whether that person belongs to your party?" "No, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick, "he is a guest of ours." "He is a member of your club, or I am mistaken?" said the Lieutenant, inquiringly. "Certainly not," responded Mr. Pickwick. "And never wears your club-button?" said the Lieutenant. "No--never!" replied the astonished Mr. Pickwick. Lieutenant Tappleton turned round to his friend Dr. Slammer, with a scarcely perceptible shrug of the shoulder, as if implying some doubt of the accuracy of his recollection. The little Doctor looked wrathful, but confounded; and Mr. Payne gazed with a ferocious aspect on the beaming countenance of the unconscious Pickwick. "Sir," said the Doctor, suddenly addressing Mr. Tupman, in a tone which made that gentleman start as perceptibly as if a pin had been cunningly inserted in the calf of his leg, "you were at the ball here last night!" Mr. Tupman gasped a faint affirmative, looking very hard at Mr. Pickwick all the while. "That person was your companion," said the Doctor, pointing to the still unmoved stranger. Mr. Tupman admitted the fact. "Now, sir," said the Doctor to the stranger, "I ask you once again, in the presence of these gentlemen, whether you choose to give me your card, and to receive the treatment of a gentleman; or whether you impose upon me the necessity of personally chastising you on the spot?" "Stay, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, "I really cannot allow this matter to go any further without some explanation. Tupman, recount the circumstances." Mr. Tupman, thus solemnly adjured, stated the case in a few words; touched slightly on the borrowing of the coat; expatiated largely on its having been done "after dinner;" wound up with a little penitence on his own account; and left the stranger to clear himself as best he could. He was apparently about to proceed to do so, when Lieutenant Tappleton, who had been eyeing him with great curiosity, said with considerable scorn--"Haven't I seen you at the theatre, sir?" "Certainly," replied the unabashed stranger. "He is a strolling actor!" said the Lieutenant, contemptuously; turning to Dr. Slammer--"He acts in the piece that the Officers of the 52nd get up at the Rochester Theatre to-morrow night. You cannot proceed in this affair, Slammer--impossible!" "Sorry to have placed you in this disagreeable situation," said Lieutenant Tappleton, addressing Mr. Pickwick; "allow me to suggest, that the best way of avoiding a recurrence of such scenes in future, will be to be more select in the choice of your companions. Good evening, sir!" and the Lieutenant bounced out of the room. "And allow _me_ to say, sir," said the irascible Doctor Payne, "that if I had been Tappleton, or if I had been Slammer, I would have pulled your nose, sir, and the nose of every man in this company. I would, sir, every man. Payne is my name, sir--Doctor Payne of the 43rd. Good evening, sir." Having concluded this speech, and uttered the three last words in a loud key, he stalked majestically after his friend, closely followed by Doctor Slammer, who said nothing, but contented himself by withering the company with a look. Rising rage and extreme bewilderment had swelled the noble breast of Mr. Pickwick, almost to the bursting of his waistcoat, during the delivery of the above defiance. He stood transfixed to the spot, gazing on vacancy. The closing of the door recalled him to himself. He rushed forward with fury in his looks, and fire in his eye. His hand was upon the lock of the door; in another instant it would have been on the throat of Doctor Payne of the 43rd, had not Mr. Snodgrass seized his revered leader by the coat-tail, and dragged him backwards. "Restrain him," cried Mr. Snodgrass. "Winkle, Tupman--he must not peril his distinguished life in such a cause as this." "Let me go," said Mr. Pickwick. "Hold him tight," shouted Mr. Snodgrass; and by the united efforts of the whole company, Mr. Pickwick was forced into an arm-chair. "Leave him alone," said the green-coated stranger--"brandy and water--jolly old gentleman--lots of pluck--swallow this--ah!--capital stuff." Having previously tested the virtues of a bumper, which had been mixed by the dismal man, the stranger applied the glass to Mr. Pickwick's mouth; and the remainder of its contents rapidly disappeared. There was a short pause; the brandy and water had done its work; the amiable countenance of Mr. Pickwick was fast recovering its customary expression. "They are not worth your notice," said the dismal man. "You are right, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick, "they are not. I am ashamed to have been betrayed into this warmth of feeling. Draw your chair up to the table, sir." The dismal man readily complied: a circle was again formed round the table, and harmony once more prevailed. Some lingering irritability appeared to find a resting-place in Mr. Winkle's bosom, occasioned possibly by the temporary abstraction of his coat--though it is scarcely reasonable to suppose that so slight a circumstance can have excited even a passing feeling of anger in a Pickwickian breast. With this exception, their good humour was completely restored; and the evening concluded with the conviviality with which it had begun. CHAPTER IV [Illustration] _A Field-day and Bivouac. More New Friends. An Invitation to the Country_ Many authors entertain not only a foolish, but a really dishonest objection to acknowledge the sources from whence they derive much valuable information. We have no such feeling. We are merely endeavouring to discharge, in an upright manner, the responsible duties of our editorial functions; and whatever ambition we might have felt under other circumstances to lay claim to the authorship of these adventures, a regard for truth forbids us to do more than claim the merit of their judicious arrangement and impartial narration. The Pickwick papers are our New River Head; and we may be compared to the New River Company. The labours of others have raised for us an immense reservoir of important facts. We merely lay them on, and communicate them, in a clear and gentle stream, through the medium of these numbers, to a world thirsting for Pickwickian knowledge. Acting in this spirit, and resolutely proceeding on our determination to avow our obligations to the authorities we have consulted, we frankly say, that to the note-book of Mr. Snodgrass are we indebted for the particulars recorded in this, and the succeeding chapter--particulars which, now that we have disburdened our conscience, we shall proceed to detail without further comment. The whole population of Rochester and the adjoining towns rose from their beds at an early hour of the following morning, in a state of the utmost bustle and excitement. A grand review was to take place upon the Lines. The manoeuvres of half a dozen regiments were to be inspected by the eagle eye of the commander-in-chief; temporary fortifications had been erected, the citadel was to be attacked and taken, and a mine was to be sprung. Mr. Pickwick was, as our readers may have gathered from the slight extract we gave from his description of Chatham, an enthusiastic admirer of the army. Nothing could have been more delightful to him--nothing could have harmonised so well with the peculiar feeling of each of his companions--as this sight. Accordingly they were soon a-foot, and walking in the direction of the scene of action, towards which crowds of people were already pouring from a variety of quarters. The appearance of everything on the Lines denoted that the approaching ceremony was one of the utmost grandeur and importance. There were sentries posted to keep the ground for the troops, and servants on the batteries keeping places for the ladies, and sergeants running to and fro, with vellum-covered books under their arms, and Colonel Bulder, in full military uniform, on horseback, galloping first to one place and then to another, and backing his horse among the people, and prancing, and curvetting, and shouting in a most alarming manner, and making himself very hoarse in the voice, and very red in the face, without any assignable cause or reason whatever. Officers were running backwards and forwards, first communicating with Colonel Bulder, and then ordering the sergeants, and then running away altogether; and even the very privates themselves looked from behind their glazed stocks with an air of mysterious solemnity, which sufficiently bespoke the special nature of the occasion. Mr. Pickwick and his three companions stationed themselves in the front rank of the crowd, and patiently awaited the commencement of the proceedings. The throng was increasing every moment; and the efforts they were compelled to make, to retain the position they had gained, sufficiently occupied their attention during the two hours that ensued. At one time there was a sudden pressure from behind; and then Mr. Pickwick was jerked forward for several yards, with a degree of speed and elasticity highly inconsistent with the general gravity of his demeanour; at another moment there was a request to "keep back" from the front, and then the butt-end of a musket was either dropped upon Mr. Pickwick's toe, to remind him of the demand, or thrust into his chest, to ensure its being complied with. Then some facetious gentlemen on the left, after pressing sideways in a body, and squeezing Mr. Snodgrass into the very last extreme of human torture, would request to know "vere he vos a shovin' to;" and when Mr. Winkle had done expressing his excessive indignation at witnessing this unprovoked assault, some person behind would knock his hat over his eyes, and beg the favour of his putting his head in his pocket. These, and other practical witticisms, coupled with the unaccountable absence of Mr. Tupman (who had suddenly disappeared, and was nowhere to be found), rendered their situation upon the whole rather more uncomfortable than pleasing or desirable. At length that low roar of many voices ran through the crowd, which usually announces the arrival of whatever they have been waiting for. All eyes were turned in the direction of the sally-port. A few moments of eager expectation, and colours were seen fluttering gaily in the air, arms glistened brightly in the sun, column after column poured on to the plain. The troops halted and formed; the word of command rung through the line, there was a general clash of muskets as arms were presented; and the commander-in-chief, attended by Colonel Bulder and numerous officers, cantered to the front. The military bands struck up all together; the horses stood upon two legs each, cantered backwards, and whisked their tails about in all directions; the dogs barked, the mob screamed, the troops recovered, and nothing was to be seen on either side, as far as the eye could reach, but a long perspective of red coats and white trousers, fixed and motionless. Mr. Pickwick had been so fully occupied in falling about, and disentangling himself, miraculously, from between the legs of horses, that he had not enjoyed sufficient leisure to observe the scene before him, until it assumed the appearance we have just described. When he was at last enabled to stand firmly on his legs, his gratification and delight were unbounded. "Can anything be finer or more delightful?" he inquired of Mr. Winkle. "Nothing," replied that gentleman, who had had a short man standing on each of his feet for the quarter of an hour immediately preceding. "It is indeed a noble and a brilliant sight," said Mr. Snodgrass, in whose bosom a blaze of poetry was rapidly bursting forth, "to see the gallant defenders of their country drawn up in brilliant array before its peaceful citizens; their faces beaming--not with warlike ferocity, but with civilised gentleness; their eyes flashing--not with the rude fire of rapine or revenge, but with the soft light of humanity and intelligence." Mr. Pickwick fully entered into the spirit of this eulogium, but he could not exactly re-echo its terms; for the soft light of intelligence burnt rather feebly in the eyes of the warriors, inasmuch as the command "eyes front" had been given, and all the spectator saw before him was several thousand pair of optics staring straight forward, wholly divested of any expression whatever. "We are in a capital situation now," said Mr. Pickwick, looking round him. The crowd had gradually dispersed in their immediate vicinity, and they were nearly alone. "Capital!" echoed both Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle. "What are they doing now?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, adjusting his spectacles. "I--I--rather think," said Mr. Winkle, changing colour--"I rather think they're going to fire." "Nonsense," said Mr. Pickwick hastily. "I--I--really think they are," urged Mr. Snodgrass, somewhat alarmed. "Impossible," replied Mr. Pickwick. He had hardly uttered the word, when the whole half-dozen regiments levelled their muskets as if they had but one common object, and that object the Pickwickians, and burst forth with the most awful and tremendous discharge that ever shook the earth to its centre, or an elderly gentleman off his. It was in this trying situation, exposed to a galling fire of blank cartridges, and harassed by the operations of the military, a fresh body of whom had begun to fall in on the opposite side, that Mr. Pickwick displayed that perfect coolness and self-possession, which are the indispensable accompaniments of a great mind. He seized Mr. Winkle by the arm, and placing himself between that gentleman and Mr. Snodgrass, earnestly besought them to remember that beyond the possibility of being rendered deaf by the noise, there was no immediate danger to be apprehended from the firing. "But--but--suppose some of the men should happen to have ball cartridges by mistake," remonstrated Mr. Winkle, pallid at the supposition he was himself conjuring up. "I heard something whistle through the air just now--so sharp; close to my ear." "We had better throw ourselves on our faces, hadn't we?" said Mr. Snodgrass. "No, no--it's over now," said Mr. Pickwick. His lip might quiver, and his cheek might blanch, but no expression of fear or concern escaped the lips of that immortal man. Mr. Pickwick was right: the firing ceased; but he had scarcely time to congratulate himself on the accuracy of his opinion, when a quick movement was visible in the line: the hoarse shout of the word of command ran along it, and before either of the party could form a guess at the meaning of this new manoeuvre, the whole of the half-dozen regiments, with fixed bayonets, charged at double quick time down upon the very spot on which Mr. Pickwick and his friends were stationed. Man is but mortal: and there is a point beyond which human courage cannot extend. Mr. Pickwick gazed through his spectacles for an instant on the advancing mass, and then fairly turned his back and--we will not say fled; firstly, because it is an ignoble term, and, secondly, because Mr. Pickwick's figure was by no means adapted for that mode of retreat--he trotted away, at as quick a rate as his legs would convey him; so quickly, indeed, that he did not perceive the awkwardness of his situation, to the full extent, until too late. The opposite troops, whose falling-in had perplexed Mr. Pickwick a few seconds before, were drawn up to repel the mimic attack of the sham besiegers of the citadel; and the consequence was that Mr. Pickwick and his two companions found themselves suddenly inclosed between two lines of great length, the one advancing at a rapid pace, and the other firmly waiting the collision in hostile array. "Hoi!" shouted the officers of the advancing line. "Get out of the way," cried the officers of the stationary one. "Where are we to go to?" screamed the agitated Pickwickians. "Hoi--hoi--hoi!" was the only reply. There was a moment of intense bewilderment, a heavy tramp of footsteps, a violent concussion, a smothered laugh; the half-dozen regiments were half a thousand yards off, and the soles of Mr. Pickwick's boots were elevated in air. Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle had each performed a compulsory somerset with remarkable agility, when the first object that met the eyes of the latter as he sat on the ground, staunching with a yellow silk handkerchief the stream of life which issued from his nose, was his venerated leader at some distance off, running after his own hat, which was gamboling playfully away in perspective. There are very few moments in a man's existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat. A vast deal of coolness, and a peculiar degree of judgment, are requisite in catching a hat. A man must not be precipitate, or he runs over it; he must not rush into the opposite extreme, or he loses it altogether. The best way is, to keep gently up with the object of pursuit, to be wary and cautious, to watch your opportunity well, get gradually before it, then make a rapid dive, seize it by the crown, and stick it firmly on your head: smiling pleasantly all the time, as if you thought it as good a joke as anybody else. There was a fine gentle wind, and Mr. Pickwick's hat rolled sportively before it. The wind puffed, and Mr. Pickwick puffed, and the hat rolled over and over as merrily as a lively porpoise in a strong tide; and on it might have rolled, far beyond Mr. Pickwick's reach, had not its course been providentially stopped, just as that gentleman was on the point of resigning it to its fate. Mr. Pickwick, we say, was completely exhausted, and about to give up the chase, when the hat was blown with some violence against the wheel of a carriage, which was drawn up in a line with half-a-dozen other vehicles on the spot to which his steps had been directed. Mr. Pickwick, perceiving his advantage, darted briskly forward, secured his property, planted it on his head, and paused to take breath. He had not been stationary half a minute, when he heard his own name eagerly pronounced by a voice, which he at once recognised as Mr. Tupman's, and, looking upwards, he beheld a sight which filled him with surprise and pleasure. In an open barouche, the horses of which had been taken out, the better to accommodate it to the crowded place, stood a stout old gentleman, in a blue coat and bright buttons, corduroy breeches and top boots, two young ladies in scarfs and feathers, a young gentleman apparently enamoured of one of the young ladies in scarfs and feathers, a lady of doubtful age, probably the aunt of the aforesaid, and Mr. Tupman, as easy and unconcerned as if he had belonged to the family from the first moments of his infancy. Fastened up behind the barouche was a hamper of spacious dimensions--one of those hampers which always awakens in a contemplative mind associations connected with cold fowls, tongues, and bottles of wine--and on the box sat a fat and red-faced boy, in a state of somnolency, whom no speculative observer could have regarded for an instant without setting down as the official dispenser of the contents of the before-mentioned hamper, when the proper time for their consumption should arrive. Mr. Pickwick had bestowed a hasty glance on these interesting objects, when he was again greeted by his faithful disciple. "Pickwick--Pickwick," said Mr. Tupman: "come up here. Make haste." "Come along, sir. Pray, come up," said the stout gentleman. "Joe!--damn that boy, he's gone to sleep again.--Joe, let down the steps." The fat boy rolled slowly off the box, let down the steps, and held the carriage door invitingly open. Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle came up at the moment. "Room for you all, gentlemen," said the stout man. "Two inside, and one out. Joe, make room for one of these gentlemen on the box. Now, sir, come along;" and the stout gentleman extended his arm, and pulled first Mr. Pickwick, and then Mr. Snodgrass, into the barouche by main force. Mr. Winkle mounted to the box, the fat boy waddled to the same perch, and fell fast asleep instantly. [Illustration: "_Damn that boy, he's gone to sleep again_"] "Well, gentlemen," said the stout man, "very glad to see you. Know you very well, gentlemen, though you mayn't remember me. I spent some ev'nins at your club last winter--picked up my friend Mr. Tupman here this morning, and very glad I was to see him. Well, sir, and how are you? You do look uncommon well, to be sure." Mr. Pickwick acknowledged the compliment, and cordially shook hands with the stout gentleman in the top boots. "Well, and how are you, sir?" said the stout gentleman, addressing Mr. Snodgrass with paternal anxiety. "Charming, eh? Well, that's right--that's right. And how are you, sir (to Mr. Winkle)? Well, I am glad to hear you say you are well; very glad I am, to be sure. My daughters, gentlemen--my gals these are; and that's my sister, Miss Rachael Wardle. She's a Miss, she is; and yet she an't a Miss--eh, sir, eh?" And the stout gentleman playfully inserted his elbow between the ribs of Mr. Pickwick, and laughed very heartily. "Lor, brother!" said Miss Wardle, with a deprecating smile. "True, true," said the stout gentleman; "no one can deny it. Gentlemen, I beg your pardon; this is my friend Mr. Trundle. And now you all know each other, let's be comfortable and happy, and see what's going forward; that's what I say." So the stout gentleman put on his spectacles, and Mr. Pickwick pulled out his glass, and everybody stood up in the carriage, and looked over somebody else's shoulder at the evolutions of the military. Astounding evolutions they were, one rank firing over the heads of another rank, and then running away; and then the other rank firing over the heads of another rank, and running away in their turn; and then forming squares, with officers in the centre; and then descending the trench on one side with scaling-ladders, and ascending it on the other again by the same means; and knocking down barricades of baskets, and behaving in the most gallant manner possible. Then there was such a ramming down of the contents of enormous guns on the battery, with instruments like magnified mops; such a preparation before they were let off, and such an awful noise when they did go, that the air resounded with the screams of ladies. The young Miss Wardles were so frightened, that Mr. Trundle was actually obliged to hold one of them up in the carriage, while Mr. Snodgrass supported the other, and Mr. Wardle's sister suffered under such a dreadful state of nervous alarm, that Mr. Tupman found it indispensably necessary to put his arm round her waist, to keep her up at all. Everybody was excited, except the fat boy, and he slept as soundly as if the roaring of cannon were his ordinary lullaby. "Joe, Joe!" said the stout gentleman, when the citadel was taken, and the besiegers and besieged sat down to dinner. "Damn that boy, he's gone to sleep again. Be good enough to pinch him, sir--in the leg, if you please; nothing else wakes him--thank you. Undo the hamper, Joe." The fat boy, who had been effectually roused by the compression of a portion of his leg between the finger and thumb of Mr. Winkle, rolled off the box once again, and proceeded to unpack the hamper, with more expedition than could have been expected from his previous inactivity. "Now we must sit close," said the stout gentleman. After a great many jokes about squeezing the ladies' sleeves, and a vast quantity of blushing at sundry jocose proposals, that the ladies should sit in the gentlemen's laps, the whole party were stowed down in the barouche; and the stout gentleman proceeded to hand the things from the fat boy (who had mounted up behind for the purpose) into the carriage. "Now, Joe, knives and forks." The knives and forks were handed in, and the ladies and gentlemen inside, and Mr. Winkle on the box, were each furnished with those useful instruments. "Plates, Joe, plates." A similar process employed in the distribution of the crockery. "Now, Joe, the fowls. Damn that boy; he's gone to sleep again. Joe! Joe!" (Sundry taps on the head with a stick, and the fat boy, with some difficulty, roused from his lethargy.) "Come, hand in the eatables." There was something in the sound of the last word which roused the unctuous boy. He jumped up, and the leaden eyes which twinkled behind his mountainous cheeks leered horribly upon the food as he unpacked it from the basket. "Now make haste," said Mr. Wardle; for the fat boy was hanging fondly over a capon, which he seemed wholly unable to part with. The boy sighed deeply, and, bestowing an ardent gaze upon its plumpness, unwillingly consigned it to his master. "That's right--look sharp. Now the tongue--now the pigeon-pie. Take care of that veal and ham--mind the lobsters--take the salad out of the cloth--give me the dressing." Such were the hurried orders which issued from the lips of Mr. Wardle, as he handed in the different articles described, and placed dishes in everybody's hands, and on everybody's knees, in endless number. "Now, an't this capital?" inquired that jolly personage, when the work of destruction had commenced. "Capital!" said Mr. Winkle, who was carving a fowl on the box. "Glass of wine?" "With the greatest pleasure." "You'd better have a bottle to yourself up there, hadn't you?" "You're very good." "Joe!" "Yes, sir." (He wasn't asleep this time, having just succeeded in abstracting a veal patty.) "Bottle of wine to the gentleman on the box. Glad to see you, sir." "Thankee." Mr. Winkle emptied his glass, and placed the bottle on the coach-box by his side. "Will you permit me to have the pleasure, sir?" said Mr. Trundle to Mr. Winkle. "With great pleasure," replied Mr. Winkle to Mr. Trundle, and then the two gentlemen took wine, after which they took a glass of wine round, ladies and all. "How dear Emily is flirting with the strange gentleman," whispered the spinster aunt, with true spinster-aunt-like envy, to her brother Mr. Wardle. "Oh! I don't know," said the jolly old gentleman; "all very natural, I dare say--nothing unusual. Mr. Pickwick, some wine, sir?" Mr. Pickwick, who had been deeply investigating the interior of the pigeon-pie, readily assented. "Emily, my dear," said the spinster aunt, with a patronising air, "don't talk so loud, love." "Lor, aunt!" "Aunt and the little old gentleman want to have it all to themselves, I think," whispered Miss Isabella Wardle to her sister Emily. The young ladies laughed very heartily, and the old one tried to look amiable, but couldn't manage it. "Young girls have _such_ spirits," said Miss Wardle to Mr. Tupman, with an air of gentle commiseration, as if animal spirits were contraband, and their possession without a permit, a high crime and misdemeanour. "Oh, they have," replied Mr. Tupman, not exactly making the sort of reply that was expected from him. "It's quite delightful." "Hem!" said Miss Wardle, rather dubiously. "Will you permit me," said Mr. Tupman, in his blandest manner, touching the enchanting Rachael's wrist with one hand, and gently elevating the bottle with the other. "Will you permit me?" "Oh, sir!" Mr. Tupman looked most impressive; and Rachael expressed her fear that more guns were going off, in which case, of course, she would have required support again. "Do you think my dear nieces pretty?" whispered their affectionate aunt to Mr. Tupman. "I should if their aunt wasn't here," replied the ready Pickwickian, with a passionate glance. "Oh, you naughty man--but really, if their complexions were a _little_ better, don't you think they would be nice-looking girls--by candle-light?" "Yes; I think they would," said Mr. Tupman, with an air of indifference. "Oh, you quiz--I know what you were going to say." "What?" inquired Mr. Tupman, who had not precisely made up his mind to say anything at all. "You were going to say that Isabel stoops--I know you were--you men are such observers. Well, so she does; it can't be denied; and, certainly, if there is one thing more than another that makes a girl look ugly, it is stooping. I often tell her that when she gets a little older she'll be quite frightful. Well, you _are_ a quiz." Mr. Tupman had no objection to earning the reputation at so cheap a rate, so he looked very knowing, and smiled mysteriously. "What a sarcastic smile," said the admiring Rachael; "I declare I'm quite afraid of you." "Afraid of me!" "Oh, you can't disguise anything from me--I know what that smile means very well." "What?" said Mr. Tupman, who had not the slightest notion himself. "You mean," said the amiable aunt, sinking her voice still lower--"You mean, that you don't think Isabella's stooping is as bad as Emily's boldness. Well, she _is_ bold! You cannot think how wretched it makes me sometimes--I'm sure I cry about it for hours together--my dear brother is _so_ good, and _so_ unsuspicious, that he never sees it; if he did, I'm quite certain it would break his heart. I wish I could think it was only manner--I hope it may be--" (Here the affectionate relative heaved a deep sigh, and shook her head despondingly). "I'm sure aunt's talking about us," whispered Miss Emily Wardle to her sister--"I'm quite certain of it--she looks so malicious." "Is she?" replied Isabella--"Hem! aunt dear!" "Yes, my dear love!" "I'm _so_ afraid you'll catch cold, aunt--have a silk handkerchief to tie round your dear old head--you really should take care of yourself--consider your age!" However well deserved this piece of retaliation might have been, it was as vindictive a one as could well have been resorted to. There is no guessing in what form of reply the aunt's indignation would have vented itself, had not Mr. Wardle unconsciously changed the subject, by calling emphatically for Joe. "Damn that boy," said the old gentleman, "he's gone to sleep again." "Very extraordinary boy that," said Mr. Pickwick; "does he always sleep in this way?" "Sleep!" said the old gentleman, "he's always asleep. Goes on errands fast asleep, and snores as he waits at table." "How very odd!" said Mr. Pickwick. "Ah! odd indeed," returned the old gentleman; "I'm proud of that boy--wouldn't part with him on any account--he's a natural curiosity! Here, Joe--Joe--take these things away, and open another bottle--d'ye hear?" The fat boy rose, opened his eyes, swallowed the huge piece of pie he had been in the act of masticating when he last fell asleep, and slowly obeyed his master's orders--gloating languidly over the remains of the feast, as he removed the plates, and deposited them in the hamper. The fresh bottle was produced, and speedily emptied: the hamper was made fast in its old place--the fat boy once more mounted the box--the spectacles and pocket-glass were again adjusted--and the evolutions of the military recommenced. There was a great fizzing and banging of guns, and starting of ladies--and then a mine was sprung, to the gratification of everybody--and when the mine had gone off, the military and the company followed its example, and went off too. "Now, mind," said the old gentleman, as he shook hands with Mr. Pickwick at the conclusion of a conversation which had been carried on at intervals, during the conclusion of the proceedings--"we shall see you all to-morrow." "Most certainly," replied Mr. Pickwick. "You have got the address." "Manor Farm, Dingley Dell," said Mr. Pickwick, consulting his pocket-book. "That's it," said the old gentleman. "I don't let you off, mind, under a week; and undertake that you shall see everything worth seeing. If you've come down for a country life, come to me, and I'll give you plenty of it. Joe--damn that boy, he's gone to sleep again--Joe, help Tom put in the horses." The horses were put in--the driver mounted--the fat boy clambered up by his side--farewells were exchanged--and the carriage rattled off. As the Pickwickians turned round to take a last glimpse of it, the setting sun cast a rich glow on the faces of their entertainers, and fell upon the form of the fat boy. His head was sunk upon his bosom; and he slumbered again. CHAPTER V [Illustration] _A Short One. Showing, among other Matters, how Mr. Pickwick undertook to Drive, and Mr. Winkle to Ride; and how they both did it_ Bright and pleasant was the sky, balmy the air, and beautiful the appearance of every object around, as Mr. Pickwick leant over the balustrades of Rochester Bridge, contemplating nature, and waiting for breakfast. The scene was indeed one which might well have charmed a far less reflective mind, than that to which it was presented. On the left of the spectator lay the ruined wall, broken in many places, and in some, overhanging the narrow beach below in rude and heavy masses. Huge knots of sea-weed hung upon the jagged and pointed stones, trembling in every breath of wind; and the green ivy clung mournfully round the dark and ruined battlements. Behind it rose the ancient castle, its towers roofless, and its massive walls crumbling away, but telling us proudly of its own might and strength, as when, seven hundred years ago, it rang with the clash of arms, or resounded with the noise of feasting and revelry. On either side, the banks of the Medway, covered with corn-fields and pastures, with here and there a windmill, or a distant church, stretched away as far as the eye could see, presenting a rich and varied landscape, rendered more beautiful by the changing shadows which passed swiftly across it, as the thin and half-formed clouds skimmed away in the light of the morning sun. The river, reflecting the clear blue of the sky, glistened and sparkled as it flowed noiselessly on; and the oars of the fishermen dipped into the water with a clear and liquid sound, as the heavy but picturesque boats glided slowly down the stream. Mr. Pickwick was roused from the agreeable reverie into which he had been led by the objects before him, by a deep sigh, and a touch on his shoulder. He turned round: and the dismal man was at his side. "Contemplating the scene?" inquired the dismal man. "I was," said Mr. Pickwick. "And congratulating yourself on being up so soon?" Mr. Pickwick nodded assent. "Ah! people need to rise early, to see the sun in all his splendour, for his brightness seldom lasts the day through. The morning of day and the morning of life are but too much alike." "You speak truly, sir," said Mr. Pickwick. "How common the saying," continued the dismal man, "'The morning's too fine to last.' How well might it be applied to our every-day existence. God! what would I forfeit to have the days of my childhood restored, or to be able to forget them for ever!" "You have seen much trouble, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, compassionately. "I have," said the dismal man, hurriedly; "I have. More than those who see me now would believe possible." He paused for an instant, and then said abruptly-- "Did it ever strike you, on such a morning as this, that drowning would be happiness and peace?" "God bless me, no!" replied Mr. Pickwick, edging a little from the balustrade, as the possibility of the dismal man's tipping him over, by way of experiment, occurred to him rather forcibly. "_I_ have thought so, often," said the dismal man, without noticing the action. "The calm, cool water seems to me to murmur an invitation to repose and rest. A bound, a splash, a brief struggle; there is an eddy for an instant, it gradually subsides into a gentle ripple; the waters have closed above your head, and the world has closed upon your miseries and misfortunes for ever." The sunken eye of the dismal man flashed brightly as he spoke, but the momentary excitement quickly subsided: and he turned calmly away, as he said-- "There--enough of that. I wish to see you on another subject. You invited me to read that paper, the night before last, and listened attentively while I did so." "I did," replied Mr. Pickwick; "and I certainly thought----" "I asked for no opinion," said the dismal man, interrupting him, "and I want none. You are travelling for amusement and instruction. Suppose I forwarded you a curious manuscript--observe, not curious because wild or improbable, but curious as a leaf from the romance of real life. Would you communicate it to the club, of which you have spoken so frequently?" "Certainly," replied Mr. Pickwick, "if you wished it; and it would be entered on their transactions." "You shall have it," replied the dismal man. "Your address;" and Mr. Pickwick, having communicated their probable route, the dismal man carefully noted it down in a greasy pocket-book, and, resisting Mr. Pickwick's pressing invitation to breakfast, left that gentleman at his inn, and walked slowly away. Mr. Pickwick found that his three companions had risen, and were waiting his arrival to commence breakfast, which was ready laid in tempting display. They sat down to the meal; and broiled ham, eggs, tea, coffee and sundries, began to disappear with a rapidity which at once bore testimony to the excellence of the fare, and the appetites of its consumers. "Now, about Manor Farm," said Mr. Pickwick. "How shall we go?" "We had better consult the waiter, perhaps," said Mr. Tupman, and the waiter was summoned accordingly. "Dingley Dell, gentlemen--fifteen miles, gentlemen--cross-road--post-chaise, sir?" "Post-chaise won't hold more than two," said Mr. Pickwick. "True, sir--beg your pardon, sir--very nice four-wheeled chaise, sir--seat for two behind--one in front for the gentleman that drives--oh! beg your pardon, sir--that'll only hold three." "What's to be done?" said Mr. Snodgrass. "Perhaps one of the gentlemen would like to ride, sir?" suggested the waiter, looking towards Mr. Winkle; "very good saddle horses, sir--any of Mr. Wardle's men coming to Rochester bring 'em back, sir." "The very thing," said Mr. Pickwick. "Winkle, will you go on horseback?" Mr. Winkle did entertain considerable misgivings in the very lowest recesses of his own heart, relative to his equestrian skill; but, as he would not have them even suspected on any account, he at once replied with great hardihood, "Certainly. I should enjoy it of all things." Mr. Winkle had rushed upon his fate; there was no resource. "Let them be at the door by eleven," said Mr. Pickwick. "Very well, sir," replied the waiter. The waiter retired; the breakfast concluded; and the travellers ascended to their respective bedrooms, to prepare a change of clothing, to take with them on their approaching expedition. Mr. Pickwick had made his preliminary arrangements, and was looking over the coffee-room blinds at the passengers in the street, when the waiter entered and announced that the chaise was ready--an announcement which the vehicle itself confirmed, by forthwith appearing before the coffee-room blinds aforesaid. It was a curious little green box on four wheels, with a low place like a wine-bin for two behind, and an elevated perch for one in front, drawn by an immense brown horse, displaying great symmetry of bone. An hostler stood near, holding by the bridle another immense horse--apparently a near relative to the animal in the chaise--ready saddled for Mr. Winkle. "Bless my soul!" said Mr. Pickwick, as they stood upon the pavement while the coats were being put in. "Bless my soul! who's to drive? I never thought of that." "Oh! you, of course," said Mr. Tupman. "Of course," said Mr. Snodgrass. "I!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. "Not the slightest fear, sir," interposed the hostler. "Warrant him quiet, sir; a hinfant in arms might drive him." "He don't shy, does he?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Shy, sir?--He wouldn't shy if he was to meet a vaggin-load of monkeys with their tails burnt off." The last recommendation was indisputable. Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass got into the bin; Mr. Pickwick ascended to his perch, and deposited his feet on a floor-clothed shelf, erected beneath it for that purpose. "Now, shiny Villiam," said the hostler to the deputy hostler, "give the gen'lm'n the ribbins." "Shiny Villiam"--so called, probably, from his sleek hair and oily countenance--placed the reins in Mr. Pickwick's left hand; and the upper hostler thrust a whip into his right. "Wo--o!" cried Mr. Pickwick, as the tall quadruped evinced a decided inclination to back into the coffee-room window. "Wo--o!" echoed Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass, from the bin. "Only his playfulness, gen'lm'n," said the head hostler encouragingly; "jist kitch hold on him, Villiam." The deputy restrained the animal's impetuosity, and the principal ran to assist Mr. Winkle in mounting. "T'other side, sir, if you please." "Blowed if the gen'lm'n worn't gettin' up on the wrong side," whispered a grinning post-boy to the inexpressibly gratified waiter. Mr. Winkle, thus instructed, climbed into his saddle, with about as much difficulty as he would have experienced in getting up the side of a first-rate man-of-war. "All right?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, with an inward presentiment that it was all wrong. "All right," replied Mr. Winkle faintly. "Let 'em go," cried the hostler,--"Hold him in, sir," and away went the chaise, and the saddle-horse, with Mr. Pickwick on the box of the one, and Mr. Winkle on the back of the other, to the delight and gratification of the whole inn-yard. "What makes him go sideways?" said Mr. Snodgrass in the bin, to Mr. Winkle in the saddle. "I can't imagine," replied Mr. Winkle. His horse was drifting up the street in the most mysterious manner--side first, with his head toward one side of the way, and his tail towards the other. [Illustration: _"Wo--o!" cried Mr. Pickwick._ _"Wo--o!" echoed Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass from the bin._] Mr. Pickwick had no leisure to observe either this or any other particular, the whole of his faculties being concentrated in the management of the animal attached to the chaise, who displayed various peculiarities, highly interesting to a bystander, but by no means equally amusing to any one seated behind him. Besides constantly jerking his head up, in a very unpleasant and uncomfortable manner, and tugging at the reins to an extent which rendered it a matter of great difficulty for Mr. Pickwick to hold them, he had a singular propensity for darting suddenly every now and then to the side of the road, then stopping short, and then rushing forward for some minutes, at a speed which it was wholly impossible to control. [Illustration: "_T'other side, sir, if you please_"] "What _can_ he mean by this?" said Mr. Snodgrass, when the horse had executed this manoeuvre for the twentieth time. "I don't know," replied Mr. Tupman; "it _looks_ very like shying, don't it?" Mr. Snodgrass was about to reply, when he was interrupted by a shout from Mr. Pickwick. "Wo--o!" said that gentleman; "I have dropped my whip." "Winkle," said Mr. Snodgrass as the equestrian came trotting up on the tall horse, with his hat over his ears, and shaking all over, as if he would shake to pieces, with the violence of the exercise, "pick up the whip, there's a good fellow." Mr. Winkle pulled at the bridle of the tall horse till he was black in the face; and having at length succeeded in stopping him, dismounted, handed the whip to Mr. Pickwick, and grasping the reins, prepared to remount. Now whether the tall horse, in the natural playfulness of his disposition, was desirous of having a little innocent recreation with Mr. Winkle, or whether it occurred to him that he could perform the journey as much to his own satisfaction without a rider as with one, are points upon which, of course, we can arrive at no definite and distinct conclusion. By whatever motives the animal was actuated, certain it is that Mr. Winkle had no sooner touched the reins, than he slipped them over his head, and darted backwards to their full length. "Poor fellow," said Mr. Winkle, soothingly,--"poor fellow--good old horse." The "poor fellow" was proof against flattery: the more Mr. Winkle tried to get nearer him, the more he sidled away; and, notwithstanding all kinds of coaxing and wheedling, there were Mr. Winkle and the horse going round and round each other for ten minutes, at the end of which time each was at precisely the same distance from the other as when they first commenced--an unsatisfactory sort of thing under any circumstances, but particularly so in a lonely road, where no assistance can be procured. "What am I to do?" shouted Mr. Winkle, after the dodging had been prolonged for a considerable time. "What am I to do? I can't get on him." [Illustration: _Mr. Pickwick ran to his assistance._] "You had better lead him till we come to a turnpike," replied Mr. Pickwick from the chaise. "But he won't come!" roared Mr. Winkle. "Do come and hold him." Mr. Pickwick was the very personation of kindness and humanity: he threw the reins on the horse's back, and having descended from his seat, carefully drew the chaise into the hedge, lest anything should come along the road, and stepped back to the assistance of his distressed companion, leaving Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass in the vehicle. The horse no sooner beheld Mr. Pickwick advancing towards him with the chaise whip in his hand, than he exchanged the rotatory motion in which he had previously indulged, for a retrograde movement of so very determined a character, that it at once drew Mr. Winkle, who was still at the end of the bridle, at a rather quicker rate than fast walking, in the direction from which they had just come. Mr. Pickwick ran to his assistance, but the faster Mr. Pickwick ran forward, the faster the horse ran backward. There was a great scraping of feet, and kicking up of the dust; and at last Mr. Winkle, his arms being nearly pulled out of their sockets, fairly let go his hold. The horse paused, stared, shook his head, turned round, and quietly trotted home to Rochester, leaving Mr. Winkle and Mr. Pickwick gazing on each other with countenances of blank dismay. A rattling noise at a little distance attracted their attention. They looked up. "Bless my soul!" exclaimed the agonised Mr. Pickwick, "there's the other horse running away!" It was but too true. The animal was startled by the noise, and the reins were on his back. The result may be guessed. He tore off with the four-wheeled chaise behind him, and Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass in the four-wheeled chaise. The heat was a short one. Mr. Tupman threw himself into the hedge, Mr. Snodgrass followed his example, the horse dashed the four-wheeled chaise against a wooden bridge, separated the wheels from the body, and the bin from the perch; and finally stood stock still to gaze upon the ruin he had made. The first care of the two unspilt friends was to extricate their unfortunate companions from their bed of quickset--a process which gave them the unspeakable satisfaction of discovering that they had sustained no injury, beyond sundry rents in their garments, and various lacerations from the brambles. The next thing to be done was, to unharness the horse. This complicated process having been effected, the party walked slowly forward, leading the horse among them, and abandoning the chaise to its fate. An hour's walking brought the travellers to a little road-side public-house, with two elm trees, a horse trough, and a sign-post, in front; one or two deformed hay-ricks behind, a kitchen garden at the side, and rotten sheds and mouldering out-houses jumbled in strange confusion all about it. A red-headed man was working in the garden; and to him Mr. Pickwick called lustily--"Hallo there!" The red-headed man raised his body, shaded his eyes with his hand, and stared, long and coolly, at Mr. Pickwick and his companions. "Hallo there!" repeated Mr. Pickwick. "Hallo!" was the red-headed man's reply. "How far is it to Dingley Dell?" "Better er seven mile." "Is it a good road?" "No, 'tan't." Having uttered this brief reply, and apparently satisfied himself with another scrutiny, the red-headed man resumed his work. "We want to put this horse up here," said Mr. Pickwick; "I suppose we can, can't we?" "Want to put that ere horse up, do ee?" repeated the red-headed man, leaning on his spade. "Of course," replied Mr. Pickwick, who had by this time advanced, horse in hand, to the garden rails. "Missus"--roared the man with the red head, emerging from the garden, and looking very hard at the horse--"Missus!" A tall bony woman--straight all the way down--in a coarse blue pelisse, with the waist an inch or two below her armpits, responded to the call. "Can we put this horse up here, my good woman?" said Mr. Tupman, advancing, and speaking in his most seductive tones. The woman looked very hard at the whole party, and the red-headed man whispered something in her ear. "No," replied the woman, after a little consideration, "I'm afeered on it." "Afraid!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, "what's the woman afraid of?" "It got us into trouble last time," said the woman, turning into the house; "I woant have nothin' to say to 'un." "Most extraordinary thing I ever met with in my life," said the astonished Mr. Pickwick. "I--I--really believe," whispered Mr. Winkle, as his friends gathered round him, "that they think we have come by this horse in some dishonest manner." "What!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, in a storm of indignation. Mr. Winkle modestly repeated his suggestion. "Hallo, you fellow!" said the angry Mr. Pickwick, "do you think we stole this horse?" "I'm sure ye did," replied the red-headed man, with a grin which agitated his countenance from one auricular organ to the other. Saying which he turned into the house, and banged the door after him. "It's like a dream," ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, "a hideous dream. The idea of a man's walking about, all day, with a dreadful horse that he can't get rid of!" The depressed Pickwickians turned moodily away, with a tall quadruped, for which they all felt the most unmitigated disgust, following slowly at their heels. It was late in the afternoon when the four friends and their four-footed companion turned into the lane leading to Manor Farm: and even when they were so near their place of destination, the pleasure they would have otherwise experienced was materially damped as they reflected on the singularity of their appearance, and the absurdity of their situation. Torn clothes, lacerated faces, dusty shoes, exhausted looks, and, above all, the horse. Oh, how Mr. Pickwick cursed that horse: he had eyed the noble animal from time to time with looks expressive of hatred and revenge; more than once he had calculated the probable amount of the expense he would incur by cutting his throat; and now the temptation to destroy him, or to cast him loose upon the world, rushed upon his mind with tenfold force. He was roused from a meditation on these dire imaginings, by the sudden appearance of two figures at a turn of the lane. It was Mr. Wardle, and his faithful attendant, the fat boy. "Why, where _have_ you been?" said the hospitable old gentleman; "I've been waiting for you all day. Well, you _do_ look tired. What! Scratches! Not hurt, I hope--eh? Well, I _am_ glad to hear that--very. So you've been spilt, eh? Never mind. Common accident in these parts. Joe--he's asleep again!--Joe, take that horse from the gentleman, and lead it into the stable." The fat boy sauntered heavily behind them with the animal; and the old gentleman, condoling with his guests in homely phrase on so much of the day's adventures as they thought proper to communicate, led the way to the kitchen. "We'll have you put to rights here," said the old gentleman, "and then I'll introduce you to the people in the parlour. Emma, bring out the cherry brandy; now, Jane, a needle and thread here; towels and water, Mary. Come, girls, bustle about." Three or four buxom girls speedily dispersed in search of the different articles in requisition, while a couple of large-headed, circular-visaged males rose from their seats in the chimney-corner (for although it was a May evening, their attachment to the wood fire appeared as cordial as if it were Christmas), and dived into some obscure recesses, from which they speedily produced a bottle of blacking, and some half-dozen brushes. "Bustle!" said the old gentleman again, but the admonition was quite unnecessary, for one of the girls poured out the cherry brandy, and another brought in the towels, and one of the men suddenly seizing Mr. Pickwick by the leg, at imminent hazard of throwing him off his balance, brushed away at his foot, till his corns were red-hot; while the other shampoo'd Mr. Winkle with a heavy clothes-brush, indulging, during the operation, in that hissing sound which hostlers are wont to produce when engaged in rubbing down a horse. Mr. Snodgrass, having concluded his ablutions, took a survey of the room, while standing with his back to the fire, sipping his cherry brandy with heartfelt satisfaction. He describes it as a large apartment, with a red brick floor and a capacious chimney; the ceiling garnished with hams, sides of bacon, and ropes of onions. The walls were decorated with several hunting-whips, two or three bridles, a saddle, and an old rusty blunderbuss, with an inscription below it, intimating that it was "Loaded"--as it had been, on the same authority, for half a century at least. An old eight-day clock, of solemn and sedate demeanour, ticked gravely in one corner; and a silver watch, of equal antiquity, dangled from one of the many hooks which ornamented the dresser. "Ready?" said the old gentleman, inquiringly, when his guests had been washed, mended, brushed, and brandied. "Quite," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Come along, then," and the party having traversed several dark passages, and being joined by Mr. Tupman, who had lingered behind to snatch a kiss from Emma, for which he had been duly rewarded with sundry pushings and scratchings, arrived at the parlour door. "Welcome," said their hospitable host, throwing it open and stepping forward to announce them, "Welcome, gentlemen, to Manor Farm." CHAPTER VI [Illustration] _An Old-fashioned Card-party. The Clergyman's Verses. The Story of the Convict's Return_ Several guests who were assembled in the old parlour rose to greet Mr. Pickwick and his friends upon their entrance; and during the performance of the ceremony of introduction, with all due formalities, Mr. Pickwick had leisure to observe the appearance, and speculate upon the characters and pursuits, of the persons by whom he was surrounded--a habit in which he, in common with many other great men, delighted to indulge. A very old lady, in a lofty cap and faded silk gown--no less a personage than Mr. Wardle's mother--occupied the post of honour on the right-hand corner of the chimney-piece; and various certificates of her having been brought up in the way she should go when young, and of her not having departed from it when old, ornamented the walls, in the form of samplers of ancient date, worsted landscapes of equal antiquity, and crimson silk tea-kettle holders of a more modern period. The aunt, the two young ladies, and Mr. Wardle, each vying with the other in paying zealous and unremitting attentions to the old lady, crowded round her easy-chair, one holding her ear-trumpet, another an orange, and a third a smelling-bottle, while a fourth was busily engaged in patting and punching the pillows which were arranged for her support. On the opposite side sat a bald-headed old gentleman, with a good-humoured benevolent face--the clergyman of Dingley Dell; and next him sat his wife, a stout blooming old lady, who looked as if she were well skilled, not only in the art and mystery of manufacturing home-made cordials greatly to other people's satisfaction, but of tasting them occasionally very much to her own. A little, hard-headed, Ribston-pippin-faced man, was conversing with a fat old gentleman in one corner; and two or three more old gentlemen, and two or three more old ladies, sat bolt upright and motionless on their chairs, staring very hard at Mr. Pickwick and his fellow-voyagers. "Mr. Pickwick, mother," said Mr. Wardle, at the very top of his voice. "Ah!" said the old lady, shaking her head, "I can't hear you." "Mr. Pickwick, grandma!" screamed both the young ladies together. "Ah!" exclaimed the old lady. "Well; it don't much matter. He don't care for an old 'ooman like me, I dare say." "I assure you, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, grasping the old lady's hand, and speaking so loud that the exertion imparted a crimson hue to his benevolent countenance, "I assure you, ma'am, that nothing delights me more than to see a lady of your time of life heading so fine a family, and looking so young and well." "Ah!" said the old lady, after a short pause. "It's all very fine, I dare say; but I can't hear him." "Grandma's rather put out now," said Miss Isabella Wardle, in a low tone; "but she'll talk to you presently." Mr. Pickwick nodded his readiness to humour the infirmities of age, and entered into a general conversation with the other members of the circle. "Delightful situation this," said Mr. Pickwick. "Delightful!" echoed Messrs. Snodgrass, Tupman, and Winkle. "Well, I think it is," said Mr. Wardle. "There an't a better spot o' ground in all Kent, sir," said the hard-headed man with the pippin-face; "there an't indeed, sir--I'm sure there an't, sir." The hard-headed man looked triumphantly round, as if he had been very much contradicted by somebody, but had got the better of him at last. "There an't a better spot o' ground in all Kent," said the hard-headed man again, after a pause. "'Cept Mullins's Meadows," observed the fat man solemnly. "Mullins's Meadows!" ejaculated the other, with profound contempt. "Ah, Mullins's Meadows," repeated the fat man. "Reg'lar good land that," interposed another fat man. "And so it is, sure-ly," said a third fat man. "Everybody knows that," said the corpulent host. The hard-headed man looked dubiously round, but finding himself in the minority, assumed a compassionate air and said no more. "What are they talking about?" inquired the old lady of one of her granddaughters, in a very audible voice; for, like many deaf people, she never seemed to calculate on the possibility of other persons hearing what she said herself. "About the land, grandma." "What about the land?--nothing the matter, is there?" "No, no. Mr. Miller was saying our land was better than Mullins's Meadows." "How should he know anything about it?" inquired the old lady indignantly. "Miller's a conceited coxcomb, and you may tell him I said so." Saying which, the old lady, quite unconscious that she had spoken above a whisper, drew herself up, and looked carving-knives at the hard-headed delinquent. "Come, come," said the bustling host, with a natural anxiety to change the conversation,--"What say you to a rubber, Mr. Pickwick?" "I should like it of all things," replied that gentleman; "but pray don't make up one on my account." "Oh, I assure you, mother's very fond of a rubber," said Mr. Wardle; "an't you, mother?" The old lady, who was much less deaf on this subject than on any other, replied in the affirmative. "Joe, Joe!" said the old gentleman; "Joe--damn that--oh, here he is; put out the card-tables." The lethargic youth contrived without any additional rousing to set out two card-tables; the one for Pope Joan, and the other for whist. The whist-players were Mr. Pickwick and the old lady; Mr. Miller and the fat gentleman. The round game comprised the rest of the company. The rubber was conducted with all that gravity of deportment and sedateness of demeanour which befit the pursuit entitled "whist"--a solemn observance, to which, as it appears to us, the title of "game" has been very irreverently and ignominiously applied. The round-game table, on the other hand, was so boisterously merry as materially to interrupt the contemplations of Mr. Miller, who, not being quite so much absorbed as he ought to have been, contrived to commit various high crimes and misdemeanours, which excited the wrath of the fat gentleman to a very great extent, and called forth the good-humour of the old lady in a proportionate degree. "There!" said the criminal Miller, triumphantly, as he took up the odd trick at the conclusion of a hand; "that could not have been played better, I flatter myself;--impossible to have made another trick." "Miller ought to have trumped the diamond, oughtn't he, sir?" said the old lady. Mr. Pickwick nodded assent. "Ought I, though?" said the unfortunate, with a doubtful appeal to his partner. "You ought, sir," said the fat gentleman, in an awful voice. "Very sorry," said the crestfallen Miller. "Much use that," growled the fat gentleman. "Two by honours makes us eight," said Mr. Pickwick. Another hand. "Can you one?" inquired the old lady. "I can," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Double, single, and the rub." "Never was such luck," said Mr. Miller. "Never was such cards," said the fat gentleman. A solemn silence: Mr. Pickwick humorous, the old lady serious, the fat gentleman captious, and Mr. Miller timorous. "Another double," said the old lady: triumphantly making a memorandum of the circumstance, by placing one sixpence and a battered halfpenny under the candlestick. "A double, sir," said Mr. Pickwick. "Quite aware of the fact, sir," replied the fat gentleman, sharply. Another game, with a similar result, was followed by a revoke from the unlucky Miller; on which the fat gentleman burst into a state of high personal excitement which lasted until the conclusion of the game, when he retired into a corner, and remained perfectly mute for one hour and twenty-seven minutes; at the end of which time he emerged from his retirement, and offered Mr. Pickwick a pinch of snuff with the air of a man who had made up his mind to a Christian forgiveness of injuries sustained. The old lady's hearing decidedly improved, and the unlucky Miller felt as much out of his element as a dolphin in a sentry-box. Meanwhile the round game proceeded right merrily. Isabella Wardle and Mr. Trundle "went partners," and Emily Wardle and Mr. Snodgrass did the same; and even Mr. Tupman and the spinster aunt established a joint-stock company of fish and flattery. Old Mr. Wardle was in the very height of his jollity; and he was _so_ funny in his management of the board, and the old ladies were _so_ sharp after their winnings, that the whole table was in a perpetual roar of merriment and laughter. There was one old lady who always had about half-a-dozen cards to pay for, at which everybody laughed, regularly every round; and when the old lady looked cross at having to pay, they laughed louder than ever; on which the old lady's face gradually brightened up, till at last she laughed louder than any of them. Then, when the spinster aunt got "matrimony," the young ladies laughed afresh, and the spinster aunt seemed disposed to be pettish; till, feeling Mr. Tupman squeezing her hand under the table, _she_ brightened up too, and looked rather knowing, as if matrimony in reality were not quite so far off as some people thought for; whereupon everybody laughed again, and especially old Mr. Wardle, who enjoyed a joke as much as the youngest. As to Mr. Snodgrass, he did nothing but whisper poetical sentiments into his partner's ear, which made one old gentleman facetiously sly, about partnerships at cards and partnerships for life, and caused the aforesaid old gentleman to make some remarks thereupon, accompanied with divers winks and chuckles, which made the company very merry and the old gentleman's wife especially so. And Mr. Winkle came out with jokes which are very well known in town, but are not at all known in the country: and as everybody laughed at them very heartily, and said they were very capital, Mr. Winkle was in a state of great honour and glory. And the benevolent clergyman looked pleasantly on; for the happy faces which surrounded the table made the good old man feel happy too; and though the merriment was rather boisterous, still it came from the heart and not from the lips: and this is the right sort of merriment after all. The evening glided swiftly away, in these cheerful recreations; and when the substantial though homely supper had been despatched, and the little party formed a social circle round the fire, Mr. Pickwick thought he had never felt so happy in his life, and at no time so much disposed to enjoy, and make the most of, the passing moment. "Now this," said the hospitable host, who was sitting in great state next the old lady's arm-chair, with her hand fast clasped in his--"This is just what I like--the happiest moments of my life have been passed at this old fire-side: and I am so attached to it, that I keep up a blazing fire here every evening, until it actually grows too hot to bear it. Why, my poor old mother, here, used to sit before this fire-place upon that little stool when she was a girl; didn't you, mother?" The tear which starts unbidden to the eye when the recollection of old times and the happiness of many years ago is suddenly recalled, stole down the old lady's face as she shook her head with a melancholy smile. "You must excuse my talking about this old place, Mr. Pickwick," resumed the host, after a short pause, "for I love it dearly, and know no other--the old houses and fields seem like living friends to me; and so does our little church with the ivy--about which, by the by, our excellent friend there made a song when he first came amongst us. Mr. Snodgrass, have you anything in your glass?" "Plenty, thank you," replied that gentleman, whose poetic curiosity had been greatly excited by the last observations of his entertainer. "I beg your pardon, but you were talking about the song of the Ivy." "You must ask our friend opposite about that," said the host, knowingly: indicating the clergyman by a nod of his head. "May I say that I should like to hear you repeat it, sir?" said Mr. Snodgrass. "Why really," replied the clergyman, "it's a very slight affair; and the only excuse I have for having ever perpetrated it is, that I was a young man at the time. Such as it is, however, you shall hear it if you wish." A murmur of curiosity was of course the reply; and the old gentleman proceeded to recite, with the aid of sundry promptings from his wife, the lines in question. "I call them," said he, THE IVY GREEN Oh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green, That creepeth o'er ruins old! Of right choice food are his meals, I ween, In his cell so lone and cold. The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed, To pleasure his dainty whim: And the mouldering dust that years have made Is a merry meal for him. Creeping where no life is seen, A rare old plant is the Ivy green. Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings, And a staunch old heart has he. How closely he twineth, how tight he clings To his friend the huge Oak Tree! And slyly he traileth along the ground, And his leaves he gently waves, And he joyously hugs and crawleth round The rich mould of dead men's graves. Creeping where grim death has been, A rare old plant is the Ivy green. Whole ages have fled and their works decayed, And nations have scattered been; But the stout old Ivy shall never fade, From its hale and hearty green. The brave old plant in its lonely days, Shall fatten upon the past: For the stateliest building man can raise, Is the Ivy's food at last. Creeping on, where time has been, A rare old plant is the Ivy green. While the old gentleman repeated these lines a second time, to enable Mr. Snodgrass to note them down, Mr. Pickwick perused the lineaments of his face with an expression of great interest. The old gentleman having concluded his dictation, and Mr. Snodgrass having returned his note-book to his pocket, Mr. Pickwick said-- "Excuse me, sir, for making the remark on so short an acquaintance; but a gentleman like yourself cannot fail, I should think, to have observed many scenes and incidents worth recording, in the course of your experience as a minister of the Gospel." "I have witnessed some, certainly," replied the old gentleman; "but the incidents and characters have been of a homely and ordinary nature, my sphere of action being so very limited." "You _did_ make some notes, I think, about John Edmunds, did you not?" inquired Mr. Wardle, who appeared very desirous to draw his friend out, for the edification of his new visitors. The old gentleman slightly nodded his head in token of assent, and was proceeding to change the subject, when Mr. Pickwick said-- "I beg your pardon, sir; but pray, if I may venture to inquire, who was John Edmunds?" "The very thing I was about to ask," said Mr. Snodgrass, eagerly. "You are fairly in for it," said the jolly host. "You must satisfy the curiosity of these gentlemen, sooner or later; so you had better take advantage of this favourable opportunity, and do so at once." The old gentleman smiled good-humouredly as he drew his chair forward;--the remainder of the party drew their chairs closer together, especially Mr. Tupman and the spinster aunt, who were possibly rather hard of hearing; and the old lady's ear trumpet having been duly adjusted, and Mr. Miller (who had fallen asleep during the recital of the verses) roused from his slumbers by an admonitory pinch, administered beneath the table by his ex-partner the solemn fat man, the old gentleman, without farther preface, commenced the following tale, to which we have taken the liberty of prefixing the title of THE CONVICT'S RETURN "When I first settled in this village," said the old gentleman, "which is now just five-and-twenty years ago, the most notorious person among my parishioners was a man of the name of Edmunds, who leased a small farm near this spot. He was a morose, savage-hearted, bad man; idle and dissolute in his habits; cruel and ferocious in his disposition. Beyond the few lazy and reckless vagabonds with whom he sauntered away his time in the fields, or sotted in the ale-house, he had not a single friend or acquaintance; no one cared to speak to the man whom many feared, and every one detested--and Edmunds was shunned by all. "This man had a wife and one son, who, when I first came here, was about twelve years old. Of the acuteness of that woman's sufferings, of the gentle and enduring manner in which she bore them, of the agony of solicitude with which she reared that boy, no one can form an adequate conception. Heaven forgive me the supposition, if it be an uncharitable one, but I do firmly and in my soul believe, that the man systematically tried for many years to break her heart; but she bore it all for her child's sake, and, however strange it may seem to many, for his father's too; for brute as he was, and cruelly as he had treated her, she had loved him once; and the recollection of what he had been to her, awakened feelings of forbearance and meekness under suffering in her bosom, to which all God's creatures, but women, are strangers. "They were poor--they could not be otherwise when the man pursued such courses; but the woman's unceasing and unwearied exertions, early and late, morning, noon, and night, kept them above actual want. Those exertions were but ill repaid. People who passed the spot in the evening--sometimes at a late hour of the night--reported that they had heard the moans and sobs of a woman in distress, and the sound of blows: and more than once, when it was past midnight, the boy knocked softly at the door of a neighbour's house, whither he had been sent, to escape the drunken fury of his unnatural father. "During the whole of this time, and when the poor creature often bore about her marks of ill-usage and violence which she could not wholly conceal, she was a constant attendant at our little church. Regularly every Sunday, morning and afternoon, she occupied the same seat with the boy at her side; and though they were both poorly dressed--much more so than many of their neighbours who were in a lower station--they were always neat and clean. Every one had a friendly nod and a kind word for 'poor Mrs. Edmunds'; and sometimes, when she stopped to exchange a few words with a neighbour at the conclusion of the service in the little row of elm trees which leads to the church porch, or lingered behind to gaze with a mother's pride and fondness upon her healthy boy, as he sported before her with some little companions, her care-worn face would lighten up with an expression of heartfelt gratitude; and she would look, if not cheerful and happy, at least tranquil and contented. "Five or six years passed away; the boy had become a robust and well-grown youth. The time that had strengthened the child's slight frame and knit his weak limbs into the strength of manhood had bowed his mother's form, and enfeebled her steps; but the arm that should have supported her was no longer locked in hers; the face that should have cheered her, no more looked upon her own. She occupied her old seat, but there was a vacant one beside her. The Bible was kept as carefully as ever, the places were found and folded down as they used to be: but there was no one to read it with her; and the tears fell thick and fast upon the book, and blotted the words from her eyes. Neighbours were as kind as they were wont to be of old, but she shunned their greetings with averted head. There was no lingering among the old elm trees now--no cheering anticipations of happiness yet in store. The desolate woman drew her bonnet closer over her face, and walked hurriedly away. "Shall I tell you, that the young man, who, looking back to the earliest of his childhood's days to which memory and consciousness extended, and carrying his recollection down to that moment, could remember nothing which was not in some way connected with a long series of voluntary privations suffered by his mother for his sake, with ill-usage, and insult, and violence, and all endured for him;--shall I tell you, that he, with a reckless disregard for her breaking heart, and a sullen wilful forgetfulness of all she had done and borne for him, had linked himself with depraved and abandoned men, and was madly pursuing a headlong career, which must bring death to him, and shame to her? Alas for human nature! You have anticipated it long since. "The measure of the unhappy woman's misery and misfortune was about to be completed. Numerous offences had been committed in the neighbourhood; the perpetrators remained undiscovered, and their boldness increased. A robbery of a daring and aggravated nature occasioned a vigilance of pursuit, and a strictness of search, they had not calculated on. Young Edmunds was suspected, with three companions. He was apprehended--committed--tried--condemned--to die. "The wild and piercing shriek from a woman's voice, which resounded through the court when the solemn sentence was pronounced, rings in my ears at this moment. That cry struck a terror to the culprit's heart, which trial, condemnation--the approach of death itself, had failed to awaken. The lips which had been compressed in dogged sullenness throughout, quivered and parted involuntarily; the face turned ashy pale as the cold perspiration broke forth from every pore; the sturdy limbs of the felon trembled, and he staggered in the dock. "In the first transports of her mental anguish, the suffering mother threw herself upon her knees at my feet, and fervently besought the Almighty Being who had hitherto supported her in all her troubles, to release her from a world of woe and misery, and to spare the life of her only child. A burst of grief, and a violent struggle, such as I hope I may never have to witness again, succeeded. I knew that her heart was breaking from that hour; but I never once heard complaint or murmur escape her lips. "It was a piteous spectacle to see that woman in the prison yard from day to day, eagerly and fervently attempting, by affection and entreaty, to soften the hard heart of her obdurate son. It was in vain. He remained moody, obstinate, and unmoved. Not even the unlooked-for commutation of his sentence to transportation for fourteen years, softened for an instant the sullen hardihood of his demeanour. "But the spirit of resignation and endurance that had so long upheld her, was unable to contend against bodily weakness and infirmity. She fell sick. She dragged her tottering limbs from the bed to visit her son once more, but her strength failed her, and she sunk powerless on the ground. "And now the boasted coldness and indifference of the young man were tested indeed; and the retribution that fell heavily upon him, nearly drove him mad. A day passed away and his mother was not there; another flew by, and she came not near him; a third evening arrived, and yet he had not seen her; and in four-and-twenty hours he was to be separated from her--perhaps for ever. Oh! how the long-forgotten thoughts of former days rushed upon his mind, as he almost ran up and down the narrow yard--as if intelligence would arrive the sooner for _his_ hurrying--and how bitterly a sense of his helplessness and desolation rushed upon him, when he heard the truth! His mother, the only parent he had ever known, lay ill--it might be, dying--within one mile of the ground he stood on; were he free and unfettered, a few minutes would place him by her side. He rushed to the gate, and grasping the iron rail with the energy of desperation, shook it till it rang again, and threw himself against the thick wall as if to force a passage through the stone; but the strong building mocked his feeble efforts, and he beat his hands together and wept like a child. "I bore the mother's forgiveness and blessing to her son in prison; and I carried his solemn assurance of repentance, and his fervent supplication for pardon, to her sick bed. I heard, with pity and compassion, the repentant man devise a thousand little plans for her comfort and support when he returned; but I knew that many months before he could reach his place of destination, his mother would be no longer of this world. "He was removed by night. A few weeks afterwards the poor woman's soul took its flight, I confidently hope, and solemnly believe, to a place of eternal happiness and rest. I performed the burial service over her remains. She lies in our little churchyard. There is no stone at her grave's head. Her sorrows were known to man; her virtues to God. "It had been arranged previously to the convict's departure, that he should write to his mother as soon as he could obtain permission, and that the letter should be addressed to me. The father had positively refused to see his son from the moment of his apprehension; and it was a matter of indifference to him whether he lived or died. Many years passed over without any intelligence of him; and when more than half his term of transportation had expired, and I had received no letter, I concluded him to be dead, as, indeed, I almost hoped he might be. "Edmunds, however, had been sent a considerable distance up the country on his arrival at the settlement; and to this circumstance, perhaps, may be attributed the fact, that though several letters were despatched, none of them ever reached my hands. He remained in the same place during the whole fourteen years. At the expiration of the term, steadily adhering to his old resolution and the pledge he gave his mother, he made his way back to England amidst innumerable difficulties, and returned, on foot, to his native place. "On a fine Sunday evening, in the month of August, John Edmunds set foot in the village he had left with shame and disgrace seventeen years before. His nearest way lay through the churchyard. The man's heart swelled as he crossed the stile. The tall old elms, through whose branches the declining sun cast here and there a rich ray of light upon the shady path, awakened the associations of his earliest days. He pictured himself as he was then, clinging to his mother's hand, and walking peacefully to church. He remembered how he used to look up into her pale face; and how her eyes would sometimes fill with tears as she gazed upon his features--tears which fell hot upon his forehead as she stooped to kiss him, and made him weep too, although he little knew then what bitter tears hers were. He thought how often he had run merrily down that path with some childish playfellow, looking back, ever and again, to catch his mother's smile, or hear her gentle voice; and then a veil seemed lifted from his memory, and words of kindness unrequited, and warnings despised, and promises broken, thronged upon his recollection till his heart failed him, and he could bear it no longer. "He entered the church. The evening service was concluded and the congregation had dispersed, but it was not yet closed. His steps echoed through the low building with a hollow sound, and he almost feared to be alone, it was so still and quiet. He looked round him. Nothing was changed. The place seemed smaller than it used to be, but there were the old monuments, on which he had gazed with childish awe a thousand times; the little pulpit with its faded cushion; the Communion-table before which he had so often repeated the Commandments he had reverenced as a child, and forgotten as a man. He approached the old seat; it looked cold and desolate. The cushion had been removed, and the Bible was not there. Perhaps his mother now occupied a poorer seat, or possibly she had grown infirm and could not reach the church alone. He dared not think of what he feared. A cold feeling crept over him, and he trembled violently as he turned away. "An old man entered the porch just as he reached it. Edmunds started back, for he knew him well; many a time he had watched him digging graves in the churchyard. What would _he_ say to the returned convict? "The old man raised his eyes to the stranger's face, bid him 'Good evening,' and walked slowly on. He had forgotten him. "He walked down the hill, and through the village. The weather was warm, and the people were sitting at their doors, or strolling in their little gardens as he passed, enjoying the serenity of the evening, and their rest from labour. Many a look was turned towards him, and many a doubtful glance he cast on either side to see whether any knew and shunned him. There were strange faces in almost every house; in some he recognised the burly form of some old schoolfellow--a boy when he last saw him--surrounded by a troop of merry children; in others he saw, seated in an easy chair at a cottage door, a feeble and infirm old man, whom he only remembered as a hale and hearty labourer; but they had all forgotten him, and he passed on unknown. "The last soft light of the setting sun had fallen on the earth, casting a rich glow on the yellow corn sheaves, and lengthening the shadows of the orchard trees, as he stood before the old house--the home of his infancy--to which his heart had yearned with an intensity of affection not to be described, through long and weary years of captivity and sorrow. The paling was low, though he well remembered the time when it had seemed a high wall to him: and he looked over into the old garden. There were more seeds and gayer flowers than there used to be, but there were the old trees still--the very tree, under which he had lain a thousand times when tired of playing in the sun, and felt the soft mild sleep of happy boyhood steal gently upon him. There were voices within the house. He listened, but they fell strangely upon his ear; he knew them not. They were merry too; and he well knew that his poor old mother could not be cheerful, and he away. The door opened, and a group of little children bounded out, shouting and romping. The father, with a little boy in his arms, appeared at the door, and they crowded round him, clapping their tiny hands, and dragging him out, to join their joyous sports. The convict thought on the many times he had shrunk from his father's sight in that very place. He remembered how often he had buried his trembling head beneath the bed-clothes, and heard the harsh word, and the hard stripe, and his mother's wailing; and though the man sobbed aloud with agony of mind as he left the spot, his fist was clenched, and his teeth were set, in fierce and deadly passion. "And such was the return to which he had looked through the weary perspective of many years, and for which he had undergone so much suffering! No face of welcome, no look of forgiveness, no house to receive, no hand to help him--and this too in the old village. What was his loneliness in the wild thick woods, where man was never seen, to this! "He felt that in the distant land of his bondage and infamy, he had thought of his native place as it was when he left it; not as it would be when he returned. The sad reality struck coldly at his heart, and his spirit sank within him. He had not courage to make inquiries, or to present himself to the only person who was likely to receive him with kindness and compassion. He walked slowly on; and shunning the road-side like a guilty man, turned into a meadow he well remembered; and covering his face with his hands, threw himself upon the grass. "He had not observed that a man was lying on the bank beside him; his garments rustled as he turned round to steal a look at the new-comer: and Edmunds raised his head. "The man had moved into a sitting posture. His body was much bent, and his face was wrinkled and yellow. His dress denoted him an inmate of the workhouse: he had the appearance of being very old, but it looked more the effect of dissipation or disease, than length of years. He was staring hard at the stranger, and though his eyes were lustreless and heavy at first, they appeared to glow with an unnatural and alarmed expression after they had been fixed upon him for a short time, until they seemed to be staring from their sockets. Edmunds gradually raised himself to his knees, and looked more and more earnestly upon the old man's face. They gazed upon each other in silence. "The old man was ghastly pale. He shuddered and tottered to his feet. Edmunds sprang to his. He stepped back a pace or two. Edmunds advanced. "'Let me hear you speak,' said the convict in a thick broken voice. "'Stand off!' cried the old man, with a dreadful oath. The convict drew closer to him. "'Stand off!' shrieked the old man. Furious with terror, he raised his stick and struck Edmunds a heavy blow across the face. "'Father--devil!' murmured the convict, between his set teeth. He rushed wildly forward, and clenched the old man by the throat--but he was his father; and his arm fell powerless by his side. "The old man uttered a loud yell which rang through the lonely fields like the howl of an evil spirit. His face turned black: the gore rushed from his mouth and nose, and dyed the grass a deep dark red, as he staggered and fell. He had ruptured a blood-vessel: and he was a dead man before his son could raise him. * * * * * "In that corner of the churchyard," said the old gentleman, after a silence of a few moments, "in that corner of the churchyard of which I have spoken before, there lies buried a man, who was in my employment for three years after this event: and who was truly contrite, penitent, and humbled, if ever man was. No one save myself knew in that man's lifetime who he was, or whence he came:--it was John Edmunds, the returned convict." CHAPTER VII [Illustration] _How Mr. Winkle, instead of shooting at the Pigeon and killing the Crow, shot at the Crow and wounded the Pigeon; how the Dingley Dell Cricket Club played All-Muggleton, and how All-Muggleton dined at the Dingley Dell expense: with other interesting and instructive matters._ The fatiguing adventures of the day or the somniferous influence of the clergyman's tale operated so strongly on the drowsy tendencies of Mr. Pickwick, that in less than five minutes after he had been shown to his comfortable bedroom, he fell into a sound and dreamless sleep, from which he was only awakened by the morning sun darting his bright beams reproachfully into the apartment. Mr. Pickwick was no sluggard; and he sprang like an ardent warrior from his tent--bedstead. "Pleasant, pleasant country," sighed the enthusiastic gentleman, as he opened his lattice window. "Who could live to gaze from day to day on bricks and slates, who had once felt the influence of a scene like this? Who could continue to exist, where there are no cows but the cows on the chimney-pots; nothing redolent of Pan but pan-tiles; no crop but stone-crop? Who could bear to drag out a life in such a spot? Who, I ask, could endure it?" and, having cross-examined solitude after the most approved precedents, at considerable length, Mr. Pickwick thrust his head out of the lattice, and looked around him. The rich, sweet smell of the hay-ricks rose to his chamber window; the hundred perfumes of the little flower-garden beneath scented the air around; the deep-green meadows shone in the morning dew that glistened on every leaf as it trembled in the gentle air; and the birds sang as if every sparkling drop were a fountain of inspiration to them. Mr. Pickwick fell into an enchanting and delicious reverie. "Hallo!" was the sound that roused him. He looked to the right, but he saw nobody; his eyes wandered to the left, and pierced the prospect; he stared into the sky, but he wasn't wanted there; and then he did what a common mind would have done at once--looked into the garden, and there saw Mr. Wardle. "How are you?" said that good-humoured individual, out of breath with his own anticipations of pleasure. "Beautiful morning, an't it? Glad to see you up so early. Make haste down and come out. I'll wait for you here." Mr. Pickwick needed no second invitation. Ten minutes sufficed for the completion of his toilet, and at the expiration of that time he was by the old gentleman's side. "Hallo!" said Mr. Pickwick in his turn: seeing that his companion was armed with a gun, and that another lay ready on the grass. "What's going forward?" "Why, your friend and I," replied the host, "are going out rook-shooting before breakfast. He's a very good shot, an't he?" "I've heard him say he's a capital one," replied Mr. Pickwick; "but I never saw him aim at anything." "Well," said the host, "I wish he'd come. Joe--Joe!" The fat boy, who under the exciting influence of the morning did not appear to be more than three parts and a fraction asleep, emerged from the house. "Go up, and call the gentleman, and tell him he'll find me and Mr. Pickwick in the rookery. Show the gentleman the way there; d'ye hear?" The boy departed to execute his commission; and the host, carrying both guns like a second Robinson Crusoe, led the way from the garden. "This is the place," said the old gentleman, pausing after a few minutes' walking, in an avenue of trees. The information was unnecessary; for the incessant cawing of the unconscious rooks sufficiently indicated their whereabout. The old gentleman laid one gun on the ground, and loaded the other. "Here they are," said Mr. Pickwick; and as he spoke, the forms of Mr. Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass, and Mr. Winkle appeared in the distance. The fat boy, not being quite certain which gentleman he was directed to call, had with peculiar sagacity, and to prevent the possibility of any mistake, called them all. "Come along," shouted the old gentleman, addressing Mr. Winkle; "a keen hand like you ought to have been up long ago, even to such poor work as this." Mr. Winkle responded with a forced smile, and took up the spare gun with an expression of countenance which a metaphysical rook, impressed with a foreboding of his approaching death by violence, may be supposed to assume. It might have been keenness, but it looked remarkably like misery. The old gentleman nodded; and two ragged boys who had been marshalled to the spot under the direction of the infant Lambert, forthwith commenced climbing up two of the trees. "What are those lads for?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, abruptly. He was rather alarmed; for he was not quite certain but that the distress of the agricultural interest, about which he had often heard a great deal, might have compelled the small boys attached to the soil to earn a precarious and hazardous subsistence by making marks of themselves for inexperienced sportsmen. "Only to start the game," replied Mr. Wardle, laughing. "To what?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Why, in plain English, to frighten the rooks." "Oh! is that all?" "You are satisfied?" "Quite." "Very well. Shall I begin?" "If you please," said Mr. Winkle, glad of any respite. "Stand aside, then. Now for it." The boy shouted, and shook a branch with a nest on it. Half a dozen young rooks in violent conversation, flew out to ask what the matter was. The old gentleman fired by way of reply. Down fell one bird, and off flew the others. "Take him up, Joe," said the old gentleman. There was a smile upon the youth's face as he advanced. Indistinct visions of rook-pie floated through his imagination. He laughed as he retired with the bird--it was a plump one. "Now, Mr. Winkle," said the host, reloading his own gun. "Fire away." Mr. Winkle advanced, and levelled his gun. Mr. Pickwick and his friends cowered involuntarily to escape damage from the heavy fall of rooks, which they felt quite certain would be occasioned by the devastating barrel of their friend. There was a solemn pause--a shout--a flapping of wings--a faint click. "Hallo!" said the old gentleman. "Won't it go?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Missed fire," said Mr. Winkle, who was very pale: probably from disappointment. "Odd," said the old gentleman, taking the gun. "Never knew one of them miss fire before. Why, I don't see anything of the cap." "Bless my soul," said Mr. Winkle. "I declare I forgot the cap!" The slight omission was rectified. Mr. Pickwick crouched again. Mr. Winkle stepped forward with an air of determination and resolution; and Mr. Tupman looked out from behind a tree. The boy shouted; four birds flew out. Mr. Winkle fired. There was a scream as of an individual--not a rook--in corporeal anguish. Mr. Tupman had saved the lives of innumerable unoffending birds by receiving a portion of the charge in his left arm. To describe the confusion that ensued would be impossible. To tell how Mr. Pickwick in the first transports of his emotion called Mr. Winkle "Wretch!" how Mr. Tupman lay prostrate on the ground, and how Mr. Winkle knelt horror-stricken beside him; how Mr. Tupman called distractedly upon some feminine Christian name, and then opened first one eye, and then the other, and then fell back and shut them both;--all this would be as difficult to describe in detail, as it would be to depict the gradual recovering of the unfortunate individual, the binding up of his arm with pocket-handkerchiefs, and the conveying him back by slow degrees supported by the arms of his anxious friends. [Illustration: _"Bless my soul!" said Mr. Winkle, "I declare I forgot the cap."_] They drew near the house. The ladies were at the garden-gate, waiting for their arrival and their breakfast. The spinster aunt appeared; she smiled, and beckoned them to walk quicker. 'Twas evident she knew not of the disaster. Poor thing! there are times when ignorance is bliss indeed. They approached nearer. "Why, what _is_ the matter with the little old gentleman?" said Isabella Wardle. The spinster aunt heeded not the remark; she thought it applied to Mr. Pickwick. In her eyes Tracy Tupman was a youth; she viewed his years through a diminishing glass. "Don't be frightened," called out the old host, fearful of alarming his daughters. The little party had crowded so completely round Mr. Tupman, that they could not yet clearly discern the nature of the accident. "Don't be frightened," said the host. "What's the matter?" screamed the ladies. "Mr. Tupman has met with a little accident, that's all." The spinster aunt uttered a piercing scream, burst into an hysteric laugh, and fell backwards in the arms of her nieces. "Throw some cold water over her," said the old gentleman. "No, no," murmured the spinster aunt; "I am better now. Bella, Emily--a surgeon! Is he wounded?--Is he dead?--Is he----ha, ha, ha!" Here the spinster aunt burst into fit number two, of hysteric laughter interspersed with screams. "Calm yourself," said Mr. Tupman, affected almost to tears by this expression of sympathy with his sufferings. "Dear, dear madam, calm yourself." "It is his voice!" exclaimed the spinster aunt; and strong symptoms of fit number three developed themselves forthwith. "Do not agitate yourself, I entreat you, dearest madam," said Mr. Tupman, soothingly. "I am very little hurt, I assure you." "Then you are not dead!" ejaculated the hysterical lady. "Oh, say you are not dead!" "Don't be a fool, Rachael," interposed Mr. Wardle, rather more roughly than was quite consistent with the poetic nature of the scene. "What the devil's the use of his _saying_ he isn't dead?" "No, no, I am not," said Mr. Tupman. "I require no assistance but yours. Let me lean on your arm." He added in a whisper, "Oh, Miss Rachael!" The agitated female advanced, and offered her arm. They turned into the breakfast parlour. Mr. Tracy Tupman pressed her hand to his lips, and sank upon the sofa. "Are you faint?" inquired the anxious Rachael. "No," said Mr. Tupman. "It is nothing. I shall be better presently." He closed his eyes. "He sleeps," murmured the spinster aunt. (His organs of vision had been closed nearly twenty seconds.) "Dear--dear--Mr. Tupman!" Mr. Tupman jumped up--"Oh, say those words again!" he exclaimed. The lady started. "Surely you did not hear them!" she said, bashfully. "Oh yes, I did!" replied Mr. Tupman; "repeat them. If you would have me recover, repeat them." "Hush!" said the lady. "My brother." Mr. Tracy Tupman resumed his former position; and Mr. Wardle, accompanied by a surgeon, entered the room. The arm was examined, the wound dressed, and pronounced to be a very slight one; and the minds of the company having been thus satisfied, they proceeded to satisfy their appetites with countenances to which an expression of cheerfulness was again restored. Mr. Pickwick alone was silent and reserved. Doubt and distrust were exhibited in his countenance. His confidence in Mr. Winkle had been shaken--greatly shaken--by the proceedings of the morning. "Are you a cricketer?" inquired Mr. Wardle of the marksman. At any other time, Mr. Winkle would have replied in the affirmative. He felt the delicacy of the situation, and modestly replied "No." "Are you, sir?" inquired Mr. Snodgrass. "I was once upon a time," replied the host; "but I have given it up now. I subscribe to the club here, but I don't play." "The grand match is played to-day, I believe?" said Mr. Pickwick. "It is," replied the host. "Of course you would like to see it?" "I, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick, "am delighted to view any sport which may be safely indulged in, and in which the impotent effects of unskilful people do not endanger human life." Mr. Pickwick paused, and looked steadily on Mr. Winkle, who quailed beneath his leader's searching glance. The great man withdrew his eyes after a few minutes, and added; "Shall we be justified in leaving our wounded friend to the care of the ladies?" "You cannot leave me in better hands," said Mr. Tupman. "Quite impossible," said Mr. Snodgrass. It was therefore settled that Mr. Tupman should be left at home in charge of the females; and that the remainder of the guests, under the guidance of Mr. Wardle, should proceed to the spot where was to be held that trial of skill, which had roused all Muggleton from its torpor, and inoculated Dingley Dell with a fever of excitement. As their walk, which was not above two miles long, lay through shady lanes, and sequestered footpaths, and as their conversation turned upon the delightful scenery by which they were on every side surrounded, Mr. Pickwick was almost inclined to regret the expedition they had used, when he found himself in the main street of the town of Muggleton. Everybody whose genius has a topographical bent knows perfectly well that Muggleton is a corporate town, with a mayor, burgesses, and freemen; and anybody who has consulted the addresses of the mayor to the freemen, or the freemen to the mayor, or both to the corporation, or all three to Parliament, will learn from thence what they ought to have known before, that Muggleton is an ancient and loyal borough, mingling a zealous advocacy of Christian principles with a devoted attachment to commercial rights; in demonstration whereof, the mayor, corporation, and other inhabitants, have presented at divers times, no fewer than one thousand four hundred and twenty petitions against the continuance of negro slavery abroad, and an equal number against any interference with the factory system at home; sixty-eight in favour of the sale of livings in the Church, and eighty-six for abolishing Sunday trading in the street. Mr. Pickwick stood in the principal street of this illustrious town, and gazed with an air of curiosity, not unmixed with interest, on the objects around him. There was an open square for the market-place; and in the centre of it, a large inn with a sign-post in front, displaying an object very common in art, but rarely met with in nature--to wit, a blue lion, with three bow legs in the air, balancing himself on the extreme point of the centre claw of his fourth foot. There were, within sight, an auctioneer's and fire-agency office, a corn-factor's, a linen-draper's, a saddler's, a distiller's, a grocer's, and a shoe-shop--the last-mentioned warehouse being also appropriated to the diffusion of hats, bonnets, wearing apparel, cotton umbrellas, and useful knowledge. There was a red brick house with a small paved court-yard in front, which anybody might have known belonged to the attorney; and there was, moreover, another red brick house with Venetian blinds, and a large brass door-plate, with a very legible announcement that it belonged to the surgeon. A few boys were making their way to the cricket-field; and two or three shop-keepers who were standing at their doors looked as if they should like to be making their way to the same spot, as indeed to all appearance they might have done, without losing any great amount of custom thereby. Mr. Pickwick having paused to make these observations, to be noted down at a more convenient period, hastened to rejoin his friends, who had turned out of the main street, and were already within sight of the field of battle. The wickets were pitched, and so were a couple of marquees for the rest and refreshment of the contending parties. The game had not yet commenced. Two or three Dingley Dellers, and All-Muggletonians, were amusing themselves with a majestic air by throwing the ball carelessly from hand to hand; and several other gentlemen dressed like them, in straw hats, flannel jackets, and white trousers--a costume in which they looked very much like amateur stone-masons--were sprinkled about the tents, towards one of which Mr. Wardle conducted the party. Several dozen of "How-are-you's?" hailed the old gentleman's arrival; and a general raising of the straw hats, and bending forward of the flannel jackets, followed his introduction of his guests as gentlemen from London, who were extremely anxious to witness the proceedings of the day, with which, he had no doubt, they would be greatly delighted. "You had better step into the marquee, I think, sir," said one very stout gentleman, whose body and legs looked like half a gigantic roll of flannel, elevated on a couple of inflated pillow-cases. "You'll find it much pleasanter, sir," urged another stout gentleman, who strongly resembled the other half of the roll of flannel aforesaid. "You're very good," said Mr. Pickwick. "This way," said the first speaker; "they notch in here--it's the best place in the whole field;" and the cricketer, panting on before, preceded them to the tent. "Capital game--smart sport--fine exercise--very," were the words which fell upon Mr. Pickwick's ear as he entered the tent; and the first object that met his eyes was his green-coated friend of the Rochester coach, holding forth, to the no small delight and edification of a select circle of the chosen of All-Muggleton. His dress was slightly improved, and he wore boots; but there was no mistaking him. The stranger recognised his friends immediately: and, darting forward and seizing Mr. Pickwick by the hand, dragged him to a seat with his usual impetuosity, talking all the while as if the whole of the arrangements were under his especial patronage and direction. "This way--this way--capital fun--lots of beer--hogsheads; rounds of beef--bullocks; mustard--cart-loads; glorious day--down with you--make yourself at home--glad to see you--very." Mr. Pickwick sat down as he was bid, and Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass also complied with the directions of their mysterious friend. Mr. Wardle looked on, in silent wonder. "Mr. Wardle--a friend of mine," said Mr. Pickwick. "Friend of yours!--My dear sir, how are you?--Friend of _my_ friend's--give me your hand, sir"--and the stranger grasped Mr. Wardle's hand with all the fervour of a close intimacy of many years, and then stepped back a pace or two as if to take a full survey of his face and figure, and then shook hands with him again, if possible, more warmly than before. "Well; and how came you here?" said Mr. Pickwick, with a smile in which benevolence struggled with surprise. "Come," replied the stranger--"stopping at the Crown--Crown at Muggleton--met a party--flannel jackets--white trousers--anchovy sandwiches--devilled kidneys--splendid fellows--glorious." Mr. Pickwick was sufficiently versed in the stranger's system of stenography to infer from this rapid and disjointed communication that he had, somehow or other, contracted an acquaintance with the All-Muggletons, which he had converted, by a process peculiar to himself, into that extent of good fellowship on which a general invitation may be easily founded. His curiosity was therefore satisfied, and putting on his spectacles he prepared himself to watch the play which was just commencing. All-Muggleton had the first innings; and the interest became intense when Mr. Dumkins and Mr. Podder, two of the most renowned members of that most distinguished club, walked, bat in hand, to their respective wickets. Mr. Luffey, the highest ornament of Dingley Dell, was pitched to bowl against the redoubtable Dumkins, and Mr. Struggles was selected to do the same kind office for the hitherto unconquered Podder. Several players were stationed, to "look out," in different parts of the field, and each fixed himself into the proper attitude by placing one hand on each knee, and stooping very much as if he were "making a back" for some beginner at leap-frog. All the regular players do this sort of thing;--indeed it's generally supposed that it is quite impossible to look out properly in any other position. The umpires were stationed behind the wickets; the scorers were prepared to notch the runs; a breathless silence ensued. Mr. Luffey retired a few paces behind the wicket of the passive Podder, and applied the ball to his right eye for several seconds. Dumkins confidently awaited its coming with his eyes fixed on the motions of Luffey. "Play!" suddenly cried the bowler. The ball flew from his hand straight and swift towards the centre stump of the wicket. The wary Dumkins was on the alert; it fell upon the tip of the bat, and bounded far away over the heads of the scouts, who had just stooped low enough to let it fly over them. "Run--run--another.--Now, then, throw her up--up with her--stop there--another--no--yes--no--throw her up, throw her up!"--Such were the shouts which followed the stroke; and, at the conclusion of which All-Muggleton had scored two. Nor was Podder behindhand in earning laurels wherewith to garnish himself and Muggleton. He blocked the doubtful balls, missed the bad ones, took the good ones, and sent them flying to all parts of the field. The scouts were hot and tired; the bowlers were changed and bowled till their arms ached; but Dumkins and Podder remained unconquered. Did an elderly gentleman essay to stop the progress of the ball, it rolled between his legs or slipped between his fingers. Did a slim gentleman try to catch it, it struck him on the nose, and bounded pleasantly off with redoubled violence, while the slim gentleman's eyes filled with water, and his form writhed with anguish. Was it thrown straight up to the wicket, Dumkins had reached it before the ball. In short, when Dumkins was caught out, and Podder stumped out, All-Muggleton had notched some fifty-four, while the score of the Dingley Dellers was as blank as their faces. The advantage was too great to be recovered. In vain did the eager Luffey, and the enthusiastic Struggles, do all that skill and experience could suggest, to regain the ground Dingley Dell had lost in the contest;--it was of no avail; and in an early period of the winning game Dingley Dell gave in, and allowed the superior prowess of All-Muggleton. The stranger, meanwhile, had been eating, drinking, and talking, without cessation. At every good stroke he expressed his satisfaction and approval of the player in a most condescending and patronising manner, which could not fail to have been highly gratifying to the party concerned; while at every bad attempt at a catch, and every failure to stop the ball, he launched his personal displeasure at the head of the devoted individual in such denunciations as "Ah, ah!--stupid"--"Now, butter-fingers"--"Muff"--"Humbug"--and so forth--ejaculations which seemed to establish him in the opinion of all around, as a most excellent and undeniable judge of the whole art and mystery of the noble game of cricket. "Capital game--well played--some strokes admirable," said the stranger, as both sides crowded into the tent, at the conclusion of the game. "You have played it, sir?" inquired Mr. Wardle, who had been much amused by his loquacity. "Played it! Think I have--thousands of times--not here--West Indies--exciting thing--hot work--very." "It must be rather a warm pursuit in such a climate," observed Mr. Pickwick. "Warm!--red hot--scorching--glowing. Played a match once--single wicket--friend the Colonel--Sir Thomas Blazo--who should get the greatest number of runs.--Won the toss--first innings--seven o'clock +A.M.+--six natives to look out--went in; kept in--heat intense--natives all fainted--taken away--fresh half-dozen ordered--fainted also--Blazo bowling--supported by two natives--couldn't bowl me out--fainted too--cleared away the Colonel--wouldn't give in--faithful attendant--Quanko Samba--last man left--sun so hot, bat in blisters, ball scorched brown--five hundred and seventy runs--rather exhausted--Quanko mustered up last remaining strength--bowled me out--had a bath, and went out to dinner." "And what became of what's-his-name, sir?" inquired an old gentleman. "Blazo?" "No--the other gentleman." "Quanko Samba?" "Yes, sir." "Poor Quanko--never recovered it--bowled on, on my account--bowled off, on his own--died, sir." Here the stranger buried his countenance in a brown jug, but whether to hide his emotion or imbibe its contents, we cannot distinctly affirm. We only know that he paused suddenly, drew a long and deep breath, and looked anxiously on, as two of the principal members of the Dingley Dell club approached Mr. Pickwick, and said-- "We are about to partake of a plain dinner at the Blue Lion, sir; we hope you and your friends will join us." "Of course," said Mr. Wardle, "among our friends we include Mr. ----;" and he looked towards the stranger. "Jingle," said that versatile gentleman, taking the hint at once. "Jingle--Alfred Jingle, Esq., of No Hall, Nowhere." "I shall be very happy, I am sure," said Mr. Pickwick. "So shall I," said Mr. Alfred Jingle, drawing one arm through Mr. Pickwick's, and another through Mr. Wardle's, as he whispered confidentially in the ear of the former gentleman-- "Devilish good dinner--cold, but capital--peeped into the room this morning--fowls and pies, and all that sort of thing--pleasant fellows these--well behaved, too--very." There being no further preliminaries to arrange, the company straggled into the town in little knots of twos and threes; and within a quarter of an hour were all seated in the great room of the Blue Lion Inn, Muggleton--Mr. Dumkins acting as chairman, and Mr. Luffey officiating as vice. There was a vast deal of talking and rattling of knives and forks and plates: a great running about of three ponderous-headed waiters, and a rapid disappearance of the substantial viands on the table; to each and every of which item of confusion, the facetious Mr. Jingle lent the aid of half-a-dozen ordinary men at least. When everybody had eaten as much as possible, the cloth was removed, bottles, glasses, and dessert were placed on the table; and the waiters withdrew to "clear away," or in other words, to appropriate to their own private use and emolument whatever remnants of the eatables and drinkables they could contrive to lay their hands on. Amidst the general hum of mirth and conversation that ensued, there was a little man with a puffy Say-nothing-to-me,-or-I'll-contradict-you sort of countenance, who remained very quiet; occasionally looking round him when the conversation slackened, as if he contemplated putting in something very weighty; and now and then bursting into a short cough of inexpressible grandeur. At length, during a moment of comparative silence, the little man called out in a very loud, solemn voice-- "Mr. Luffey!" Everybody was hushed into a profound stillness as the individual addressed, replied-- "Sir!" "I wish to address a few words to you, sir, if you will entreat the gentlemen to fill their glasses." Mr. Jingle uttering a patronising "hear, hear," which was responded to by the remainder of the company: and the glasses having been filled the Vice-President assumed an air of wisdom in a state of profound attention; and said-- "Mr. Staple." "Sir," said the little man, rising, "I wish to address what I have to say to _you_ and not to our worthy chairman, because our worthy chairman is in some measure--I may say in a great degree--the subject of what I have to say, or I may say to--to----" "State," suggested Mr. Jingle. --"Yes, to state," said the little man, "I thank my honourable friend, if he will allow me to call him so--(four hears, and one certainly from Mr. Jingle)--for the suggestion. Sir, I am a Deller--a Dingley Deller (cheers). I cannot lay claim to the honour of forming an item in the population of Muggleton; nor, sir, I will frankly admit, do I covet that honour: and I will tell you why, sir--(hear); to Muggleton I will readily concede all those honours and distinctions to which it can fairly lay claim--they are too numerous and too well-known to require aid or recapitulation from me. But, sir, while we remember that Muggleton has given birth to a Dumkins and a Podder, let us never forget that Dingley Dell can boast a Luffey and a Struggles. (Vociferous cheering.) Let me not be considered as wishing to detract from the merits of the former gentlemen. Sir, I envy them the luxury of their own feelings on this occasion. (Cheers.) Every gentleman who hears me, is probably acquainted with the reply made by an individual, who--to use an ordinary figure of speech--'hung out' in a tub, to the emperor Alexander:--'If I were not Diogenes,' said he, 'I would be Alexander.' I can well imagine these gentlemen to say, 'If I were not Dumkins I would be Luffey; if I were not Podder I would be Struggles.' (Enthusiasm.) But, gentlemen of Muggleton, is it in cricket alone that your fellow-townsmen stand pre-eminent? Have you never heard of Dumkins and determination? Have you never been taught to associate Podder with property? (Great applause.) Have you never, when struggling for your rights, your liberties, and your privileges, been reduced, if only for an instant, to misgiving and despair? And when you have been thus depressed, has not the name of Dumkins laid afresh within your breast the fire which had just gone out; and has not a word from that man, lighted it again as brightly as if it had never expired? (Great cheering.) Gentlemen, I beg to surround with a rich halo of enthusiastic cheering the united names of 'Dumkins and Podder.'" Here the little man ceased, and here the company commenced a raising of voices, and thumping of tables, which lasted with little intermission during the remainder of the evening. Other toasts were drunk. Mr. Luffey and Mr. Struggles, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Jingle, were, each in his turn, the subject of unqualified eulogium; and each in due course returned thanks for the honour. Enthusiastic as we are in the noble cause to which we have devoted ourselves, we should have felt a sensation of pride which we cannot express, and a consciousness of having done something to merit immortality of which we are now deprived, could we have laid the faintest outline of these addresses before our ardent readers. Mr. Snodgrass, as usual, took a great mass of notes, which would no doubt have afforded most valuable and useful information, had not the burning eloquence of the words or the feverish influence of the wine made that gentleman's hand so extremely unsteady, as to render his writing nearly unintelligible, and his style wholly so. By dint of patient investigation, we have been enabled to trace some characters bearing a faint resemblance to the names of the speakers; and we can also discern an entry of a song (supposed to have been sung by Mr. Jingle), in which the words "bowl" "sparkling" "ruby" "bright" and "wine" are frequently repeated at short intervals. We fancy too, that we can discern at the very end of the notes, some indistinct reference to "broiled bones;" and then the words "cold" "without" occur: but as any hypothesis we could found upon them must necessarily rest upon mere conjecture, we are not disposed to indulge in any of the speculations to which they may give rise. We will therefore return to Mr. Tupman; merely adding that within some few minutes before twelve o'clock that night, the convocation of worthies of Dingley Dell and Muggleton were heard to sing, with great feeling and emphasis, the beautiful and pathetic national air of We won't go home 'till morning, We won't go home 'till morning, We won't go home 'till morning, 'Till daylight doth appear. CHAPTER VIII [Illustration] _Strongly Illustrative of the Position, that the Course of True Love is not a Railway_ The quiet seclusion of Dingley Dell, the presence of so many of the gentler sex, and the solicitude and anxiety they evinced in his behalf, were all favourable to the growth and development of those softer feelings which nature had implanted deep in the bosom of Mr. Tracy Tupman, and which now appeared destined to centre in one lovely object. The young ladies were pretty, their manners winning, their dispositions unexceptionable; but there was a dignity in the air, a touch-me-not-ishness in the walk, a majesty in the eye of the spinster aunt, to which, at their time of life, they could lay no claim, which distinguished her from any female on whom Mr. Tupman had ever gazed. That there was something kindred in their nature, something congenial in their souls, something mysteriously sympathetic in their bosoms, was evident. Her name was the first that rose to Mr. Tupman's lips as he lay wounded on the grass; and her hysteric laughter was the first sound that fell upon his ear when he was supported to the house. But had her agitation arisen from an amiable and feminine sensibility which would have been equally irrepressible in any case; or had it been called forth by a more ardent and passionate feeling, which he, of all men living, could alone awaken? These were the doubts which racked his brain as he lay extended on the sofa: these were the doubts which he determined should be at once and for ever resolved. It was evening. Isabella and Emily had strolled out with Mr. Trundle; the deaf old lady had fallen asleep in her chair; the snoring of the fat boy penetrated in a low and monotonous sound from the distant kitchen; the buxom servants were lounging at the side-door, enjoying the pleasantness of the hour, and the delights of a flirtation, on first principles, with certain unwieldy animals attached to the farm; and there sat the interesting pair, uncared for by all, caring for none, and dreaming only of themselves; there they sat, in short, like a pair of carefully-folded kid-gloves--bound up in each other. "I have forgotten my flowers," said the spinster aunt. "Water them now," said Mr. Tupman in accents of persuasion. "You will take cold in the evening air," urged the spinster aunt, affectionately. "No, no," said Mr. Tupman, rising; "it will do me good. Let me accompany you." The lady paused to adjust the sling in which the left arm of the youth was placed, and taking his right arm led him to the garden. There was a bower at the further end, with honeysuckle, jessamine, and creeping plants--one of those sweet retreats which humane men erect for the accommodation of spiders. The spinster aunt took up a large watering-pot which lay in one corner, and was about to leave the arbour. Mr. Tupman detained her, and drew her to a seat beside him. "Miss Wardle!" said he. The spinster aunt trembled, till some pebbles which had accidentally found their way into the large watering-pot shook like an infant's rattle. "Miss Wardle," said Mr. Tupman, "you are an angel." "Mr. Tupman!" exclaimed Rachael, blushing as red as the watering-pot itself. "Nay," said the eloquent Pickwickian, "I know it but too well." "All women are angels, they say," murmured the lady, playfully. "Then what can _you_ be; or to what, without presumption, can I compare you?" replied Mr. Tupman. "Where was the woman ever seen who resembled you? Where else could I hope to find so rare a combination of excellence and beauty? Where else could I seek to----Oh!" Here Mr. Tupman paused, and pressed the hand which clasped the handle of the happy watering-pot. The lady turned aside her head. "Men are such deceivers," she softly whispered. "They are, they are," ejaculated Mr. Tupman; "but not all men. There lives at least one being who can never change--one being who would be content to devote his whole existence to your happiness--who lives but in your eyes--who breathes but in your smiles--who bears the heavy burden of life itself only for you." "Could such an individual be found?" said the lady. "But he _can_ be found," said the ardent Mr. Tupman, interposing. "He _is_ found. He is here, Miss Wardle." And ere the lady was aware of his intention, Mr. Tupman had sunk upon his knees at her feet. "Mr. Tupman, rise," said Rachael. "Never!" was the valorous reply. "Oh, Rachael!"--He seized her passive hand, and the watering-pot fell to the ground as he pressed it to his lips. "Oh, Rachael! say you love me." "Mr. Tupman," said the spinster aunt, with averted head--"I can hardly speak the words; but--but--you are not wholly indifferent to me." Mr. Tupman no sooner heard this avowal, than he proceeded to do what his enthusiastic emotions prompted, and what, for aught we know (for we are but little acquainted with such matters) people so circumstanced always do. He jumped up, and, throwing his arm round the neck of the spinster aunt, imprinted upon her lips numerous kisses, which after a due show of struggling and resistance, she received so passively, that there is no telling how many more Mr. Tupman might have bestowed, if the lady had not given a very unaffected start and exclaimed in an affrighted tone-- "Mr. Tupman, we are observed!--we are discovered!" Mr. Tupman looked round. There was the fat boy, perfectly motionless, with his large circular eyes staring into the arbour, but without the slightest expression on his face that the most expert physiognomist could have referred to astonishment, curiosity, or any other known passion that agitates the human breast. Mr. Tupman gazed on the fat boy, and the fat boy stared at him; and the longer Mr. Tupman observed the utter vacancy of the fat boy's countenance, the more convinced he became that he either did not know or did not understand anything that had been going forward. Under this impression, he said with great firmness-- "What do you want here, sir?" "Supper's ready, sir," was the prompt reply. "Have you just come here, sir?" inquired Mr. Tupman with a piercing look. "Just," replied the fat boy. Mr. Tupman looked at him very hard again; but there was not a wink in his eye, or a curve in his face. Mr. Tupman took the arm of the spinster aunt, and walked towards the house; the fat boy followed behind. "He knows nothing of what has happened," he whispered. "Nothing," said the spinster aunt. There was a sound behind them, as of an imperfectly suppressed chuckle. Mr. Tupman turned sharply round. No; it could not have been the fat boy; there was not a gleam of mirth, or anything but feeding, in his whole visage. "He must have been fast asleep," whispered Mr. Tupman. "I have not the least doubt of it," replied the spinster aunt. They both laughed heartily. Mr. Tupman was wrong. The fat boy, for once, had not been fast asleep. He was awake--wide awake--to what had been going forward. The supper passed off without any attempt at a general conversation. The old lady had gone to bed; Isabella Wardle devoted herself exclusively to Mr. Trundle; the spinster's attentions were reserved for Mr. Tupman; and Emily's thoughts appeared to be engrossed by some distant object--possibly they were with the absent Snodgrass. [Illustration: _"He must have been fast asleep," whispered Mr. Tupman_] Eleven--twelve--one o'clock had struck, and the gentlemen had not arrived. Consternation sat on every face. Could they have been waylaid and robbed? Should they send men and lanterns in every direction by which they could be supposed likely to have travelled home? or should they----Hark! there they were. What could have made them so late? A strange voice too! To whom could it belong? They rushed into the kitchen whither the truants had repaired, and at once obtained rather more than a glimmering of the real state of the case. Mr. Pickwick, with his hands in his pockets and his hat cocked completely over his left eye, was leaning against the dresser, shaking his head from side to side, and producing a constant succession of the blandest and most benevolent smiles without being moved thereunto by any discernible cause or pretence whatsoever; old Mr. Wardle, with a highly-inflamed countenance, was grasping the hand of a strange gentleman, muttering protestations of eternal friendship; Mr. Winkle, supporting himself by the eight-day clock, was feebly invoking destruction upon the head of any member of the family who should suggest the propriety of his retiring for the night; and Mr. Snodgrass had sunk into a chair, with an expression of the most abject and hopeless misery that the human mind can imagine, portrayed in every lineament of his expressive face. "Is anything the matter?" inquired the three ladies. "Nothing the matter," replied Mr. Pickwick. "We--we're--all right--I say, Wardle, we're all right, an't we?" "I should think so," replied the jolly host.--"My dears, here's my friend, Mr. Jingle.--Mr. Pickwick's friend, Mr. Jingle, come 'pon--little visit." "Is anything the matter with Mr. Snodgrass, sir?" inquired Emily, with great anxiety. "Nothing the matter, ma'am," replied the stranger. "Cricket dinner--glorious party--capital songs--old port--claret--good--very good--wine, ma'am--wine." "It wasn't the wine," murmured Mr. Snodgrass, in a broken voice. "It was the salmon." (Somehow or other, it never _is_ the wine, in these cases.) "Hadn't they better go to bed, ma'am?" inquired Emma. "Two of the boys will carry the gentlemen up stairs." "I won't go to bed," said Mr. Winkle, firmly. "No living boy shall carry me," said Mr. Pickwick, stoutly;--and he went on smiling as before. "Hurrah!" gasped Mr. Winkle, faintly. "Hurrah!" echoed Mr. Pickwick, taking off his hat and dashing it on the floor, and insanely casting his spectacles into the middle of the kitchen.--At this humorous feat he laughed outright. "Let's--have--'nother--bottle," cried Mr. Winkle, commencing in a very loud key, and ending in a very faint one. His head dropped upon his breast; and, muttering his invincible determination not to go to his bed, and a sanguinary regret that he had not "done for old Tupman" in the morning, he fell fast asleep; in which condition he was borne to his apartment by two young giants under the personal superintendence of the fat boy, to whose protecting care Mr. Snodgrass shortly afterwards confided his own person. Mr. Pickwick accepted the proffered arm of Mr. Tupman and quietly disappeared, smiling more than ever; and Mr. Wardle, after taking as affectionate a leave of the whole family as if he were ordered for immediate execution, consigned to Mr. Trundle the honour of conveying him up-stairs, and retired, with a very futile attempt to look impressively solemn and dignified. "What a shocking scene!" said the spinster aunt. "Dis--gusting!" ejaculated both the young ladies. "Dreadful--dreadful!" said Jingle, looking very grave; he was about a bottle and a half ahead of any of his companions. "Horrid spectacle--very!" "What a nice man!" whispered the spinster aunt to Mr. Tupman. "Good-looking, too!" whispered Emily Wardle. "Oh, decidedly," observed the spinster aunt. Mr. Tupman thought of the widow at Rochester: and his mind was troubled. The succeeding half-hour's conversation was not of a nature to calm his perturbed spirit. The new visitor was very talkative, and the number of his anecdotes was only to be exceeded by the extent of his politeness. Mr. Tupman felt that as Jingle's popularity increased, he (Tupman) retired further into the shade. His laughter was forced--his merriment feigned; and when at last he laid his aching temples between the sheets, he thought, with horrid delight, on the satisfaction it would afford him to have Jingle's head at that moment between the feather-bed and the mattress. The indefatigable stranger rose betimes next morning, and, although his companions remained in bed overpowered with the dissipation of the previous night, exerted himself most successfully to promote the hilarity of the breakfast-table. So successful were his efforts, that even the deaf old lady insisted on having one or two of his best jokes retailed through the trumpet; and even she condescended to observe to the spinster aunt that "he" (meaning Jingle) "was an impudent young fellow"; a sentiment in which all her relations then and there present thoroughly coincided. It was the old lady's habit on the fine summer mornings to repair to the arbour in which Mr. Tupman had already signalised himself, in form and manner following: first, the fat boy fetched from a peg behind the old lady's bed-room door, a close black satin bonnet, a warm cotton shawl, and a thick stick with a capacious handle; and the old lady having put on the bonnet and shawl at her leisure, would lean one hand on the stick and the other on the fat boy's shoulder, and walk leisurely to the arbour, where the fat boy would leave her to enjoy the fresh air for the space of half-an-hour; at the expiration of which time he would return and reconduct her to the house. The old lady was very precise and very particular; and as this ceremony had been observed for three successive summers without the slightest deviation from the accustomed form, she was not a little surprised on this particular morning, to see the fat boy, instead of leaving the arbour, walk a few paces out of it, look carefully round him in every direction, and return towards her with great stealth and an air of the most profound mystery. The old lady was timorous--most old ladies are--and her first impression was that the bloated lad was about to do her some grievous bodily harm with the view of possessing himself of her loose coin. She would have cried for assistance, but age and infirmity had long ago deprived her of the power of screaming; she, therefore, watched his motions with feelings of intense terror, which were in no degree diminished by his coming close up to her, and shouting in her ear in an agitated, and as it seemed to her, a threatening tone-- "Missus!" Now it so happened that Mr. Jingle was walking in the garden close to the arbour at this moment. He too heard the shout of "Missus," and stopped to hear more. There were three reasons for his doing so. In the first place, he was idle and curious; secondly, he was by no means scrupulous; thirdly, and lastly, he was concealed from view by some flowering shrubs. So there he stood, and there he listened. "Missus!" shouted the fat boy. "Well, Joe," said the trembling old lady. "I'm sure I have been a good mistress to you, Joe. You have invariably been treated very kindly. You have never had too much to do; and you have always had enough to eat." This last was an appeal to the fat boy's most sensitive feelings. He seemed touched, as he replied, emphatically-- "I knows I has." "Then what can you want to do now?" said the old lady, gaining courage. "I wants to make your flesh creep," replied the boy. This sounded like a very bloodthirsty mode of showing one's gratitude; and as the old lady did not precisely understand the process by which such a result was to be attained, all her former horrors returned. "What do you think I see in this very arbour last night?" inquired the boy. "Bless us! What?" exclaimed the old lady, alarmed at the solemn manner of the corpulent youth. "The strange gentleman--him as had his arm hurt--a kissin' and huggin'----" "Who, Joe? None of the servants, I hope?" "Worser than that," roared the fat boy, in the old lady's ear. "Not one of my grand-da'aters?" "Worser than that." "Worse than _that_, Joe!" said the old lady, who had thought this the extreme limit of human atrocity. "Who was it, Joe? I insist upon knowing." The fat boy looked cautiously round, and having concluded his survey, shouted in the old lady's ear: "Miss Rachael." "What!" said the old lady, in a shrill tone. "Speak louder." "Miss Rachael," roared the fat boy. "My da'ater!" The train of nods which the fat boy gave by way of assent, communicated a _blanc-mange_-like motion to his fat cheeks. "And she suffered him!" exclaimed the old lady. A grin stole over the fat boy's features as he said: "I see her a kissin' of him agin." If Mr. Jingle, from his place of concealment, could have beheld the expression which the old lady's face assumed at this communication, the probability is that a sudden burst of laughter would have betrayed his close vicinity to the summer-house. He listened attentively. Fragments of angry sentences such as, "Without my permission!"--"At her time of life"--"Miserable old 'ooman like me"--"Might have waited till I was dead," and so forth reached his ears; and then he heard the heels of the fat boy's boots crunching the gravel, as he retired and left the old lady alone. It was a remarkable coincidence perhaps, but it was nevertheless a fact, that Mr. Jingle within five minutes after his arrival at Manor Farm on the preceding night, had inwardly resolved to lay siege to the heart of the spinster aunt, without delay. He had observation enough to see, that his off-hand manner was by no means disagreeable to the fair object of his attack; and he had more than a strong suspicion that she possessed that most desirable of all requisites, a small independence. The imperative necessity of ousting his rival by some means or other, flashed quickly upon him, and he immediately resolved to adopt certain proceedings tending to that end and object, without a moment's delay. Fielding tells us that man is fire, and woman tow, and the Prince of Darkness sets a light to 'em. Mr. Jingle knew that young men, to spinster aunts, are as lighted gas to gunpowder, and he determined to essay the effect of an explosion without loss of time. Full of reflections upon this important decision, he crept from his place of concealment, and, under cover of the shrubs before mentioned, approached the house. Fortune seemed determined to favour his design. Mr. Tupman and the rest of the gentlemen left the garden by the side gate just as he obtained a view of it; and the young ladies, he knew, had walked out alone, soon after breakfast. The coast was clear. The breakfast-parlour door was partially open. He peeped in. The spinster aunt was knitting. He coughed; she looked up and smiled. Hesitation formed no part of Mr. Alfred Jingle's character. He laid his finger on his lips mysteriously, walked in, and closed the door. "Miss Wardle," said Mr. Jingle, with affected earnestness, "forgive intrusion--short acquaintance--no time for ceremony--all discovered." "Sir!" said the spinster aunt, rather astonished by the unexpected apparition and somewhat doubtful of Mr. Jingle's sanity. "Hush!" said Mr. Jingle, in a stage whisper;--"large boy--dumpling face--round eyes--rascal!" Here he shook his head expressively, and the spinster aunt trembled with agitation. "I presume you allude to Joseph, sir?" said the lady, making an effort to appear composed. "Yes, ma'am--damn that Joe!--treacherous dog, Joe--told the old lady--old lady furious--wild--raving--arbour--Tupman--kissing and hugging--all that sort of thing--eh, ma'am--eh?" "Mr. Jingle," said the spinster aunt, "if you come here, sir, to insult me----" "Not at all--by no means," replied the unabashed Mr. Jingle;--"overheard the tale--came to warn you of your danger--tender my services--prevent the hubbub. Never mind--think it an insult--leave the room"--and he turned as if to carry the threat into execution. "What _shall_ I do?" said the poor spinster, bursting into tears. "My brother will be furious." "Of course he will," said Mr. Jingle, pausing--"outrageous." "Oh, Mr. Jingle, what _can_ I say?" exclaimed the spinster aunt, in another flood of despair. "Say he dreamt it," replied Mr. Jingle, coolly. A ray of comfort darted across the mind of the spinster aunt at this suggestion. Mr. Jingle perceived it, and followed up his advantage. "Pooh, pooh! nothing more easy--blackguard boy--lovely woman--fat boy horsewhipped--you believed--end of the matter--all comfortable." Whether the probability of escaping from the consequences of this ill-timed discovery was delightful to the spinster's feelings, or whether the hearing herself described as a "lovely woman" softened the asperity of her grief, we know not. She blushed slightly, and cast a grateful look on Mr. Jingle. That insinuating gentleman sighed deeply, fixed his eyes on the spinster aunt's face for a couple of minutes, started melodramatically, and suddenly withdrew them. "You seem unhappy, Mr. Jingle," said the lady, in a plaintive voice. "May I show my gratitude for your kind interference by inquiring into the cause, with a view, if possible, to its removal?" "Ha!" exclaimed Mr. Jingle, with another start--"removal! remove _my_ unhappiness, and your love bestowed upon a man who is insensible to the blessing--who even now contemplates a design upon the affections of the niece of the creature who--but no; he is my friend; I will not expose his vices. Miss Wardle--farewell!" At the conclusion of this address, the most consecutive he was ever known to utter, Mr. Jingle applied to his eyes the remnant of a handkerchief before noticed, and turned towards the door. "Stay, Mr. Jingle," said the spinster aunt, emphatically. "You have made an allusion to Mr. Tupman--explain it." "Never!" exclaimed Jingle, with a professional (_i.e._ theatrical) air. "Never!" and, by way of showing that he had no desire to be questioned further, he drew a chair close to that of the spinster aunt and sat down. "Mr. Jingle," said the aunt, "I entreat--I implore you, if there is any dreadful mystery connected with Mr. Tupman, reveal it." "Can I," said Mr. Jingle, fixing his eyes on the aunt's face--"Can I see--lovely creature--sacrificed at the shrine--heartless avarice!" He appeared to be struggling with various conflicting emotions for a few seconds, and then said in a low deep voice-- "Tupman only wants your money." "The wretch!" exclaimed the spinster, with energetic indignation. (Mr. Jingle's doubts were resolved. She _had_ money.) "More than that," said Jingle--"loves another." "Another!" ejaculated the spinster. "Who?" "Short girl--black eyes--niece Emily." There was a pause. Now, if there were one individual in the whole world, of whom the spinster aunt entertained a mortal and deeply-rooted jealousy, it was this identical niece. The colour rushed over her face and neck, and she tossed her head in silence with an air of ineffable contempt. At last, biting her thin lips, and bridling up, she said-- "It can't be. I won't believe it." "Watch 'em," said Jingle. "I will," said the aunt. "Watch his looks." "I will." "His whispers." "I will." "He'll sit next her at table." "Let him." "He'll flatter her." "Let him." "He'll pay her every possible attention." "Let him." "And he'll cut you." "Cut _me_!" screamed the spinster aunt. "_He_ cut _me_;--_will_ he!" and she trembled with rage and disappointment. "You will convince yourself?" said Jingle. "I will." "You'll show your spirit?" "I will." "You'll not have him afterwards?" "Never." "You'll take somebody else?" "Yes." "You shall." Mr. Jingle fell on his knees, remained thereupon for five minutes thereafter: and rose the accepted lover of the spinster aunt: conditionally upon Mr. Tupman's perjury being made clear and manifest. The burden of proof lay with Mr. Alfred Jingle; and he produced his evidence that very day at dinner. The spinster aunt could hardly believe her eyes. Mr. Tracy Tupman was established at Emily's side, ogling, whispering, and smiling, in opposition to Mr. Snodgrass. Not a word, not a look, not a glance, did he bestow upon his heart's pride of the evening before. "Damn that boy!" thought old Mr. Wardle to himself.--He had heard the story from his mother. "Damn that boy! He _must_ have been asleep. It's all imagination." "Traitor!" thought the spinster aunt. "Dear Mr. Jingle was not deceiving me. Ugh! how I hate the wretch!" The following conversation may serve to explain to our readers this apparently unaccountable alteration of deportment on the part of Mr. Tracy Tupman. The time was evening; the scene the garden. There were two figures walking in the side path; one was rather short and stout; the other rather tall and slim. They were Mr. Tupman and Mr. Jingle. The stout figure commenced the dialogue. "How did I do it?" he inquired. "Splendid--capital--couldn't act better myself--you must repeat the part to-morrow--every evening, till further notice." "Does Rachael still wish it?" "Of course--she don't like it--but must be done--avert suspicion--afraid of her brother--says there's no help for it--only a few days more--when old folks blinded--crown your happiness." "Any message?" "Love--best love--kindest regards--unalterable affection. Can I say anything for you?" "My dear fellow," replied the unsuspicious Mr. Tupman, fervently grasping his "friend's" hand--"carry my best love--say how hard I find it to dissemble--say anything that's kind: but add how sensible I am of the necessity of the suggestion she made to me, through you, this morning. Say I applaud her wisdom and admire her discretion." "I will. Anything more?" "Nothing; only add how ardently I long for the time when I may call her mine, and all dissimulation may be unnecessary." "Certainly, certainly. Anything more?" "Oh, my friend!" said poor Mr. Tupman, again grasping the hand of his companion, "receive my warmest thanks for your disinterested kindness; and forgive me if I have ever, even in thought, done you the injustice of supposing that you _could_ stand in my way. My dear friend, can I ever repay you?" "Don't talk of it," replied Mr. Jingle. He stopped short, as if suddenly recollecting something, and said--"By-the-bye--can't spare ten pounds, can you?--very particular purpose--pay you in three days." "I dare say I can," replied Mr. Tupman, in the fulness of his heart. "Three days, you say?" "Only three days--all over then--no more difficulties." Mr. Tupman counted the money into his companion's hand, and he dropped it piece by piece into his pocket, as they walked towards the house. "Be careful," said Mr. Jingle--"not a look." "Not a wink," said Mr. Tupman. "Not a syllable." "Not a whisper." "All your attentions to the niece--rather rude, than otherwise, to the aunt--only way of deceiving the old ones." "I'll take care," said Mr. Tupman, aloud. "And _I_'ll take care," said Mr. Jingle, internally; and they entered the house. The scene of that afternoon was repeated that evening, and on the three afternoons and evenings next ensuing. On the fourth, the host was in high spirits, for he had satisfied himself that there was no ground for the charge against Mr. Tupman. So was Mr. Tupman, for Mr. Jingle had told him that his affair would soon be brought to a crisis. So was Mr. Pickwick, for he was seldom otherwise. So was not Mr. Snodgrass, for he had grown jealous of Mr. Tupman. So was the old lady, for she had been winning at whist. So were Mr. Jingle and Miss Wardle, for reasons of sufficient importance in this eventful history to be narrated in another chapter. CHAPTER IX [Illustration] _A Discovery and a Chase_ The supper was ready laid, the chairs were drawn round the table, bottles, jugs, and glasses were arranged upon the sideboard, and everything betokened the approach of the most convivial period in the whole four-and-twenty hours. "Where's Rachael?" said Mr. Wardle. "Ay, and Jingle?" added Mr. Pickwick. "Dear me," said the host, "I wonder I haven't missed him before. Why, I don't think I have heard his voice for two hours at least. Emily, my dear, ring the bell." The bell was rung, and the fat boy appeared. "Where's Miss Rachael?" He couldn't say. "Where's Mr. Jingle, then?" He didn't know. Everybody looked surprised. It was late--past eleven o'clock. Mr. Tupman laughed in his sleeve. They were loitering somewhere, talking about _him_. Ha, ha! capital notion that--funny. "Never mind," said Wardle, after a short pause, "they'll turn up presently, I dare say. I never wait supper for anybody." "Excellent rule that," said Mr. Pickwick, "admirable." "Pray, sit down," said the host. "Certainly," said Mr. Pickwick: and down they sat. There was a gigantic round of cold beef on the table, and Mr. Pickwick was supplied with a plentiful portion of it. He had raised his fork to his lips, and was on the very point of opening his mouth for the reception of a piece of beef, when the hum of many voices suddenly arose in the kitchen. He paused, and laid down his fork. Mr. Wardle paused too, and insensibly released his hold of the carving-knife, which remained inserted in the beef. He looked at Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Pickwick looked at him. Heavy footsteps were heard in the passage; the parlour door was suddenly burst open; and the man who had cleaned Mr. Pickwick's boots on his first arrival, rushed into the room, followed by the fat boy, and all the domestics. "What the devil's the meaning of all this?" exclaimed the host. "The kitchen chimney a'n't a-fire, is it, Emma?" inquired the old lady. "Lor, grandma! No," screamed both the young ladies. "What's the matter?" roared the master of the house. The man gasped for breath, and faintly ejaculated-- "They ha' gone, Mas'r!--gone right clean off, sir!" (At this juncture Mr. Tupman was observed to lay down his knife and fork, and to turn very pale.) [Illustration: "_Here I am; but I han't a willin_"] "Who's gone?" said Mr. Wardle, fiercely. "Mus'r Jingle and Miss Rachael, in a po'-chay, from Blue Lion, Muggleton. I was there; but I couldn't stop 'em; so I run off to tell'ee." "I paid his expenses!" said Mr. Tupman, jumping up frantically. "He's got ten pounds of mine!--stop him!--he's swindled me!--I won't bear it!--I'll have justice, Pickwick!--I won't stand it!" and with sundry incoherent exclamations of the like nature, the unhappy gentleman spun round and round the apartment, in a transport of frenzy. "Lord preserve us!" ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, eyeing the extraordinary gestures of his friend with terrified surprise. "He's gone mad! What shall we do!" "Do!" said the stout old host, who regarded only the last words of the sentence. "Put the horse in the gig! I'll get a chaise at the Lion, and follow 'em instantly. Where"--he exclaimed, as the man ran out to execute the commission--"Where's that villain Joe?" "Here I am; but I han't a willin," replied a voice. It was the fat boy's. "Let me get at him, Pickwick," cried Wardle, as he rushed at the ill-starred youth. "He was bribed by that scoundrel, Jingle, to put me on a wrong scent, by telling a cock-and-a-bull story of my sister and your friend Tupman!" (Here Mr. Tupman sunk into a chair.) "Let me get at him!" "Don't let him!" screamed all the women, above whose exclamations the blubbering of the fat boy was distinctly audible. "I won't be held!" cried the old man. "Mr. Winkle, take your hands off. Mr. Pickwick, let me go, sir!" It was a beautiful sight, in that moment of turmoil and confusion, to behold the placid and philosophical expression of Mr. Pickwick's face, albeit somewhat flushed with exertion, as he stood with his arms firmly clasped round the extensive waist of their corpulent host, thus restraining the impetuosity of his passion, while the fat boy was scratched, and pulled, and pushed from the room by all the females congregated therein. He had no sooner released his hold, than the man entered to announce that the gig was ready. "Don't let him go alone!" screamed the females. "He'll kill somebody!" "I'll go with him," said Mr. Pickwick. "You're a good fellow, Pickwick," said the host, grasping his hand. "Emma, give Mr. Pickwick a shawl to tie round his neck--make haste. Look after your grandmother, girls; she has fainted away. Now then, are you ready?" Mr. Pickwick's mouth and chin having been hastily enveloped in a large shawl: his hat having been put on his head, and his great coat thrown over his arm, he replied in the affirmative. They jumped into the gig. "Give her her head, Tom," cried the host; and away they went, down the narrow lanes; jolting in and out of the cart-ruts, and bumping up against the hedges on either side, as if they would go to pieces every moment. "How much are they ahead?" shouted Wardle, as they drove up to the door of the Blue Lion, round which a little crowd had collected, late as it was. "Not above three-quarters of an hour," was everybody's reply. "Chaise and four directly!--out with 'em! Put up the gig afterwards." "Now, boys!" cried the landlord--"chaise and four out--make haste--look alive there!" Away ran the hostlers, and the boys. The lanterns glimmered, as the men ran to and fro; the horses' hoofs clattered on the uneven paving of the yard; the chaise rumbled as it was drawn out of the coach-house; and all was noise and bustle. "Now then!--is that chaise coming out to-night?" cried Wardle. "Coming down the yard now, sir," replied the hostler. Out came the chaise--in went the horses--on sprung the boys--in got the travellers. "Mind--the seven-mile stage in less than half-an-hour!" shouted Wardle. "Off with you!" The boys applied whip and spur, the waiter shouted, the hostlers cheered, and away they went, fast and furious. "Pretty situation," thought Mr. Pickwick, when he had had a moment's time for reflection. "Pretty situation for the General Chairman of the Pickwick Club. Damp chaise--strange horses--fifteen miles an hour--and twelve o'clock at night!" For the first three or four miles not a word was spoken by either of the gentlemen, each being too much immersed in his own reflections to address any observations to his companion. When they had gone over that much ground, however, and the horses getting thoroughly warmed began to do their work in really good style, Mr. Pickwick became too much exhilarated with the rapidity of the motion, to remain any longer perfectly mute. "We're sure to catch them, I think," said he. "Hope so," replied his companion. "Fine night," said Mr. Pickwick, looking up at the moon, which was shining brightly. "So much the worse," returned Wardle; "for they'll have had all the advantage of the moonlight to get the start of us, and we shall lose it. It will have gone down in another hour." "It will be rather unpleasant going at this rate in the dark, won't it?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "I daresay it will," replied his friend, drily. Mr. Pickwick's temporary excitement began to sober down a little, as he reflected upon the inconveniences and dangers of the expedition in which he had so thoughtlessly embarked. He was roused by a loud shouting of the post-boy on the leader. "Yo--yo--yo--yo--yoe!" went the first boy. "Yo--yo--yo--yoe!" went the second. "Yo--yo--yo--yoe!" chimed in old Wardle himself, most lustily, with his head and half his body out of the coach window. "Yo--yo--yo--yoe!" shouted Mr. Pickwick, taking up the burden of the cry, though he had not the slightest notion of its meaning or object. And amidst the yo--yoing of the whole four, the chaise stopped. "What's the matter?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "There's a gate here," replied old Wardle. "We shall hear something of the fugitives." After a lapse of five minutes, consumed in incessant knocking and shouting, an old man in his shirt and trousers emerged from the turnpike-house, and opened the gate. "How long is it since a post-chaise went through here?" inquired Mr. Wardle. "How long?" "Ah!" "Why, I don't rightly know. It worn't a long time ago, nor it worn't a short time ago--just between the two, perhaps." "Has any chaise been by at all?" "Oh yes, there's been a shay by." "How long ago, my friend," interposed Mr. Pickwick, "an hour?" "Ah, I daresay it might be," replied the man. "Or two hours?" inquired the post-boy on the wheeler. "Well, I shouldn't wonder if it was," returned the old man, doubtfully. "Drive on, boys," cried the testy old gentleman: "don't waste any more time with that old idiot!" "Idiot!" exclaimed the old man with a grin, as he stood in the middle of the road with the gate half-closed, watching the chaise which rapidly diminished in the increasing distance. "No--not much o' that either; you've lost ten minutes here, and gone away as wise as you came, arter all. If every man on the line as has a guinea give him, earns it half as well, you won't catch t'other shay this side Mich'lmas, old short-and-fat." And with another prolonged grin, the old man closed the gate, re-entered his house, and bolted the door after him. Meanwhile the chaise proceeded, without any slackening of pace, towards the conclusion of the stage. The moon, as Wardle had foretold, was rapidly on the wane; large tiers of dark heavy clouds, which had been gradually overspreading the sky for some time past, now formed one black mass over head; and large drops of rain which pattered every now and then against the windows of the chaise, seemed to warn the travellers of the rapid approach of a stormy night. The wind, too, which was directly against them, swept in furious gusts down the narrow road, and howled dismally through the trees which skirted the pathway. Mr. Pickwick drew his coat closer about him, coiled himself more snugly up into the corner of the chaise, and fell into a sound sleep, from which he was only awakened by the stopping of the vehicle, the sound of the hostler's bell, and a loud cry of "Horses on directly!" But here another delay occurred. The boys were sleeping with such mysterious soundness, that it took five minutes apiece to wake them. The hostler had somehow or other mislaid the key of the stable, and even when that was found, two sleepy helpers put the wrong harness on the wrong horses, and the whole process of harnessing had to be gone through afresh. Had Mr. Pickwick been alone, these multiplied obstacles would have completely put an end to the pursuit at once, but old Wardle was not to be so easily daunted; and he laid about him with such hearty good-will, cuffing this man, and pushing that; strapping a buckle here, and taking in a link there, that the chaise was ready in a much shorter time than could reasonably have been expected under so many difficulties. They resumed their journey; and certainly the prospect before them was by no means encouraging. The stage was fifteen miles long, the night was dark, the wind high, and the rain pouring in torrents. It was impossible to make any great way against such obstacles united; it was hard upon one o'clock already; and nearly two hours were consumed in getting to the end of the stage. Here, however, an object presented itself, which rekindled their hopes, and reanimated their drooping spirits. "When did this chaise come in?" cried old Wardle, leaping out of his own vehicle, and pointing to one covered with wet mud, which was standing in the yard. "Not a quarter of an hour ago, sir," replied the hostler, to whom the question was addressed. "Lady and gentleman?" inquired Wardle, almost breathless with impatience. "Yes, sir." "Tall gentleman--dress coat--long legs--thin body?" "Yes, sir." "Elderly lady--thin face--rather skinny--eh?" "Yes, sir." "By heavens! it's the couple, Pickwick," exclaimed the old gentleman. "Would have been here before," said the hostler, "but they broke a trace." "It is!" said Wardle, "it is, by Jove! Chaise and four instantly! We shall catch them yet, before they reach the next stage. A guinea a-piece, boys--be alive there--bustle about--there's good fellows." And with such admonitions as these, the old gentleman ran up and down the yard, and bustled to and fro, in a state of excitement which communicated itself to Mr. Pickwick also; and under the influence of which, that gentleman got himself into complicated entanglements with harness, and mixed up with horses and wheels of chaises, in the most surprising manner, firmly believing that by so doing he was materially forwarding the preparations for their resuming their journey. "Jump in--jump in!" cried old Wardle, climbing into the chaise, pulling up the steps, and slamming the door after him. "Come along! Make haste!" And before Mr. Pickwick knew precisely what he was about, he felt himself forced in at the other door, by one pull from the old gentleman, and one push from the hostler; and off they were again. "Ah! we _are_ moving now," said the old gentleman exultingly. They were indeed, as was sufficiently testified to Mr. Pickwick, by his constant collisions either with the hard woodwork of the chaise, or the body of his companion. "Hold up!" said the stout old Mr. Wardle, as Mr. Pickwick dived head foremost into his capacious waistcoat. "I never did feel such a jolting in my life," said Mr. Pickwick. "Never mind," replied his companion, "it will soon be over. Steady, steady." Mr. Pickwick planted himself into his own corner, as firmly as he could; and on whirled the chaise faster than ever. They had travelled in this way about three miles, when Mr. Wardle, who had been looking out of the window for two or three minutes, suddenly drew in his face, covered with splashes, and exclaimed in breathless eagerness-- "Here they are!" Mr. Pickwick thrust his head out of his window. Yes: there was a chaise and four, a short distance before them, dashing along at full gallop. "Go on, go on," almost shrieked the old gentleman. "Two guineas a-piece, boys--don't let 'em gain on us--keep it up--keep it up." The horses in the first chaise started on at their utmost speed; and those in Mr. Wardle's galloped furiously behind them. "I see his head," exclaimed the choleric old man, "damme, I see his head." "So do I," said Mr. Pickwick, "that's he." Mr. Pickwick was not mistaken. The countenance of Mr. Jingle, completely coated with the mud thrown up by the wheels, was plainly discernible at the window of his chaise; and the motion of his arm, which he was waving violently towards the postilions, denoted that he was encouraging them to increased exertion. The interest was intense. Fields, trees, and hedges seemed to rush past them with the velocity of a whirlwind, so rapid was the pace at which they tore along. They were close by the side of the first chaise. Jingle's voice could be plainly heard, even above the din of the wheels, urging on the boys. Old Mr. Wardle foamed with rage and excitement. He roared out scoundrels and villains by the dozen, clenched his fist and shook it expressively at the object of his indignation; but Mr. Jingle only answered with a contemptuous smile, and replied to his menaces by a shout of triumph, as his horses, answering the increased application of whip and spur, broke into a faster gallop, and left the pursuers behind. Mr. Pickwick had just drawn in his head, and Mr. Wardle, exhausted with shouting, had done the same, when a tremendous jolt threw them forward against the front of the vehicle. There was a sudden bump--a loud crash--away rolled a wheel, and over went the chaise. After a few seconds of bewilderment and confusion, in which nothing but the plunging of horses, and breaking of glass, could be made out, Mr. Pickwick felt himself violently pulled out from among the ruins of the chaise; and as soon as he had gained his feet, extricated his head from the skirts of his great-coat, which materially impeded the usefulness of his spectacles, the full disaster of the case met his view. Old Mr. Wardle without a hat, and his clothes torn in several places, stood by his side, and the fragments of the chaise lay scattered at their feet. The post-boys, who had succeeded in cutting the traces, were standing, disfigured with mud and disordered by hard riding, by the horses' heads. About a hundred yards in advance was the other chaise, which had pulled up on hearing the crash. The postilions, each with a broad grin convulsing his countenance, were viewing the adverse party from their saddles, and Mr. Jingle was contemplating the wreck from the coach-window with evident satisfaction. The day was just breaking, and the whole scene was rendered perfectly visible by the grey light of the morning. "Hallo!" shouted the shameless Jingle, "anybody damaged?--elderly gentlemen--no light weights--dangerous work--very." [Illustration: _"Love to Tuppy--won't you get up behind?--drive on, boys," replied Jingle._] "You're a rascal!" roared Wardle. "Ha! ha!" replied Jingle; and then he added, with a knowing wink, and a jerk of the thumb towards the interior of the chaise--"I say--she's very well--desires her compliments--begs you won't trouble yourself--love to _Tuppy_--won't you get up behind?--drive on, boys." The postilions resumed their proper attitudes, and away rattled the chaise, Mr. Jingle fluttering in derision a white handkerchief from the coach-window. Nothing in the whole adventure, not even the upset, had disturbed the calm and equable current of Mr. Pickwick's temper. The villainy, however, which could first borrow money of his faithful follower, and then abbreviate his name to "Tuppy," was more than he could patiently bear. He drew his breath hard, and coloured up to the very tips of his spectacles, as he said, slowly and emphatically-- "If ever I meet that man again, I'll----" "Yes, yes," interrupted Wardle, "that's all very well: but while we stand talking here, they'll get their licence, and be married in London." Mr. Pickwick paused, bottled up his vengeance, and corked it down. "How far is it to the next stage?" inquired Mr. Wardle of one of the boys. "Six mile, an't it, Tom?" "Rayther better." "Rayther better nor six mile, sir." "Can't be helped," said Wardle, "we must walk it, Pickwick." "No help for it," replied that truly great man. So sending forward one of the boys on horseback to procure a fresh chaise and horses, and leaving the other behind to take care of the broken one, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Wardle set manfully forward on the walk, first tying their shawls round their necks, and slouching down their hats to escape as much as possible from the deluge of rain, which after a slight cessation had again begun to pour heavily down. CHAPTER X [Illustration] _Clearing up all Doubts (if any existed) of the Disinterestedness of Mr. Jingle's Character_ There are in London several old inns, once the headquarters of celebrated coaches in the days when coaches performed their journeys in a graver and more solemn manner than they do in these times; but which have now degenerated into little more than the abiding and booking places of country waggons. The reader would look in vain for any of these ancient hostelries, among the Golden Crosses and Bull and Mouths, which rear their stately fronts in the improved streets of London. If he would light upon any of these old places, he must direct his steps to the obscurer quarters of the town; and there in some secluded nooks he will find several, still standing with a kind of gloomy sturdiness, amidst the modern innovations which surround them. In the Borough especially, there still remain some half-dozen old inns, which have preserved their external features unchanged, and which have escaped alike the rage for public improvement, and the encroachments of private speculation. Great, rambling, queer old places they are, with galleries, and passages, and staircases wide enough and antiquated enough to furnish materials for a hundred ghost stories, supposing we should ever be reduced to the lamentable necessity of inventing any, and that the world should exist long enough to exhaust the innumerable veracious legends connected with old London Bridge, and its adjacent neighbourhood on the Surrey side. It was in the yard of one of these inns--of no less celebrated a one than the White Hart--that a man was busily employed in brushing the dirt off a pair of boots, early on the morning succeeding the events narrated in the last chapter. He was habited in a coarse-striped waistcoat, with black calico sleeves, and blue glass buttons; drab breeches and leggings. A bright red handkerchief was wound in a very loose and unstudied style round his neck, and an old white hat was carelessly thrown on one side of his head. There were two rows of boots before him, one cleaned and the other dirty, and at every addition he made to the clean row, he paused from his work and contemplated its results with evident satisfaction. The yard presented none of that bustle and activity which are the usual characteristics of a large coach inn. Three or four lumbering waggons, each with a pile of goods beneath its ample canopy, about the height of the second-floor window of an ordinary house, were stowed away beneath a lofty roof which extended over one end of the yard; and another, which was probably to commence its journey that morning, was drawn out into the open space. A double tier of bed-room galleries, with old clumsy balustrades, ran round two sides of the straggling area, and a double row of bells to correspond, sheltered from the weather by a little sloping roof, hung over the door leading to the bar and coffee-room. Two or three gigs and chaise-carts were wheeled up under different little sheds and pent-houses; and the occasional heavy tread of a cart-horse, or rattling of a chain at the further end of the yard, announced to anybody who cared about the matter, that the stable lay in that direction. When we add that a few boys in smock frocks were lying asleep on heavy packages, woolpacks, and other articles that were scattered about on heaps of straw, we have described as fully as need be the general appearance of the yard of the White Hart Inn, High Street, Borough, on the particular morning in question. A loud ringing of one of the bells, was followed by the appearance of a smart chambermaid in the upper sleeping gallery, who, after tapping at one of the doors, and receiving a request from within, called over the balustrades-- "Sam!" "Hallo," replied the man with the white hat. "Number twenty-two wants his boots." "Ask number twenty-two, vether he'll have 'em now, or wait till he gets 'em," was the reply. "Come, don't be a fool, Sam," said the girl, coaxingly, "the gentleman wants his boots directly." "Well, you _are_ a nice young 'ooman for a musical party, you are," said the boot-cleaner. "Look at these here boots--eleven pair o' boots; and one shoe as b'longs to number six, with the wooden leg. The eleven boots is to be called at half-past eight and the shoe at nine. Who's number twenty-two, that's to put all the others out? No, no; reg'lar rotation, as Jack Ketch said, ven he tied the men up. Sorry to keep you a waitin', sir, but I'll attend to you directly." Saying which, the man in the white hat set to work upon a top-boot with increased assiduity. There was another loud ring; and the bustling old landlady of the White Hart made her appearance in the opposite gallery. "Sam," cried the landlady--"where's that lazy, idle--why, Sam--oh, there you are; why don't you answer?" "Wouldn't be gen-teel to answer, 'till you'd done talking," replied Sam, gruffly. "Here, clean them shoes for number seventeen directly, and take 'em to private sitting-room, number five, first floor." The landlady flung a pair of lady's shoes into the yard, and bustled away. "Number five," said Sam, as he picked up the shoes, and taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, made a memorandum of their destination on the soles--"Lady's shoes and private sittin' room. I suppose _she_ didn't come in the vaggin." "She came in early this morning," cried the girl, who was still leaning over the railing of the gallery, "with a gentleman in a hackney coach, and it's him as wants his boots, and you'd better do 'em, that's all about it." "Vy didn't you say so before," said Sam, with great indignation, singling out the boots in question from the heap before him. "For all I know'd he vas one o' the regular threepennies. Private room! and a lady too! If he's anything of a gen'lm'n, he's vorth a shillin' a day, let alone the arrands." Stimulated by this inspiring reflection, Mr. Samuel brushed away with such hearty good will, that in a few minutes the boots and shoes, with a polish which would have struck envy to the soul of the amiable Mr. Warren (for they used Day and Martin at the White Hart), had arrived at the door of number five. "Come in," said a man's voice, in reply to Sam's rap at the door. Sam made his best bow, and stepped into the presence of a lady and gentleman seated at breakfast. Having officiously deposited the gentleman's boots right and left at his feet, and the lady's shoes right and left at hers, he backed towards the door. "Boots," said the gentleman. "Sir," said Sam, closing the door, and keeping his hand on the knob of the lock. "Do you know--what's-a-name--Doctors' Commons?" "Yes, sir." "Where is it?" "Paul's Churchyard, sir; low archway on the carriage-side, bookseller's at one corner, hot-el on the other, and two porters in the middle as touts for licences." "Touts for licences!" said the gentleman. "Touts for licences," replied Sam. "Two coves in vhite aprons--touches their hats ven you walk in--'Licence, sir, licence?' Queer sort, them, and their mas'rs too, sir--Old Bailey Proctors--and no mistake." "What do they do?" inquired the gentleman. "Do! _You_, sir! That an't the wost on it, neither. They puts things into old gen'lm'n's heads as they never dreamed of. My father, sir, vos a coachman. A widower he vos, and fat enough for anything--uncommon fat, to be sure. His missis dies and leaves him four hundred pound. Down he goes to the Commons, to see the lawyer and draw the blunt--very smart--top-boots on--nosegay in his button-hole--broad-brimmed tile--green shawl--quite the gen'lm'n. Goes through the archvay, thinking how he should inwest the money--up comes the touter, touches his hat--'Licence, sir, licence?'--'What's that?' says my father.--'Licence, sir,' says he.--'What licence?' says my father.--'Marriage licence,' says the touter.--'Dash my veskit,' says my father, 'I never thought o' that.'--'I think you wants one, sir?' says the touter. My father pulls up, and thinks a bit--'No,' says he, 'damme, I'm too old, b'sides I'm a many sizes too large,' says he.--'Not a bit on it, sir,' says the touter.--'Think not?' says my father.--'I'm sure not,' says he; 'we married a gen'lm'n twice your size, last Monday.'--'Did you, though?' said my father.--'To be sure we did,' says the touter, 'you're a babby to him--this vay, sir--this vay!'--and sure enough my father walks arter him, like a tame monkey behind a horgan, into a little back office, vere a feller sat among dirty papers and tin boxes, making believe he was busy. 'Pray take a seat, vile I makes out the affidavit, sir,' says the lawyer.--'Thankee, sir,' says my father, and down he sat, and stared with all his eyes, and his mouth vide open, at the names on the boxes. 'What's your name, sir?' says the lawyer.--'Tony Weller,' says my father.--'Parish?' says the lawyer.--'Belle Savage,' says my father; for he stopped there wen he drove up, and he know'd nothing about parishes, _he_ didn't.--'And what's the lady's name?' says the lawyer. My father was struck all of a heap. 'Blessed if I know,' says he.--'Not know!' says the lawyer.--'No more nor you do,' says my father; 'can't I put that in arterwards?'--'Impossible!' says the lawyer.--'Wery well,' says my father, after he'd thought a moment, 'put down Mrs. Clarke.'--'What Clarke?' says the lawyer, dipping his pen in the ink.--'Susan Clarke, Markis o' Granby, Dorking,' says my father; 'she'll have me, if I ask, I des-say--I never said nothing to her, but she'll have me, I know.' The licence was made out, and she _did_ have him, and what's more she's got him now; and _I_ never had any of the four hundred pound, worse luck. Beg your pardon, sir," said Sam, when he had concluded, "but wen I gets on this here grievance, I runs on like a new barrow vith the vheel greased." Having said which, and having paused for an instant to see whether he was wanted for anything more, Sam left the room. "Half-past nine--just the time--off at once;" said the gentleman, whom we need hardly introduce as Mr. Jingle. "Time--for what?" said the spinster aunt, coquettishly. "Licence, dearest of angels--give notice at the church--call you mine, to-morrow"--said Mr. Jingle, and he squeezed the spinster aunt's hand. "The licence!" said Rachael, blushing. "The licence," repeated Mr. Jingle-- "'In hurry, post-haste for a licence, In hurry, ding dong I come back.'" "How you run on," said Rachael. "Run on--nothing to the hours, days, weeks, months, years, when we're united--_run_ on--they'll fly on--bolt--mizzle--steam-engine--thousand-horse power--nothing to it." "Can't--can't we be married before to-morrow morning?" inquired Rachael. "Impossible--can't be--notice at the church--leave the licence to-day--ceremony come off to-morrow." "I am so terrified, lest my brother should discover us!" said Rachael. "Discover--nonsense--too much shaken by the break down--besides--extreme caution--gave up the post-chaise--walked on--took a hackney coach--came to the Borough--last place in the world that he'd look in--ha! ha! capital notion that--very." "Don't be long," said the spinster, affectionately, as Mr. Jingle stuck the pinched-up hat on his head. "Long away from _you_?--Cruel charmer," and Mr. Jingle skipped playfully up to the spinster aunt, imprinted a chaste kiss upon her lips, and danced out of the room. "Dear man!" said the spinster as the door closed after him. "Rum old girl," said Mr. Jingle, as he walked down the passage. It is painful to reflect upon the perfidy of our species; and we will not, therefore, pursue the thread of Mr. Jingle's meditations, as he wended his way to Doctors' Commons. It will be sufficient for our purpose to relate, that escaping the snares of the dragons in white aprons, who guard the entrance to that enchanted region, he reached the Vicar-General's office in safety, and having procured a highly flattering address on parchment, from the Archbishop of Canterbury, to his "trusty and well-beloved Alfred Jingle and Rachael Wardle, greeting," he carefully deposited the mystic document in his pocket, and retraced his steps in triumph to the Borough. He was yet on his way to the White Hart, when two plump gentlemen and one thin one entered the yard, and looked round in search of some authorised person of whom they could make a few inquiries. Mr. Samuel Weller happened to be at that moment engaged in burnishing a pair of painted tops, the personal property of a farmer who was refreshing himself with a slight lunch of two or three pounds of cold beef and a pot or two of porter, after the fatigues of the Borough market; and to him the thin gentleman straightway advanced. "My friend," said the thin gentleman. "You're one o' the adwice gratis order," thought Sam, "or you wouldn't be so werry fond o' me all at once." But he only said--"Well, sir?" "My friend," said the thin gentleman, with a conciliatory hem--"Have you got many people stopping here, now? Pretty busy, eh?" Sam stole a look at the inquirer. He was a little high-dried man, with a dark squeezed-up face, and small restless black eyes, that kept winking and twinkling on each side of his little inquisitive nose, as if they were playing a perpetual game of peep-bo with that feature. He was dressed all in black, with boots as shiny as his eyes, a low white neckcloth, and a clean shirt with a frill to it. A gold watch-chain, and seals, depended from his fob. He carried his black kid gloves _in_ his hands, not _on_ them; and as he spoke, thrust his wrists beneath his coat-tails, with the air of a man who was in the habit of propounding some regular posers. "Pretty busy, eh?" said the little man. [Illustration: _Sam at The White Hart._] "Oh, werry well, sir," replied Sam, "we shan't be bankrupts, and we shan't make our fort'ns. We eats our biled mutton without capers, and don't care for horse-radish ven ve can get beef." "Ah," said the little man, "you're a wag, an't you?" "My eldest brother was troubled with that complaint," said Sam; "it may be catching--I used to sleep with him." "This is a curious old house of yours," said the little man, looking around him. "If you'd sent word you was coming, we'd ha' had it repaired," replied the imperturbable Sam. The little man seemed rather baffled by these several repulses, and a short consultation took place between him and the two plump gentlemen. At its conclusion, the little man took a pinch of snuff from an oblong silver box, and was apparently on the point of renewing the conversation, when one of the plump gentlemen, who in addition to a benevolent countenance, possessed a pair of spectacles, and a pair of black gaiters, interfered-- "The fact of the matter is," said the benevolent gentleman, "that my friend here (pointing to the other plump gentleman) will give you half a guinea, if you'll answer one or two----" "Now, my dear sir--my dear sir," said the little man, "pray, allow me--my dear sir, the very first principle to be observed in these cases, is this: if you place a matter in the hands of a professional man, you must in no way interfere in the progress of the business; you must repose implicit confidence in him. Really, Mr. (he turned to the other plump gentleman, and said)--I forget your friend's name." "Pickwick," said Mr. Wardle, for it was no other than that jolly personage. "Ah, Pickwick--really, Mr. Pickwick, my dear sir, excuse me--I shall be happy to receive any private suggestions of yours, as _amicus curiæ_, but you must see the impropriety of your interfering with my conduct in this case, with such an _ad captandum_ argument as the offer of half a guinea. Really, my dear sir, really;" and the little man took an argumentative pinch of snuff, and looked very profound. "My only wish, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, "was to bring this very unpleasant matter to as speedy a close as possible." "Quite right--quite right," said the little man. "With which view," continued Mr. Pickwick, "I made use of the argument which my experience of men has taught me is the most likely to succeed in any case." "Ay, ay," said the little man, "very good, very good, indeed; but you should have suggested it to _me_. My dear sir, I'm quite certain you cannot be ignorant of the extent of confidence which must be placed in professional men. If any authority can be necessary on such a point, my dear sir, let me refer you to the well-known case in Barnwell and----" "Never mind George Barnwell," interrupted Sam, who had remained a wondering listener during this short colloquy: "everybody knows vhat sort of a case his was, tho' it's always been my opinion, mind you, that the young 'ooman deserved scragging a precious sight more than he did. Hows'ever, that's neither here nor there. You want me to except of half a guinea. Werry well, I'm agreeable: I can't say no fairer than that, can I, sir? (Mr. Pickwick smiled.) Then the next question is, what the devil do you want with me, as the man said ven he see the ghost?" "We want to know--" said Mr. Wardle. "Now, my dear sir--my dear sir," interposed the busy little man. Mr. Wardle shrugged his shoulders and was silent. "We want to know," said the little man, solemnly; "and we ask the question of you, in order that we may not awaken apprehensions inside--we want to know who you've got in this house, at present?" "Who there is in the house!" said Sam, in whose mind the inmates were always represented by that particular article of their costume which came under his immediate superintendence. "There's a vooden leg in number six; there's a pair of Hessians in thirteen; there's two pair of halves in the commercial; there's these here painted tops in the snuggery inside the bar; and five more tops in the coffee-room." "Nothing more?" said the little man. "Stop a bit," replied Sam, suddenly recollecting himself. "Yes; there's a pair of Vellingtons a good deal worn, and a pair o' lady's shoes, in number five." "What sort of shoes?" hastily inquired Wardle, who, together with Mr. Pickwick, had been lost in bewilderment at the singular catalogue of visitors. "Country make," replied Sam. "Any maker's name?" "Brown." "Where of?" "Muggleton." "It _is_ them!" exclaimed Wardle. "By heavens, we've found them!" "Hush!" said Sam. "The Vellingtons has gone to Doctors' Commons." "No?" said the little man. "Yes, for a licence." "We're in time," exclaimed Wardle. "Show us the room; not a moment is to be lost." "Pray, my dear sir--pray," said the little man; "caution, caution." He drew from his pocket a red silk purse, and looked very hard at Sam as he drew out a sovereign. Sam grinned expressively. "Show us into the room at once, without announcing us," said the little man, "and it's yours." Sam threw the painted tops into a corner, and led the way through a dark passage, and up a wide staircase. He paused at the end of a second passage, and held out his hand. "Here it is," whispered the attorney, as he deposited the money in the hand of their guide. The man stepped forward for a few paces, followed by the two friends and their legal adviser. He stopped at a door. "Is this the room?" murmured the little gentleman. Sam nodded assent. Old Wardle opened the door; and the whole three walked into the room just as Mr. Jingle, who had that moment returned, had produced the licence to the spinster aunt. The spinster uttered a loud shriek, and, throwing herself in a chair, covered her face with her hands. Mr. Jingle crumpled up the licence, and thrust it into his coat-pocket. The unwelcome visitors advanced into the middle of the room. "You--you are a nice rascal, aren't you?" exclaimed Wardle, breathless with passion. "My dear sir, my dear sir," said the little man, laying his hat on the table. "Pray, consider--pray. Defamation of character: action for damages. Calm yourself, my dear sir, pray----" "How dare you drag my sister from my house?" said the old man. "Ay--ay--very good," said the little gentleman, "you may ask that. How dare you, sir?--eh, sir?" "Who the devil are you?" inquired Mr. Jingle, in so fierce a tone, that the little gentleman involuntarily fell back a step or two. "Who is he, you scoundrel?" interposed Wardle. "He's my lawyer, Mr. Perker, of Gray's Inn. Perker, I'll have this fellow prosecuted--indicted--I'll--I'll--I'll ruin him. And you," continued Mr. Wardle, turning abruptly round to his sister, "you, Rachael, at a time of life when you ought to know better, what do _you_ mean by running away with a vagabond, disgracing your family, and making yourself miserable? Get on your bonnet, and come back. Call a hackney-coach there, directly, and bring this lady's bill, d'ye hear--d'ye hear?" "Cert'nly, sir," replied Sam, who had answered Wardle's violent ringing of the bell with a degree of celerity which must have appeared marvellous to anybody who didn't know that his eye had been applied to the outside of the keyhole during the whole interview. [Illustration] "Get on your bonnet," repeated Wardle. "Do nothing of the kind," said Jingle. "Leave the room, sir--no business here--lady's free to act as she pleases--more than one-and-twenty." "More than one-and-twenty!" ejaculated Wardle, contemptuously. "More than one-and-forty!" "I an't," said the spinster aunt, her indignation getting the better of her determination to faint. "You are," replied Wardle, "you're fifty if you're an hour." Here the spinster aunt uttered a loud shriek, and became senseless. "A _glass_ of water," said the humane Mr. Pickwick, summoning the landlady. "A glass of water!" said the passionate Wardle. "Bring a bucket and throw it over her; it'll do her good, and she richly deserves it." "Ugh, you brute!" ejaculated the kind-hearted landlady. "Poor dear." And with sundry ejaculations, of "Come now, there's a dear--drink a little of this--it'll do you good--don't give way so--there's a love," &c. &c., the landlady, assisted by a chambermaid, proceeded to vinegar the forehead, beat the hands, titillate the nose, and unlace the stays of the spinster aunt, and to administer such other restoratives as are usually applied by compassionate females to ladies who are endeavouring to ferment themselves into hysterics. "Coach is ready, sir," said Sam, appearing at the door. "Come along," cried Wardle. "I'll carry her downstairs." At this proposition, the hysterics came on with redoubled violence. The landlady was about to enter a very violent protest against this proceeding, and had already given vent to an indignant inquiry whether Mr. Wardle considered himself a lord of the creation, when Mr. Jingle interposed-- "Boots," said he, "get me an officer." "Stay, stay," said little Mr. Perker. "Consider, sir, consider." "I'll _not_ consider," replied Jingle. "She's her own mistress--see who dares to take her away--unless she wishes it." "I _won't_ be taken away," murmured the spinster aunt. "I _don't_ wish it." (Here there was a frightful relapse.) "My dear sir," said the little man, in a low tone, taking Mr. Wardle and Mr. Pickwick apart: "My dear sir, we're in a very awkward situation. It's a distressing case--very; I never knew one more so; but really, my dear sir, really we have no power to control this lady's actions. I warned you before we came, my dear sir, that there was nothing to look to but a compromise." There was a short pause. "What kind of compromise would you recommend?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Why, my dear sir, our friend's in an unpleasant position--very much so. We must be content to suffer some pecuniary loss." "I'll suffer any, rather than submit to this disgrace, and let her, fool as she is, be made miserable for life," said Wardle. "I rather think it can be done," said the bustling little man. "Mr. Jingle, will you step with us into the next room for a moment?" Mr. Jingle assented, and the quartette walked into an empty apartment. "Now, sir," said the little man, as he carefully closed the door, "is there no way of accommodating this matter?--step this way, sir, for a moment--into this window, sir, where we can be alone--there sir, there, pray sit down, sir. Now, my dear sir, between you and I, we know very well, my dear sir, that you have run off with this lady for the sake of her money. Don't frown, sir, don't frown; I say, between you and I, _we_ know it. We are both men of the world, and _we_ know very well that our friends here, are not--eh?" Mr. Jingle's face gradually relaxed; and something distantly resembling a wink quivered for an instant in his left eye. "Very good, very good," said the little man, observing the impression he had made. "Now, the fact is, that beyond a few hundreds, the lady has little or nothing till the death of her mother--fine old lady, my dear sir." "_Old_," said Mr. Jingle, briefly but emphatically. "Why, yes," said the attorney, with a slight cough. "You are right, my dear sir, she is _rather_ old. She comes of an old family though, my dear sir; old in every sense of the word. The founder of that family came into Kent, when Julius Cæsar invaded Britain;--only one member of it, since, who hasn't lived to eighty-five, and _he_ was beheaded by one of the Henrys. The old lady is not seventy-three now, my dear sir." The little man paused, and took a pinch of snuff. "Well?" cried Mr. Jingle. "Well, my dear sir--you don't take snuff?--ah! so much the better--expensive habit--well, my dear sir, you're a fine young man, man of the world--able to push your fortune, if you had capital, eh?" "Well?" said Mr. Jingle again. "Do you comprehend me?" "Not quite." "Don't you think--now, my dear sir, I put it to you, _don't_ you think--that fifty pounds and liberty, would be better than Miss Wardle and expectation?" "Won't do--not half enough!" said Mr. Jingle, rising. "Nay, nay, my dear sir," remonstrated the little attorney, seizing him by the button. "Good round sum--a man like you could treble it in no time--great deal to be done with fifty pounds, my dear sir." "More to be done with a hundred and fifty," replied Mr. Jingle, coolly. "Well, my dear sir, we won't waste time in splitting straws," resumed the little man, "say--say--seventy." "Won't do," said Mr. Jingle. "Don't go away, my dear sir--pray don't hurry," said the little man. "Eighty; come: I'll write you a cheque at once." "Won't do," said Mr. Jingle. "Well, my dear sir, well," said the little man, still detaining him; "just tell me what _will_ do." "Expensive affair," said Mr. Jingle. "Money out of pocket--posting, nine pounds; licence, three--that's twelve--compensation, a hundred--hundred and twelve--Breach of honour--and loss of the lady----" "Yes, my dear sir, yes," said the little man, with a knowing look, "never mind the last two items. That's a hundred and twelve--say a hundred--come." "And twenty," said Mr. Jingle. "Come, come, I'll write you a cheque," said the little man; and down he sat at the table for that purpose. "I'll make it payable the day after to-morrow," said the little man, with a look towards Mr. Wardle, "and we can get the lady away, meanwhile." Mr. Wardle sullenly nodded assent. "A hundred," said the little man. "And twenty," said Mr. Jingle. "My dear sir," remonstrated the little man. "Give it him," interposed Mr. Wardle, "and let him go." The cheque was written by the little gentleman, and pocketed by Mr. Jingle. "Now, leave this house instantly!" said Wardle, starting up. "My dear sir," urged the little man. "And mind," said Mr. Wardle, "that nothing should have induced me to make this compromise--not even a regard for my family--if I had not known that the moment you got any money in that pocket of yours, you'd go to the devil faster, if possible, than you would without it----" "My dear sir," urged the little man again. "Be quiet, Perker," resumed Wardle. "Leave the room, sir." "Off directly," said the unabashed Jingle. "Bye-bye, Pickwick." If any dispassionate spectator could have beheld the countenance of the illustrious man, whose name forms the leading feature of the title of this work, during the latter part of this conversation, he would have been almost induced to wonder that the indignant fire which flashed from his eyes, did not melt the glasses of his spectacles--so majestic was his wrath. His nostrils dilated, and his fists clenched involuntarily, as he heard himself addressed by the villain. But he restrained himself again--he did _not_ pulverise him. "Here," continued the hardened traitor, tossing the licence at Mr. Pickwick's feet; "get the name altered--take home the lady--do for Tuppy." Mr. Pickwick was a philosopher, but philosophers are only men in armour, after all. The shaft had reached him, penetrated through his philosophical harness, to his very heart. In the frenzy of his rage, he hurled the inkstand madly forward, and followed it up himself. But Mr. Jingle had disappeared, and he found himself caught in the arms of Sam. "Hallo," said that eccentric functionary, "furniter's cheap vere you come from, sir. Self-acting ink, that 'ere; it's wrote your mark upon the wall, old gen'lm'n. Hold still, sir: wot's the use o' runnin' arter a man as has made his lucky, and got to t'other end of the Borough by this time?" Mr. Pickwick's mind, like those of all truly great men, was open to conviction. He was a quick and powerful reasoner; and a moment's reflection sufficed to remind him of the impotency of his rage. It subsided as quickly as it had been roused. He panted for breath, and looked benignantly round upon his friends. Shall we tell the lamentations that ensued, when Miss Wardle found herself deserted by the faithless Jingle? Shall we extract Mr. Pickwick's masterly description of that heart-rending scene? His note-book, blotted with the tears of sympathising humanity, lies open before us; one word, and it is in the printer's hands. But, no! we will be resolute! We will not wring the public bosom with the delineation of such suffering! Slowly and sadly did the two friends and the deserted lady return next day in the Muggleton heavy coach. Dimly and darkly had the sombre shadows of a summer's night fallen upon all around, when they again reached Dingley Dell, and stood within the entrance to Manor Farm. CHAPTER XI [Illustration] _Involving another Journey and an Antiquarian Discovery. Recording Mr. Pickwick's determination to be present at an Election; and containing a Manuscript of the old Clergyman's._ A night of quiet and repose in the profound silence of Dingley Dell, and an hour's breathing of its fresh and fragrant air on the ensuing morning, completely recovered Mr. Pickwick from the effects of his late fatigue of body and anxiety of mind. That illustrious man had been separated from his friends and followers, for two whole days; and it was with a degree of pleasure and delight, which no common imagination can adequately conceive, that he stepped forward to greet Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass, as he encountered those gentlemen on his return from his early walk. The pleasure was mutual; for who could ever gaze on Mr. Pickwick's beaming face without experiencing the sensation? But still a cloud seemed to hang over his companions which that great man could not but be sensible of, and was wholly at a loss to account for. There was a mysterious air about them both, as unusual as it was alarming. "And how," said Mr. Pickwick, when he had grasped his followers by the hand, and exchanged warm salutations of welcome; "how is Tupman?" Mr. Winkle, to whom the question was more peculiarly addressed, made no reply. He turned away his head, and appeared absorbed in melancholy reflection. "Snodgrass," said Mr. Pickwick earnestly, "how is our friend--he is not ill?" "No," replied Mr. Snodgrass; and a tear trembled on his sentimental eyelid, like a rain-drop on a window-frame. "No; he is not ill." Mr. Pickwick stopped, and gazed on each of his friends in turn. "Winkle--Snodgrass," said Mr. Pickwick: "what does this mean? Where is our friend? What has happened? Speak--I conjure, I entreat--nay, I command you, speak." There was a solemnity--a dignity--in Mr. Pickwick's manner, not to be withstood. "He is gone," said Mr. Snodgrass. "Gone!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. "Gone!" "Gone," repeated Mr. Snodgrass. "Where?" ejaculated Mr. Pickwick. "We can only guess, from that communication," replied Mr. Snodgrass, taking a letter from his pocket, and placing it in his friend's hand. "Yesterday morning, when a letter was received from Mr. Wardle, stating that you would be home with his sister at night, the melancholy, which had hung over our friend during the whole of the previous day, was observed to increase. He shortly afterwards disappeared: he was missing during the whole day, and in the evening this letter was brought by the hostler from the Crown, at Muggleton. It had been left in his charge in the morning, with a strict injunction that it should not be delivered until night." Mr. Pickwick opened the epistle. It was in his friend's hand-writing, and these were its contents:-- "+My dear Pickwick+,--You, my dear friend, are placed far beyond the reach of many mortal frailties and weaknesses which ordinary people cannot overcome. You do not know what it is, at one blow, to be deserted by a lovely and fascinating creature, and to fall a victim to the artifices of a villain, who hid the grin of cunning beneath the mask of friendship. I hope you never may. "Any letter, addressed to me at the Leather Bottle, Cobham, Kent, will be forwarded--supposing I still exist. I hasten from the sight of that world, which has become odious to me. Should I hasten from it altogether, pity--forgive me. Life, my dear Pickwick, has become insupportable to me. The spirit which burns within us, is a porter's knot, on which to rest the heavy load of worldly cares and troubles; and when that spirit fails us, the burden is too heavy to be borne. We sink beneath it. You may tell Rachael!--Ah, that name!-- +Tracy Tupman.+" "We must leave this place, directly," said Mr. Pickwick, as he refolded the note. "It would not have been decent for us to remain here, under any circumstances, after what has happened; and now we are bound to follow in search of our friend." And so saying, he led the way to the house. His intention was rapidly communicated. The entreaties to remain were pressing, but Mr. Pickwick was inflexible. Business, he said, required his immediate attendance. The old clergyman was present. "You are not really going?" said he, taking Mr. Pickwick aside. Mr. Pickwick reiterated his former determination. "Then here," said the old gentleman, "is a little manuscript, which I had hoped to have the pleasure of reading to you myself. I found it on the death of a friend of mine--a medical man, engaged in our County Lunatic Asylum--among a variety of papers, which I had the option of destroying or preserving, as I thought proper. I can hardly believe that the manuscript is genuine, though it certainly is not in my friend's hand. However, whether it be the genuine production of a maniac, or founded upon the ravings of some unhappy being (which I think more probable), read it, and judge for yourself." Mr. Pickwick received the manuscript, and parted from the benevolent old gentleman with many expressions of good-will and esteem. It was a more difficult task to take leave of the inmates of Manor Farm, from which they had received so much hospitality and kindness. Mr. Pickwick kissed the young ladies--we were going to say, as if they were his own daughters, only as he might possibly have infused a little more warmth into the salutation, the comparison would not be quite appropriate--hugged the old lady with filial cordiality: and patted the rosy cheeks of the female servants in a most patriarchal manner, as he slipped into the hands of each some more substantial expression of his approval. The exchange of cordialities with their fine old host and Mr. Trundle, was even more hearty and prolonged; and it was not until Mr. Snodgrass had been several times called for, and at last emerged from a dark passage followed soon after by Emily (whose bright eyes looked unusually dim), that the three friends were enabled to tear themselves from their friendly entertainers. Many a backward look they gave at the Farm, as they walked slowly away; and many a kiss did Mr. Snodgrass waft in the air, in acknowledgment of something very like a lady's handkerchief, which was waved from one of the upper windows, until a turn in the lane hid the old house from their sight. At Muggleton they procured a conveyance to Rochester. By the time they reached the last-named place, the violence of their grief had sufficiently abated to admit of their making a very excellent early dinner; and having procured the necessary information relative to the road, the three friends set forward again in the afternoon to walk to Cobham. A delightful walk it was: for it was a pleasant afternoon in June, and their way lay through a deep and shady wood, cooled by the light wind which gently rustled the thick foliage, and enlivened by the songs of the birds that perched upon the boughs. The ivy and the moss crept in thick clusters over the old trees, and the soft green turf overspread the ground like a silken mat. They emerged upon an open park, with an ancient hall, displaying the quaint and picturesque architecture of Elizabeth's time. Long vistas of stately oaks and elm trees appeared on every side: large herds of deer were cropping the fresh grass; and occasionally a startled hare scoured along the ground, with the speed of the shadows thrown by the light clouds which swept across a sunny landscape like a passing breath of summer. "If this," said Mr. Pickwick, looking about him, "if this were the place to which all who are troubled with our friend's complaint came, I fancy their old attachment to this world would very soon return." "I think so too," said Mr. Winkle. "And really," added Mr. Pickwick, after half an hour's walking had brought them to the village, "really, for a misanthrope's choice, this is one of the prettiest and most desirable places of residence I ever met with." In this opinion also, both Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass expressed their concurrence; and having been directed to the Leather Bottle, a clean and commodious village ale-house, the three travellers entered, and at once inquired for a gentleman of the name of Tupman. "Show the gentlemen into the parlour, Tom," said the landlady. A stout country lad opened a door at the end of the passage, and the three friends entered a long, low-roofed room, furnished with a large number of high-backed leather-cushioned chairs, of fantastic shapes, and embellished with a great variety of old portraits and roughly-coloured prints of some antiquity. At the upper end of the room was a table, with a white cloth upon it, well covered with a roast fowl, bacon, ale, and et ceteras: and at the table sat Mr. Tupman, looking as unlike a man who had taken his leave of the world, as possible. On the entrance of his friends, that gentleman laid down his knife and fork, and with a mournful air advanced to meet them. "I did not expect to see you here," he said, as he grasped Mr. Pickwick's hand. "It's very kind." "Ah!" said Mr. Pickwick, sitting down, and wiping from his forehead the perspiration which the walk had engendered. "Finish your dinner, and walk out with me. I wish to speak to you alone." Mr. Tupman did as he was desired; and Mr. Pickwick having refreshed himself with a copious draught of ale, waited his friend's leisure. The dinner was quickly despatched, and they walked out together. [Illustration: _At the table sat Mr. Tupman, looking as unlike a man who had taken his leave of this world as possible._] For half an hour, their forms might have been seen pacing the churchyard to and fro, while Mr. Pickwick was engaged in combating his companion's resolution. Any repetition of his arguments would be useless; for what language could convey to them that energy and force which their great originator's manner communicated? Whether Mr. Tupman was already tired of retirement, or whether he was wholly unable to resist the eloquent appeal which was made to him, matters not, he did _not_ resist it at last. "It mattered little to him," he said, "where he dragged out the miserable remainder of his days: and since his friend laid so much stress upon his humble companionship, he was willing to share his adventures." Mr. Pickwick smiled; they shook hands; and walked back to rejoin their companions. It was at this moment that Mr. Pickwick made that immortal discovery, which has been the pride and boast of his friends, and the envy of every antiquarian in this or any other country. They had passed the door of their inn, and walked a little way down the village, before they recollected the precise spot in which it stood. As they turned back, Mr. Pickwick's eye fell upon a small broken stone, partially buried in the ground, in front of a cottage door. He paused. "This is very strange," said Mr. Pickwick. "What is strange?" inquired Mr. Tupman, staring eagerly at every object near him, but the right one. "God bless me, what's the matter?" This last was an ejaculation of irrepressible astonishment, occasioned by seeing Mr. Pickwick, in his enthusiasm for discovery, fall on his knees before the little stone and commence wiping the dust off it with his pocket-handkerchief. "There is an inscription here," said Mr. Pickwick. "Is it possible?" said Mr. Tupman. "I can discern," continued Mr. Pickwick, rubbing away with all his might, and gazing intently through his spectacles: "I can discern a cross, and a B, and then a T. This is important," continued Mr. Pickwick, starting up. "This is some very old inscription, existing perhaps long before the ancient almshouses in this place. It must not be lost." He tapped at the cottage door. A labouring man opened it. "Do you know how this stone came here, my friend?" inquired the benevolent Mr. Pickwick. "No, I doan't, sir," replied the man civilly. "It was here long afor I war born, or any on us." Mr. Pickwick glanced triumphantly at his companion. "You--you are not particularly attached to it, I dare say," said Mr. Pickwick, trembling with anxiety. "You wouldn't mind selling it, now?" [Illustration: _"There is an inscription here," said Mr. Pickwick_] "Ah! but who'd buy it?" inquired the man, with an expression of face which he probably meant to be very cunning. "I'll give you ten shillings for it at once," said Mr. Pickwick, "if you would take it up for me." The astonishment of the village may be easily imagined, when (the little stone having been raised with one wrench of a spade) Mr. Pickwick, by dint of great personal exertion, bore it with his own hands to the inn, and after having carefully washed it, deposited it on the table. The exultation and joy of the Pickwickians knew no bounds, when their patience and assiduity, their washing and scraping, were crowned with success. The stone was uneven and broken, and the letters were straggling and irregular, but the following fragment of an inscription was clearly to be deciphered: + =B I L S T U M P S H I S. M. A R K= Mr. Pickwick's eyes sparkled with delight, as he sat and gloated over the treasure he had discovered. He had attained one of the greatest objects of his ambition. In a county known to abound in remains of the early ages; in a village in which there still existed some memorials of the olden time, he--he, the Chairman of the Pickwick Club--had discovered a strange and curious inscription of unquestionable antiquity, which had wholly escaped the observation of the many learned men who had preceded him. He could hardly trust the evidence of his senses. "This--this," said he, "determines me. We return to town, to-morrow." "To-morrow!" exclaimed his admiring followers. "To-morrow," said Mr. Pickwick. "This treasure must be at once deposited where it can be thoroughly investigated, and properly understood. I have another reason for this step. In a few days, an election is to take place for the borough of Eatanswill, at which Mr. Perker, a gentleman whom I lately met, is the agent of one of the candidates. We will behold, and minutely examine, a scene so interesting to every Englishman." "We will," was the animated cry of three voices. Mr. Pickwick looked round him. The attachment and fervour of his followers, lighted up a glow of enthusiasm within him. He was their leader, and he felt it. "Let us celebrate this happy meeting with a convivial glass," said he. This proposition, like the other, was received with unanimous applause. Having himself deposited the important stone in a small deal box, purchased from the landlady for the purpose, he placed himself in an arm-chair at the head of the table; and the evening was devoted to festivity and conversation. It was past eleven o'clock--a late hour for the little village of Cobham--when Mr. Pickwick retired to the bed-room which had been prepared for his reception. He threw open the lattice-window, and setting his light upon the table, fell into a train of meditation on the hurried events of the two preceding days. The hour and the place were both favourable to contemplation; Mr. Pickwick was roused by the church-clock striking twelve. The first stroke of the hour sounded solemnly in his ear, but when the bell ceased the stillness seemed insupportable;--he almost felt as if he had lost a companion. He was nervous and excited; and hastily undressing himself and placing his light in the chimney, got into bed. Every one has experienced that disagreeable state of mind, in which a sensation of bodily weariness in vain contends against an inability to sleep. It was Mr. Pickwick's condition at this moment: he tossed first on one side and then on the other; and perseveringly closed his eyes as if to coax himself to slumber. It was of no use. Whether it was the unwonted exertion he had undergone, or the heat, or the brandy and water, or the strange bed--whatever it was, his thoughts kept reverting very uncomfortably to the grim pictures downstairs, and the old stories to which they had given rise in the course of the evening. After half an hour's tumbling about, he came to the unsatisfactory conclusion, that it was of no use trying to sleep; so he got up and partially dressed himself. Anything, he thought, was better than lying there fancying all kinds of horrors. He looked out of the window--it was very dark. He walked about the room--it was very lonely. He had taken a few turns from the door to the window, and from the window to the door, when the clergyman's manuscript for the first time entered his head. It was a good thought. If it failed to interest him, it might send him to sleep. He took it from his coat-pocket, and drawing a small table towards his bedside, trimmed the light, put on his spectacles, and composed himself to read. It was a strange hand-writing, and the paper was much soiled and blotted. The title gave him a sudden start, too; and he could not avoid casting a wistful glance round the room. Reflecting on the absurdity of giving way to such feelings, however, he trimmed the light again, and read as follows: A MADMAN'S MANUSCRIPT "Yes!--a madman's! How that word would have struck to my heart, many years ago! How it would have roused the terror that used to come upon me sometimes; sending the blood hissing and tingling through my veins, till the cold dew of fear stood in large drops upon my skin, and my knees knocked together with fright! I like it now though. It's a fine name. Show me the monarch whose angry frown was ever feared like the glare of a madman's eye--whose cord and axe were ever half so sure as a madman's grip. Ho! ho! It's a grand thing to be mad! to be peeped at like a wild lion through the iron bars--to gnash one's teeth and howl, through the long still night, to the merry ring of a heavy chain--and to roll and twine among the straw, transported with such brave music. Hurrah for the madhouse! Oh, it's a rare place! "I remember days when I was _afraid_ of being mad; when I used to start from my sleep, and fall upon my knees, and pray to be spared from the curse of my race; when I rushed from the sight of merriment or happiness, to hide myself in some lonely place, and spend the weary hours in watching the progress of the fever that was to consume my brain. I knew that madness was mixed up with my very blood, and the marrow of my bones; that one generation had passed away without the pestilence appearing among them, and that I was the first in whom it would revive. I knew it _must_ be so: that so it always had been, and so it ever would be: and when I cowered in some obscure corner of a crowded room, and saw men whisper, and point, and turn their eyes towards me, I knew they were telling each other of the doomed madman; and I slunk away again to mope in solitude. "I did this for years; long, long years they were. The nights here are long sometimes--very long! but they are nothing to the restless nights and dreadful dreams I had at that time. It makes me cold to remember them. Large dusky forms with sly and jeering faces crouched in the corners of the room, and bent over my bed at night, tempting me to madness. They told me in low whispers, that the floor of the old house in which my father's father died, was stained with his own blood, shed by his own hand in raging madness. I drove my fingers into my ears, but they screamed into my head till the room rang with it, that in one generation before him the madness slumbered, but that his grandfather had lived for years with his hands fettered to the ground, to prevent his tearing himself to pieces. I knew they told the truth--I knew it well. I had found it out years before, though they had tried to keep it from me. Ha! ha! I was too cunning for them, madman as they thought me. "At last it came upon me, and I wondered how I could ever have feared it. I could go into the world now, and laugh and shout with the best among them. I knew I was mad, but they did not even suspect it. How I used to hug myself with delight, when I thought of the fine trick I was playing them after their old pointing and leering, when I was not mad, but only dreading that I might one day become so! And how I used to laugh for joy, when I was alone, and thought how well I kept my secret, and how quickly my kind friends would have fallen from me, if they had known the truth. I could have screamed with ecstasy when I dined alone with some fine roaring fellow, to think how pale he would have turned, and how fast he would have run, if he had known that the dear friend who sat close to him, sharpening a bright glittering knife, was a madman with all the power, and half the will, to plunge it in his heart. Oh, it was a merry life! "Riches became mine, wealth poured in upon me, and I rioted in pleasures enhanced a thousand-fold to me by the consciousness of my well-kept secret. I inherited an estate. The law--the eagle-eyed law itself--had been deceived, and had handed over disputed thousands to a madman's hands. Where was the wit of the sharp-sighted men of sound mind? Where the dexterity of the lawyers, eager to discover a flaw? The madman's cunning had over-reached them all. "I had money. How I was courted! I spent it profusely. How I was praised! How those three proud overbearing brothers humbled themselves before me! The old white-headed father, too--such deference--such respect--such devoted friendship--he worshipped me! The old man had a daughter, and the young men a sister; and all the five were poor. I was rich; and when I married the girl, I saw a smile of triumph play upon the faces of her needy relatives, as they thought of their well-planned scheme, and their fine prize. It was for me to smile. To smile! To laugh outright, and tear my hair, and roll upon the ground with shrieks of merriment. They little thought they had married her to a madman. "Stay. If they had known it, would they have saved her? A sister's happiness against her husband's gold. The lightest feather I blow into the air, against the gay chain that ornaments my body! "In one thing I was deceived with all my cunning. If I had not been mad--for though we madmen are sharp-witted enough, we get bewildered sometimes--I should have known that the girl would rather have been placed, stiff and cold, in a dull leaden coffin, than borne an envied bride to my rich, glittering house. I should have known that her heart was with the dark-eyed boy whose name I once heard her breathe in her troubled sleep; and that she had been sacrificed to me, to relieve the poverty of the old white-headed man, and the haughty brothers. "I don't remember forms or faces now, but I know the girl was beautiful. I _know_ she was; for in the bright moonlight nights, when I start up from my sleep, and all is quiet about me, I see, standing still and motionless in one corner of this cell, a slight and wasted figure with long black hair, which streaming down her back, stirs with no earthly wind, and eyes that fix their gaze on me, and never wink or close. Hush! the blood chills at my heart as I write it down--that form is _hers_; the face is very pale, and the eyes are glassy bright; but I know them well. That figure never moves; it never frowns and mouths as others do, that fill this place sometimes; but it is much more dreadful to me, even than the spirits that tempted me many years ago--it comes fresh from the grave; and is so very death-like. "For nearly a year I saw that face grow paler; for nearly a year I saw the tears steal down the mournful cheeks, and never knew the cause. I found it out at last, though. They could not keep it from me long. She had never liked me; I had never thought she did: she despised my wealth, and hated the splendour in which she lived;--I had not expected that. She loved another. This I had never thought of. Strange feelings came over me, and thoughts, forced upon me by some secret power, whirled round and round my brain. I did not hate her, though I hated the boy she still wept for. I pitied--yes, I pitied--the wretched life to which her cold and selfish relations had doomed her. I knew that she could not live long, but the thought that before her death she might give birth to some ill-fated being, destined to hand down madness to its offspring, determined me. I resolved to kill her. "For many weeks I thought of poison, and then of drowning, and then of fire. A fine sight the grand house in flames, and the madman's wife smouldering away to cinders. Think of the jest of a large reward, too, and of some sane man swinging in the wind for a deed he never did, and all through a madman's cunning! I thought often of this, but I gave it up at last. Oh! the pleasure of stropping the razor day after day, feeling the sharp edge, and thinking of the gash one stroke of its thin bright edge would make! "At last the old spirits who had been with me so often before whispered in my ear that the time was come, and thrust the open razor into my hand. I grasped it firmly, rose softly from the bed and leaned over my sleeping wife. Her face was buried in her hands. I withdrew them softly, and they fell listlessly on her bosom. She had been weeping; for the traces of the tears were still wet upon her cheek. Her face was calm and placid; and even as I looked upon it, a tranquil smile lighted up her pale features. I laid my hand softly on her shoulder. She started--it was only a passing dream. I leant forward again. She screamed and woke. "One motion of my hand, and she would never again have uttered cry or sound. But I was startled and drew back. Her eyes were fixed on mine. I know not how it was, but they cowed and frightened me; and I quailed beneath them. She rose from the bed, still gazing fixedly and steadily on me. I trembled; the razor was in my hand, but I could not move. She made towards the door. As she neared it, she turned, and withdrew her eyes from my face. The spell was broken. I bounded forward, and clutched her by the arm. Uttering shriek upon shriek, she sunk upon the ground. "Now I could have killed her without a struggle; but the house was alarmed. I heard the tread of footsteps on the stairs. I replaced the razor in its usual drawer, unfastened the door, and called loudly for assistance. "They came, and raised her, and placed her on the bed. She lay bereft of animation for hours; and when life, look, and speech returned, her senses had deserted her, and she raved wildly and furiously. "Doctors were called in--great men who rolled up to my door in easy carriages, with fine horses and gaudy servants. They were at her bedside for weeks. They had a great meeting, and consulted together in low and solemn voices in another room. One, the cleverest and most celebrated among them, took me aside, and bidding me prepare for the worst, told me--me, the madman!--that my wife was mad. He stood close beside me at an open window, his eyes looking in my face, and his hand laid upon my arm. With one effort I could have hurled him into the street beneath. It would have been rare sport to have done it; but my secret was at stake, and I let him go. A few days after, they told me I must place her under some restraint; I must provide a keeper for her. _I!_ I went into the open fields where none could hear me, and laughed till the air resounded with my shouts! "She died next day. The white-headed old man followed her to the grave, and the proud brothers dropped a tear over the insensible corpse of her whose sufferings they had regarded in her lifetime with muscles of iron. All this was food for my secret mirth, and I laughed behind the white handkerchief which I held up to my face, as we rode home, till the tears came into my eyes. "But though I had carried my object and killed her, I was restless and disturbed, and I felt that before long my secret must be known. I could not hide the wild mirth and joy which boiled within me, and made me, when I was alone, at home, jump up and beat my hands together, and dance round and round, and roar aloud. When I went out, and saw the busy crowd hurrying about the streets; or to the theatre, and heard the sound of music, and beheld the people dancing, I felt such glee, that I could have rushed among them, and torn them to pieces limb from limb, and howled in transport. But I ground my teeth, and struck my feet upon the floor, and drove my sharp nails into my hands. I kept it down; and no one knew I was a madman yet. "I remember--though it's one of the last things I _can_ remember; for now I mix up realities with my dreams, and having so much to do, and being always hurried here, have no time to separate the two, from some strange confusion in which they get involved--I remember how I let it out at last. Ha! ha! I think I see their frightened looks now, and feel the ease with which I flung them from me, and dashed my clenched fist into their white faces, and then flew like the wind, and left them screaming and shouting far behind. The strength of a giant comes upon me when I think of it. There--see how this iron bar bends beneath my furious wrench. I could snap it like a twig, only there are long galleries here with many doors--I don't think I could find my way along them; and even if I could, I know there are iron gates below which they keep locked and barred. They know what a clever madman I have been, and they are proud to have me here, to show. "Let me see;--yes, I had been out. It was late at night when I reached home, and found the proudest of the three proud brothers waiting to see me--urgent business, he said: I recollect it well. I hated that man with all a madman's hate. Many and many a time had my fingers longed to tear him. They told me he was there. I ran swiftly up-stairs. He had a word to say to me. I dismissed the servants. It was late, and we were alone together--_for the first time_. "I kept my eyes carefully from him at first, for I knew what he little thought--and I gloried in the knowledge--that the light of madness gleamed from them like fire. We sat in silence for a few minutes. He spoke at last. My recent dissipation, and strange remarks, made so soon after his sister's death, were an insult to her memory. Coupling together many circumstances which had at first escaped his observation, he thought I had not treated her well. He wished to know whether he was right in inferring that I meant to cast a reproach upon her memory, and a disrespect upon her family. It was due to the uniform he wore to demand this explanation. "This man had a commission in the army--a commission, purchased with my money, and his sister's misery! This was the man who had been foremost in the plot to ensnare me, and grasp my wealth. This was the man who had been the main instrument in forcing his sister to wed me; well knowing that her heart was given to that puling boy. Due to _his_ uniform! The livery of his degradation! I turned my eyes upon him--I could not help it--but I spoke not a word. "I saw the sudden change that came upon him beneath my gaze. He was a bold man, but the colour faded from his face, and he drew back his chair. I dragged mine nearer to him; and as I laughed--I was very merry then--I saw him shudder. I felt the madness rising within me. He was afraid of me. "'You were very fond of your sister when she was alive'--I said--'Very.' "He looked uneasily round him, and I saw his hand grasp the back of his chair: but he said nothing. "'You villain,' said I, 'I found you out; I discovered your hellish plots against me; I know her heart was fixed on some one else before you compelled her to marry me. I know it--I know it.' "He jumped suddenly from his chair, brandished it aloft, and bid me stand back--for I took care to be getting closer to him all the time I spoke. "I screamed rather than talked, for I felt tumultuous passions eddying through my veins, and the old spirits whispering and taunting me to tear his heart out. "'Damn you,' said I, starting up, and rushing upon him; 'I killed her. I am a madman. Down with you. Blood, blood! I will have it!' "I turned aside with one blow the chair he hurled at me in his terror, and closed with him; and with a heavy crash we rolled upon the floor together. "It was a fine struggle that; for he was a tall strong man, fighting for his life; and I, a powerful madman, thirsting to destroy him. I knew no strength could equal mine, and I was right. Right again, though a madman! His struggles grew fainter. I knelt upon his chest, and clasped his brawny throat firmly with both hands. His face grew purple; his eyes were starting from his head, and with protruded tongue he seemed to mock me. I squeezed the tighter. "The door was suddenly burst open with a loud noise, and a crowd of people rushed forward, crying aloud to each other to secure the madman. "My secret was out; and my only struggle now was for liberty and freedom. I gained my feet before a hand was on me, threw myself among my assailants, and cleared my way with my strong arm, as if I bore a hatchet in my hand, and hewed them down before me. I gained the door, dropped over the banisters, and in an instant was in the street. "Straight and swift I ran, and no one dared to stop me. I heard the noise of feet behind, and redoubled my speed. It grew fainter and fainter in the distance, and at length died away altogether: but on I bounded, through marsh and rivulet, over fence and wall, with a wild shout which was taken up by the strange beings that flocked around me on every side, and swelled the sound, till it pierced the air. I was borne upon the arms of demons, who swept along upon the wind, and bore down bank and hedge before them, and spun me round and round with a rustle and speed that made my head swim, until at last they threw me from them with a violent shock, and I fell heavily upon the earth. When I woke I found myself here--here in this gay cell where the sunlight seldom comes, and the moon steals in, in rays which only serve to show the dark shadows about me, and that silent figure in its old corner. When I lie awake, I can sometimes hear strange shrieks and cries from distant parts of this large place. What they are, I know not; but they neither come from that pale form, nor does it regard them. For from the first shades of dusk till the earliest light of morning, it still stands motionless in the same place, listening to the music of my iron chain, and watching my gambols on my straw bed." At the end of the manuscript was written, in another hand, this note: [The unhappy man whose ravings are recorded above, was a melancholy instance of the baneful results of energies misdirected in early life, and excesses prolonged until their consequences could never be repaired. The thoughtless riot, dissipation, and debauchery of his younger days, produced fever and delirium. The first effects of the latter was the strange delusion, founded upon a well-known medical theory, strongly contended for by some, and as strongly contested by others, that an hereditary madness existed in his family. This produced a settled gloom, which in time developed a morbid insanity, and finally terminated in raving madness. There is every reason to believe that the events he detailed, though distorted in the description by his diseased imagination, really happened. It is only matter of wonder to those who were acquainted with the vices of his early career, that his passions, when no longer controlled by reason, did not lead him to the commission of still more frightful deeds.] * * * * * Mr. Pickwick's candle was just expiring in the socket, as he concluded the perusal of the old clergyman's manuscript; and when the light went suddenly out, without any previous flicker by way of warning, it communicated a very considerable start to his excited frame. Hastily throwing off such articles of clothing as he had put on when he rose from his uneasy bed, and casting a fearful glance around, he once more scrambled hastily between the sheets, and soon fell fast asleep. The sun was shining brilliantly into his chamber when he awoke, and the morning was far advanced. The gloom which had oppressed him on the previous night, had disappeared with the dark shadows which shrouded the landscape, and his thoughts and feelings were as light and gay as the morning itself. After a hearty breakfast, the four gentlemen sallied forth to walk to Gravesend, followed by a man bearing the stone in its deal box. They reached that town about one o'clock (their luggage they had directed to be forwarded to the city, from Rochester) and being fortunate enough to secure places on the outside of a coach, arrived in London in sound health and spirits, on that same afternoon. The next three or four days were occupied with the preparations which were necessary for their journey to the borough of Eatanswill. As any reference to that most important undertaking demands a separate chapter, we may devote the few lines which remain at the close of this, to narrate, with great brevity, the history of the antiquarian discovery. It appears from the Transactions of the Club, then, that Mr. Pickwick lectured upon the discovery at the General Club Meeting, convened on the night succeeding their return, and entered into a variety of ingenious and erudite speculations on the meaning of the inscription. It also appears that a skilful artist executed a faithful delineation of the curiosity, which was engraved on the stone, and presented to the Royal Antiquarian Society, and other learned bodies--that heart-burnings and jealousies without number, were created by rival controversies which were penned upon the subject--and that Mr. Pickwick himself wrote a pamphlet, containing ninety-six pages of very small print, and twenty-seven different readings of the inscription. That three old gentlemen cut off their eldest sons with a shilling a-piece for presuming to doubt the antiquity of the fragment--and that one enthusiastic individual cut himself off prematurely, in despair at being unable to fathom its meaning. That Mr. Pickwick was elected an honorary member of seventeen native and foreign societies, for making the discovery; that none of the seventeen could make anything of it; but that all the seventeen agreed it was very extraordinary. Mr. Blotton, indeed--and the name will be doomed to the undying contempt of those who cultivate the mysterious and the sublime--Mr. Blotton, we say, with the doubt and cavilling peculiar to vulgar minds, presumed to state a view of the case, as degrading as ridiculous. Mr. Blotton, with a mean desire to tarnish the lustre of the immortal name of Pickwick, actually undertook a journey to Cobham in person, and on his return, sarcastically observed in an oration at the club, that he had seen the man from whom the stone was purchased; that the man presumed the stone to be ancient, but solemnly denied the antiquity of the inscription--inasmuch as he represented it to have been rudely carved by himself in an idle mood, and to display letters intended to bear neither more nor less than the simple construction of--"BILL STUMPS, HIS MARK;" and that Mr. Stumps, being little in the habit of original composition, and more accustomed to be guided by the sound of words than by the strict rules of orthography, had omitted the concluding "L" of his Christian name. The Pickwick Club (as might have been expected from so enlightened an Institution) received this statement with the contempt it deserved, expelled the presumptuous and ill-conditioned Blotton, and voted Mr. Pickwick a pair of gold spectacles, in token of their confidence and approbation; in return for which, Mr. Pickwick caused a portrait of himself to be painted, and hung up in the club-room. Mr. Blotton though ejected was not conquered. He also wrote a pamphlet, addressed to the seventeen learned societies, native and foreign, containing a repetition of the statement he had already made, and rather more than half intimating his opinion that the seventeen learned societies were so many "humbugs." Hereupon the virtuous indignation of the seventeen learned societies, native and foreign, being roused, several fresh pamphlets appeared; the foreign learned societies corresponded with the native learned societies; the native learned societies translated the pamphlets of the foreign learned societies into English; the foreign learned societies translated the pamphlets of the native learned societies into all sorts of languages; and thus commenced that celebrated scientific discussion so well known to all men as the Pickwick controversy. But this base attempt to injure Mr. Pickwick, recoiled upon the head of its calumnious author. The seventeen learned societies unanimously voted the presumptuous Blotton an ignorant meddler, and forthwith set to work upon more treatises than ever. And to this day the stone remains, an illegible monument of Mr. Pickwick's greatness, and a lasting trophy of the littleness of his enemies. CHAPTER XII [Illustration] _Descriptive of a very important Proceeding on the part of Mr. Pickwick; no less an Epoch in his Life, than in this History_ Mr. Pickwick's apartments in Goswell Street, although on a limited scale, were not only of a very neat and comfortable description, but peculiarly adapted for the residence of a man of his genius and observation. His sitting-room was the first floor front, his bed-room the second floor front; and thus, whether he were sitting at his desk in his parlour, or standing before the dressing-glass in his dormitory, he had an equal opportunity of contemplating human nature in all the numerous phases it exhibits, in that not more populous than popular thoroughfare. His landlady Mrs. Bardell--the relict and sole executrix of a deceased custom-house officer--was a comely woman of bustling manners and agreeable appearance, with a natural genius for cooking, improved by study and long practice, into an exquisite talent. There were no children, no servants, no fowls. The only other inmates of the house were a large man and a small boy; the first a lodger, the second a production of Mrs. Bardell's. The large man was always home precisely at ten o'clock at night, at which hour he regularly condensed himself into the limits of a dwarfish French bedstead in the back parlour; and the infantine sports and gymnastic exercises of Master Bardell were exclusively confined to the neighbouring pavements and gutters. Cleanliness and quiet reigned throughout the house; and in it Mr. Pickwick's will was law. To any one acquainted with these points of the domestic economy of the establishment, and conversant with the admirable regulation of Mr. Pickwick's mind, his appearance and behaviour on the morning previous to that which had been fixed upon for the journey to Eatanswill, would have been most mysterious and unaccountable. He paced the room to and fro with hurried steps, popped his head out of the window at intervals of about three minutes each, constantly referred to his watch, and exhibited many other manifestations of impatience very unusual with him. It was evident that something of great importance was in contemplation, but what that something was, not even Mrs. Bardell herself had been enabled to discover. "Mrs. Bardell," said Mr. Pickwick, at last, as that amiable female approached the termination of a prolonged dusting of the apartment-- "Sir?" said Mrs. Bardell. "Your little boy is a very long time gone." "Why, it's a good long way to the Borough, sir," remonstrated Mrs. Bardell. "Ah," said Mr. Pickwick, "very true; so it is." Mr. Pickwick relapsed into silence, and Mrs. Bardell resumed her dusting. "Mrs. Bardell," said Mr. Pickwick, at the expiration of a few minutes. "Sir?" said Mrs. Bardell again. "Do you think it a much greater expense to keep two people, than to keep one?" "La, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Bardell, colouring up to the very border of her cap, as she fancied she observed a species of matrimonial twinkle in the eyes of her lodger; "La, Mr. Pickwick, what a question!" "Well, but _do_ you?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "That depends--" said Mrs. Bardell, approaching the duster very near to Mr. Pickwick's elbow, which was planted on the table--"that depends a good deal upon the person, you know, Mr. Pickwick; and whether it's a saving and careful person, sir." "That's very true," said Mr. Pickwick, "but the person I have in my eye (here he looked very hard at Mrs. Bardell) I think possesses these qualities; and has, moreover, a considerable knowledge of the world, and a great deal of sharpness, Mrs. Bardell; which may be of material use to me." "La, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Bardell; the crimson rising to her cap-border again. "I do," said Mr. Pickwick, growing energetic, as was his wont in speaking of a subject which interested him, "I do, indeed; and to tell you the truth, Mrs. Bardell, I have made up my mind." "Dear me, sir," exclaimed Mrs. Bardell. "You'll think it very strange now," said the amiable Mr. Pickwick, with a good-humoured glance at his companion, "that I never consulted you about this matter, and never even mentioned it, till I sent your little boy out this morning--eh?" Mrs. Bardell could only reply by a look. She had long worshipped Mr. Pickwick at a distance, but here she was, all at once raised to a pinnacle to which her wildest and most extravagant hopes had never dared to aspire. Mr. Pickwick was going to propose--a deliberate plan, too--sent her little boy to the Borough, to get him out of the way--how thoughtful--how considerate! "Well," said Mr. Pickwick, "what do you think?" "Oh, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Bardell, trembling with agitation, "you are very kind, sir." "It'll save you a good deal of trouble, won't it?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Oh, I never thought anything of the trouble, sir," replied Mrs. Bardell; "and, of course, I should take more trouble to please you then, than ever; but it is so kind of you, Mr. Pickwick, to have so much consideration for my loneliness." "Ah, to be sure," said Mr. Pickwick; "I never thought of that. When I am in town, you'll always have somebody to sit with you. To be sure, so you will." "I'm sure I ought to be a very happy woman," said Mrs. Bardell. "And your little boy--" said Mr. Pickwick. "Bless his heart!" interposed Mrs. Bardell, with a maternal sob. "He, too, will have a companion," resumed Mr. Pickwick, "a lively one, who'll teach him, I'll be bound, more tricks in a week than he would ever learn in a year." And Mr. Pickwick smiled placidly. "Oh you dear--" said Mrs. Bardell. Mr. Pickwick started. [Illustration: "_Oh you kind, good, playful dear_"] "Oh you kind, good, playful dear," said Mrs. Bardell; and without more ado, she rose from her chair, and flung her arms round Mr. Pickwick's neck, with a cataract of tears and a chorus of sobs. "Bless my soul!" cried the astonished Mr. Pickwick;--"Mrs. Bardell, my good woman--dear me, what a situation--pray consider.--Mrs. Bardell, don't--if anybody should come----" "Oh, let them come," exclaimed Mrs. Bardell, frantically; "I'll never leave you--dear, kind, good soul;" and, with these words, Mrs. Bardell clung the tighter. "Mercy upon me," said Mr. Pickwick, struggling violently, "I hear somebody coming up the stairs. Don't, don't, there's a good creature, don't." But entreaty and remonstrance were alike unavailing: for Mrs. Bardell had fainted in Mr. Pickwick's arms; and before he could gain time to deposit her on a chair, Master Bardell entered the room, ushering in Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass. Mr. Pickwick was struck motionless and speechless. He stood with his lovely burden in his arms, gazing vacantly on the countenances of his friends, without the slightest attempt at recognition or explanation. They, in their turn, stared at him; and Master Bardell, in his turn, stared at everybody. The astonishment of the Pickwickians was so absorbing, and the perplexity of Mr. Pickwick was so extreme, that they might have remained in exactly the same relative situations until the suspended animation of the lady was restored, had it not been for a most beautiful and touching expression of filial affection on the part of her youthful son. Clad in a tight suit of corduroy, spangled with brass buttons of a very considerable size, he at first stood at the door astounded and uncertain; but by degrees, the impression that his mother must have suffered some personal damage, pervaded his partially developed mind, and considering Mr. Pickwick as the aggressor, he set up an appalling and semi-earthly kind of howling, and butting forward with his head, commenced assailing that immortal gentleman about the back and legs, with such blows and pinches as the strength of his arm, and the violence of his excitement, allowed. "Take this little villain away," said the agonised Mr. Pickwick, "he's mad." "What _is_ the matter?" said the three tongue-tied Pickwickians. "I don't know," replied Mr. Pickwick, pettishly. "Take away the boy" (here Mr. Winkle carried the interesting boy, screaming and struggling, to the further end of the apartment). "Now, help me, lead this woman downstairs." "Oh, I am better now," said Mrs. Bardell, faintly. "Let me lead you downstairs," said the ever gallant Mr. Tupman. "Thank you, sir--thank you;" exclaimed Mrs. Bardell, hysterically. And downstairs she was led accordingly, accompanied by her affectionate son. "I cannot conceive--" said Mr. Pickwick, when his friend returned--"I cannot conceive what has been the matter with that woman. I had merely announced to her my intention of keeping a man servant, when she fell into the extraordinary paroxysm in which you found her. Very extraordinary thing." "Very," said his three friends. "Placed me in such an extremely awkward situation," continued Mr. Pickwick. "Very," was the reply of his followers, as they coughed slightly, and looked dubiously at each other. This behaviour was not lost upon Mr. Pickwick. He remarked their incredulity. They evidently suspected him. "There is a man in the passage now," said Mr. Tupman. "It's the man I spoke to you about," said Mr. Pickwick, "I sent for him to the Borough this morning. Have the goodness to call him up, Snodgrass." Mr. Snodgrass did as he was desired; and Mr. Samuel Weller forthwith presented himself. "Oh--you remember me, I suppose?" said Mr. Pickwick. "I should think so," replied Sam, with a patronising wink. "Queer start that 'ere, but he was one too many for you, warn't he? Up to snuff and a pinch or two over--eh?" "Never mind that matter now," said Mr. Pickwick, hastily, "I want to speak to you about something else. Sit down." "Thank'ee, sir," said Sam. And down he sat without farther bidding, having previously deposited his old white hat on the landing outside the door. "'Tan't a wery good 'un to look at," said Sam, "but it's an astonishin' 'un to wear; and afore the brim went, it was a wery handsome tile. Hows'ever it's lighter without it, that's one thing, and every hole lets in some air, that's another--wentilation gossamer I calls it." On the delivery of this sentiment, Mr. Weller smiled agreeably upon the assembled Pickwickians. "Now with regard to the matter on which I, with the concurrence of these gentlemen, sent for you," said Mr. Pickwick. "That's the pint, sir," interposed Sam; "out vith it, as the father said to the child, ven he swallowed a farden." "We want to know, in the first place," said Mr. Pickwick, "whether you have any reason to be discontented with your present situation." "Afore I answers that 'ere question, gen'lm'n," replied Mr. Weller, "_I_ should like to know, in the first place, whether you're a goin' to purwide me with a better." A sunbeam of placid benevolence played on Mr. Pickwick's features as he said, "I have half made up my mind to engage you myself." "Have you though?" said Sam. Mr. Pickwick nodded in the affirmative. "Wages?" inquired Sam. "Twelve pounds a year," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Clothes?" "Two suits." "Work?" "To attend upon me; and travel about with me and these gentlemen here." "Take the bill down," said Sam, emphatically "I'm let to a single gentleman, and the terms is agreed upon." "You accept the situation?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Cert'nly," replied Sam. "If the clothes fits me half as well as the place, they'll do." "You can get a character, of course?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Ask the landlady o' the White Hart about that, sir," replied Sam. "Can you come this evening?" "I'll get into the clothes this minute, if they're here," said Sam with great alacrity. "Call at eight this evening," said Mr. Pickwick; "and if the inquiries are satisfactory, they shall be provided." With the single exception of one amiable indiscretion, in which an assistant housemaid had equally participated, the history of Mr. Weller's conduct was so very blameless, that Mr. Pickwick felt fully justified in closing the engagement that very evening. With the promptness and energy which characterised not only the public proceedings, but all the private actions of this extraordinary man, he at once led his new attendant to one of those convenient emporiums where gentlemen's new and second-hand clothes are provided, and the troublesome and inconvenient formality of measurement dispensed with; and before night had closed in, Mr. Weller was furnished with a grey coat with the P. C. button, a black hat with a cockade to it, a pink striped waistcoat, light breeches and gaiters, and a variety of other necessaries, too numerous to recapitulate. "Well," said that suddenly transformed individual, as he took his seat on the outside of the Eatanswill coach next morning; "I wonder whether I'm meant to be a footman, or a groom, or a gamekeeper, or a seedsman. I looks like a sort of compo of every one on 'em. Never mind; there's change of air, plenty to see, and little to do; and all this suits my complaint uncommon; so long life to the Pickvicks, says I!" CHAPTER XIII [Illustration] _Some Account of Eatanswill; of the State of Parties therein; and of the Election of a Member to serve in Parliament for that Ancient, Loyal, and Patriotic Borough_ We will frankly acknowledge, that up to the period of our being first immersed in the voluminous papers of the Pickwick Club, we had never heard of Eatanswill; we will with equal candour admit, that we have in vain searched for proof of the actual existence of such a place at the present day. Knowing the deep reliance to be placed on every note and statement of Mr. Pickwick's, and not presuming to set up our recollection against the recorded declarations of that great man, we have consulted every authority, bearing upon the subject, to which we could possible refer. We have traced every name in schedules A and B, without meeting with that of Eatanswill; we have minutely examined every corner of the Pocket County Maps issued for the benefit of society by our distinguished publishers, and the same result has attended our investigation. We are therefore led to believe, that Mr. Pickwick, with that anxious desire to abstain from giving offence to any, and with those delicate feelings for which all who knew him well know he was so eminently remarkable, purposely substituted a fictitious designation, for the real name of the place in which his observations were made. We are confirmed in this belief by a little circumstance, apparently slight and trivial in itself, but when considered in this point of view, not undeserving of notice. In Mr. Pickwick's note-book, we can just trace an entry of the fact, that the places of himself and followers were booked by the Norwich coach; but this entry was afterwards lined through, as if for the purpose of concealing even the direction in which the borough is situated. We will not, therefore, hazard a guess upon the subject, but will at once proceed with this history; content with the materials which its characters have provided for us. It appears, then, that the Eatanswill people, like the people of many other small towns, considered themselves of the utmost and most mighty importance, and that every man in Eatanswill, conscious of the weight that attached to his example, felt himself bound to unite, heart and soul, with one of the two great parties that divided the town--the Blues and the Buffs. Now the Blues lost no opportunity of opposing the Buffs, and the Buffs lost no opportunity of opposing the Blues; and the consequence was, that whenever the Buffs and Blues met together at public meeting, Town-Hall, fair, or market, disputes and high words arose between them. With these dissensions it is almost superfluous to say that everything in Eatanswill was made a party question. If the Buffs proposed to new skylight the market-place, the Blues got up public meetings, and denounced the proceeding; if the Blues proposed the erection of an additional pump in the High Street, the Buffs rose as one man and stood aghast at the enormity. There were Blue shops and Buff shops, Blue inns and Buff inns; there was a Blue aisle and a Buff aisle, in the very church itself. Of course it was essentially and indispensably necessary that each of these powerful parties should have its chosen organ and representative: and, accordingly, there were two newspapers in the town--the _Eatanswill Gazette_, and the _Eatanswill Independent_; the former advocating Blue principles, and the latter conducted on grounds decidedly Buff. Fine newspapers they were. Such leading articles, and such spirited attacks!--"Our worthless contemporary, the _Gazette_"--"That disgraceful and dastardly journal, the _Independent_"--"That false and scurrilous print, the _Independent_"--"That vile and slanderous calumniator, the _Gazette_;" these and other spirit-stirring denunciations were strewn plentifully over the columns of each, in every number, and excited feelings of the most intense delight and indignation in the bosoms of the townspeople. Mr. Pickwick, with his usual foresight and sagacity, had chosen a peculiarly desirable moment for his visit to the borough. Never was such a contest known. The Honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall, was the Blue candidate; and Horatio Fizkin, Esq., of Fizkin Lodge, near Eatanswill, had been prevailed upon by his friends to stand forward in the Buff interest. The _Gazette_ warned the electors of Eatanswill that the eyes not only of England, but of the whole civilised world, were upon them; and the _Independent_ imperatively demanded to know, whether the constituency of Eatanswill were the grand fellows they had always taken them for, or base and servile tools, undeserving alike of the name of Englishmen and the blessings of freedom. Never had such a commotion agitated the town before. It was late in the evening, when Mr. Pickwick and his companions, assisted by Sam, dismounted from the roof of the Eatanswill coach. Large blue silk flags were flying from the windows of the Town Arms Inn, and bills were posted in every sash, intimating, in gigantic letters, that the Honourable Samuel Slumkey's Committee sat there daily. A crowd of idlers were assembled in the road, looking at a hoarse man in the balcony, who was apparently talking himself very red in the face in Mr. Slumkey's behalf; but the force and point of whose arguments were somewhat impaired by the perpetual beating of four large drums which Mr. Fizkin's committee had stationed at the street corner. There was a busy little man beside him, though, who took off his hat at intervals and motioned to the people to cheer, which they regularly did, most enthusiastically; and as the red-faced gentleman went on talking till he was redder in the face than ever, it seemed to answer his purpose quite as well as if anybody had heard him. The Pickwickians had no sooner dismounted, than they were surrounded by a branch mob of the honest and independent, who forthwith set up three deafening cheers, which being responded to by the main body (for it's not at all necessary for a crowd to know what they are cheering about), swelled into a tremendous roar of triumph, which stopped even the red-faced man in the balcony. "Hurrah!" shouted the mob in conclusion. "One cheer more," screamed the little fugleman in the balcony, and out shouted the mob again, as if lungs were cast iron, with steel works. "Slumkey for ever!" roared the honest and independent. "Slumkey for ever!" echoed Mr. Pickwick, taking off his hat. "No Fizkin!" roared the crowd. "Certainly not!" shouted Mr. Pickwick. "Hurrah!" And then there was another roaring, like that of a whole menagerie when the elephant has rung the bell for the cold meat. "Who is Slumkey?" whispered Mr. Tupman. "I don't know," replied Mr. Pickwick in the same tone, "Hush. Don't ask any questions. It's always best on these occasions to do what the mob do." "But suppose there are two mobs?" suggested Mr. Snodgrass. "Shout with the largest," replied Mr. Pickwick. Volumes could not have said more. They entered the house, the crowd opening right and left to let them pass, and cheering vociferously. The first object of consideration was to secure quarters for the night. "Can we have beds here?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, summoning the waiter. "Don't know, sir," replied the man; "afraid we're full, sir--I'll inquire, sir." Away he went for that purpose, and presently returned, to ask whether the gentlemen were "Blue." As neither Mr. Pickwick nor his companions took any vital interest in the cause of either candidate, the question was rather a difficult one to answer. In this dilemma Mr. Pickwick bethought himself of his new friend, Mr. Perker. "Do you know a gentleman of the name of Mr. Perker?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Certainly, sir; honourable Mr. Samuel Slumkey's agent." "He is Blue, I think?" "Oh yes, sir." "Then _we_ are Blue," said Mr. Pickwick; but observing that the man looked rather doubtful at this accommodating announcement, he gave him his card, and desired him to present it to Mr. Perker forthwith, if he should happen to be in the house. The waiter retired; and reappearing almost immediately with a request that Mr. Pickwick would follow him, led the way to a large room on the first floor, where, seated at a long table covered with books and papers, was Mr. Perker. "Ah--ah, my dear sir," said the little man, advancing to meet him; "very happy to see you, my dear sir, very. Pray sit down. So you have carried your intention into effect. You have come down here to see an election--eh?" Mr. Pickwick replied in the affirmative. "Spirited contest, my dear sir," said the little man. "I am delighted to hear it," said Mr. Pickwick, rubbing his hands. "I like to see sturdy patriotism, on whatever side it is called forth;--and so it's a spirited contest?" "Oh yes," said the little man, "very much so indeed. We have opened all the public-houses in the place, and left our adversary nothing but the beer-shops--masterly stroke of policy that, my dear sir, eh?"--the little man smiled complacently, and took a large pinch of snuff. "And what are the probabilities as to the result of the contest?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Why, doubtful, my dear sir; rather doubtful as yet," replied the little man. "Fizkin's people have got three-and-thirty voters in the lock-up coach-house at the White Hart." "In the coach-house!" said Mr. Pickwick, considerably astonished by this second stroke of policy. "They keep 'em locked up there till they want 'em," resumed the little man. "The effect of that is, you see, to prevent our getting at them; and even if we could, it would be of no use, for they keep them very drunk on purpose. Smart fellow Fizkin's agent--very smart fellow indeed." Mr. Pickwick stared, but said nothing. "We are pretty confident, though," said Mr. Perker, sinking his voice almost to a whisper. "We had a little tea-party here last night--five-and-forty women, my dear sir--and gave every one of 'em a green parasol when she went away." "A parasol!" said Mr. Pickwick. "Fact, my dear sir, fact. Five-and-forty green parasols at seven and sixpence a-piece. All women like finery,--extraordinary the effect of those parasols. Secured all their husbands, and half their brothers--beats stockings and flannel, and all that sort of thing hollow. My idea, my dear sir, entirely. Hail, rain, or sunshine, you can't walk half a dozen yards up the street, without encountering half a dozen green parasols." Here the little man indulged in a convulsion of mirth, which was only checked by the entrance of a third party. This was a tall, thin man, with a sandy-coloured head inclined to baldness, and a face in which solemn importance was blended with a look of unfathomable profundity. He was dressed in a long brown surtout, with a black cloth waistcoat, and drab trousers. A double eye-glass dangled at his waistcoat: and on his head he wore a very low-crowned hat with a broad brim. The new-comer was introduced to Mr. Pickwick as Mr. Pott, the editor of the _Eatanswill Gazette_. After a few preliminary remarks, Mr. Pott turned round to Mr. Pickwick, and said with solemnity-- "This contest excites great interest in the metropolis, sir?" "I believe it does," said Mr. Pickwick. "To which I have reason to know," said Pott, looking towards Mr. Perker for information,--"to which I have reason to know that my article of last Saturday in some degree contributed." "Not the least doubt of it," said the little man. "The press is a mighty engine, sir," said Pott. Mr. Pickwick yielded his fullest assent to the proposition. "But I trust, sir," said Pott, "that I have never abused the enormous power I wield. I trust, sir, that I have never pointed the noble instrument which is placed in my hands, against the sacred bosom of private life, or the tender breast of individual reputation;--I trust, sir, that I have devoted my energies to--to endeavours--humble they may be, humble I know they are--to instil those principles of--which--are--" Here the editor of the _Eatanswill Gazette_ appearing to ramble, Mr. Pickwick came to his relief, and said-- "Certainly." "And what, sir,"--said Pott--"what, sir, let me ask you as an impartial man, is the state of the public mind in London with reference to my contest with the _Independent_?" "Greatly excited, no doubt," interposed Mr. Perker, with a look of slyness which was very likely accidental. "The contest," said Pott, "shall be prolonged so long as I have health and strength, and that portion of talent with which I am gifted. From that contest, sir, although it may unsettle men's minds and excite their feelings, and render them incapable for the discharge of the every-day duties of ordinary life; from that contest, sir, I will never shrink, till I have set my heel upon the _Eatanswill Independent_. I wish the people of London and the people of this country to know, sir, that they may rely upon me;--that I will not desert them, that I am resolved to stand by them, sir, to the last." "Your conduct is most noble, sir," said Mr. Pickwick; and he grasped the hand of the magnanimous Pott. "You are, sir, I perceive, a man of sense and talent," said Mr. Pott, almost breathless with the vehemence of his patriotic declaration. "I am most happy, sir, to make the acquaintance of such a man." "And I," said Mr. Pickwick, "feel deeply honoured by this expression of your opinion. Allow me, sir, to introduce you to my fellow-travellers, the other corresponding members of the club I am proud to have founded." "I shall be delighted," said Mr. Pott. Mr. Pickwick withdrew, and returning with his friends, presented them in due form to the editor of the _Eatanswill Gazette_. "Now, my dear Pott," said little Mr. Perker, "the question is, what are we to do with our friends here?" "We can stop in this house, I suppose," said Mr. Pickwick. "Not a spare bed in the house, my dear sir--not a single bed." "Extremely awkward," said Mr. Pickwick. "Very," said his fellow-voyagers. "I have an idea upon this subject," said Mr. Pott, "which I think may be very successfully adopted. They have two beds at the Peacock, and I can boldly say, on behalf of Mrs. Pott, that she will be delighted to accommodate Mr. Pickwick and any of his friends, if the other two gentlemen and their servant do not object to shifting, as they best can, at the Peacock." After repeated pressings on the part of Mr. Pott, and repeated protestations on that of Mr. Pickwick that he could not think of incommoding or troubling his amiable wife, it was decided that it was the only feasible arrangement that could be made. So it _was_ made; and after dining together at the Town Arms, the friends separated, Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass repairing to the Peacock, and Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Winkle proceeding to the mansion of Mr. Pott; it having been previously arranged that they should all reassemble at the Town Arms in the morning, and accompany the honourable Samuel Slumkey's procession to the place of nomination. Mr. Pott's domestic circle was limited to himself and his wife. All men whom mighty genius has raised to a proud eminence in the world, have usually some little weakness which appears the more conspicuous from the contrast it presents to their general character. If Mr. Pott had a weakness, it was, perhaps, that he was _rather_ too submissive to the somewhat contemptuous control and sway of his wife. We do not feel justified in laying any particular stress upon the fact, because on the present occasion all Mrs. Pott's most winning ways were brought into requisition to receive the two gentlemen. "My dear," said Mr. Pott, "Mr. Pickwick--Mr. Pickwick of London." Mrs. Pott received Mr. Pickwick's paternal grasp of the hand with enchanting sweetness; and Mr. Winkle, who had not been announced at all, slided and bowed, unnoticed, in an obscure corner. "P. my dear--" said Mrs. Pott. "My life," said Mr. Pott. "Pray introduce the other gentleman." "I beg a thousand pardons," said Mr. Pott. "Permit me. Mrs. Pott, Mr. ----" "Winkle," said Mr. Pickwick. "Winkle," echoed Mr. Pott; and the ceremony of introduction was complete. "We owe you many apologies, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, "for disturbing your domestic arrangements at so short a notice." "I beg you won't mention it, sir," replied the feminine Pott, with vivacity. "It is a high treat to me, I assure you, to see any new faces; living as I do, from day to day, and week to week, in this dull place, and seeing nobody." "Nobody, my dear!" exclaimed Mr. Pott, archly. "Nobody but _you_," retorted Mrs. Pott, with asperity. "You see, Mr. Pickwick," said the host in explanation of his wife's lament, "that we are in some measure cut off from many enjoyments and pleasures of which we might otherwise partake. My public station, as editor of the _Eatanswill Gazette_, the position which that paper holds in the country, my constant immersion in the vortex of politics----" "P. my dear--" interposed Mrs. Pott. "My life--" said the editor. "I wish, my dear, you would endeavour to find some topic of conversation in which these gentlemen might take some rational interest." "But, my love," said Mr. Pott, with great humility, "Mr. Pickwick does take an interest in it." "It's well for him if he can," said Mrs. Pott, emphatically; "I am wearied out of my life with your politics, and quarrels with the _Independent_, and nonsense. I am quite astonished, P., at your making such an exhibition of your absurdity." "But, my dear--" said Mr. Pott. "Oh, nonsense, don't talk to me;" said Mrs. Pott. "Do you play _écarté_, sir?" "I shall be very happy to learn under your tuition," replied Mr. Winkle. "Well, then, draw that little table into this window, and let me get out of hearing of those prosy politics." "Jane," said Mr. Pott, to the servant who brought in candles, "go down into the office, and bring me up the file of the _Gazette_ for Eighteen Hundred and Twenty Eight. I'll read you--" added the editor, turning to Mr. Pickwick, "I'll just read you a few of the leaders I wrote at that time upon the Buff job of appointing a new tollman to the turnpike here; I rather think they'll amuse you." "I should like to hear them very much indeed," said Mr. Pickwick. Up came the file, and down sat the editor, with Mr. Pickwick at his side. We have in vain pored over the leaves of Mr. Pickwick's note-book, in the hope of meeting with a general summary of these beautiful compositions. We have every reason to believe that he was perfectly enraptured with the vigour and freshness of the style; indeed Mr. Winkle has recorded the fact that his eyes were closed, as if with excess of pleasure, during the whole time of their perusal. The announcement of supper put a stop both to the game at _écarté_, and the recapitulation of the beauties of the _Eatanswill Gazette_. Mrs. Pott was in the highest spirits and the most agreeable humour. Mr. Winkle had already made considerable progress in her good opinion, and she did not hesitate to inform him, confidentially, that Mr. Pickwick was "a delightful old dear." These terms convey a familiarity of expression, in which few of those who were intimately acquainted with that colossal-minded man would have presumed to indulge. We have preserved them, nevertheless, as affording at once a touching and convincing proof of the estimation in which he was held by every class of society, and the ease with which he made his way to their hearts and feelings. It was a late hour of the night--long after Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass had fallen asleep in the inmost recesses of the Peacock--when the two friends retired to rest. Slumber soon fell upon the senses of Mr. Winkle, but his feelings had been excited, and his admiration roused; and for many hours after sleep had rendered him insensible to earthly objects, the face and figure of the agreeable Mrs. Pott presented themselves again and again to his wandering imagination. The noise and bustle which ushered in the morning, were sufficient to dispel from the mind of the most romantic visionary in existence, any associations but those which were immediately connected with the rapidly-approaching election. The beating of drums, the blowing of horns and trumpets, the shouting of men, and tramping of horses, echoed and re-echoed through the streets from the earliest dawn of day; and an occasional fight between the light skirmishers of either party at once enlivened the preparations and agreeably diversified their character. "Well, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, as his valet appeared at his bed-room door, just as he was concluding his toilet; "all alive to-day, I suppose?" "Reg'lar game, sir," replied Mr. Weller; "our people's a col-lecting down at the Town Arms, and they're a hollering themselves hoarse already." "Ah," said Mr. Pickwick, "do they seem devoted to their party, Sam?" "Never see such dewotion in my life, sir." "Energetic, eh?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Uncommon," replied Sam; "I never see men eat and drink so much afore. I wonder they an't afeer'd o' bustin'." "That's the mistaken kindness of the gentry here," said Mr. Pickwick. "Wery likely," replied Sam, briefly. "Fine, fresh, hearty fellows they seem," said Mr. Pickwick, glancing from the window. "Wery fresh," replied Sam: "me, and the two waiters at the Peacock, has been a pumpin' over the independent woters as supped there last night." "Pumping over independent voters!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. "Yes," said his attendant, "every man slept vere he fell down; we dragged 'em out, one by one, this mornin', and put 'em under the pump, and they're in reg'lar fine order, now. Shillin' a head the committee paid for that 'ere job." "Can such things be!" exclaimed the astonished Mr. Pickwick. "Lord bless your heart, sir," said Sam, "why, where was you half baptized?--that's nothin', that an't." "Nothing?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Nothin' at all, sir," replied his attendant. "The night afore the last day o' the last election here, the opposite party bribed the barmaid at the Town Arms, to hocus the brandy and water of fourteen unpolled electors as was a stoppin' in the house." "What do you mean by 'hocussing' brandy and water?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Puttin' laud'num in it," replied Sam. "Blessed if she didn't send 'em all to sleep till twelve hours arter the election was over. They took one man up to the booth, in a truck, fast asleep, by way of experiment, but it was no go--they wouldn't poll him; so they brought him back, and put him to bed again." "Strange practices, these," said Mr. Pickwick; half speaking to himself and half addressing Sam. "Not half so strange as a miraculous circumstance as happened to my own father, at an election time, in this wery place, sir," replied Sam. "What was that?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Why he drove a coach down here once," said Sam; "'lection time came on, and he was engaged by vun party to bring down woters from London. Night afore he was a going to drive up, committee on t'other side sends for him quietly, and away he goes vith the messenger, who shows him in;--large room--lots of gen'l'm'n--heaps of paper, pens and ink, and all that 'ere. 'Ah, Mr. Weller,' says the gen'l'm'n in the chair, 'glad to see you, sir; how are you?'--'Wery well, thank'ee, sir,' says my father; 'I hope _you're_ pretty middlin,' says he.--'Pretty well, thank'ee, sir,' says the gen'l'm'n; 'sit down, Mr. Weller--pray sit down, sir.' So my father sits down, and he and the gen'l'm'n looks wery hard at each other. 'You don't remember me?' says the gen'l'm'n.--'Can't say I do,' says my father.--'Oh, I know you,' says the gen'l'm'n; 'know'd you when you was a boy,' says he.--'Well, I don't remember you,' says my father--'That's wery odd,' says the gen'l'm'n--'Wery,' says my father--'You must have a bad mem'ry, Mr. Weller,' says the gen'l'm'n--'Well, it is a wery bad 'un,' says my father.--'I thought so,' says the gen'l'm'n. So then they pours him out a glass of wine, and gammons him about his driving, and gets him into a reg'lar good humour, and at last shoves a twenty-pound note in his hand. 'It's a wery bad road between this and London,' says the gen'l'm'n.--'Here and there it _is_ a heavy road,' says my father.--' 'Specially near the canal, I think,' says the gen'l'm'n.--'Nasty bit that 'ere,' says my father.--'Well, Mr. Weller,' says the gen'l'm'n, 'you're a wery good whip, and can do what you like with your horses, we know. We're all wery fond o' you, Mr. Weller, so in case you _should_ have an accident when you're a bringing these here woters down, and _should_ tip 'em over into the canal vithout hurtin' of 'em, this is for yourself,' says he.--'Gen'l'm'n, you're wery kind,' says my father, 'and I'll drink your health in another glass of wine,' says he; wich he did, and then buttons up the money, and bows himself out. You wouldn't believe, sir," continued Sam, with a look of inexpressible impudence at his master, "that on the wery day as he came down with them woters, his coach _was_ upset on that 'ere wery spot, and ev'ry man on 'em was turned into the canal." "And got out again?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, hastily. "Why," replied Sam, very slowly, "I rather think one old gen'l'm'n was missin'; I know his hat was found, but I an't quite certain whether his head was in it or not. But what I look at, is the hex-traordinary, and wonderful coincidence, that arter what that gen'l'm'n said, my father's coach should be upset in that wery place, and on that wery day!" "It is, no doubt, a very extraordinary circumstance indeed," said Mr. Pickwick. "But brush my hat, Sam, for I hear Mr. Winkle calling me to breakfast." With these words Mr. Pickwick descended to the parlour, where he found breakfast laid, and the family already assembled. The meal was hastily despatched; each of the gentlemen's hats was decorated with an enormous blue favour, made up by the fair hands of Mrs. Pott herself; and as Mr. Winkle had undertaken to escort that lady to a house-top, in the immediate vicinity of the hustings, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Pott repaired alone to the Town Arms, from the back window of which, one of Mr. Slumkey's committee was addressing six small boys, and one girl, whom he dignified, at every second sentence, with the imposing title of "men of Eatanswill," whereat the six small boys aforesaid cheered prodigiously. The stable-yard exhibited unequivocal symptoms of the glory and strength of the Eatanswill Blues. There was a regular army of blue flags, some with one handle, and some with two, exhibiting appropriate devices, in golden characters, four feet high, and stout in proportion. There was a grand band of trumpets, bassoons, and drums, marshalled four abreast, and earning their money, if ever men did, especially the drum-beaters, who were very muscular. There were bodies of constables with blue staves, twenty committee-men with blue scarfs, and a mob of voters with blue cockades. There were electors on horseback, and electors a-foot. There was an open carriage and four, for the Honourable Samuel Slumkey; and there were four carriages and pairs, for his friends and supporters; and the flags were rustling, and the band was playing, and the constables were swearing, and the twenty committee-men were squabbling, and the mob was shouting, and the horses were backing, and the post-boys perspiring; and everybody, and everything, then and there assembled, was for the special use, behoof, honour, and renown, of the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall, one of the candidates for the representation of the Borough of Eatanswill, in the Commons House of Parliament of the United Kingdom. Loud and long were the cheers, and mighty was the rustling of one of the blue flags, with "Liberty of the Press" inscribed thereon, when the sandy head of Mr. Pott was discerned in one of the windows, by the mob beneath; and tremendous was the enthusiasm when the Honourable Samuel Slumkey himself, in top-boots, and a blue neckerchief, advanced and seized the hand of the said Pott, and melodramatically testified by gestures to the crowd, his ineffaceable obligations to the _Eatanswill Gazette_. "Is everything ready?" said the Honourable Samuel Slumkey to Mr. Perker. "Everything, my dear sir," was the little man's reply. "Nothing has been omitted, I hope?" said the Honourable Samuel Slumkey. "Nothing has been left undone, my dear sir--nothing whatever. There are twenty washed men at the street door for you to shake hands with; and six children in arms that you're to pat on the head, and inquire the age of; be particular about the children, my dear sir,--it has always a great effect, that sort of thing." "I'll take care," said the Honourable Samuel Slumkey. "And, perhaps, my dear sir--" said the cautious little man, "perhaps if you _could_--I don't mean to say it's indispensable--but if you _could_ manage to kiss one of 'em, it would produce a very great impression on the crowd." "Wouldn't it have as good an effect if the proposer or seconder did that?" said the Honourable Samuel Slumkey. "Why, I am afraid it wouldn't," replied the agent; "if it were done by yourself, my dear sir, I think it would make you very popular." "Very well," said the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, with a resigned air, "then it must be done. That's all." "Arrange the procession," cried the twenty committee-men. Amidst the cheers of the assembled throng, the band, and the constables, and the committee-men, and the voters, and the horse-men, and the carriages, took their places--each of the two-horse vehicles being closely packed with as many gentlemen as could manage to stand upright in it; and that assigned to Mr. Perker, containing Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass, and about half a dozen of the committee beside. There was a moment of awful suspense as the procession waited for the Honourable Samuel Slumkey to step into his carriage. Suddenly the crowd set up a great cheering. "He has come out," said little Mr. Perker, greatly excited; the more so as their position did not enable them to see what was going forward. Another cheer, much louder. "He has shaken hands with the men," cried the little agent. Another cheer, far more vehement. "He has patted the babies on the head," said Mr. Perker, trembling with anxiety. A roar of applause that rent the air. "He has kissed one of 'em!" exclaimed the delighted little man. A second roar. "He has kissed another," gasped the excited manager. A third roar. "He's kissing 'em all!" screamed the enthusiastic little gentleman. And hailed by the deafening shouts of the multitude, the procession moved on. [Illustration: _"He has patted the babies on the head"_] How or by what means it became mixed up with the other procession, and how it was ever extricated from the confusion consequent thereupon, is more than we can undertake to describe, inasmuch as Mr. Pickwick's hat was knocked over his eyes, nose, and mouth, by one poke of a Buff flag-staff, very early in the proceedings. He describes himself as being surrounded on every side, when he could catch a glimpse of the scene, by angry and ferocious countenances, by a vast cloud of dust, and by a dense crowd of combatants. He represents himself as being forced from the carriage by some unseen power, and being personally engaged in a pugilistic encounter; but with whom, or how, or why, he is wholly unable to state. He then felt himself forced up some wooden steps by the persons from behind: and on removing his hat found himself surrounded by his friends, in the very front of the left-hand side of the hustings. The right was reserved for the Buff party, and the centre for the Mayor and his officers; one of whom--the fat crier of Eatanswill--was ringing an enormous bell, by way of commanding silence, while Mr. Horatio Fizkin, and the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, with their hands upon their hearts, were bowing with the utmost affability to the troubled sea of heads that inundated the open space in front; and from whence arose a storm of groans, and shouts, and yells, and hootings, that would have done honour to an earthquake. "There's Winkle," said Mr. Tupman, pulling his friend by the sleeve. "Where?" said Mr. Pickwick, putting on his spectacles, which he had fortunately kept in his pocket hitherto. "There," said Mr. Tupman, "on the top of that house." And there, sure enough, in the leaden gutter of a tiled roof, were Mr. Winkle and Mrs. Pott, comfortably seated in a couple of chairs, waving their handkerchiefs in token of recognition--a compliment which Mr. Pickwick returned by kissing his hand to the lady. The proceedings had not yet commenced; and as an inactive crowd is generally disposed to be jocose, this very innocent action was sufficient to awaken their facetiousness. "Oh you wicked old rascal!" cried one voice, "looking arter the girls, are you?" "Oh you wenerable sinner!" cried another. "Putting on his spectacles to look at a married 'ooman!" said a third. "I see him a winkin' at her, with his wicked old eye," shouted a fourth. "Look arter your wife, Pott," bellowed a fifth;--and then there was a roar of laughter. As these taunts were accompanied with invidious comparisons between Mr. Pickwick and an aged ram, and several witticisms of the like nature; and as they moreover rather tended to convey reflections upon the honour of an innocent lady, Mr. Pickwick's indignation was excessive; but as silence was proclaimed at the moment, he contented himself by scorching the mob with a look of pity for their misguided minds, at which they laughed more boisterously than ever. "Silence!" roared the Mayor's attendants. "Whiffin, proclaim silence," said the Mayor, with an air of pomp befitting his lofty station. In obedience to this command the crier performed another concerto on the bell, whereupon a gentleman in the crowd called out "muffins;" which occasioned another laugh. "Gentlemen," said the Mayor, at as loud a pitch as he could possibly force his voice to. "Gentlemen. Brother electors of the Borough of Eatanswill. We are met here to-day for the purpose of choosing a representative in the room of our late----" Here the Mayor was interrupted by a voice in the crowd. "Suc-cess to the Mayor!" cried the voice, "and may he never desert the nail and sarspan business, as he got his money by." This allusion to the professional pursuits of the orator was received with a storm of delight, which, with a bell accompaniment, rendered the remainder of his speech inaudible, with the exception of the concluding sentence, in which he thanked the meeting for the patient attention with which they had heard him throughout,--an expression of gratitude which elicited another burst of mirth, of about a quarter of an hour's duration. Next, a tall thin gentleman, in a very stiff white neckerchief, after being repeatedly desired by the crowd to "send a boy home, to ask whether he hadn't left his voice under the pillow," begged to nominate a fit and proper person to represent them in Parliament. And when he said it was Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, near Eatanswill, the Fizkinites applauded, and the Slumkeyites groaned, so long, and so loudly, that both he and the seconder might have sung comic songs in lieu of speaking, without anybody's being a bit the wiser. The friends of Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, having had their innings, a little, choleric, pink-faced man stood forward to propose another fit and proper person to represent the electors of Eatanswill in Parliament; and very swimmingly the pink-faced gentleman would have got on, if he had not been rather too choleric to entertain a sufficient perception of the fun of the crowd. But after a very few sentences of figurative eloquence, the pink-faced gentleman got from denouncing those who interrupted him in the mob, to exchanging defiances with the gentlemen on the hustings; whereupon arose an uproar which reduced him to the necessity of expressing his feelings by serious pantomime, which he did, and then left the stage to his seconder, who delivered a written speech of half an hour's length, and wouldn't be stopped, because he had sent it all to the _Eatanswill Gazette_, and the _Eatanswill Gazette_ had already printed it, every word. Then Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, near Eatanswill, presented himself for the purpose of addressing the electors; which he no sooner did, than the band employed by the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, commenced performing with a power to which their strength in the morning was a trifle; in return for which, the Buff crowd belaboured the heads and shoulders of the Blue crowd; on which the Blue crowd endeavoured to dispossess themselves of their very unpleasant neighbours the Buff crowd; and a scene of struggling, and pushing, and fighting, succeeded, to which we can no more do justice than the Mayor could, although he issued imperative orders to twelve constables to seize the ringleaders, who might amount in number to two hundred and fifty, or thereabouts. At all these encounters, Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, and his friends, waxed fierce and furious; until at last Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, begged to ask his opponent the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall, whether that band played by his consent; which question the Honourable Samuel Slumkey declining to answer, Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, shook his fist in the countenance of the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall; upon which the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, his blood being up, defied Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, to mortal combat. At this violation of all known rules and precedents of order, the Mayor commanded another fantasia on the bell, and declared that he would bring before himself, both Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, and the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall, and bind them over to keep the peace. Upon this terrific denunciation, the supporters of the two candidates interfered, and after the friends of each party had quarrelled in pairs, for three-quarters of an hour, Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, touched his hat to the Honourable Samuel Slumkey: the Honourable Samuel Slumkey touched his to Horatio Fizkin, Esquire: the band was stopped: the crowd were partially quieted: and Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, was permitted to proceed. The speeches of the two candidates, though differing in every other respect, afforded a beautiful tribute to the merit and high worth of the electors of Eatanswill. Both expressed their opinion that a more independent, a more enlightened, a more public-spirited, a more noble-minded, a more disinterested set of men than those who had promised to vote for him, never existed on earth; each darkly hinted his suspicions that the electors in the opposite interest had certain swinish and besotted infirmities which rendered them unfit for the exercise of the important duties they were called upon to discharge. Fizkin expressed his readiness to do anything he was wanted; Slumkey, his determination to do nothing that was asked of him. Both said that the trade, the manufactures, the commerce, the prosperity of Eatanswill, would ever be dearer to their hearts than any earthly object; and each had it in his power to state, with the utmost confidence, that he was the man who would eventually be returned. There was a show of hands; the Mayor decided in favour of the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall. Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, demanded a poll, and a poll was fixed accordingly. Then a vote of thanks was moved to the Mayor for his able conduct in the chair; and the Mayor, devoutly wishing that he had had a chair to display his able conduct in (for he had been standing during the whole proceedings), returned thanks. The processions re-formed, the carriages rolled slowly through the crowd, and its members screeched and shouted after them as their feelings or caprice dictated. During the whole time of the polling, the town was in a perpetual fever of excitement. Everything was conducted on the most liberal and delightful scale. Excisable articles were remarkably cheap at all the public-houses; and spring vans paraded the streets for the accommodation of voters who were seized with any temporary dizziness in the head--an epidemic which prevailed among the electors, during the contest, to a most alarming extent, and under the influence of which they might frequently be seen lying on the pavements in a state of utter insensibility. A small body of electors remained unpolled on the very last day. They were calculating and reflecting persons, who had not yet been convinced by the arguments of either party, although they had had frequent conferences with each. One hour before the close of the poll, Mr. Perker solicited the honour of a private interview with these intelligent, these noble, these patriotic men. It was granted. His arguments were brief, but satisfactory. They went in a body to the poll: and when they returned, the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall, was returned also. CHAPTER XIV [Illustration] _Comprising a Brief Description of the Company at the Peacock assembled; and a Tale told by a Bagman_ It is pleasant to turn from contemplating the strife and turmoil of political existence, to the peaceful repose of private life. Although in reality no great partisan of either side, Mr. Pickwick was sufficiently fired with Mr. Pott's enthusiasm, to apply his whole time and attention to the proceedings, of which the last chapter affords a description compiled from his own memoranda. Nor while he was thus occupied was Mr. Winkle idle, his whole time being devoted to pleasant walks and short country excursions with Mrs. Pott, who never failed, when such an opportunity presented itself, to seek some relief from the tedious monotony she so constantly complained of. The two gentlemen being thus completely domesticated in the Editor's house, Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass were in a great measure cast upon their own resources. Taking but little interest in public affairs, they beguiled their time chiefly with such amusements as the Peacock afforded, which were limited to a bagatelle-board in the first floor, and a sequestered skittle-ground in the back yard. In the science and nicety of both these recreations, which are far more abstruse than ordinary men suppose, they were gradually initiated by Mr. Weller, who possessed a perfect knowledge of such pastimes. Thus, notwithstanding that they were in a great measure deprived of the comfort and advantage of Mr. Pickwick's society, they were still enabled to beguile the time and to prevent its hanging heavily on their hands. It was in the evening, however, that the Peacock presented attractions which enabled the two friends to resist even the invitations of the gifted, though prosy, Pott. It was in the evening that the "commercial room" was filled with a social circle, whose characters and manners it was the delight of Mr. Tupman to observe; whose sayings and doings it was the habit of Mr. Snodgrass to note down. Most people know what sort of places commercial rooms usually are. That of the Peacock differed in no material respect from the generality of such apartments; that is to say, it was a large bare-looking room, the furniture of which had no doubt been better when it was newer, with a spacious table in the centre, and a variety of smaller dittos in the corners: an extensive assortment of variously shaped chairs, and an old Turkey carpet, bearing about the same relative proportion to the size of the room, as a lady's pocket-handkerchief might to the floor of a watch-box. The walls were garnished with one or two large maps; and several weather-beaten rough great-coats, with complicated capes, dangled from a long row of pegs in one corner. The mantelshelf was ornamented with a wooden inkstand, containing one stump of a pen and half a wafer: a road-book and directory: a county history minus the cover; and the mortal remains of a trout in a glass coffin. The atmosphere was redolent of tobacco-smoke, the fumes of which had communicated a rather dingy hue to the whole room, and more especially to the dusty red curtains which shaded the windows. On the sideboard a variety of miscellaneous articles were huddled together, the most conspicuous of which were some very cloudy fish-sauce cruets, a couple of driving-boxes, two or three whips and as many travelling shawls, a tray of knives and forks, and the mustard. Here it was that Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass were seated on the evening after the conclusion of the election, with several other temporary inmates of the house, smoking and drinking. "Well, gents," said a stout, hale personage of about forty, with only one eye--a very bright black eye, which twinkled with a roguish expression of fun and good humour, "our noble selves, gents. I always propose that toast to the company, and drink Mary to myself. Eh, Mary!" "Get along with you, you wretch," said the handmaiden, obviously not ill pleased with the compliment, however. "Don't go away, Mary," said the black-eyed man. "Let me alone, imperence," said the young lady. "Never mind," said the one-eyed man, calling after the girl as she left the room. "I'll step out by-and-by, Mary. Keep your spirits up, dear." Here he went through the not very difficult process of winking upon the company with his solitary eye, to the enthusiastic delight of an elderly personage with a dirty face and a clay pipe. "Rum creeters is women," said the dirty-faced man after a pause. "Ah! no mistake about that," said a very red-faced man, behind a cigar. After this little bit of philosophy there was another pause. "There's rummer things than women in this world though, mind you," said the man with the black eye, slowly filling a large Dutch pipe, with a most capacious bowl. "Are you married?" inquired the dirty-faced man. "Can't say I am." "I thought not." Here the dirty-faced man fell into fits of mirth at his own retort, in which he was joined by a man of bland voice and placid countenance, who always made it a point to agree with everybody. "Women, after all, gentlemen," said the enthusiastic Mr. Snodgrass, "are the great props and comforts of our existence." "So they are," said the placid gentleman. "When they're in a good humour," interposed the dirty-faced man. "And that's very true," said the placid one. "I repudiate that qualification," said Mr. Snodgrass, whose thoughts were fast reverting to Emily Wardle, "I repudiate it with disdain--with indignation. Show me the man who says anything against women, as women, and I boldly declare he is not a man." And Mr. Snodgrass took his cigar from his mouth and struck the table violently with his clenched fist. "That's good sound argument," said the placid man. "Containing a position which I deny," interrupted he of the dirty countenance. "And there's certainly a very great deal of truth in what you observe too, sir," said the placid gentleman. "Your health, sir," said the bagman with the lonely eye, bestowing an approving nod on Mr. Snodgrass. Mr. Snodgrass acknowledged the compliment. "I always like to hear a good argument," continued the bagman, "a sharp one, like this; it's very improving; but this little argument about women brought to my mind a story I have heard an old uncle of mine tell, the recollection of which, just now, made me say there were rummer things than women to be met with, sometimes." "I should like to hear that same story," said the red-faced man with the cigar. "Should you?" was the only reply of the bagman, who continued to smoke with great vehemence. "So should I," said Mr. Tupman, speaking for the first time. He was always anxious to increase his stock of experience. "Should _you_? Well then, I'll tell it. No I won't. I know you won't believe it," said the man with the roguish eye, making that organ look more roguish than ever. "If you say it's true, of course I shall," said Mr. Tupman. "Well, upon that understanding I'll tell you," replied the traveller. "Did you ever hear of the great commercial house of Bilson and Slum? But it doesn't matter though, whether you did or not, because they retired from business long since. It's eighty years ago since the circumstance happened to a traveller for that house, but he was a particular friend of my uncle's; and my uncle told the story to me. It's a queer name; but he used to call it THE BAGMAN'S STORY and he used to tell it, something in this way. "One winter's evening, about five o'clock, just as it began to grow dusk, a man in a gig might have been seen urging his tired horse along the road which leads across Marlborough Downs, in the direction of Bristol. I say he might have been seen, and I have no doubt he would have been, if anybody but a blind man had happened to pass that way; but the weather was so bad, and the night so cold and wet, that nothing was out but the water, and so the traveller jogged along in the middle of the road, lonesome and dreary enough. If any bagman of that day could have caught sight of the little neck-or-nothing sort of gig, with a clay-coloured body and red wheels, and the vixenish, ill-tempered, fast-going bay mare, that looked like a cross between a butcher's horse and a two-penny post-office pony, he would have known at once, that this traveller could have been no other than Tom Smart, of the great house of Bilson and Slum, Cateaton Street, City. However, as there was no bagman to look on, nobody knew anything at all about the matter; and so Tom Smart and his clay-coloured gig with the red wheels, and the vixenish mare with the fast pace, went on together, keeping the secret among them: and nobody was a bit the wiser. "There are many pleasanter places even in this dreary world, than Marlborough Downs when it blows hard; and if you throw in beside, a gloomy winter's evening, a miry and sloppy road, and a pelting fall of heavy rain, and try the effect, by way of experiment, in your own proper person, you will experience the full force of this observation. "The wind blew--not up the road or down it, though that's bad enough, but sheer across it, sending the rain slanting down like the lines they used to rule in the copybooks at school, to make the boys slope well. For a moment it would die away, and the traveller would begin to delude himself into the belief that, exhausted with its previous fury, it had quietly lain itself down to rest, when, whoo! he would hear it growling and whistling in the distance, and on it would come rushing over the hill-tops, and sweeping along the plain, gathering sound and strength as it drew nearer, until it dashed with a heavy gust against horse and man, driving the sharp rain into their ears, and its cold damp breath into their very bones; and past them it would scour, far, far away, with a stunning roar, as if in ridicule of their weakness, and triumphant in the consciousness of its own strength and power. [Illustration: "_No other than Tom Smart_"] "The bay mare splashed away, through the mud and water, with drooping ears; now and then tossing her head as if to express her disgust at this very ungentlemanly behaviour of the elements, but keeping a good pace notwithstanding, until a gust of wind, more furious than any that had yet assailed them, caused her to stop suddenly and plant her four feet firmly against the ground, to prevent her being blown over. It's a special mercy that she did this, for if she _had_ been blown over, the vixenish mare was so light, and the gig was so light, and Tom Smart such a light weight into the bargain, that they must infallibly have all gone rolling over and over together, until they reached the confines of earth, or until the wind fell; and in either case the probability is, that neither the vixenish mare, nor the clay-coloured gig with the red wheels, nor Tom Smart, would ever have been fit for service again. "'Well, damn my straps and whiskers,' says Tom Smart (Tom sometimes had an unpleasant knack of swearing), 'Damn my straps and whiskers,' says Tom, 'if this an't pleasant, blow me!' "You'll very likely ask me why, as Tom Smart had been pretty well blown already, he expressed this wish to be submitted to the same process again. I can't say,--all I know is, that Tom Smart said so--or at least he always told my uncle he said so, and it's just the same thing. "'Blow me,' says Tom Smart; and the mare neighed as if she were precisely of the same opinion. "'Cheer up, old girl,' said Tom, patting the bay mare on the neck with the end of his whip. 'It won't do pushing on, such a night as this; the first house we come to we'll put up at, so the faster you go the sooner it's over. Soho, old girl--gently--gently.' "Whether the vixenish mare was sufficiently well acquainted with the tones of Tom's voice to comprehend his meaning, or whether she found it colder standing still than moving on, of course I can't say. But I can say that Tom had no sooner finished speaking, than she pricked up her ears, and started forward at a speed which made the clay-coloured gig rattle till you would have supposed every one of the red spokes was going to fly out on the turf of Marlborough Downs; and even Tom, whip as he was, couldn't stop or check her pace, until she drew up, of her own accord, before a roadside inn on the right-hand side of the way, about half a quarter of a mile from the end of the Downs. "Tom cast a hasty glance at the upper part of the house as he threw the reins to the hostler, and stuck the whip in the box. It was a strange old place, built of a kind of shingle, inlaid, as it were, with cross-beams, with gable-topped windows projecting completely over the pathway, and a low door with a dark porch, and a couple of steep steps leading down into the house, instead of the modern fashion of half a dozen shallow ones leading up to it. It was a comfortable-looking place though, for there was a strong cheerful light in the bar-window, which shed a bright ray across the road, and even lighted up the hedge on the other side; and there was a red flickering light in the opposite window, one moment but faintly discernible, and the next gleaming strongly through the drawn curtains, which intimated that a rousing fire was blazing within. Marking these little evidences with the eye of an experienced traveller, Tom dismounted with as much agility as his half-frozen limbs would permit, and entered the house. "In less than five minutes' time, Tom was ensconced in the room opposite the bar--the very room where he had imagined the fire blazing--before a substantial matter-of-fact roaring fire, composed of something short of a bushel of coals, and wood enough to make half a dozen decent gooseberry bushes, piled half-way up the chimney, and roaring and crackling with a sound that of itself would have warmed the heart of any reasonable man. This was comfortable, but this was not all, for a smartly dressed girl, with a bright eye and a neat ankle, was laying a very clean white cloth on the table; and as Tom sat with his slippered feet on the fender, and his back to the open door, he saw a charming prospect of the bar reflected in the glass over the chimney-piece, with delightful rows of green bottles and gold labels, together with jars of pickles and preserves, and cheeses and boiled hams, and rounds of beef, arranged on shelves in the most tempting and delicious array. Well, this was comfortable too; but even this was not all--for in the bar, seated at tea at the nicest possible little table, drawn close up before the brightest possible little fire, was a buxom widow of somewhere about eight-and-forty or thereabouts, with a face as comfortable as the bar, who was evidently the landlady of the house, and the supreme ruler over all these agreeable possessions. There was only one drawback to the beauty of the whole picture, and that was a tall man--a very tall man--in a brown coat and bright basket buttons, and black whiskers, and wavy black hair, who was seated at tea with the widow, and who it required no great penetration to discover was in a fair way of persuading her to be a widow no longer, but to confer upon him the privilege of sitting down in that bar, for and during the whole remainder of the term of his natural life. "Tom Smart was by no means of an irritable or envious disposition, but somehow or other the tall man with the brown coat and the bright basket buttons did rouse what little gall he had in his composition, and did make him feel extremely indignant: the more especially as he could now and then observe, from his seat before the glass, certain little affectionate familiarities passing between the tall man and the widow, which sufficiently denoted that the tall man was as high in favour as he was in size. Tom was fond of hot punch--I may venture to say he was _very_ fond of hot punch--and after he had seen the vixenish mare well fed and well littered down, and had eaten every bit of the nice little hot dinner which the widow tossed up for him with her own hands, he just ordered a tumbler of it, by way of experiment. Now, if there was one thing in the whole range of domestic art, which the widow could manufacture better than another, it was this identical article; and the first tumbler was adapted to Tom Smart's taste with such peculiar nicety, that he ordered a second with the least possible delay. Hot punch is a pleasant thing, gentlemen--an extremely pleasant thing under any circumstances--but in that snug old parlour, before the roaring fire, with the wind blowing outside till every timber in the old house creaked again, Tom Smart found it perfectly delightful. He ordered another tumbler, and then another--I am not quite certain whether he didn't order another after that--but the more he drank of the hot punch, the more he thought of the tall man. "'Confound his impudence!' said Tom to himself, 'what business has he in that snug bar? Such an ugly villain too!' said Tom. 'If the widow had any taste, she might surely pick up some better fellow than that.' Here Tom's eyes wandered from the glass on the chimney-piece, to the glass on the table; and as he felt himself becoming gradually sentimental, he emptied the fourth tumbler of punch and ordered a fifth. "Tom Smart, gentlemen, had always been very much attached to the public line. It had long been his ambition to stand in a bar of his own, in a green coat, knee-cords and tops. He had a great notion of taking the chair at convivial dinners, and he had often thought how well he could preside in a room of his own in the talking way, and what a capital example he could set to his customers in the drinking department. All these things passed rapidly through Tom's mind as he sat drinking the hot punch by the roaring fire, and he felt very justly and properly indignant that the tall man should be in a fair way of keeping such an excellent house, while he, Tom Smart, was as far off from it as ever. So, after deliberating over the two last tumblers, whether he hadn't a perfect right to pick a quarrel with the tall man for having contrived to get into the good graces of the buxom widow, Tom Smart at last arrived at the satisfactory conclusion that he was a very ill-used and persecuted individual, and had better go to bed. "Up a wide and ancient staircase the smart girl preceded Tom, shading the chamber candle with her hand, to protect it from the currents of air which in such a rambling old place might have found plenty of room to disport themselves in, without blowing the candle out, but which did blow it out nevertheless; thus affording Tom's enemies an opportunity of asserting that it was he, and not the wind, who extinguished the candle, and that while he pretended to be blowing it alight again, he was in fact kissing the girl. Be this as it may, another light was obtained, and Tom was conducted through a maze of rooms, and a labyrinth of passages, to the apartment which had been prepared for his reception, where the girl bade him good night, and left him alone. "It was a good large room with big closets, and a bed which might have served for a whole boarding-school, to say nothing of a couple of oaken presses that would have held the baggage of a small army; but what struck Tom's fancy most was a strange, grim-looking, high-backed chair, carved in the most fantastic manner, with a flowered damask cushion, and the round knobs at the bottom of the legs carefully tied up in red cloth, as if it had got the gout in its toes. Of any other queer chair, Tom would only have thought it _was_ a queer chair, and there would have been an end of the matter; but there was something about this particular chair, and yet he couldn't tell what it was, so odd and so unlike any other piece of furniture he had ever seen, that it seemed to fascinate him. He sat down before the fire, and stared at the old chair for half an hour;--Deuce take the chair, it was such a strange old thing, he couldn't take his eyes off it. "'Well,' said Tom, slowly undressing himself, and staring at the old chair all the while, which stood with a mysterious aspect by the bedside, 'I never saw such a rum concern as that in my days. Very odd,' said Tom, who had got rather sage with the hot punch, 'Very odd.' Tom shook his head with an air of profound wisdom, and looked at the chair again. He couldn't make anything of it though, so he got into bed, covered himself up warm, and fell asleep. "In about half an hour, Tom woke up, with a start, from a confused dream of tall men and tumblers of punch: and the first object that presented itself to his waking imagination was the queer chair. "'I won't look at it any more,' said Tom to himself, and he squeezed his eyelids together, and tried to persuade himself he was going to sleep again. No use; nothing but queer chairs danced before his eyes, kicking up their legs, jumping over each other's backs, and playing all kinds of antics. "'I may as well see one real chair, as two or three complete sets of false ones,' said Tom, bringing out his head from under the bed-clothes. There it was, plainly discernible by the light of the fire, looking as provoking as ever. "Tom gazed at the chair; and, suddenly as he looked at it, a most extraordinary change seemed to come over it. The carving of the back gradually assumed the lineaments and expression of an old shrivelled human face; the damask cushion became an antique, flapped waistcoat; the round knobs grew into a couple of feet, encased in red cloth slippers; and the old chair looked like a very ugly old man, of the previous century, with his arms a-kimbo. Tom sat up in bed, and rubbed his eyes to dispel the illusion. No. The chair was an ugly old gentleman; and what was more, he was winking at Tom Smart. "Tom was naturally a headlong, careless sort of dog, and he had had five tumblers of hot punch into the bargain; so, although he was a little startled at first, he began to grow rather indignant when he saw the old gentleman winking and leering at him with such an impudent air. At length he resolved that he wouldn't stand it; and as the old face still kept winking away as fast as ever, Tom said, in a very angry tone: "'What the devil are you winking at me for?' "'Because I like it, Tom Smart,' said the chair; or the old gentleman, whichever you like to call him. He stopped winking though, when Tom spoke, and began grinning like a superannuated monkey. "'How do you know my name, old nut-cracker face?' inquired Tom Smart, rather staggered;--though he pretended to carry it off so well. "'Come, come, Tom,' said the old gentleman, 'that's not the way to address solid Spanish Mahogany. Damme, you couldn't treat me with less respect if I was veneered.' When the old gentleman said this, he looked so fierce that Tom began to grow frightened. "'I didn't mean to treat you with any disrespect, sir,' said Tom; in a much humbler tone than he had spoken in at first. "'Well, well,' said the old fellow, 'perhaps not--perhaps not. Tom----' "'Sir----' "'I know everything about you, Tom; everything. You're very poor, Tom.' "'I certainly am,' said Tom Smart. 'But how came you to know that?' "'Never mind that,' said the old gentleman; 'you're much too fond of punch, Tom.' "Tom Smart was just on the point of protesting that he hadn't tasted a drop since his last birthday, but when his eye encountered that of the old gentleman, he looked so knowing that Tom blushed, and was silent. "'Tom,' said the old gentleman, 'the widow's a fine woman--remarkably fine woman--eh, Tom?' Here the old fellow screwed up his eyes, cocked up one of his wasted little legs, and looked altogether so unpleasantly amorous, that Tom was quite disgusted with the levity of his behaviour;--at his time of life, too! "'I am her guardian, Tom,' said the old gentleman. "'Are you?' inquired Tom Smart. "'I knew her mother, Tom,' said the old fellow; 'and her grandmother. She was very fond of me--made me this waistcoat, Tom.' "'Did she?' said Tom Smart. "'And these shoes,' said the old fellow lifting up one of the red-cloth mufflers; 'but don't mention it, Tom. I shouldn't like to have it known that she was so much attached to me. It might occasion some unpleasantness in the family.' When the old rascal said this, he looked so extremely impertinent, that, as Tom Smart afterwards declared, he could have sat upon him without remorse. "'I have been a great favourite among the women in my time, Tom,' said the profligate old debauchee; 'hundreds of fine women have sat in my lap for hours together. What do you think of that, you dog, eh?' The old gentleman was proceeding to recount some other exploits of his youth, when he was seized with such a violent fit of creaking that he was unable to proceed. "'Just serves you right, old boy,' thought Tom Smart; but he didn't say anything. "'Ah!' said the old fellow, 'I am a good deal troubled with this now. I am getting old, Tom, and have lost nearly all my rails. I have had an operation performed, too--a small piece let into my back--and I found it a severe trial, Tom.' "'I dare say you did, sir,' said Tom Smart. "'However,' said the old gentleman, 'that's not the point. Tom! I want you to marry the widow.' "'Me, sir!' said Tom. "'You,' said the old gentleman. "'Bless your reverend locks,' said Tom--(he had a few scattered horse-hairs left)--'bless your reverend locks, she wouldn't have me.' And Tom sighed involuntarily, as he thought of the bar. "'Wouldn't she?' said the old gentleman, firmly. "'No, no,' said Tom; 'there's somebody else in the wind. A tall man--a confoundedly tall man--with black whiskers.' "'Tom,' said the old gentleman; 'she will never have him.' "'Won't she?' said Tom. 'If you stood in the bar, old gentleman, you'd tell another story.' "'Pooh, pooh,' said the old gentleman. 'I know all about that.' "'About what?' said Tom. "'The kissing behind the door, and all that sort of thing, Tom,' said the old gentleman. And here he gave another impudent look, which made Tom very wroth, because, as you all know, gentlemen, to hear an old fellow, who ought to know better, talking about these things, is very unpleasant--nothing more so. "'I know all about that, Tom,' said the old gentleman. 'I have seen it done very often in my time, Tom, between more people than I should like to mention to you; but it never came to anything after all.' "'You must have seen some queer things,' said Tom, with an inquisitive look. "'You may say that, Tom,' replied the old fellow, with a very complicated wink. 'I am the last of my family, Tom,' said the old gentleman, with a melancholy sigh. "'Was it a large one?' inquired Tom Smart. "'There were twelve of us, Tom,' said the old gentleman; 'fine, straight-backed, handsome fellows as you'd wish to see. None of your modern abortions--all with arms, and with a degree of polish, though I say it that should not, which would have done your heart good to behold.' "'And what's become of the others, sir?' asked Tom Smart. "The old gentleman applied his elbow to his eye as he replied, 'Gone, Tom, gone. We had hard service, Tom, and they hadn't all my constitution. They got rheumatic about the legs and arms, and went into kitchens and other hospitals; and one of 'em, with long service and hard usage, positively lost his senses:--he got so crazy that he was obliged to be burnt. Shocking thing that, Tom.' "'Dreadful!' said Tom Smart. "The old fellow paused for a few minutes, apparently struggling with his feelings of emotion, and then said: "'However, Tom, I am wandering from the point. This tall man, Tom, is a rascally adventurer. The moment he married the widow, he would sell off all the furniture, and run away. What would be the consequence? She would be deserted and reduced to ruin, and I should catch my death of cold in some broker's shop.' "'Yes, but----' "'Don't interrupt me,' said the old gentleman. 'Of you, Tom, I entertain a very different opinion; for I well know that if you once settled yourself in a public-house, you would never leave it as long as there was anything to drink within its walls.' "'I am very much obliged to you for your good opinion, sir,' said Tom Smart. "'Therefore,' resumed the old gentleman, in a dictatorial tone; 'you shall have her, and he shall not.' "'What is to prevent it?' said Tom Smart, eagerly. "'This disclosure,' replied the old gentleman; 'he is already married.' "'How can I prove it?' said Tom, starting half out of bed. "The old gentleman untucked his arm from his side, and having pointed to one of the oaken presses, immediately replaced it in its old position. "'He little thinks,' said the old gentleman, 'that in the right-hand pocket of a pair of trousers in that press, he has left a letter, entreating him to return to his disconsolate wife, with six--mark me, Tom--six babes, and all of them small ones.' "As the old gentleman solemnly uttered these words, his features grew less and less distinct, and his figure more shadowy. A film came over Tom Smart's eyes. The old man seemed gradually blending into the chair, the damask waistcoat to resolve into a cushion, the red slippers to shrink into little red cloth bags. The light faded gently away, and Tom Smart fell back on his pillow and dropped asleep. "Morning aroused Tom from the lethargic slumber into which he had fallen on the disappearance of the old man. He sat up in bed, and for some minutes vainly endeavoured to recall the events of the preceding night. Suddenly they rushed upon him. He looked at the chair; it was a fantastic and grim-looking piece of furniture, certainly, but it must have been a remarkably ingenious and lively imagination, that could have discovered any resemblance between it and an old man. "'How are you, old boy?' said Tom. He was bolder in the daylight--most men are. "The chair remained motionless, and spoke not a word. "'Miserable morning,' said Tom. No. The chair would not be drawn into conversation. "'Which press did you point to?--you can tell me that,' said Tom. Devil a word, gentlemen, the chair would say. "'It's not much trouble to open it, anyhow,' said Tom, getting out of bed very deliberately. He walked up to one of the presses. The key was in the lock; he turned it, and opened the door. There _was_ a pair of trousers there. He put his hand into the pocket, and drew forth the identical letter the old gentleman had described! "'Queer sort of thing, this,' said Tom Smart; looking first at the chair and then at the press, and then at the letter, and then at the chair again. 'Very queer,' said Tom. But, as there was nothing in either to lessen the queerness, he thought he might as well dress himself and settle the tall man's business at once--just to put him out of his misery. "Tom surveyed the rooms he passed through, on his way down-stairs, with the scrutinising eye of a landlord; thinking it not impossible that, before long, they and their contents would be his property. The tall man was standing in the snug little bar, with his hands behind him, quite at home. He grinned vacantly at Tom. A casual observer might have supposed he did it, only to show his white teeth; but Tom Smart thought that a consciousness of triumph was passing through the place where the tall man's mind would have been, if he had had any. Tom laughed in his face; and summoned the landlady. "'Good morning, ma'am,' said Tom Smart, closing the door of the little parlour as the widow entered. "'Good morning, sir,' said the widow. 'What will you take for breakfast, sir?' "Tom was thinking how he should open the case, so he made no answer. "'There's a very nice ham,' said the widow, 'and a beautiful cold larded fowl. Shall I send 'em in, sir?' "These words roused Tom from his reflections. His admiration of the widow increased as she spoke. Thoughtful creature! Comfortable provider! "'Who is that gentleman in the bar, ma'am?' inquired Tom. "'His name is Jinkins, sir,' replied the widow, slightly blushing. "'He's a tall man,' said Tom. "'He is a very fine man, sir,' replied the widow, 'and a very nice gentleman.' "'Ah!' said Tom. "'Is there anything more you want, sir?' inquired the widow, rather puzzled by Tom's manner. "'Why, yes,' said Tom. 'My dear ma'am, will you have the kindness to sit down for one moment?' "The widow looked much amazed but she sat down, and Tom sat down too, close beside her. I don't know how it happened, gentlemen--indeed my uncle used to tell me that Tom Smart said _he_ didn't know how it happened either--but somehow or other the palm of Tom's hand fell upon the back of the widow's hand, and remained there while he spoke. "'My dear ma'am,' said Tom Smart--he had always a great notion of committing the amiable--'My dear ma'am, you deserve a very excellent husband;--you do indeed.' "'Lor, sir!' said the widow--as well she might; Tom's mode of commencing the conversation being rather unusual, not to say startling; the fact of his never having set eyes upon her before the previous night, being taken into consideration. 'Lor, sir!' "'I scorn to flatter, my dear ma'am,' said Tom Smart. 'You deserve a very admirable husband, and whoever he is, he'll be a very lucky man.' As Tom said this his eye involuntarily wandered from the widow's face, to the comforts around him. "The widow looked more puzzled than ever, and made an effort to rise. Tom gently pressed her hand, as if to detain her, and she kept her seat. Widows, gentlemen, are not usually timorous, as my uncle used to say. "'I am sure I am very much obliged to you, sir, for your good opinion,' said the buxom landlady, half laughing; 'and if ever I marry again----' "'_If_,' said Tom Smart, looking very shrewdly out of the right-hand corner of his left eye. '_If_----' "'Well,' said the widow, laughing outright this time. '_When_ I do, I hope I shall have as good a husband as you describe.' "'Jinkins to wit,' said Tom. "'Lor, sir!' exclaimed the widow. "'Oh, don't tell me,' said Tom, 'I know him.' "'I am sure nobody who knows him, knows anything bad of him,' said the widow, bridling up at the mysterious air with which Tom had spoken. "'Hem!' said Tom Smart. "The widow began to think it was high time to cry, so she took out her handkerchief, and inquired whether Tom wished to insult her; whether he thought it like a gentleman to take away the character of another gentleman behind his back; why, if he had got anything to say, he didn't say it to the man, like a man, instead of terrifying a poor weak woman in that way; and so forth. "'I'll say it to him fast enough,' said Tom, 'only I want you to hear it first.' "'What is it?' inquired the widow, looking intently in Tom's countenance. "'I'll astonish you,' said Tom, putting his hand in his pocket. "'If it is, that he wants money,' said the widow, 'I know that already, and you needn't trouble yourself.' "'Pooh, nonsense, that's nothing,' said Tom Smart, '_I_ want money. 'Tan't that.' "'Oh dear, what can it be?' exclaimed the poor widow. "'Don't be frightened,' said Tom Smart. He slowly drew forth the letter, and unfolded it. 'You won't scream?' said Tom, doubtfully. "'No, no,' replied the widow; 'let me see it.' "'You won't go fainting away, or any of that nonsense?' said Tom. "'No, no,' returned the widow, hastily. "'And don't run out, and blow him up,' said Tom, 'because I'll do all that for you; you had better not exert yourself.' "'Well, well,' said the widow, 'let me see it.' "'I will,' replied Tom Smart; and, with these words, he placed the letter in the widow's hand. "Gentlemen, I have heard my uncle say, that Tom Smart said, the widow's lamentations when she heard the disclosure would have pierced a heart of stone. Tom was certainly very tender-hearted, but they pierced his to the very core. The widow rocked herself to and fro, and wrung her hands. "'Oh, the deception and villainy of man!' said the widow. "'Frightful, my dear ma'am; but compose yourself,' said Tom Smart. "'Oh, I can't compose myself,' shrieked the widow. 'I shall never find any one else I can love so much!' "'Oh yes, you will, my dear soul,' said Tom Smart, letting fall a shower of the largest sized tears, in pity for the widow's misfortunes. Tom Smart, in the energy of his compassion, had put his arm round the widow's waist; and the widow, in a passion of grief, had clasped Tom's hand. She looked up in Tom's face, and smiled through her tears. Tom looked down in hers, and smiled through his. "I never could find out, gentlemen, whether Tom did or did not kiss the widow at that particular moment. He used to tell my uncle he didn't, but I have my doubts about it. Between ourselves, gentlemen, I rather think he did. "At all events, Tom kicked the very tall man out at the front door half an hour after, and married the widow a month after. And he used to drive about the country, with the clay-coloured gig with red wheels, and the vixenish mare with the fast pace, till he gave up business many years afterwards, and went to France with his wife; and then the old house was pulled down." * * * * * "Will you allow me to ask you," said the inquisitive old gentleman, "what became of the chair?" "Why," replied the one-eyed bagman, "it was observed to creak very much on the day of the wedding; but Tom Smart couldn't say for certain whether it was with pleasure or bodily infirmity. He rather thought it was the latter, though, for it never spoke afterwards." [Illustration: _"She looked up in Tom's face and smiled through her tears."_] "Everybody believed the story, didn't they?" said the dirty-faced man, refilling his pipe. "Except Tom's enemies," replied the bagman. "Some of 'em said Tom invented it altogether; and others said he was drunk, and fancied it, and got hold of the wrong trousers by mistake before he went to bed. But nobody ever minded what _they_ said." "Tom said it was all true?" "Every word." "And your uncle?" "Every letter." "They must have been very nice men, both of 'em," said the dirty-faced man. "Yes, they were," replied the bagman; "very nice men indeed." CHAPTER XV [Illustration] _In which is given a Faithful Portraiture of two Distinguished Persons; and an Accurate Description of a Public Breakfast in their House and Grounds: which Public Breakfast leads to the Recognition of an Old Acquaintance, and the Commencement of another Chapter_ Mr. Pickwick's conscience had been somewhat reproaching him for his recent neglect of his friends at the Peacock; and he was just on the point of walking forth in quest of them, on the third morning after the election had terminated, when his faithful valet put into his hand a card, on which was engraved the following inscription:-- *Mrs. Leo Hunter.* _The Den. Eatanswill._ "Person's a waitin'," said Sam, epigrammatically. "Does the person want me, Sam?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "He wants you particklar; and no one else'll do, as the Devil's private secretary said ven he fetched avay Doctor Faustus," replied Mr. Weller. "_He._ Is it a gentleman?" said Mr. Pickwick. "A wery good imitation o' one, if it an't," replied Mr. Weller. "But this is a lady's card," said Mr. Pickwick. "Given me by a gen'lm'n, hows'ever," replied Sam, "and he's a waitin' in the drawing-room--said he'd rather wait all day, than not see you." Mr. Pickwick, on hearing this determination, descended to the drawing-room, where sat a grave man, who started up on his entrance, and said, with an air of profound respect: "Mr. Pickwick, I presume?" "The same." "Allow me, sir, the honour of grasping your hand. Permit me, sir, to shake it," said the grave man. "Certainly," said Mr. Pickwick. The stranger shook the extended hand, and then continued. "We have heard of your fame, sir. The noise of your antiquarian discussion has reached the ears of Mrs. Leo Hunter--my wife, sir; _I_ am _Mr._ Leo Hunter"--the stranger paused, as if he expected that Mr. Pickwick would be overcome by the disclosure; but seeing that he remained perfectly calm, proceeded. "My wife, sir--Mrs. Leo Hunter--is proud to number among her acquaintance all those who have rendered themselves celebrated by their works and talents. Permit me, sir, to place in a conspicuous part of the list the name of Mr. Pickwick, and his brother members of the club that derives its name from him." "I shall be extremely happy to make the acquaintance of such a lady, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick. "You _shall_ make it, sir," said the grave man. "To-morrow morning, sir, we give a public breakfast--a _fête champêtre_--to a great number of those who have rendered themselves celebrated by their works and talents. Permit Mrs. Leo Hunter, sir, to have the gratification of seeing you at the Den." "With great pleasure," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Mrs. Leo Hunter has many of these breakfasts, sir," resumed the new acquaintance--"'feasts of reason, sir, and flows of soul,' as somebody who wrote a sonnet to Mrs. Leo Hunter on her breakfasts, feelingly and originally observed." "Was _he_ celebrated for his works and talents?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "He was, sir," replied the grave man, "all Mrs. Leo Hunter's acquaintance are; it is her ambition, sir, to have no other acquaintance." "It is a very noble ambition," said Mr. Pickwick. "When I inform Mrs. Leo Hunter, that that remark fell from _your_ lips, sir, she will indeed be proud," said the grave man. "You have a gentleman in your train, who has produced some beautiful little poems, I think, sir?" "My friend Mr. Snodgrass has a great taste for poetry," replied Mr. Pickwick. "So has Mrs. Leo Hunter, sir. She dotes on poetry, sir. She adores it; I may say that her whole soul and mind are wound up, and entwined with it. She has produced some delightful pieces, herself, sir. You may have met with her 'Ode to an Expiring Frog,' sir?" "I don't think I have," said Mr. Pickwick. "You astonish me, sir," said Mr. Leo Hunter. "It created an immense sensation. It was signed with an 'L' and eight stars, and appeared originally in a Lady's Magazine. It commenced: 'Can I view thee panting, lying On thy stomach, without sighing! Can I unmoved see thee dying On a log, Expiring frog!'" "Beautiful!" said Mr. Pickwick. "Fine," said Mr. Leo Hunter; "so simple." "Very," said Mr. Pickwick. "The next verse is still more touching. Shall I repeat it?" "If you please," said Mr. Pickwick. "It runs thus," said the grave man, still more gravely: "'Say, have fiends in shape of boys, With wild halloo and brutal noise, Hunted thee from marshy joys, With a dog, Expiring frog?'" "Finely expressed," said Mr. Pickwick. "All point, sir," said Mr. Leo Hunter, "but you shall hear Mrs. Leo Hunter repeat it. _She_ can do justice to it, sir. She will repeat it, in character, sir, to-morrow morning." "In character!" "As Minerva. But I forgot--it's a fancy-dress breakfast." "Dear me," said Mr. Pickwick, glancing at his own figure--"I can't possibly----" "Can't sir; can't!" exclaimed Mr. Leo Hunter. "Solomon Lucas, the Jew in the High Street, has thousands of fancy dresses. Consider, sir, how many appropriate characters are open for your selection. Plato, Zeno, Epicurus, Pythagoras--all founders of clubs." "I know that," said Mr. Pickwick, "but as I cannot put myself in competition with those great men, I cannot presume to wear their dresses." The grave man considered deeply, for a few seconds, and then said: "On reflection, sir, I don't know whether it would not afford Mrs. Leo Hunter greater pleasure, if her guests saw a gentleman of your celebrity in his own costume, rather than in an assumed one. I may venture to promise an exception in your case, sir--yes, I am quite certain that on behalf of Mrs. Leo Hunter, I may venture to do so." "In that case," said Mr. Pickwick, "I shall have great pleasure in coming." "But I waste your time, sir," said the grave man, as if suddenly recollecting himself. "I know its value, sir. I will not detain you. I may tell Mrs. Leo Hunter, then, that she may confidently expect you and your distinguished friends? Good morning, sir, I am proud to have beheld so eminent a personage--not a step, sir; not a word." And without giving Mr. Pickwick time to offer remonstrance or denial, Mr. Leo Hunter stalked gravely away. Mr. Pickwick took up his hat, and repaired to the Peacock, but Mr. Winkle had conveyed the intelligence of the fancy ball there, before him. "Mrs. Pott's going," were the first words with which he saluted his leader. "Is she?" said Mr. Pickwick. "As Apollo," replied Mr. Winkle. "Only Pott objects to the tunic." "He is right. He is quite right," said Mr. Pickwick, emphatically. "Yes;--so she's going to wear a white satin gown with gold spangles." "They'll hardly know what she's meant for; will they?" inquired Mr. Snodgrass. "Of course they will," replied Mr. Winkle, indignantly. "They'll see her lyre, won't they?" "True; I forgot that," said Mr. Snodgrass. "I shall go as a bandit," interposed Mr. Tupman. "What!" said Mr. Pickwick, with a sudden start. "As a bandit," repeated Mr. Tupman, mildly. "You don't mean to say," said Mr. Pickwick, gazing with solemn sternness at his friend--"you don't mean to say, Mr. Tupman, that it is your intention to put yourself into a green velvet jacket, with a two-inch tail?" "Such _is_ my intention, sir," replied Mr. Tupman, warmly. "And why not, sir?" "Because, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, considerably excited, "because you are too old, sir." "Too old!" exclaimed Mr. Tupman. "And if any further ground of objection be wanting," continued Mr. Pickwick, "you are too fat, sir." "Sir," said Mr. Tupman, his face suffused with a crimson glow, "this is an insult." "Sir," replied Mr. Pickwick, in the same tone, "it is not half the insult to you, that your appearance in my presence in a green velvet jacket, with a two-inch tail, would be to me." "Sir," said Mr. Tupman, "you're a fellow!" "Sir," said Mr. Pickwick, "you're another!" Mr. Tupman advanced a step or two, and glared at Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Pickwick returned the glare, concentrated into a focus by means of his spectacles, and breathed a bold defiance. Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle looked on, petrified at beholding such a scene between two such men. "Sir," said Mr. Tupman, after a short pause, speaking in a low, deep voice, "you have called me old." "I have," said Mr. Pickwick. "And fat." "I reiterate the charge." "And a fellow." "So you are!" There was a fearful pause. "My attachment to your person, sir," said Mr. Tupman, speaking in a voice tremulous with emotion, and tucking up his wristbands meanwhile, "is great--very great--but upon that person, I must take summary vengeance." "Come on, sir!" replied Mr. Pickwick. Stimulated by the exciting nature of the dialogue, the heroic man actually threw himself into a paralytic attitude, confidently supposed by the two by-standers to have been intended as a posture of defence. "What!" exclaimed Mr. Snodgrass, suddenly recovering the power of speech, of which intense astonishment had previously bereft him, and rushing between the two, at the imminent hazard of receiving an application on the temple from each. "What! Mr. Pickwick, with the eyes of the world upon you! Mr. Tupman! Who, in common with us all, derives a lustre from his undying name! For shame, gentlemen; for shame." The unwonted lines which momentary passion had ruled in Mr. Pickwick's clear and open brow, gradually melted away, as his young friend spoke, like the marks of a black-lead pencil beneath the softening influence of India rubber. His countenance had resumed its usual benign expression, ere he concluded. "I have been hasty," said Mr. Pickwick, "very hasty. Tupman; your hand." The dark shadow passed from Mr. Tupman's face, as he warmly grasped the hand of his friend. "I have been hasty, too," said he. "No, no," interrupted Mr. Pickwick, "the fault was mine. You will wear the green velvet jacket?" "No, no," replied Mr. Tupman. "To oblige me, you will?" resumed Mr. Pickwick. "Very well, I will," said Mr. Tupman. It was accordingly settled that Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass, should all wear fancy dresses. Thus Mr. Pickwick was led by the very warmth of his good feelings to give his consent to a proceeding from which his better judgment would have recoiled--a more striking illustration of his amiable character could hardly have been conceived, even if the events recorded in these pages had been wholly imaginary. Mr. Leo Hunter had not exaggerated the resources of Mr. Solomon Lucas. His wardrobe was extensive--very extensive--not strictly classical perhaps, nor quite new, nor did it contain any one garment made precisely after the fashion of any age or time, but everything was more or less spangled; and what _can_ be prettier than spangles! It may be objected that they are not adapted to the daylight, but everybody knows that they would glitter if there were lamps; and nothing can be clearer than that if people give fancy balls in the day-time, and the dresses do not show quite as well as they would by night, the fault lies solely with the people who give the fancy balls, and is in no wise chargeable on the spangles. Such was the convincing reasoning of Mr. Solomon Lucas; and influenced by such arguments did Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass, engage to array themselves in costumes, which his taste and experience induced him to recommend as admirably suited to the occasion. A carriage was hired from the Town Arms, for the accommodation of the Pickwickians, and a chariot was ordered from the same repository, for the purpose of conveying Mr. and Mrs. Pott to Mrs. Leo Hunter's grounds, which Mr. Pott, as a delicate acknowledgment of having received an invitation, had already confidently predicted in the _Eatanswill Gazette_ "would present a scene of varied and delicious enchantment--a bewildering coruscation of beauty and talent--a lavish and prodigal display of hospitality--above all, a degree of splendour softened by the most exquisite taste; and adornment refined with perfect harmony and the chastest good keeping--compared with which, the fabled gorgeousness of Eastern Fairy-land itself, would appear to be clothed in as many dark and murky colours, as must be the mind of the splenetic and unmanly being who could presume to taint with the venom of his envy, the preparations making by the virtuous and highly distinguished lady, at whose shrine this humble tribute of admiration was offered." This last was a piece of biting sarcasm against the _Independent_, who in consequence of not having been invited at all, had been through four numbers affecting to sneer at the whole affair, in his very largest type, with all the adjectives in capital letters. The morning came: it was a pleasant sight to behold Mr. Tupman in full Brigand's costume, with a very tight jacket, sitting like a pincushion over his back and shoulders: the upper portion of his legs encased in the velvet shorts, and the lower part thereof swathed in the complicated bandages to which all Brigands are peculiarly attached. It was pleasing to see his open and ingenuous countenance, well mustachioed and corked, looking out from an open shirt-collar; and to contemplate the sugar-loaf hat, decorated with ribbons of all colours, which he was compelled to carry on his knee, inasmuch as no known conveyance with a top to it, would admit of any man's carrying it between his head and the roof. Equally humorous and agreeable was the appearance of Mr. Snodgrass in blue satin trunks and cloak, white silk tights and shoes, and Grecian helmet: which everybody knows (and if they do not, Mr. Solomon Lucas did) to have been the regular, authentic, every-day costume of a Troubadour, from the earliest ages down to the time of their final disappearance from the face of the earth. All this was pleasant, but this was nothing compared with the shouting of the populace when the carriage drew up, behind Mr. Pott's chariot, which chariot itself drew up at Mr. Pott's door, which door itself opened, and displayed the great Pott accoutred as a Russian officer of justice, with a tremendous knout in his hand--tastefully typical of the stern and mighty power of the _Eatanswill Gazette_, and the fearful lashings it bestowed on public offenders. "Bravo!" shouted Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass from the passage, when they beheld the walking allegory. "Hoo--roar, Pott!" shouted the populace. Amid these salutations, Mr. Pott, smiling with that kind of bland dignity which sufficiently testified that he felt his power, and knew how to exert it, got into the chariot. Then there emerged from the house, Mrs. Pott, who would have looked very like Apollo if she hadn't had a gown on: conducted by Mr. Winkle, who in his light-red coat, could not possibly have been mistaken for anything but a sportsman, if he had not borne an equal resemblance to a general postman. Last of all came Mr. Pickwick, whom the boys applauded as loud as anybody, probably under the impression that his tights and gaiters were some remnants of the dark ages; and then the two vehicles proceeded towards Mrs. Leo Hunter's: Mr. Weller (who was to assist in waiting) being stationed on the box of that in which his master was seated. [Illustration: _Mr. Pickwick, with the Brigand on one arm, and the Troubadour on the other_] Every one of the men, women, boys, girls, and babies, who were assembled to see the visitors in their fancy dresses, screamed with delight and ecstasy, when Mr. Pickwick, with the Brigand on one arm, and the Troubadour on the other, walked solemnly up the entrance. Never were such shouts heard, as those which greeted Mr. Tupman's efforts to fix the sugar-loaf hat on his head, by way of entering the garden in style. The preparations were on the most delightful scale; fully realising the prophetic Pott's anticipations about the gorgeousness of Eastern Fairyland, and at once affording a sufficient contradiction to the malignant statements of the reptile _Independent_. The grounds were more than an acre and a quarter in extent, and they were filled with people! Never was such a blaze of beauty, and fashion, and literature. There was the young lady who "did" the poetry in the _Eatanswill Gazette_, in the garb of a sultana, leaning upon the arm of the young gentleman who "did" the review department, and who was appropriately habited in a field-marshal's uniform--the boots excepted. There were hosts of these geniuses, and any reasonable person would have thought it honour enough to meet them. But more than these, there were half a dozen lions from London--authors, real authors, who had written whole books, and printed them afterwards--and here you might see 'em, walking about, like ordinary men, smiling, and talking--aye, and talking pretty considerable nonsense too, no doubt with the benign intention of rendering themselves intelligible to the common people about them. Moreover, there was a band of music in pasteboard caps; four something-ean singers in the costume of their country, and a dozen hired waiters in the costume of _their_ country--and very dirty costume too. And above all, there was Mrs. Leo Hunter in the character of Minerva, receiving the company, and overflowing with pride and gratification at the notion of having called such distinguished individuals together. "Mr. Pickwick, ma'am," said a servant, as that gentleman approached the presiding goddess, with his hat in his hand, and the Brigand and Troubadour on either arm. "What! Where!" exclaimed Mrs. Leo Hunter, starting up, in an affected rapture of surprise. "Here," said Mr. Pickwick. "Is it possible that I have really the gratification of beholding Mr. Pickwick himself!" ejaculated Mrs. Leo Hunter. "No other, ma'am," replied Mr. Pickwick, bowing very low. "Permit me to introduce my friends--Mr. Tupman--Mr. Winkle--Mr. Snodgrass--to the authoress of 'The Expiring Frog.'" Very few people but those who have tried it, know what a difficult process it is, to bow in green velvet smalls, and a tight jacket, and high-crowned hat: or in blue satin trunks and white silks: or knee-cords and top-boots that were never made for the wearer, and have been fixed upon him without the remotest reference to the comparative dimensions of himself and the suit. Never were such distortions as Mr. Tupman's frame underwent in his efforts to appear easy and graceful--never was such ingenious posturing, as his fancy-dressed friends exhibited. "Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Leo Hunter, "I must make you promise not to stir from my side the whole day. There are hundreds of people here, that I must positively introduce you to." "You are very kind, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick. "In the first place, here are my little girls; I had almost forgotten them," said Minerva, carelessly pointing towards a couple of full-grown young ladies, of whom one might be about twenty, and the other a year or two older, and who were dressed in very juvenile costumes--whether to make them look young, or their mamma younger, Mr. Pickwick does not distinctly inform us. "They are very beautiful," said Mr. Pickwick, as the juveniles turned away, after being presented. "They are very like their mamma, sir," said Mr. Pott, majestically. "Oh you naughty man!" exclaimed Mrs. Leo Hunter, playfully tapping the editor's arm with her fan (Minerva with a fan!). "Why now, my dear Mrs. Hunter," said Mr. Pott, who was trumpeter in ordinary at the Den, "you _know_ that when your picture was in the Exhibition at the Royal Academy, last year, everybody inquired whether it was intended for you, or your youngest daughter; for you were so much alike that there was no telling the difference between you." "Well, and if they did, why need you repeat it, before strangers?" said Mrs. Leo Hunter, bestowing another tap on the slumbering lion of the _Eatanswill Gazette_. "Count, Count!" screamed Mrs. Leo Hunter to a well-whiskered individual in a foreign uniform, who was passing by. "Ah! you want me?" said the Count, turning back. "I want to introduce two very clever people to each other," said Mrs. Leo Hunter. "Mr. Pickwick, I have great pleasure in introducing you to Count Smorltork." She added in a hurried whisper to Mr. Pickwick--"the famous foreigner--gathering materials for his great work on England--hem!--Count Smorltork, Mr. Pickwick." Mr. Pickwick saluted the Count with all the reverence due to so great a man, and the Count drew forth a set of tablets. "What you say, Mrs. Hunt?" inquired the Count, smiling graciously on the gratified Mrs. Leo Hunter, "Pig Vig or Big Vig--what you call--Lawyer--eh? I see--that is it. Big Vig"--and the Count was proceeding to enter Mr. Pickwick in his tablets, as a gentleman of the long robe, who derived his name from the profession to which he belonged, when Mrs. Leo Hunter interposed. "No, no, Count," said the lady, "Pick-wick." "Ah, ah, I see," replied the Count. "Peek--Christian name; Weeks--surname; good, ver good. Peek Weeks. How you do, Weeks?" "Quite well, I thank you," replied Mr. Pickwick, with all his usual affability. "Have you been long in England?" "Long--ver long time--fortnight--more." "Do you stay here long?" "One week." "You will have enough to do," said Mr. Pickwick, smiling, "to gather all the materials you want, in that time." "Eh, they are gathered," said the Count. "Indeed!" said Mr. Pickwick. "They are here," added the Count, tapping his forehead significantly. "Large book at home--full of notes--music, picture, science, potry, poltic; all tings." "The word politics, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, "comprises, in itself, a difficult study of no inconsiderable magnitude." "Ah!" said the Count, drawing out the tablets again, "ver good--fine words to begin a chapter. Chapter forty-seven. Poltics. The word poltic surprises by himself--" And down went Mr. Pickwick's remark, in Count Smorltork's tablets, with such variations and additions as the Count's exuberant fancy suggested, or his imperfect knowledge of the language occasioned. "Count," said Mrs. Leo Hunter. "Mrs. Hunt," replied the Count. "This is Mr. Snodgrass, a friend of Mr. Pickwick's, and a poet." "Stop!" exclaimed the Count, bringing out the tablets once more. "Head, potry--chapter, literary friends--name, Snowgrass; ver good. Introduced to Snowgrass--great poet, friend of Peek Weeks--by Mrs. Hunt, which wrote other sweet poem--what is that name?--Frog--Perspiring Fog--ver good--ver good indeed." And the Count put up his tablets, and with sundry bows and acknowledgments walked away, thoroughly satisfied that he had made the most important and valuable additions to his stock of information. "Wonderful man, Count Smorltork," said Mrs. Leo Hunter. "Sound philosopher," said Mr. Pott. "Clear-headed, strong-minded person," added Mr. Snodgrass. A chorus of bystanders took up the shout of Count Smorltork's praise, shook their heads sagely, and unanimously cried "Very!" As the enthusiasm in Count Smorltork's favour ran very high, his praises might have been sung until the end of the festivities, if the four something-ean singers had not ranged themselves in front of a small apple-tree, to look picturesque, and commenced singing their national songs, which appeared by no means difficult of execution, inasmuch as the grand secret seemed to be, that three of the something-ean singers should grunt, while the fourth howled. This interesting performance having concluded amidst the loud plaudits of the whole company, a boy forthwith proceeded to entangle himself with the rails of a chair, and to jump over it, and crawl under it, and fall down with it, and do everything but sit upon it, and then to make a cravat of his legs, and tie them round his neck, and then to illustrate the ease with which a human being can be made to look like a magnified toad--all which feats yielded high delight and satisfaction to the assembled spectators. After which the voice of Mrs. Pott was heard to chirp faintly forth, something which courtesy interpreted into a song, which was all very classical, and strictly in character, because Apollo was himself a composer, and composers can very seldom sing their own music, or anybody else's, either. This was succeeded by Mrs. Leo Hunter's recitation of her far-famed Ode to an Expiring Frog, which was encored once, and would have been encored twice, if the major part of the guests, who thought it was high time to get something to eat, had not said that it was perfectly shameful to take advantage of Mrs. Hunter's good nature. So although Mrs. Leo Hunter professed her perfect willingness to recite the ode again, her kind and considerate friends wouldn't hear of it on any account; and the refreshment room being thrown open, all the people who had ever been there before, scrambled in with all possible despatch: Mrs. Leo Hunter's usual course of proceeding being, to issue cards for a hundred, and breakfast for fifty, or in other words to feed only the very particular lions, and let the smaller animals take care of themselves. "Where is Mr. Pott?" said Mrs. Leo Hunter, as she placed the aforesaid lions around her. "Here I am," said the editor, from the remotest end of the room; far beyond all hope of food, unless something was done for him by the hostess. "Won't you come up here?" "Oh pray don't mind him," said Mrs. Pott, in the most obliging voice--"you give yourself a great deal of unnecessary trouble, Mrs. Hunter. You'll do very well there, won't you--dear?" "Certainly--love," replied the unhappy Pott, with a grim smile. Alas for the knout! The nervous arm that wielded it, with such gigantic force, on public characters, was paralysed beneath the glance of the imperious Mrs. Pott. Mrs. Leo Hunter looked round her in triumph. Count Smorltork was busily engaged in taking notes of the contents of the dishes; Mr. Tupman was doing the honours of the lobster salad to several lionesses, with a degree of grace which no Brigand ever exhibited before; Mr. Snodgrass having cut out the young gentleman who cut up the books for the _Eatanswill Gazette_, was engaged in an impassioned argument with the young lady who did the poetry; and Mr. Pickwick was making himself universally agreeable. Nothing seemed wanting to render the select circle complete, when Mr. Leo Hunter--whose department on these occasions, was to stand about in doorways, and talk to the less important people--suddenly called out-- "My dear; here's Mr. Charles Fitz-Marshall." "Oh dear," said Mrs. Leo Hunter, "how anxiously I have been expecting him. Pray make room, to let Mr. Fitz-Marshall pass. Tell Mr. Fitz-Marshall, my dear, to come up to me directly, to be scolded for coming so late." "Coming, my dear ma'am," cried a voice, "as quick as I can--crowds of people--full room--hard work--very." Mr. Pickwick's knife and fork fell from his hand. He stared across the table at Mr. Tupman, who had dropped _his_ knife and fork, and was looking as if he were about to sink into the ground without further notice. "Ah!" cried the voice, as its owner pushed his way among the last five and twenty Turks, officers, cavaliers, and Charles the Seconds, that remained between him and the table, "regular mangle--Baker's patent--not a crease in my coat, after all this squeezing--might have 'got up my linen' as I came along--ha! ha! not a bad idea, that--queer thing to have it mangled when it's upon one, though--trying process--very." With these broken words, a young man dressed as a naval officer made his way up to the table and presented to the astonished Pickwickians, the identical form and features of Mr. Alfred Jingle. The offender had barely time to take Mrs. Leo Hunter's proffered hand, when his eyes encountered the indignant orbs of Mr. Pickwick. "Hallo!" said Jingle. "Quite forgot--no directions to postilion--give 'em at once--back in a minute." "The servant, or Mr. Hunter, will do it in a moment, Mr. Fitz-Marshall," said Mrs. Leo Hunter. "No, no--I'll do it--shan't be long--back in no time," replied Jingle. With these words he disappeared among the crowd. "Will you allow me to ask you, ma'am," said the excited Mr. Pickwick, rising from his seat, "who that young man is, and where he resides?" "He is a gentleman of fortune, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Leo Hunter, "to whom I very much want to introduce you. The Count will be delighted with him." "Yes, yes," said Mr. Pickwick, hastily. "His residence----" "Is at present at the Angel at Bury." "At Bury?" "At Bury St. Edmunds, not many miles from here. But dear me, Mr. Pickwick, you are not going to leave us: surely, Mr. Pickwick, you cannot think of going so soon." But long before Mrs. Leo Hunter had finished speaking, Mr. Pickwick had plunged through the throng, and reached the garden, whither he was shortly afterwards joined by Mr. Tupman, who had followed his friend closely. "It's of no use," said Mr. Tupman. "He has gone." "I know it," said Mr. Pickwick, "and I will follow him." "Follow him! Where?" inquired Mr. Tupman. "To the Angel at Bury," replied Mr. Pickwick, speaking very quickly. "How do we know whom he is deceiving there? He deceived a worthy man once, and we were the innocent cause. He shall not do it again, if I can help it; I'll expose him! Where's my servant?" "Here you are, sir," said Mr. Weller, emerging from a sequestered spot, where he had been engaged in discussing a bottle of Madeira, which he had abstracted from the breakfast-table, an hour or two before. "Here's your servant, sir. Proud o' the title, as the Living Skellinton said, ven they show'd him." "Follow me instantly," said Mr. Pickwick. "Tupman, if I stay at Bury, you can join me there, when I write. Till then, good-bye!" Remonstrances were useless. Mr. Pickwick was roused, and his mind was made up. Mr. Tupman returned to his companions; and in another hour had drowned all present recollection of Mr. Alfred Jingle, or Mr. Charles Fitz-Marshall, in an exhilarating quadrille and a bottle of champagne. By that time, Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller, perched on the outside of a stage coach, were every succeeding minute placing a less and less distance between themselves and the good old town of Bury St. Edmunds. CHAPTER XVI [Illustration] _Too full of Adventure to be Briefly Described_ There is no month in the whole year, in which nature wears a more beautiful appearance than in the month of August. Spring has many beauties, and May is a fresh and blooming month, but the charms of this time of the year are enhanced by their contrast with the winter season. August has no such advantage. It comes when we remember nothing but clear skies, green fields, and sweet-smelling flowers--when the recollection of snow, and ice, and bleak winds, has faded from our minds as completely as they have disappeared from the earth,--and yet what a pleasant time it is! Orchards and corn-fields ring with the hum of labour; trees bend beneath the thick clusters of rich fruit which bow their branches to the ground; and the corn, piled in graceful sheaves, or waving in every light breath that sweeps above it, as if it wooed the sickle, tinges the landscape with a golden hue. A mellow softness appears to hang over the whole earth; the influence of the season seems to extend itself to the very waggon, whose slow motion across the well-reaped field, is perceptible only to the eye, but strikes with no harsh sound upon the ear. As the coach rolls swiftly past the fields and orchards which skirt the road, groups of women and children, piling the fruit in sieves, or gathering the scattered ears of corn, pause for an instant from their labour, and shading the sun-burnt face with a still browner hand, gaze upon the passengers with curious eyes, while some stout urchin, too small to work, but too mischievous to be left at home, scrambles over the side of the basket in which he has been deposited for security, and kicks and screams with delight. The reaper stops in his work, and stands with folded arms, looking at the vehicle as it whirls past; and the rough cart-horses bestow a sleepy glance upon the smart coach team, which says, as plainly as a horse's glance can, "It's all very fine to look at, but slow going, over a heavy field, is better than warm work like that, upon a dusty road, after all." You cast a look behind you, as you turn a corner of the road. The women and children have resumed their labour: the reaper once more stoops to his work: the cart-horses have moved on: and all are again in motion. The influence of a scene like this, was not lost upon the well-regulated mind of Mr. Pickwick. Intent upon the resolution he had formed, of exposing the real character of the nefarious Jingle, in any quarter in which he might be pursuing his fraudulent designs, he sat at first taciturn and contemplative, brooding over the means by which his purpose could be best attained. By degrees his attention grew more and more attracted by the objects around him; and at last he derived as much enjoyment from the ride, as if it had been undertaken for the pleasantest reason in the world. "Delightful prospect, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "Beats the chimbley pots, sir," replied Mr. Weller, touching his hat. "I suppose you have hardly seen anything but chimney-pots and bricks and mortar all your life, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick, smiling. "I worn't always a boots, sir," said Mr. Weller, with a shake of the head. "I wos a vagginer's boy, once." "When was that?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "When I wos first pitched neck and crop into the world, to play at leap-frog with its troubles," replied Sam. "I wos a carrier's boy at startin': then a vagginer's, then a helper, then a boots. Now I'm a gen'l'm'n's servant. I shall be a gen'l'm'n myself one of these days, perhaps, with a pipe in my mouth, and a summer-house in the back garden. Who knows? _I_ shouldn't be surprised, for one." "You are quite a philosopher, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "It runs in the family, I b'lieve, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "My father's wery much in that line now. If my mother-in-law blows him up, he whistles. She flies in a passion, and breaks his pipe; he steps out, and gets another. Then she screams wery loud, and falls into 'sterics; and he smokes very comfortably 'till she comes to agin. That's philosophy, sir, an't it?" "A very good substitute for it, at all events," replied Mr. Pickwick, laughing. "It must have been of great service to you, in the course of your rambling life, Sam." "Service, sir," exclaimed Sam. "You may say that. Arter I run away from the carrier, and afore I took up with the vagginer, I had unfurnished lodgings for a fortnight." "Unfurnished lodgings?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Yes--the dry arches of Waterloo Bridge. Fine sleeping-place--within ten minutes' walk of all the public offices--only if there is any objection to it, it is that the sitivation's _rayther_ too airy. I see some queer sights there." "Ah, I suppose you did," said Mr. Pickwick, with an air of considerable interest. "Sights, sir," resumed Mr. Weller, "as 'ud penetrate your benevolent heart, and come out on the other side. You don't see the reg'lar wagrants there; trust 'em, they knows better than that. Young beggars, male and female, as hasn't made a rise in their profession, takes up their quarters there sometimes; but it's generally the worn-out, starving, houseless creeturs as rolls themselves in the dark corners o' them lonesome places--poor creeturs as ain't up to the twopenny rope." "And pray, Sam, what is the twopenny rope?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "The twopenny rope, sir," replied Mr. Weller, "is just a cheap lodgin' house, where the beds is twopence a night." "What do they call a bed a rope for?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Bless your innocence, sir, that an't it," replied Sam. "Wen the lady and gen'l'm'n as keeps the Hot-el first begun business they used to make the beds on the floor; but this wouldn't do at no price, 'cos instead o' taking a moderate two-penn'orth o' sleep, the lodgers used to lie there half the day. So now they has two ropes, 'bout six foot apart, and three from the floor, which goes right down the room; and the beds are made of slips of coarse sacking, stretched across 'em." "Well?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Well," said Mr. Weller, "the adwantage o' the plan's hobvious. At six o'clock every mornin' they lets go the ropes at one end, and down falls all the lodgers. 'Consequence is, that being thoroughly waked, they get up wery quietly, and walk away! Beg your pardon, sir," said Sam, suddenly breaking off in his loquacious discourse. "Is this Bury St. Edmunds?" "It is," replied Mr. Pickwick. The coach rattled through the well-paved streets of a handsome little town, of thriving and cleanly appearance, and stopped before a large inn situated in a wide open street, nearly facing the old abbey. "And this," said Mr. Pickwick, looking up, "is the Angel! We alight here, Sam. But some caution is necessary. Order a private room, and do not mention my name. You understand?" "Right as a trivet, sir," replied Mr. Weller, with a wink of intelligence; and having dragged Mr. Pickwick's portmanteau from the hind boot, into which it had been hastily thrown when they joined the coach at Eatanswill, Mr. Weller disappeared on his errand. A private room was speedily engaged; and into it Mr. Pickwick was ushered without delay. "Now, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, "the first thing to be done is to----" "Order dinner, sir," interposed Mr. Weller. "It's very late, sir." "Ah, so it is," said Mr. Pickwick, looking at his watch. "You are right, Sam." "And if I might adwise, sir," added Mr. Weller, "I'd just have a good night's rest arterwards, and not begin inquiring arter this here deep 'un 'till the mornin'. There's nothin' so refreshin' as sleep, sir, as the servant-girl said afore she drank the egg-cupful o' laudanum." "I think you are right, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "But I must first ascertain that he is in the house, and not likely to go away." "Leave that to me, sir," said Sam. "Let me order you a snug little dinner, and make my inquiries below while it's a getting ready; I could worm ev'ry secret out o' the boots's heart, in five minutes, sir." "Do so," said Mr. Pickwick: and Mr. Weller at once retired. In half an hour, Mr. Pickwick was seated at a very satisfactory dinner; and in three-quarters Mr. Weller returned with the intelligence that Mr. Charles Fitz-Marshall had ordered his private room to be retained for him, until further notice. He was going to spend the evening at some private house in the neighbourhood, had ordered the boots to sit up until his return, and had taken his servant with him. "Now, sir," argued Mr. Weller, when he had concluded his report, "if I can get a talk with this here servant in the mornin', he'll tell me all his master's concerns." "How do you know that?" interposed Mr. Pickwick. "Bless your heart, sir, servants always do," replied Mr. Weller. "Oh, ah, I forgot that," said Mr. Pickwick. "Well?" "Then you can arrange what's best to be done, sir, and we can act according." As it appeared that this was the best arrangement that could be made, it was finally agreed upon. Mr. Weller, by his master's permission, retired to spend the evening in his own way; and was shortly afterwards elected, by the unanimous voice of the assembled company, into the tap-room chair, in which honourable post he acquitted himself so much to the satisfaction of the gentlemen-frequenters, that their roars of laughter and approbation penetrated to Mr. Pickwick's bed-room, and shortened the term of his natural rest by at least three hours. Early on the ensuing morning, Mr. Weller was dispelling all the feverish remains of the previous evening's conviviality, through the instrumentality of a halfpenny shower-bath (having induced a young gentleman attached to the stable-department, by the offer of that coin, to pump over his head and face, until he was perfectly restored), when he was attracted by the appearance of a young fellow in mulberry-coloured livery, who was sitting on a bench in the yard, reading what appeared to be a hymn-book, with an air of deep abstraction, but who occasionally stole a glance at the individual under the pump, as if he took some interest in his proceedings, nevertheless. "You're a rum 'un to look at, you are!" thought Mr. Weller, the first time his eyes encountered the glance of the stranger in the mulberry suit: who had a large, sallow, ugly face, very sunken eyes, and a gigantic head, from which depended a quantity of lank black hair. "You're a rum 'un!" thought Mr. Weller; and thinking this, he went on washing himself, and thought no more about him. Still the man kept glancing from his hymn-book to Sam, and from Sam to his hymn-book, as if he wanted to open a conversation. So at last, Sam, by way of giving him an opportunity, said with a familiar nod-- "How are you, governor?" "I am happy to say I am pretty well, sir," said the man, speaking with great deliberation, and closing the book. "I hope you are the same, sir?" "Why, if I felt less like a walking brandy-bottle, I shouldn't be quite so staggery this mornin'," replied Sam. "Are you stoppin' in this house, old 'un?" The mulberry man replied in the affirmative. "How was it you worn't one of us, last night?" inquired Sam, scrubbing his face with the towel. "You seem one of the jolly sort--looks as conwivial as a live trout in a lime-basket," added Mr. Weller, in an under-tone. "I was out last night, with my master," replied the stranger. "What's his name?" inquired Mr. Weller, colouring up very red with sudden excitement, and the friction of the towel combined. "Fitz-Marshall," said the mulberry man. "Give us your hand," said Mr. Weller, advancing; "I should like to know you. I like your appearance, old fellow." "Well, that is very strange," said the mulberry man, with great simplicity of manner. "I like yours so much, that I wanted to speak to you, from the very first moment I saw you under the pump." "Did you though?" "Upon my word. Now, isn't that curious?" [Illustration: "_Looks as conwivial as a live trout in a lime-basket_"] "Wery sing'ler," said Sam, inwardly congratulating himself upon the softness of the stranger. "What's your name, my patriarch?" "Job." "And a wery good name it is--only one I know, that an't got a nickname to it. What's the other name?" "Trotter," said the stranger. "What is yours?" Sam bore in mind his master's caution, and replied-- "My name's Walker: my master's name's Wilkins. Will you take a drop o' somethin' this mornin', Mr. Trotter?" Mr. Trotter acquiesced in this agreeable proposal; and having deposited his book in his coat-pocket, accompanied Mr. Weller to the tap, where they were soon occupied in discussing an exhilarating compound, formed by mixing together, in a pewter vessel, certain quantities of British Hollands, and the fragrant essence of the clove. "And what sort of a place have you got?" inquired Sam, as he filled his companion's glass, for the second time. "Bad," said Job, smacking his lips, "very bad." "You don't mean that?" said Sam. "I do, indeed. Worse than that, my master's going to be married." "No." "Yes; and worse than that, too, he's going to run away with an immense rich heiress, from boarding-school." "What a dragon!" said Sam, refilling his companion's glass. "It's some boarding-school in this town, I suppose, an't it?" Now, although this question was put in the most careless tone imaginable, Mr. Job Trotter plainly showed by gestures, that he perceived his new friend's anxiety to draw forth an answer to it. He emptied his glass, looked mysteriously at his companion, winked both of his small eyes, one after the other, and finally made a motion with his arm, as if he were working an imaginary pump-handle: thereby intimating that he (Mr. Trotter) considered himself as undergoing the process of being pumped by Mr. Samuel Weller. "No, no," said Mr. Trotter, in conclusion, "that's not to be told to everybody. That is a secret--a great secret, Mr. Walker." As the mulberry man said this, he turned his glass upside down, as a means of reminding his companion that he had nothing left wherewith to slake his thirst. Sam observed the hint; and feeling the delicate manner in which it was conveyed, ordered the pewter vessel to be refilled, whereat the small eyes of the mulberry man glistened. "And so it's a secret?" said Sam. "I should rather suspect it was," said the mulberry man, sipping his liquor, with a complacent face. "I suppose your mas'r's wery rich?" said Sam. Mr. Trotter smiled, and holding his glass in his left hand, gave four distinct slaps on the pocket of his mulberry indescribables with his right, as if to intimate that his master might have done the same without alarming anybody much by the chinking of coin. "Ah," said Sam, "that's the game, is it?" The mulberry man nodded significantly. "Well, and don't you think, old feller," remonstrated Mr. Weller, "that if you let your master take in this here young lady, you're a precious rascal?" "I know that," said Job Trotter, turning upon his companion a countenance of deep contrition, and groaning slightly. "I know that, and that's what it is that preys upon my mind. But what am I to do?" "Do!" said Sam; "di-wulge to the missis, and give up your master." "Who'd believe me?" replied Job Trotter. "The young lady's considered the very picture of innocence and discretion. She'd deny it, and so would my master. Who'd believe me? I should lose my place, and get indicted for a conspiracy, or some such thing; that's all I should take by my motion." "There's somethin' in that," said Sam, ruminating; "there's somethin' in that." "If I knew any respectable gentleman who would take the matter up," continued Mr. Trotter, "I might have some hope of preventing the elopement; but there's the same difficulty, Mr. Walker, just the same. I know no gentleman in this strange place, and ten to one if I did, whether he would believe my story." "Come this way," said Sam, suddenly jumping up, and grasping the mulberry man by the arm. "My mas'r's the man you want, I see." And after a slight resistance on the part of Job Trotter, Sam led his newly-found friend to the apartment of Mr. Pickwick, to whom he presented him, together with a brief summary of the dialogue we have just repeated. "I am very sorry to betray my master, sir," said Job Trotter, applying to his eyes a pink checked pocket-handkerchief about six inches square. "The feeling does you a great deal of honour," replied Mr. Pickwick; "but it is your duty, nevertheless." "I know it is my duty, sir," replied Job, with great emotion. "We should all try to discharge our duty, sir, and I humbly endeavour to discharge mine, sir; but it is a hard trial to betray a master, sir, whose clothes you wear, and whose bread you eat, even though he is a scoundrel, sir." "You are a very good fellow," said Mr. Pickwick, much affected, "an honest fellow." "Come, come," interposed Sam, who had witnessed Mr. Trotter's tears with considerable impatience, "blow this here water-cart bis'ness. It won't do no good, this won't." "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, reproachfully, "I am sorry to find that you have so little respect for this young man's feelings." "His feelin's is all wery well, sir," replied Mr. Weller; "and as they're so wery fine, and it's a pity he should lose 'em, I think he'd better keep 'em in his own buzzum, than let 'em ewaporate in hot water, 'specially as they do no good. Tears never yet wound up a clock, or worked a steam ingen'. The next time you go out to a smoking party, young fellow, fill your pipe with that 'ere reflection; and for the present just put that bit of pink gingham into your pocket. 'Tain't so handsome that you need keep waving it about, as if you was a tight-rope dancer." "My man is in the right," said Mr. Pickwick, accosting Job, "although his mode of expressing his opinion is somewhat homely, and occasionally incomprehensible." "He is, sir, very right," said Mr. Trotter, "and I will give way no longer." "Very well," said Mr. Pickwick. "Now, where is this boarding-school?" "It is a large, old, red-brick house, just outside the town, sir," replied Job Trotter. "And when," said Mr. Pickwick, "when is this villainous design to be carried into execution--when is this elopement to take place?" "To-night, sir," replied Job. "To-night!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. "This very night, sir," replied Job Trotter. "That is what alarms me so much." "Instant measures must be taken," said Mr. Pickwick. "I will see the lady who keeps the establishment immediately." "I beg your pardon, sir," said Job, "but that course of proceeding will never do." "Why not?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "My master, sir, is a very artful man." "I know he is," said Mr. Pickwick. "And he has so wound himself round the old lady's heart, sir," resumed Job, "that she would believe nothing to his prejudice, if you went down on your bare knees, and swore it; especially as you have no proof but the word of a servant, who, for anything she knows (and my master would be sure to say so), was discharged for some fault, and does this in revenge." "What had better be done, then?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Nothing but taking him in the very fact of eloping, will convince the old lady, sir," replied Job. "All them old cats _will_ run their heads agin mile-stones," observed Mr. Weller in a parenthesis. "But this taking him in the very act of elopement, would be a very difficult thing to accomplish, I fear," said Mr. Pickwick. "I don't know, sir," said Mr. Trotter, after a few moments' reflection. "I think it might be very easily done." "How?" was Mr. Pickwick's inquiry. "Why," replied Mr. Trotter, "my master and I, being in the confidence of the two servants, will be secreted in the kitchen at ten o'clock. When the family have retired to rest, we shall come out of the kitchen, and the young lady out of her bedroom. A post-chaise will be waiting, and away we go." "Well?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Well, sir, I have been thinking that if you were in waiting in the garden behind, alone----" "Alone," said Mr. Pickwick. "Why alone?" "I thought it very natural," replied Job, "that the old lady wouldn't like such an unpleasant discovery to be made before more persons than can possibly be helped. The young lady, too, sir--consider her feelings." "You are very right," said Mr. Pickwick. "The consideration evinces your delicacy of feeling. Go on; you are very right." "Well, sir, I have been thinking that if you were waiting in the back garden alone, and I was to let you in, at the door which opens into it, from the end of the passage, at exactly half-past eleven o'clock, you would be just in the very moment of time to assist me in frustrating the designs of this bad man, by whom I have been unfortunately ensnared." Here Mr. Trotter sighed deeply. "Don't distress yourself on that account," said Mr. Pickwick; "if he had one grain of the delicacy of feeling, which distinguishes you, humble as your station is, I should have some hopes of him." Job Trotter bowed low; and in spite of Mr. Weller's previous remonstrance, the tears again rose to his eyes. "I never see such a feller," said Sam. "Blessed if I don't think he's got a main in his head as is always turned on." "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, with great severity. "Hold your tongue." "Wery well, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "I don't like this plan," said Mr. Pickwick, after deep meditation. "Why cannot I communicate with the young lady's friends?" "Because they live one hundred miles from here, sir," responded Job Trotter. "That's a clincher," said Mr. Weller, aside. "Then this garden," resumed Mr. Pickwick. "How am I to get into it?" "The wall is very low, sir, and your servant will give you a leg up." "My servant will give me a leg up," repeated Mr. Pickwick, mechanically. "You will be sure to be near this door that you speak of?" "You cannot mistake it, sir; it's the only one that opens into the garden. Tap at it when you hear the clock strike, and I will open it instantly." "I don't like the plan," said Mr. Pickwick; "but as I see no other, and as the happiness of this young lady's whole life is at stake, I adopt it. I shall be sure to be there." Thus, for the second time, did Mr. Pickwick's innate good-feeling involve him in an enterprise from which he would most willingly have stood aloof. "What is the name of the house?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Westgate House, sir. You turn a little to the right when you get to the end of the town; it stands by itself, some little distance off the high road, with the name on a brass plate on the gate." "I know it," said Mr. Pickwick. "I observed it once before, when I was in this town. You may depend upon me." Mr. Trotter made another bow, and turned to depart, when Mr. Pickwick thrust a guinea into his hand. "You're a fine fellow," said Mr. Pickwick, "and I admire your goodness of heart. No thanks. Remember--eleven o'clock." "There is no fear of my forgetting it, sir," replied Job Trotter. With these words he left the room, followed by Sam. "I say," said the latter, "not a bad notion that 'ere crying. I'd cry like a rainwater spout in a shower on such good terms. How do you do it?" "It comes from the heart, Mr. Walker," replied Job, solemnly. "Good morning, sir." "You're a soft customer, you are;--we've got it all out o' you, anyhow," thought Mr. Weller, as Job walked away. We cannot state the precise nature of the thoughts which passed through Mr. Trotter's mind, because we don't know what they were. The day wore on, evening came, and a little before ten o'clock Sam Weller reported that Mr. Jingle and Job had gone out together, that their luggage was packed up, and that they had ordered a chaise. The plot was evidently in execution, as Mr. Trotter had foretold. Half-past ten o'clock arrived, and it was time for Mr. Pickwick to issue forth on his delicate errand. Resisting Sam's tender of his great-coat, in order that he might have no incumbrance in scaling the wall, he set forth, followed by his attendant. There was a bright moon, but it was behind the clouds. It was a fine dry night, but it was most uncommonly dark. Paths, hedges, fields, houses and trees, were enveloped in one deep shade. The atmosphere was hot and sultry, the summer lightning quivered faintly on the verge of the horizon, and was the only sight that varied the dull gloom in which everything was wrapped--sound there was none, except the distant barking of some restless house-dog. They found the house, read the brass plate, walked round the wall, and stopped at that portion of it which divided them from the bottom of the garden. "You will return to the inn, Sam, when you have assisted me over," said Mr. Pickwick. "Wery well, sir." "And you will sit up, till I return." "Cert'nly, sir." "Take hold of my leg; and when I say 'Over,' raise me gently." "All right, sir." Having settled these preliminaries, Mr. Pickwick grasped the top of the wall, and gave the word "Over," which was very literally obeyed. Whether his body partook in some degree of the elasticity of his mind, or whether Mr. Weller's notions of a gentle push were of a somewhat rougher description than Mr. Pickwick's, the immediate effect of his assistance was to jerk that immortal gentleman completely over the wall on to the bed beneath, where, after crushing three gooseberry-bushes and a rose-tree, he finally alighted at full length. "You ha'n't hurt yourself, I hope, sir?" said Sam, in a loud whisper, as soon as he recovered from the surprise consequent upon the mysterious disappearance of his master. "I have not hurt _myself_, Sam, certainly," replied Mr. Pickwick, from the other side of the wall, "but I rather think that _you_ have hurt me." "I hope not, sir," said Sam. "Never mind," said Mr. Pickwick, rising, "it's nothing but a few scratches. Go away, or we shall be overheard." "Good-bye, sir." "Good-bye." With stealthy step, Sam Weller departed, leaving Mr. Pickwick alone in the garden. Lights occasionally appeared in the different windows of the house, or glanced from the staircases, as if the inmates were retiring to rest. Not caring to go too near the door, until the appointed time, Mr. Pickwick crouched into an angle of the wall, and awaited its arrival. It was a situation which might well have depressed the spirits of many a man. Mr. Pickwick, however, felt neither depression nor misgiving. He knew that his purpose was in the main a good one, and he placed implicit reliance on the high-minded Job. It was dull, certainly; not to say dreary; but a contemplative man can always employ himself in meditation. Mr. Pickwick had meditated himself into a doze, when he was roused by the chimes of the neighbouring church ringing out the hour--half-past eleven. "That is the time," thought Mr. Pickwick, getting cautiously on his feet. He looked up at the house. The lights had disappeared, and the shutters were closed--all in bed, no doubt. He walked on tip-toe to the door, and gave a gentle tap. Two or three minutes passing without any reply, he gave another tap rather louder, and then another rather louder than that. At length the sound of feet was audible upon the stairs, and then the light of a candle shone through the key-hole of the door. There was a good deal of unchaining and unbolting, and the door was slowly opened. Now the door opened outwards: and as the door opened wider and wider, Mr. Pickwick receded behind it, more and more. What was his astonishment when he just peeped out, by way of caution, to see that the person who had opened it was--not Job Trotter, but a servant-girl with a candle in her hand! Mr. Pickwick drew in his head again, with the swiftness displayed by that admirable melodramatic performer, Punch, when he lies in wait for the flat-headed comedian with the tin box of music. "It must have been the cat, Sarah," said the girl, addressing herself to some one in the house. "Puss, puss, puss,--tit, tit, tit." But no animal being decoyed by these blandishments, the girl slowly closed the door, and re-fastened it; leaving Mr. Pickwick drawn up straight against the wall. "This is very curious," thought Mr. Pickwick. "They are sitting up beyond their usual hour, I suppose. Extremely unfortunate, that they should have chosen this night, of all others, for such a purpose--exceedingly." And with these thoughts, Mr. Pickwick cautiously retired to the angle of the wall in which he had been before ensconced; waiting until such time as he might deem it safe to repeat the signal. He had not been here five minutes, when a vivid flash of lightning was followed by a loud peal of thunder that crashed and rolled away in the distance with a terrific noise--then came another flash of lightning, brighter than the other, and a second peal of thunder, louder than the first; and then down came the rain, with a force and fury that swept everything before it. Mr. Pickwick was perfectly aware that a tree is a very dangerous neighbour in a thunderstorm. He had a tree on his right, a tree on his left, a third before him, and a fourth behind. If he remained where he was, he might fall the victim of an accident; if he showed himself in the centre of the garden, he might be consigned to a constable;--once or twice he tried to scale the wall, but having no other legs this time, than those with which Nature had furnished him, the only effect of his struggles was to inflict a variety of very unpleasant gratings on his knees and shins, and to throw him into a state of the most profuse perspiration. "What a dreadful situation!" said Mr. Pickwick, pausing to wipe his brow after this exercise. He looked up at the house--all was dark. They must be gone to bed now. He would try the signal again. He walked on tip-toe across the moist gravel, and tapped at the door. He held his breath, and listened at the key-hole. No reply: very odd. Another knock. He listened again. There was a low whispering inside, and then a voice cried-- "Who's there?" "That's not Job," thought Mr. Pickwick, hastily drawing himself straight up against the wall again. "It's a woman." He had scarcely had time to form this conclusion when a window above stairs was thrown up, and three or four female voices repeated the query--"Who's there?" [Illustration: "_Who's there?_" _screamed a numerous chorus of treble voices_] Mr. Pickwick dared not move hand or foot. It was clear that the whole establishment was roused. He made up his mind to remain where he was, until the alarm had subsided: and then by a supernatural effort, to get over the wall, or perish in the attempt. Like all Mr. Pickwick's determinations, this was the best that could be made under the circumstances; but, unfortunately, it was founded upon the assumption that they would not venture to open the door again. What was his discomfiture, when he heard the chain and bolts withdrawn, and saw the door slowly opening, wider and wider! He retreated into the corner, step by step; but do what he would, the interposition of his own person prevented its being opened to its utmost width. "Who's there?" screamed a numerous chorus of treble voices from the staircase inside, consisting of the spinster lady of the establishment, three teachers, five female servants, and thirty boarders, all half-dressed, and in a forest of curl-papers. Of course Mr. Pickwick didn't say who _was_ there: and then the burden of the chorus changed into--"Lor'! I am so frightened." "Cook," said the lady abbess, who took care to be on the top stair, the very last of the group--"Cook, why don't you go a little way into the garden?" "Please, ma'am, I don't like," responded the cook. "Lor', what a stupid thing that cook is!" said the thirty boarders. "Cook," said the lady abbess, with great dignity; "don't answer me, if you please. I insist upon your looking into the garden immediately." Here the cook began to cry, and the housemaid said it was "a shame!" for which partisanship she received a month's warning on the spot. "Do you hear, cook?" said the lady abbess, stamping her foot impatiently. "Don't you hear your missis, cook?" said the three teachers. "What an impudent thing that cook is!" said the thirty boarders. The unfortunate cook, thus strongly urged, advanced a step or two, and holding her candle just where it prevented her from seeing anything at all, declared there was nothing there, and it must have been the wind. The door was just going to be closed in consequence when an inquisitive boarder, who had been peeping between the hinges, set up a fearful screaming, which called back the cook and the housemaid, and all the more adventurous, in no time. "What is the matter with Miss Smithers?" said the lady abbess, as the aforesaid Miss Smithers proceeded to go into hysterics of four young lady power. "Lor', Miss Smithers dear," said the other nine-and-twenty boarders. "Oh, the man--the man--behind the door!" screamed Miss Smithers. The lady abbess no sooner heard this appalling cry, than she retreated to her own bed-room, double-locked the door, and fainted away comfortably. The boarders, and the teachers, and the servants, fell back upon the stairs, and upon each other; and never was such a screaming, and fainting, and struggling beheld. In the midst of the tumult, Mr. Pickwick emerged from his concealment, and presented himself amongst them. "Ladies--dear ladies," said Mr. Pickwick. "Oh, he says we're dear," cried the oldest and ugliest teacher. "Oh the wretch!" "Ladies!" roared Mr. Pickwick, rendered desperate by the danger of his situation. "Hear me. I am no robber. I want the lady of the house." "Oh, what a ferocious monster," screamed another teacher. "He wants Miss Tomkins." Here there was a general scream. "Ring the alarm bell, somebody!" cried a dozen voices. "Don't--don't!" shouted Mr. Pickwick. "Look at me. Do I look like a robber? My dear ladies--you may bind me hand and leg, or lock me up in a closet, if you like. Only hear what I have got to say--only hear me." "How did you come in our garden?" faltered the housemaid. "Call the lady of the house, and I'll tell her everything--everything:" said Mr. Pickwick, exerting his lungs to the utmost pitch. "Call her--only be quiet, and call her, and you shall hear everything." It might have been Mr. Pickwick's appearance, or it might have been his manner, or it might have been the temptation--irresistible to a female mind--of hearing something at present enveloped in mystery, that reduced the more reasonable portion of the establishment (some four individuals) to a state of comparative quiet. By them it was proposed, as a test of Mr. Pickwick's sincerity, that he should immediately submit to personal restraint; and that gentleman having consented to hold a conference with Miss Tomkins, from the interior of a closet in which the day boarders hung their bonnets and sandwich-bags, he at once stepped into it, of his own accord, and was securely locked in. This revived the others; and Miss Tomkins having been brought to, and brought down, the conference began. "What did you do in my garden, Man?" said Miss Tomkins, in a faint voice. "I came to warn you, that one of your young ladies was going to elope to-night," replied Mr. Pickwick, from the interior of the closet. "Elope!" exclaimed Miss Tomkins, the three teachers, the thirty boarders, and the five servants. "Who with?" "Your friend, Mr. Charles Fitz-Marshall." "_My_ friend! I don't know any such person." "Well! Mr. Jingle, then." "I never heard the name in my life." "Then, I have been deceived, and deluded," said Mr. Pickwick. "I have been the victim of a conspiracy--a foul and base conspiracy. Send to the Angel, my dear ma'am, if you don't believe me. Send to the Angel for Mr. Pickwick's man-servant, I implore you, ma'am." "He must be respectable--he keeps a man-servant," said Miss Tomkins to the writing and ciphering governess. "It is my opinion, Miss Tomkins," said the writing and ciphering governess, "that his man-servant keeps him. _I_ think he's a madman, Miss Tomkins, and the other's his keeper." "I think you are very right, Miss Gwynn," responded Miss Tomkins. "Let two of the servants repair to the Angel, and let the others remain here to protect us." So two of the servants were despatched to the Angel in search of Mr. Samuel Weller: and the remaining three stopped behind to protect Miss Tomkins, and the three teachers, and the thirty boarders. And Mr. Pickwick sat down in the closet, beneath a grove of sandwich bags, and awaited the return of the messengers, with all the philosophy and fortitude he could summon to his aid. An hour and a half elapsed before they came back, and when they did come, Mr. Pickwick recognised, in addition to the voice of Mr. Samuel Weller, two other voices, the tones of which struck familiarly on his ear; but whose they were, he could not for the life of him call to mind. A very brief conversation ensued. The door was unlocked. Mr. Pickwick stepped out of the closet, and found himself in the presence of the whole establishment of Westgate House, Mr. Samuel Weller, and--old Wardle, and his destined son-in-law, Mr. Trundle! "My dear friend," said Mr. Pickwick, running forward and grasping Wardle's hand, "my dear friend, pray, for Heaven's sake, explain to this lady the unfortunate and dreadful situation in which I am placed. You must have heard it from my servant; say at all events, my dear fellow, that I am neither a robber nor a madman." "I have said so, my dear friend. I have said so already," replied Mr. Wardle, shaking the right hand of his friend, while Mr. Trundle shook the left. "And whoever says, or has said, he is," interposed Mr. Weller, stepping forward, "says that which is not the truth, but so far from it, on the contrary, quite the rewerse. And if there's any number o' men on these here premises as has said so, I shall be wery happy to give 'em all a wery convincing proof o' their being mistaken, in this here wery room, if these wery respectable ladies 'll have the goodness to retire, and order 'em up, one at a time." Having delivered this defiance with great volubility, Mr. Weller struck his open palm emphatically with his clenched fist, and winked pleasantly on Miss Tomkins: the intensity of whose horror at his supposing it within the bounds of possibility that there could be any men on the premises of Westgate House Establishment for Young Ladies, it is impossible to describe. Mr. Pickwick's explanation having already been partially made, was soon concluded. But neither in the course of his walk home with his friends, nor afterwards when seated before a blazing fire at the supper he so much needed, could a single observation be drawn from him. He seemed bewildered and amazed. Once, and only once, he turned round to Mr. Wardle and said-- "How did you come here?" "Trundle and I came down here, for some good shooting on the first," replied Wardle. "We arrived to-night, and were astonished to hear from your servant that you were here too. But I am glad you are," said the old fellow, slapping him on the back. "I am glad you are. We shall have a jovial party on the first, and we'll give Winkle another chance--eh, old boy?" Mr. Pickwick made no reply; he did not even ask after his friends at Dingley Dell, and shortly afterwards retired for the night, desiring Sam to fetch his candle when he rung. The bell did ring in due course, and Mr. Weller presented himself. "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, looking out from under the bed-clothes. "Sir?" said Mr. Weller. Mr. Pickwick paused, and Mr. Weller snuffed the candle. "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick again, as with a desperate effort. "Sir?" said Mr. Weller, once more. "Where is that Trotter?" "Job, sir?" "Yes." "Gone, sir." "With his master, I suppose?" "Friend or master, or whatever he is, he's gone with him," replied Mr. Weller. "There's a pair on 'em, sir." "Jingle suspected my design, and set that fellow on you, with this story, I suppose?" said Mr. Pickwick, half choking. "Just that, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "It was all false, of course?" "All, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "Reg'lar do, sir; artful dodge." "I don't think he'll escape us quite so easily the next time, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick. "I don't think he will, sir." "Whenever I meet that Jingle again, wherever it is," said Mr. Pickwick, raising himself in bed, and indenting his pillow with a tremendous blow, "I'll inflict personal chastisement on him, in addition to the exposure he so richly merits. I will, or my name is not Pickwick." "And venever I catches hold o' that there melan-cholly chap with the black hair," said Sam, "if I don't bring some real water into his eyes, for once in a way, my name an't Veller. Good night, sir!" CHAPTER XVII [Illustration] _Showing that an Attack of Rheumatism, in some cases, acts as a Quickener to Inventive Genius_ The constitution of Mr. Pickwick, though able to sustain a very considerable amount of exertion and fatigue, was not proof against such a combination of attacks as he had undergone on the memorable night, recorded in the last chapter. The process of being washed in the night air, and rough-dried in a closet, is as dangerous as it is peculiar. Mr. Pickwick was laid up with an attack of rheumatism. But although the bodily powers of the great man were thus impaired, his mental energies retained their pristine vigour. His spirits were elastic; his good humour was restored. Even the vexation consequent upon his recent adventure had vanished from his mind; and he could join in the hearty laughter which any allusion to it excited in Mr. Wardle, without anger and without embarrassment. Nay, more. During the two days Mr. Pickwick was confined to his bed, Sam was his constant attendant. On the first, he endeavoured to amuse his master by anecdote and conversation; on the second, Mr. Pickwick demanded his writing-desk, and pen and ink, and was deeply engaged during the whole day. On the third, being able to sit up in his bed-chamber, he despatched his valet with a message to Mr. Wardle and Mr. Trundle, intimating that if they would take their wine there, that evening, they would greatly oblige him. The invitation was most willingly accepted; and when they were seated over their wine, Mr. Pickwick, with sundry blushes, produced the following little tale, as having been "edited" by himself, during his recent indisposition, from his notes of Mr. Weller's unsophisticated recital. THE PARISH CLERK A TALE OF TRUE LOVE "Once upon a time, in a very small country town, at a considerable distance from London, there lived a little man named Nathaniel Pipkin, who was the parish clerk of the little town, and lived in a little house in the little High Street, within ten minutes' walk of the little church; and who was to be found every day from nine till four, teaching a little learning to the little boys. Nathaniel Pipkin was a harmless, inoffensive, good-natured being, with a turned-up nose, and rather turned-in legs: a cast in his eye, and a halt in his gait; and he divided his time between the church and his school, verily believing that there existed not, on the face of the earth, so clever a man as the curate, so imposing an apartment as the vestry-room, or so well-ordered a seminary as his own. Once, and only once, in his life, Nathaniel Pipkin had seen a bishop--a real bishop, with his arms in lawn sleeves, and his head in a wig. He had seen him walk, and heard him talk, at a confirmation, on which momentous occasion Nathaniel Pipkin was so overcome with reverence and awe, when the aforesaid bishop laid his hand on his head, that he fainted right clean away, and was borne out of church in the arms of the beadle. "This was a great event, a tremendous era, in Nathaniel Pipkin's life, and it was the only one that had ever occurred to ruffle the smooth current of his quiet existence, when happening one fine afternoon, in a fit of mental abstraction, to raise his eyes from the slate on which he was devising some tremendous problem in compound addition for an offending urchin to solve, they suddenly rested on the blooming countenance of Maria Lobbs, the only daughter of old Lobbs, the great saddler over the way. Now, the eyes of Mr. Pipkin had rested on the pretty face of Maria Lobbs many a time and oft before, at church and elsewhere; but the eyes of Maria Lobbs had never looked so bright, the cheeks of Maria Lobbs had never looked so ruddy, as upon this particular occasion. No wonder then, that Nathaniel Pipkin was unable to take his eyes from the countenance of Miss Lobbs; no wonder that Miss Lobbs, finding herself stared at by a young man, withdrew her head from the window out of which she had been peeping, and shut the casement and pulled down the blind; no wonder that Nathaniel Pipkin, immediately thereafter, fell upon the young urchin who had previously offended, and cuffed and knocked him about, to his heart's content. All this was very natural, and there's nothing at all to wonder at about it. "It _is_ matter of wonder, though, that any one of Mr. Nathaniel Pipkin's retiring disposition, nervous temperament, and most particularly diminutive income, should from this day forth, have dared to aspire to the hand and heart of the only daughter of the fiery old Lobbs--of old Lobbs the great saddler, who could have bought up the whole village at one stroke of his pen, and never felt the outlay--old Lobbs, who was well known to have heaps of money, invested in the bank at the nearest market town--old Lobbs, who was reported to have countless and inexhaustible treasures, hoarded up in the little iron safe with the big key-hole, over the chimney-piece in the back parlour--old Lobbs, who, it was well known, on festive occasions garnished his board with a real silver tea-pot, cream-ewer, and sugar-basin, which he was wont, in the pride of his heart, to boast should be his daughter's property when she found a man to her mind. I repeat it, to be matter of profound astonishment and intense wonder, that Nathaniel Pipkin should have had the temerity to cast his eyes in this direction. But love is blind: and Nathaniel had a cast in his eye: and perhaps these two circumstances, taken together, prevented his seeing the matter in its proper light. "Now, if old Lobbs had entertained the most remote or distant idea of the state of the affections of Nathaniel Pipkin, he would just have razed the school-room to the ground, or exterminated its master from the surface of the earth, or committed some other outrage and atrocity of an equally ferocious and violent description; for he was a terrible old fellow, was Lobbs, when his pride was injured, or his blood was up. Swear! Such trains of oaths would come rolling and pealing over the way, sometimes, when he was denouncing the idleness of the bony apprentice with the thin legs, that Nathaniel Pipkin would shake in his shoes with horror, and the hair of the pupils' heads would stand on end with fright. "Well! Day after day, when school was over, and the pupils gone, did Nathaniel Pipkin sit himself down at the front window, and while he feigned to be reading a book, throw sidelong glances over the way in search of the bright eyes of Maria Lobbs; and he hadn't sat there many days, before the bright eyes appeared at an upper window, apparently deeply engaged in reading too. This was delightful, and gladdening to the heart of Nathaniel Pipkin. It was something to sit there for hours together, and look upon that pretty face when the eyes were cast down; but when Maria Lobbs began to raise her eyes from her book, and dart their rays in the direction of Nathaniel Pipkin, his delight and admiration were perfectly boundless. At last, one day, when he knew old Lobbs was out, Nathaniel Pipkin had the temerity to kiss his hand to Maria Lobbs; and Maria Lobbs, instead of shutting the window, and pulling down the blind, kissed _hers_ to him, and smiled. Upon which, Nathaniel Pipkin determined that, come what might, he would develop the state of his feelings, without further delay. "A prettier foot, a gayer heart, a more dimpled face, or a smarter form, never bounded so lightly over the earth they graced, as did those of Maria Lobbs, the old saddler's daughter. There was a roguish twinkle in her sparkling eyes, that would have made its way to far less susceptible bosoms than that of Nathaniel Pipkin; and there was such a joyous sound in her merry laugh, that the sternest misanthrope must have smiled to hear it. Even old Lobbs himself, in the very height of his ferocity, couldn't resist the coaxing of his pretty daughter; and when she, and her cousin Kate--an arch, impudent-looking, bewitching little person--made a dead set upon the old man together, as, to say the truth, they very often did, he could have refused them nothing, even had they asked for a portion of the countless and inexhaustible treasures which were hidden from the light in the iron safe. "Nathaniel Pipkin's heart beat high within him, when he saw this enticing little couple some hundred yards before him one summer's evening, in the very field in which he had many a time strolled about till night-time, and pondered on the beauty of Maria Lobbs. But though he had often thought then, how briskly he would walk up to Maria Lobbs and tell her of his passion if he could only meet her, he felt, now that she was unexpectedly before him, all the blood in his body mounting to his face, manifestly to the great detriment of his legs, which, deprived of their usual portion, trembled beneath him. When they stopped to gather a hedge-flower, or listen to a bird, Nathaniel Pipkin stopped too, and pretended to be absorbed in meditation, as indeed he really was; for he was thinking what on earth he should ever do, when they turned back, as they inevitably must in time, and meet him face to face. But though he was afraid to make up to them, he couldn't bear to lose sight of them; so when they walked faster he walked faster, when they lingered he lingered, and when they stopped he stopped; and so they might have gone on, until the darkness prevented them, if Kate had not looked slyly back, and encouragingly beckoned Nathaniel to advance. There was something in Kate's manner that was not to be resisted, and so Nathaniel Pipkin complied with the invitation; and after a great deal of blushing on his part, and immoderate laughter on that of the wicked little cousin, Nathaniel Pipkin went down on his knees on the dewy grass, and declared his resolution to remain there for ever, unless he were permitted to rise the accepted lover of Maria Lobbs. Upon this, the merry laughter of Maria Lobbs rang through the calm evening air--without seeming to disturb it, though; it had such a pleasant sound--and the wicked little cousin laughed more immoderately than before, and Nathaniel Pipkin blushed deeper than ever. At length, Maria Lobbs being more strenuously urged by the love-worn little man, turned away her head, and whispered her cousin to say, or at all events Kate _did_ say, that she felt much honoured by Mr. Pipkin's addresses; that her hand and heart were at her father's disposal; but that nobody could be insensible to Mr. Pipkin's merits. As all this was said with much gravity, and as Nathaniel Pipkin walked home with Maria Lobbs, and struggled for a kiss at parting, he went to bed a happy man, and dreamed all night long, of softening old Lobbs, opening the strong box, and marrying Maria. "The next day, Nathaniel Pipkin saw old Lobbs go out upon his old grey pony, and after a great many signs at the window from the wicked little cousin, the object and meaning of which he could by no means understand, the bony apprentice with the thin legs came over to say that his master wasn't coming home all night, and that the ladies expected Mr. Pipkin to tea, at six o'clock precisely. How the lessons were got through that day, neither Nathaniel Pipkin nor his pupils knew any more than you do; but they were got through somehow, and, after the boys had gone, Nathaniel Pipkin took till full six o'clock to dress himself to his satisfaction. Not that it took long to select the garments he should wear, inasmuch as he had no choice about the matter; but the putting of them on to the best advantage, and the touching of them up previously, was a task of no inconsiderable difficulty or importance. "There was a very snug little party, consisting of Maria Lobbs and her cousin Kate, and three or four romping, good-humoured, rosy-cheeked girls. Nathaniel Pipkin had ocular demonstration of the fact, that the rumours of old Lobbs's treasures were not exaggerated. There were the real solid silver tea-pot, cream-ewer, and sugar-basin, on the table, and real silver spoons to stir the tea with, and real china cups to drink it out of, and plates of the same, to hold the cakes and toast in. The only eyesore in the whole place was another cousin of Maria Lobbs's, and a brother of Kate, whom Maria Lobbs called 'Henry,' and who seemed to keep Maria Lobbs all to himself, up in one corner of the table. It's a delightful thing to see affection in families, but it may be carried rather too far, and Nathaniel Pipkin could not help thinking that Maria Lobbs must be very particularly fond of her relations, if she paid as much attention to all of them as to this individual cousin. After tea, too, when the wicked little cousin proposed a game at blindman's buff, it somehow or other happened that Nathaniel Pipkin was nearly always blind, and whenever he laid his hand upon the male cousin, he was sure to find that Maria Lobbs was not far off. And though the wicked little cousin and the other girls pinched him, and pulled his hair, and pushed chairs in his way, and all sorts of things, Maria Lobbs never seemed to come near him at all; and once--once--Nathaniel Pipkin could have sworn he heard the sound of a kiss, followed by a faint remonstrance from Maria Lobbs, and a half-suppressed laugh from her female friends. All this was odd--very odd--and there is no saying what Nathaniel Pipkin might or might not have done, in consequence, if his thoughts had not been suddenly directed into a new channel. "The circumstance which directed his thoughts into a new channel was a loud knocking at the street door, and the person who made this loud knocking at the street door, was no other than old Lobbs himself, who had unexpectedly returned, and was hammering away like a coffin-maker; for he wanted his supper. The alarming intelligence was no sooner communicated by the bony apprentice with the thin legs, than the girls tripped upstairs to Maria Lobbs's bed-room, and the male cousin and Nathaniel Pipkin were thrust into a couple of closets in the sitting-room, for want of any better places of concealment; and when Maria Lobbs and the wicked little cousin had stowed them away, and put the room to rights, they opened the street door to old Lobbs, who had never left off knocking since he first began. "Now it did unfortunately happen that old Lobbs, being very hungry, was monstrous cross. Nathaniel Pipkin could hear him growling away like an old mastiff with a sore throat; and whenever the unfortunate apprentice with the thin legs came into the room, so surely did old Lobbs commence swearing at him in a most Saracenic and ferocious manner, though apparently with no other end or object than that of easing his bosom by the discharge of a few superfluous oaths. At length some supper, which had been warming up, was placed on the table, and then old Lobbs fell to, in regular style; and having made clear work of it in no time, kissed his daughter, and demanded his pipe. "Nature had placed Nathaniel Pipkin's knees in very close juxtaposition, but when he heard old Lobbs demand his pipe, they knocked together, as if they were going to reduce each other to powder; for, depending from a couple of hooks, in the very closet in which he stood, was a large brown-stemmed, silver-bowled pipe, which pipe he himself had seen in the mouth of old Lobbs, regularly every afternoon and evening, for the last five years. The two girls went downstairs for the pipe, and upstairs for the pipe, and everywhere but where they knew the pipe was, and old Lobbs stormed away meanwhile, in the most wonderful manner. At last he thought of the closet, and walked up to it. It was of no use a little man like Nathaniel Pipkin pulling the door inwards, when a great strong fellow like old Lobbs was pulling it outwards. Old Lobbs gave it one tug, and open it flew, disclosing Nathaniel Pipkin standing bolt upright inside, and shaking with apprehension from head to foot. Bless us! what an appalling look old Lobbs gave him, as he dragged him out by the collar, and held him at arm's length. [Illustration: "_Open it flew, disclosing Nathaniel Pipkin_"] "'Why, what the devil do you want here?' said old Lobbs, in a fearful voice. "Nathaniel Pipkin could make no reply, so old Lobbs shook him backwards and forwards, for two or three minutes, by way of arranging his ideas for him. "'What do you want here?' roared Lobbs. 'I suppose _you_ have come after my daughter, now?' "Old Lobbs merely said this as a sneer: for he did not believe that mortal presumption could have carried Nathaniel Pipkin so far. What was his indignation when that poor man replied: "'Yes, I did, Mr. Lobbs. I did come after your daughter. I love her, Mr. Lobbs.' "'Why, you snivelling, wry-faced, puny villain,' gasped old Lobbs, paralysed by the atrocious confession; 'what do you mean by that? Say this to my face! Damme, I'll throttle you!' "It is by no means improbable that old Lobbs would have carried this threat into execution, in the excess of his rage, if his arm had not been stayed by a very unexpected apparition, to wit, the male cousin, who, stepping out of his closet, and walking up to old Lobbs, said: "'I cannot allow this harmless person, sir, who has been asked here, in some girlish frolic, to take upon himself, in a very noble manner, the fault (if fault it is) which I am guilty of, and am ready to avow. _I_ love your daughter, sir; and _I_ am here for the purpose of meeting her.' "Old Lobbs opened his eyes very wide at this, but not wider than Nathaniel Pipkin. "'You did?' said Lobbs: at last finding breath to speak. "'I did.' "'And I forbade you this house, long ago.' "'You did, or I should not have been here, clandestinely, to-night.' "I am sorry to record it of old Lobbs, but I think he would have struck the cousin, if his pretty daughter, with her bright eyes swimming in tears, had not clung to his arm. "'Don't stop him, Maria,' said the young man: 'if he has the will to strike me, let him. I would not hurt a hair of his grey head, for the riches of the world.' "The old man cast down his eyes at this reproof, and they met those of his daughter. I have hinted once or twice before, that they were very bright eyes, and, though they were tearful now, their influence was by no means lessened. Old Lobbs turned his head away, as if to avoid being persuaded by them, when, as fortune would have it, he encountered the face of the wicked little cousin, who, half afraid for her brother, and half laughing at Nathaniel Pipkin, presented as bewitching an expression of countenance, with a touch of shyness in it too, as any man, old or young, need look upon. She drew her arm coaxingly through the old man's, and whispered something in his ear; and do what he would, old Lobbs couldn't help breaking out into a smile, while a tear stole down his cheek at the same time. "Five minutes after this, the girls were brought down from the bed-room with a great deal of giggling and modesty; and while the young people were making themselves perfectly happy, old Lobbs got down the pipe, and smoked it: and it was a remarkable circumstance about that particular pipe of tobacco, that it was the most soothing and delightful one he ever smoked. "Nathaniel Pipkin thought it best to keep his own counsel, and by so doing gradually rose into high favour with old Lobbs, who taught him to smoke in time; and they used to sit out in the garden on the fine evenings, for many years afterwards, smoking and drinking in great state. He soon recovered the effects of his attachment, for we find his name in the parish register, as a witness to the marriage of Maria Lobbs to her cousin; and it also appears, by reference to other documents, that on the night of the wedding he was incarcerated in the village cage, for having, in a state of extreme intoxication, committed sundry excesses in the streets, in all of which he was aided and abetted by the bony apprentice with the thin legs." CHAPTER XVIII [Illustration] _Briefly illustrative of Two Points;--First, the Power of Hysterics, and, secondly, the Force of Circumstances_ For two days after the breakfast at Mrs. Hunter's the Pickwickians remained at Eatanswill, anxiously awaiting the arrival of some intelligence from their revered leader. Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass were once again left to their own means of amusement; for Mr. Winkle, in compliance with a most pressing invitation, continued to reside at Mr. Pott's house, and to devote his time to the companionship of his amiable lady. Nor was the occasional society of Mr. Pott himself wanting to complete their felicity. Deeply immersed in the intensity of his speculations for the public weal and the destruction of the _Independent_, it was not the habit of that great man to descend from his mental pinnacle to the humble level of ordinary minds. On this occasion, however, and as if expressly in compliment to any follower of Mr. Pickwick's, he unbent, relaxed, stepped down from his pedestal, and walked upon the ground; benignly adapting his remarks to the comprehension of the herd, and seeming in outward form, if not in spirit, to be one of them. Such having been the demeanour of this celebrated public character towards Mr. Winkle, it will be readily imagined that considerable surprise was depicted on the countenance of the latter gentleman, when, as he was sitting alone in the breakfast-room, the door was hastily thrown open, and as hastily closed, on the entrance of Mr. Pott, who, stalking majestically towards him, and thrusting aside his proffered hand, ground his teeth, as if to put a sharper edge on what he was about to utter, and exclaimed, in a saw-like voice,-- "Serpent!" "Sir!" exclaimed Mr. Winkle, starting from his chair. "Serpent, sir!" repeated Mr. Pott, raising his voice, and then suddenly depressing it; "I said, Serpent, sir--make the most of it." When you have parted with a man, at two o'clock in the morning, on terms of the utmost good-fellowship, and he meets you again, at half-past nine, and greets you as a serpent, it is not unreasonable to conclude that something of an unpleasant nature has occurred meanwhile. So Mr. Winkle thought. He returned Mr. Pott's gaze of stone, and in compliance with that gentleman's request, proceeded to make the most he could of the "serpent." The most, however, was nothing at all; so, after a profound silence of some minutes' duration, he said-- "Serpent, sir! Serpent, Mr. Pott! What can you mean, sir?--this is pleasantry." "Pleasantry, sir!" exclaimed Pott, with a motion of the hand, indicative of a strong desire to hurl the Britannia metal teapot at the head of his visitor. "Pleasantry, sir!--but no, I will be calm, I will be calm, sir;" in proof of his calmness, Mr. Pott flung himself into a chair, and foamed at the mouth. "My dear sir," interposed Mr. Winkle. "_Dear_ sir!" replied Pott. "How dare you address me as dear sir, sir? How dare you look me in the face and do it, sir?" "Well, sir, if you come to that," responded Mr. Winkle, "how dare you look _me_ in the face, and call me a serpent, sir?" "Because you are one," replied Mr. Pott. "Prove it, sir," said Mr. Winkle, warmly. "Prove it." A malignant scowl passed over the profound face of the editor, as he drew from his pocket the _Independent_ of that morning; and laying his finger on a particular paragraph, threw the journal across the table to Mr. Winkle. That gentleman took it up, and read as follows:-- "Our obscure and filthy contemporary, in some disgusting observations on the recent election for this borough, has presumed to violate the hallowed sanctity of private life, and to refer, in a manner not to be misunderstood, to the personal affairs of our late candidate--ay, and notwithstanding his base defeat, we will add, our future member, Mr. Fizkin. What does our dastardly contemporary mean? What would the ruffian say, if we, setting at naught, like him, the decencies of social intercourse, were to raise the curtain which happily conceals +HIS+ private life from general ridicule, not to say from general execration? What, if we were even to point out, and comment on, facts and circumstances, which are publicly notorious, and beheld by every one but our mole-eyed contemporary--what if we were to print the following effusion, which we received while we were writing the commencement of this article, from a talented fellow-townsman and correspondent! 'LINES TO A BRASS POT 'Oh Pott! if you'd known How false she'd have grown When you heard the marriage bells tinkle; You'd have done then, I vow, What you cannot help now, And handed her over to W*****'" "What," said Mr. Pott, solemnly; "what rhymes to 'tinkle,' villain?" "What rhymes to 'tinkle'?" said Mrs. Pott, whose entrance at the moment forestalled the reply. "What rhymes to 'tinkle'? Why 'Winkle,' I should conceive:" saying this, Mrs. Pott smiled sweetly on the disturbed Pickwickian, and extended her hand towards him. The agitated young man would have accepted it, in his confusion, had not Pott indignantly interposed. "Back, ma'am--back!" said the editor. "Take his hand before my very face!" "Mr. P.!" said his astonished lady. "Wretched woman, look here," exclaimed the husband. "Look here, ma'am--'Lines to a Brass Pot.' 'Brass pot;'--that's me, ma'am. 'False _she_'d have grown;'--that's you, ma'am--you." With this ebullition of rage, which was not unaccompanied with something like a tremble, at the expression of his wife's face, Mr. Pott dashed the current number of the _Eatanswill Independent_ at her feet. "Upon my word, sir!" said the astonished Mrs. Pott, stooping to pick up the paper. "Upon my word, sir!" Mr. Pott winced beneath the contemptuous gaze of his wife. He had made a desperate struggle to screw up his courage, but it was fast coming unscrewed again. There appears nothing very tremendous in this little sentence, "Upon my word, sir!" when it comes to be read; but the tone of voice in which it was delivered, and the look that accompanied it, both seeming to bear reference to some revenge to be thereafter visited upon the head of Pott, produced their full effect upon him. The most unskilful observer could have detected in his troubled countenance, a readiness to resign his Wellington boots to any efficient substitute who would have consented to stand in them at that moment. Mrs. Pott read the paragraph, uttered a loud shriek, and threw herself at full length on the hearth-rug, screaming, and tapping it with the heels of her shoes, in a manner which could leave no doubt of the propriety of her feelings on the occasion. "My dear," said the petrified Pott,--"I didn't say I believed it;--I--" but the unfortunate man's voice was drowned in the screaming of his partner. "Mrs. Pott, let me entreat you, my dear ma'am, to compose yourself," said Mr. Winkle; but the shrieks and tappings were louder and more frequent than ever. "My dear," said Mr. Pott, "I'm very sorry. If you won't consider your own health, consider me, my dear. We shall have a crowd round the house." But the more strenuously Mr. Pott entreated, the more vehemently the screams poured forth. Very fortunately, however, attached to Mrs. Pott's person was a body-guard of one, a young lady whose ostensible employment was to preside over her toilet, but who rendered herself useful in a variety of ways, and in none more so than in the particular department of constantly aiding and abetting her mistress in every wish and inclination opposed to the desires of the unhappy Pott. The screams reached this young lady's ears in due course, and brought her into the room with a speed which threatened to derange, materially, the very exquisite arrangement of her cap and ringlets. "Oh, my dear, dear mistress!" exclaimed the body-guard, kneeling frantically by the side of the prostrate Mrs. Pott. "Oh, my dear mistress, what is the matter?" "Your master--your brutal master," murmured the patient. Pott was evidently giving way. "It's a shame," said the body-guard, reproachfully. "I know he'll be the death of you, ma'am. Poor dear thing!" He gave way more. The opposite party followed up the attack. "Oh, don't leave me--don't leave me, Goodwin," murmured Mrs. Pott, clutching at the wrist of the said Goodwin with an hysteric jerk. "You're the only person that's kind to me, Goodwin." At this affecting appeal, Goodwin got up a little domestic tragedy of her own, and shed tears copiously. "Never, ma'am--never," said Goodwin. "Oh, sir, you should be careful--you should indeed; you don't know what harm you may do missis; you'll be sorry for it one day, I know--I've always said so." The unlucky Pott looked timidly on, but said nothing. "Goodwin," said Mrs. Pott, in a soft voice. "Ma'am," said Goodwin. "If you only knew how I have loved that man----" "Don't distress yourself by recollecting it, ma'am," said the body-guard. Pott looked very frightened. It was time to finish him. "And now," sobbed Mrs. Pott, "now, after all, to be treated in this way; to be reproached and insulted in the presence of a third party, and that party almost a stranger. But I will not submit to it! Goodwin," continued Mrs. Pott, raising herself in the arms of her attendant, "my brother, the Lieutenant, shall interfere. I'll be separated, Goodwin!" "It would certainly serve him right, ma'am," said Goodwin. Whatever thoughts the threat of a separation might have awakened in Mr. Pott's mind, he forebore to give utterance to them, and contented himself by saying, with great humility: "My dear, will you hear me?" A fresh train of sobs was the only reply, as Mrs. Pott grew more hysterical, requested to be informed why she was ever born, and required sundry other pieces of information of a similar description. "My dear," remonstrated Mr. Pott, "do not give way to these sensitive feelings. I never believed that the paragraph had any foundation, my dear--impossible. I was only angry, my dear--I may say outrageous--with the _Independent_ people for daring to insert it; that's all:" Mr. Pott cast an imploring look at the innocent cause of the mischief, as if to entreat him to say nothing about the serpent. "And what steps, sir, do you mean to take to obtain redress?" inquired Mr. Winkle, gaining courage as he saw Pott losing it. "Oh, Goodwin," observed Mrs. Pott, "does he mean to horsewhip the editor of the _Independent_--does he, Goodwin?" "Hush, hush, ma'am; pray keep yourself quiet," replied the body-guard. "I dare say he will, if you wish it, ma'am." "Certainly," said Pott, as his wife evinced decided symptoms of going off again. "Of course I shall." "When, Goodwin--when?" said Mrs. Pott, still undecided about the going off. "Immediately, of course," said Mr. Pott; "before the day is out." "Oh, Goodwin," resumed Mrs. Pott; "it's the only way of meeting the slander, and setting me right with the world." "Certainly, ma'am," replied Goodwin. "No man as is a man, ma'am, could refuse to do it." So, as the hysterics were still hovering about, Mr. Pott said once more that he would do it; but Mrs. Pott was so overcome at the bare idea of having ever been suspected, that she was half a dozen times on the very verge of a relapse, and most unquestionably would have gone off, had it not been for the indefatigable efforts of the assiduous Goodwin, and repeated entreaties for pardon from the conquered Pott; and finally, when that unhappy individual had been frightened and snubbed down to his proper level, Mrs. Pott recovered, and they went to breakfast. "You will not allow this base newspaper slander to shorten your stay here, Mr. Winkle?" said Mrs. Pott, smiling through the traces of her tears. "I hope not," said Mr. Pott, actuated, as he spoke, by a wish that his visitor would choke himself with the morsel of dry toast which he was raising to his lips at the moment: and so terminate his stay effectually. "I hope not." "You are very good," said Mr. Winkle; "but a letter has been received from Mr. Pickwick--so I learn by a note from Mr. Tupman, which was brought up to my bed-room door, this morning--in which he requests us to join him at Bury to-day; and we are to leave by the coach at noon." "But you will come back?" said Mrs. Pott. "Oh, certainly," replied Mr. Winkle. "You are quite sure?" said Mrs. Pott, stealing a tender look at her visitor. "Quite," responded Mr. Winkle. The breakfast passed off in silence, for each member of the party was brooding over his, or her, own personal grievances. Mrs. Pott was regretting the loss of a beau; Mr. Pott his rash pledge to horsewhip the _Independent_; Mr. Winkle his having innocently placed himself in so awkward a situation. Noon approached, and after many adieux and promises to return, he tore himself away. "If he ever comes back, I'll poison him," thought Mr. Pott, as he turned into the little back office where he prepared his thunderbolts. "If ever I do come back, and mix myself up with these people again," thought Mr. Winkle, as he wended his way to the Peacock, "I shall deserve to be horsewhipped myself--that's all." His friends were ready, the coach was nearly so, and in half an hour they were proceeding on their journey, along the road over which Mr. Pickwick and Sam had so recently travelled, and of which, as we have already said something, we do not feel called upon to extract Mr. Snodgrass's poetical and beautiful description. Mr. Weller was standing at the door of the Angel, ready to receive them, and by that gentleman they were ushered to the apartment of Mr. Pickwick, where, to the no small surprise of Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass, and the no small embarrassment of Mr. Tupman, they found old Wardle and Trundle. "How are you?" said the old man, grasping Mr. Tupman's hand. "Don't hang back, or look sentimental about it; it can't be helped, old fellow. For her sake, I wish you'd had her; for your own, I'm very glad you have not. A young fellow like you will do better one of these days--eh?" With this consolation, Wardle slapped Mr. Tupman on the back, and laughed heartily. "Well, and how are you, my fine fellows?" said the old gentleman, shaking hands with Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass at the same time. "I have just been telling Pickwick that we must have you all down at Christmas. We're going to have a wedding--a real wedding this time." "A wedding!" exclaimed Mr. Snodgrass, turning very pale. "Yes, a wedding. But don't be frightened," said the good-humoured old man; "it's only Trundle there, and Bella." "Oh, is that all!" said Mr. Snodgrass, relieved from a painful doubt which had fallen heavily on his breast. "Give you joy, sir. How is Joe?" "Very well," replied the old gentleman. "Sleepy as ever." "And your mother, and the clergyman, and all of 'em?" "Quite well." "Where," said Mr. Tupman, with an effort--"where is--_she_, sir?" and he turned away his head, and covered his eyes with his hand. "_She!_" said the old gentleman, with a knowing shake of the head. "Do you mean my single relative--eh?" Mr. Tupman, by a nod, intimated that his question applied to the disappointed Rachael. "Oh, she's gone away," said the old gentleman. "She's living at a relation's, far enough off. She couldn't bear to see the girls, so I let her go. But come! Here's the dinner. You must be hungry after your ride. _I_ am, without any ride at all; so let us fall to." Ample justice was done to the meal; and when they were seated round the table, after it had been disposed of, Mr. Pickwick, to the intense horror and indignation of his followers, related the adventure he had undergone, and the success which had attended the base artifices of the diabolical Jingle. "And the attack of rheumatism which I caught in that garden," said Mr. Pickwick in conclusion, "renders me lame at this moment." "I, too, have had something of an adventure," said Mr. Winkle, with a smile; and at the request of Mr. Pickwick he detailed the malicious libel of the _Eatanswill Independent_, and the consequent excitement of their friend, the editor. Mr. Pickwick's brow darkened during the recital. His friends observed it, and, when Mr. Winkle had concluded, maintained a profound silence. Mr. Pickwick struck the table emphatically with his clenched fist, and spoke as follows: "Is it not a wonderful circumstance," said Mr. Pickwick, "that we seem destined to enter no man's house without involving him in some degree of trouble? Does, it not, I ask, bespeak the indiscretion, or, worse than that, the blackness of heart--that I should say so!--of my followers, that, beneath whatever roof they locate, they disturb the peace of mind and happiness of some confiding female? Is it not, I say----" Mr. Pickwick would in all probability have gone on for some time, had not the entrance of Sam, with a letter, caused him to break off in his eloquent discourse. He passed the handkerchief across his forehead, took off his spectacles, wiped them, and put them on again; and his voice had recovered its wonted softness of tone when he said: "What have you there, Sam?" "Called at the Post-office just now, and found this here letter, as has laid there for two days," replied Mr. Weller. "It's sealed with a vafer, and directed in round hand." "I don't know this hand," said Mr. Pickwick, opening the letter. "Mercy on us! what's this? It must be a jest; it--it--can't be true." "What's the matter?" was the general inquiry. "Nobody dead, is there?" said Wardle, alarmed at the horror in Mr. Pickwick's countenance. Mr. Pickwick made no reply, but, pushing the letter across the table, and desiring Mr. Tupman to read it aloud, fell back in his chair with a look of vacant astonishment quite alarming to behold. Mr. Tupman, with a trembling voice, read the letter, of which the following is a copy:-- _Freeman's Court, Cornhill, August 28th, 1830._ _Bardell against Pickwick._ _Sir_, _Having been instructed by Mrs. Martha Bardell to commence an action against you for a breach of promise of marriage, for which the plaintiff lays her damages at fifteen hundred pounds, we beg to inform you that a writ has been issued against you in this suit in the Court of Common Pleas; and request to know, by return of post, the name of your attorney in London, who will accept service thereof._ _We are, Sir, Your obedient servants, Dodson and Fogg._ _Mr. Samuel Pickwick._ There was something so impressive in the mute astonishment with which each man regarded his neighbour, and every man regarded Mr. Pickwick, that all seemed afraid to speak. The silence was at length broken by Mr. Tupman. "Dodson and Fogg," he repeated, mechanically. "Bardell and Pickwick," said Mr. Snodgrass, musing. "Peace of mind and happiness of confiding females," murmured Mr. Winkle, with an air of abstraction. "It's a conspiracy," said Mr. Pickwick, at length recovering the power of speech; "a base conspiracy between these two grasping attorneys, Dodson and Fogg. Mrs. Bardell would never do it;--she hasn't the heart to do it;--she hasn't the case to do it. Ridiculous--ridiculous." "Of her heart," said Wardle, with a smile, "you should certainly be the best judge. I don't wish to discourage you, but I should certainly say that, of her case, Dodson and Fogg are far better judges than any of us can be." "It's a vile attempt to extort money," said Mr. Pickwick. "I hope it is," said Wardle, with a short, dry cough. "Who ever heard me address her in any way but that in which a lodger would address his landlady?" continued Mr. Pickwick, with great vehemence. "Who ever saw me with her? Not even my friends here----" "Except on one occasion," said Mr. Tupman. Mr. Pickwick changed colour. "Ah," said Mr. Wardle. "Well, that's important. There was nothing suspicious then, I suppose?" Mr. Tupman glanced timidly at his leader. "Why," said he, "there was nothing suspicious; but--I don't know how it happened, mind--she certainly was reclining in his arms." "Gracious powers!" ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, as the recollection of the scene in question struck forcibly upon him; "what a dreadful instance of the force of circumstances! So she was--so she was." "And our friend was soothing her anguish," said Mr. Winkle, rather maliciously. "So I was," said Mr. Pickwick. "I won't deny it. So I was." "Hallo!" said Wardle; "for a case in which there's nothing suspicious, this looks rather queer--eh, Pickwick? Ah, sly dog--sly dog!" and he laughed till the glasses on the sideboard rang again. "What a dreadful conjunction of appearances!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, resting his chin upon his hands. "Winkle--Tupman--I beg your pardon for the observations I made just now. We are all the victims of circumstances, and I the greatest." With this apology Mr. Pickwick buried his head in his hands, and ruminated; while Wardle measured out a regular circle of nods and winks, addressed to the other members of the company. "I'll have it explained, though," said Mr. Pickwick, raising his head and hammering the table. "I'll see this Dodson and Fogg! I'll go to London to-morrow." "Not to-morrow," said Wardle; "you're too lame." "Well, then, next day." "Next day is the first of September, and you're pledged to ride out with us, as far as Sir Geoffrey Manning's grounds, at all events, and to meet us at lunch, if you don't take the field." "Well, then, the day after," said Mr. Pickwick; "Thursday--Sam!" "Sir?" replied Mr. Weller. "Take two places outside to London, on Thursday morning, for yourself and me." "Wery well, sir." Mr. Weller left the room, and departed slowly on his errand, with his hands in his pocket, and his eyes fixed on the ground. "Rum feller, the hemperor," said Mr. Weller, as he walked slowly up the street. "Think o' his making up to that 'ere Mrs. Bardell--vith a little boy, too! Always the vay with these here old 'uns hows'ever, as is such steady goers to look at. I didn't think he'd ha' done it, though--I didn't think he'd ha' done it!" Moralising in this strain, Mr. Samuel Weller bent his steps towards the booking-office. CHAPTER XIX [Illustration] _A Pleasant Day, with an Unpleasant Termination_ The birds, who, happily for their own peace of mind and personal comfort, were in blissful ignorance of the preparations which had been making to astonish them, on the first of September, hailed it, no doubt, as one of the pleasantest mornings they had seen that season. Many a young partridge who strutted complacently among the stubble, with all the finicking coxcombry of youth, and many an older one who watched his levity out of his little round eye, with the contemptuous air of a bird of wisdom and experience, alike unconscious of their approaching doom, basked in the fresh morning air with lively and blithesome feelings, and a few hours afterwards were laid low upon the earth. But we grow affecting; let us proceed. In plain commonplace matter-of-fact, then, it was a fine morning--so fine that you would scarcely have believed that the few months of an English summer had yet flown by. Hedges, fields, and trees, hill and moorland, presented to the eye their ever-varying shades of deep rich green; scarce a leaf had fallen, scarce a sprinkle of yellow mingled with the hues of summer, warned you that autumn had begun. The sky was cloudless; the sun shone out bright and warm; the songs of birds, and hum of myriads of summer insects, filled the air; and the cottage gardens, crowded with flowers of every rich and beautiful tint, sparkled in the heavy dew, like beds of glittering jewels. Everything bore the stamp of summer, and none of its beautiful colours had yet faded from the dye. Such was the morning, when an open carriage, in which were three Pickwickians (Mr. Snodgrass having preferred to remain at home), Mr. Wardle, and Mr. Trundle, with Sam Weller on the box beside the driver, pulled up by a gate at the roadside, before which stood a tall, raw-boned gamekeeper, and a half-booted, leather-legginged boy: each bearing a bag of capacious dimensions, and accompanied by a brace of pointers. "I say," whispered Mr. Winkle to Wardle, as the man let down the steps, "they don't suppose we're going to kill game enough to fill those bags, do they?" "Fill them!" exclaimed old Wardle. "Bless you, yes! You shall fill one, and I the other; and when we've done with them, the pockets of our shooting-jackets will hold as much more." Mr. Winkle dismounted without saying anything in reply to this observation; but he thought within himself, that if the party remained in the open air, until he had filled one of the bags, they stood a considerable chance of catching colds in their heads. "Hi, Juno, lass--hi, old girl; down, Daph, down," said Wardle, caressing the dogs. "Sir Geoffrey still in Scotland, of course, Martin?" The tall gamekeeper replied in the affirmative, and looked with some surprise from Mr. Winkle, who was holding his gun as if he wished his coat pocket to save him the trouble of pulling the trigger, to Mr. Tupman, who was holding his as if he were afraid of it--as there is no earthly reason to doubt he really was. "My friends are not much in the way of this sort of thing yet, Martin," said Wardle, noticing the look. "Live and learn, you know. They'll be good shots one of these days. I beg my friend Winkle's pardon, though; he has had some practice." Mr. Winkle smiled feebly over his blue neckerchief in acknowledgment of the compliment, and got himself so mysteriously entangled with his gun, in his modest confusion, that if the piece had been loaded, he must inevitably have shot himself dead upon the spot. "You mustn't handle your piece in that 'ere way, when you come to have the charge in it, sir," said the tall gamekeeper, gruffly, "or I'm damned if you won't make cold meat of some of us." Mr. Winkle, thus admonished, abruptly altered its position, and in so doing, contrived to bring the barrel into pretty sharp contact with Mr. Weller's head. "Hallo!" said Sam, picking up his hat, which had been knocked off, and rubbing his temple. "Hallo, sir! if you comes it this vay, you'll fill one o' them bags, and something to spare, at one fire." Here the leather-legginged boy laughed very heartily, and then tried to look as if it was somebody else, whereat Mr. Winkle frowned majestically. "Where did you tell the boy to meet us with the snack, Martin?" inquired Wardle. "Side of One-tree Hill, at twelve o'clock, sir." "That's not Sir Geoffrey's land, is it?" "No, sir; but it's close by it. It's Captain Boldwig's land; but there'll be nobody to interrupt us, and there's a fine bit of turf there." "Very well," said old Wardle. "Now the sooner we're off the better. Will you join us at twelve, then, Pickwick?" Mr. Pickwick was particularly desirous to view the sport, the more especially as he was rather anxious in respect of Mr. Winkle's life and limbs. On so inviting a morning, too, it was very tantalising to turn back, and leave his friends to enjoy themselves. It was, therefore, with a very rueful air that he replied-- "Why, I suppose I must." "An't the gentleman a shot, sir?" inquired the long gamekeeper. "No," replied Wardle; "and he's lame besides." "I should very much like to go," said Mr. Pickwick, "very much." There was a short pause of commiseration. "There's a barrow t'other side the hedge," said the boy. "If the gentleman's servant would wheel along the paths, he could keep nigh us, and we could lift it over the stiles, and that." "The wery thing," said Mr. Weller, who was a party interested, inasmuch as he ardently longed to see the sport. "The wery thing. Well said, Smallcheck; I'll have it out in a minute." But here a difficulty arose. The long gamekeeper resolutely protested against the introduction into a shooting party, of a gentleman in a barrow, as a gross violation of all established rules and precedents. It was a great objection, but not an insurmountable one. The gamekeeper having been coaxed and fee'd, and having, moreover, eased his mind by "punching" the head of the inventive youth who had first suggested the use of the machine, Mr. Pickwick was placed in it, and off the party set; Wardle and the long gamekeeper leading the way, and Mr. Pickwick in the barrow, propelled by Sam, bringing up the rear. "Stop, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, when they had got half across the first field. "What's the matter now?" said Wardle. "I won't suffer this barrow to be moved another step," said Mr. Pickwick, resolutely, "unless Winkle carries that gun of his in a different manner." "How _am_ I to carry it?" said the wretched Winkle. "Carry it with the muzzle to the ground," replied Mr. Pickwick. "It's so unsportsman-like," reasoned Winkle. "I don't care whether it's unsportsman-like or not," replied Mr. Pickwick; "I am not going to be shot in a wheelbarrow, for the sake of appearances, to please anybody." "I know the gentleman 'll put that 'ere charge into somebody afore he's done," growled the long man. "Well, well--I don't mind," said poor Winkle, turning his gun-stock uppermost;--"there." "Anythin' for a quiet life," said Mr. Weller; and on they went again. "Stop!" said Mr. Pickwick, after they had gone a few yards further. "What now?" said Wardle. "That gun of Tupman's is not safe: I know it isn't," said Mr. Pickwick. [Illustration: "_I won't suffer this barrow to be moved another step unless Winkle carries that gun of his in a different manner._"] "Eh? What! not safe?" said Mr. Tupman, in a tone of great alarm. "Not as you are carrying it," said Mr. Pickwick. "I am very sorry to make any further objection, but I cannot consent to go on, unless you carry it as Winkle does his." "I think you had better, sir," said the long gamekeeper, "or you're quite as likely to lodge the charge in yourself as in anything else." Mr. Tupman, with the most obliging haste, placed his piece in the position required, and the party moved on again; the two amateurs marching with reversed arms, like a couple of privates at a royal funeral. The dogs suddenly came to a dead stop, and the party advancing stealthily a single pace, stopped too. "What's the matter with the dogs' legs?" whispered Mr. Winkle. "How queer they're standing." "Hush, can't you?" replied Wardle, softly. "Don't you see, they're making a point?" "Making a point!" said Mr. Winkle, staring about him, as if he expected to discover some particular beauty in the landscape, which the sagacious animals were calling special attention to. "Making a point! What are they pointing at?" "Keep your eyes open," said Wardle, not heeding the question in the excitement of the moment. "Now then." There was a sharp whirring noise, that made Mr. Winkle start back as if he had been shot himself. Bang, bang, went a couple of guns;--the smoke swept quickly away over the field, and curled into the air. "Where are they?" said Mr. Winkle, in a state of the highest excitement, turning round and round in all directions. "Where are they? Tell me when to fire. Where are they--where are they?" "Where are they?" said Wardle, taking up a brace of birds which the dogs had deposited at his feet. "Why, here they are." "No, no; I mean the others," said the bewildered Winkle. "Far enough off, by this time," replied Wardle, coolly re-loading his gun. "We shall very likely be up with another covey in five minutes," said the long gamekeeper. "If the gentleman begins to fire now, perhaps he'll just get the shot out of the barrel by the time they rise." "Ha! ha! ha!" roared Mr. Weller. "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, compassionating his follower's confusion and embarrassment. "Sir?" "Don't laugh." "Certainly not, sir." So, by way of indemnification, Mr. Weller contorted his features from behind the wheelbarrow, for the exclusive amusement of the boy with the leggings, who thereupon burst into a boisterous laugh, and was summarily cuffed by the long gamekeeper, who wanted a pretext for turning round, to hide his own merriment. "Bravo, old fellow!" said Wardle to Mr. Tupman; "you fired that time, at all events." "Oh yes," replied Mr. Tupman, with conscious pride. "I let it off." "Well done. You'll hit something next time, if you look sharp. Very easy, an't it?" "Yes, it's very easy," said Mr. Tupman. "How it hurts one's shoulder, though. It nearly knocked me backwards. I had no idea that these small fire-arms kicked so." "Ah," said the old gentleman, smiling; "you'll get used to it in time. Now then--all ready--all right with the barrow there?" "All right, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "Come along then." "Hold hard, sir," said Sam, raising the barrow. "Ay, ay," replied Mr. Pickwick; and on they went, as briskly as need be. "Keep that barrow back now," cried Wardle when it had been hoisted over a stile into another field, and Mr. Pickwick had been deposited in it once more. "All right, sir," replied Mr. Weller, pausing. "Now, Winkle," said the old gentleman, "follow me softly, and don't be too late this time." "Never fear," said Mr. Winkle. "Are they pointing?" "No, no; not now. Quietly now, quietly." On they crept, and very quietly they would have advanced, if Mr. Winkle, in the performance of some very intricate evolutions with his gun, had not accidentally fired, at the most critical moment, over the boy's head, exactly in the very spot where the tall man's brain would have been, had he been there instead. "Why, what on earth did you do that for?" said old Wardle, as the birds flew unharmed away. "I never saw such a gun in my life," replied poor Mr. Winkle, looking at the lock, as if that would do any good. "It goes off of its own accord. It _will_ do it." "Will do it!" echoed Wardle, with something of irritation in his manner. "I wish it would kill something of its own accord." "It'll do that afore long, sir," observed the tall man, in a low, prophetic voice. "What do you mean by that observation, sir?" inquired Mr. Winkle, angrily. "Never mind, sir, never mind," replied the long gamekeeper; "I've no family myself, sir; and this here boy's mother will get something handsome from Sir Geoffrey, if he's killed on his land. Load again, sir, load again." "Take away his gun," cried Mr. Pickwick from the barrow, horror-stricken at the long man's dark insinuations. "Take away his gun, do you hear, somebody?" Nobody, however, volunteered to obey the command; and Mr. Winkle, after darting a rebellious glance at Mr. Pickwick, reloaded his gun, and proceeded onwards with the rest. We are bound, on the authority of Mr. Pickwick, to state that Mr. Tupman's mode of proceeding evinced far more of prudence and deliberation, than that adopted by Mr. Winkle. Still, this by no means detracts from the great authority of the latter gentleman, on all matters connected with the field; because, as Mr. Pickwick beautifully observes, it has somehow or other happened, from time immemorial, that many of the best and ablest philosophers, who have been perfect lights of science in matters of theory, have been wholly unable to reduce them to practice. Mr. Tupman's process, like many of our most sublime discoveries, was extremely simple. With the quickness and penetration of a man of genius, he had once observed that the two great points to be obtained were--first, to discharge his piece without injury to himself, and, secondly, to do so without danger to the by-standers;--obviously, the best thing to do, after surmounting the difficulty of firing at all, was to shut his eyes firmly, and fire into the air. On one occasion, after performing this feat, Mr. Tupman, on opening his eyes, beheld a plump partridge in the act of falling wounded to the ground. He was on the point of congratulating Mr. Wardle on his invariable success, when that gentleman advanced towards him, and grasped him warmly by the hand. "Tupman," said the old gentleman, "you singled out that particular bird?" "No," said Mr. Tupman--"no." "You did," said Wardle. "I saw you do it--I observed you pick him out--I noticed you, as you raised your piece to take aim; and I will say this, that the best shot in existence could not have done it more beautifully. You are an older hand at this, than I thought you, Tupman; you have been out before." It was in vain for Mr. Tupman to protest, with a smile of self-denial, that he never had. The very smile was taken as evidence to the contrary; and from that time forth, his reputation was established. It is not the only reputation that has been acquired as easily, nor are such fortunate circumstances confined to partridge-shooting. Meanwhile, Mr. Winkle flashed, and blazed, and smoked away, without producing any material results worthy of being noted down; sometimes expending his charge in mid-air, and at others sending it skimming along so near the surface of the ground as to place the lives of the two dogs on a rather uncertain and precarious tenure. As a display of fancy shooting, it was extremely varied and curious; as an exhibition of firing with any precise object, it was, upon the whole, perhaps a failure. It is an established axiom, that "every bullet has its billet." If it apply in an equal degree to shot, those of Mr. Winkle were unfortunate foundlings, deprived of their natural rights, cast loose upon the world, and billeted nowhere. "Well," said Wardle, walking up to the side of the barrow, and wiping the streams of perspiration from his jolly red face; "smoking day, isn't it?" "It is, indeed," replied Mr. Pickwick. "The sun is tremendously hot, even to me. I don't know how you must feel it." "Why," said the old gentleman, "pretty hot. It's past twelve, though. You see that green hill there?" "Certainly." "That's the place where we are to lunch; and, by Jove, there's the boy with the basket, punctual as clockwork!" "So he is," said Mr. Pickwick, brightening up. "Good boy, that. I'll give him a shilling presently. Now, then, Sam, wheel away." "Hold on, sir," said Mr. Weller, invigorated with the prospect of refreshments. "Out of the way, young leathers. If you walley my precious life don't upset me, as the gen'l'm'n said to the driver when they was a carryin' him to Tyburn." And quickening his pace to a sharp run, Mr. Weller wheeled his master nimbly to the green hill, shot him dexterously out by the very side of the basket, and proceeded to unpack it with the utmost despatch. "Weal pie," said Mr. Weller, soliloquising, as he arranged the eatables on the grass. "Wery good thing is weal pie, when you know the lady as made it, and is quite sure it an't kittens; and arter all though, where's the odds, when they're so like weal that the wery piemen themselves don't know the difference?" "Don't they, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Not they, sir," replied Mr. Weller, touching his hat. "I lodged in the same house vith a pieman once, sir, and a wery nice man he was--reg'lar clever chap, too--make pies out o' anything, he could. 'What a number o' cats you keep, Mr. Brooks,' says I, when I'd got intimate with him. 'Ah,' says he, 'I do--a good many,' says he. 'You must be wery fond o' cats,' says I. 'Other people is,' says he, a vinkin' at me; 'they an't in season till the winter though,' says he. 'Not in season!' says I. 'No,' says he, 'fruits is in, cats is out.' 'Why, what do you mean?' says I. 'Mean?' says he. 'That I'll never be a party to the combination o' the butchers, to keep up the prices o' meat,' says he. 'Mr. Weller,' says he, a squeezing my hand wery hard, and vispering in my ear--'don't mention this here agin--but it's the seasonin' as does it. They're all made o' them noble animals,' says he, a pointin' to a wery nice little tabby kitten, 'and I seasons 'em for beef-steak, weal, or kidney, 'cordin' to the demand. And more than that,' says he, 'I can make a weal a beef-steak, or a beef-steak a kidney, or any one on 'em a mutton, at a minute's notice, just as the market changes, and appetites wary!'" "He must have been a very ingenious young man, that, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, with a slight shudder. "Just was, sir," replied Mr. Weller, continuing his occupation of emptying the basket, "and the pies was beautiful. Tongue; well that's a wery good thing when it an't a woman's. Bread--knuckle o' ham, reg'lar picter--cold beef in slices, wery good. What's in them stone jars, young touch-and-go?" "Beer in this one," replied the boy, taking from his shoulder a couple of large stone bottles, fastened together by a leathern strap--"cold punch in t'other." "And a wery good notion of a lunch it is, take it altogether," said Mr. Weller, surveying his arrangement of the repast with great satisfaction. "Now, gen'l'm'n, 'fall on,' as the English said to the French when they fixed bagginets." It needed no second invitation to induce the party to yield full justice to the meal; and as little pressing did it require to induce Mr. Weller, the long gamekeeper, and the two boys to station themselves on the grass at a little distance, and do good execution upon a decent proportion of the viands. An old oak afforded a pleasant shelter to the group, and a rich prospect of arable and meadow land, intersected with luxuriant hedges, and richly ornamented with wood, lay spread out below them. "This is delightful--thoroughly delightful!" said Mr. Pickwick, the skin of whose expressive countenance was rapidly peeling off, with exposure to the sun. "So it is: so it is, old fellow," replied Wardle. "Come; a glass of punch?" "With great pleasure," said Mr. Pickwick; the satisfaction of whose countenance, after drinking it, bore testimony to the sincerity of the reply. "Good," said Mr. Pickwick, smacking his lips. "Very good. I'll take another. Cool; very cool. Come, gentlemen," continued Mr. Pickwick, still retaining his hold upon the jar, "a toast. Our friends at Dingley Dell." The toast was drunk with loud acclamations. "I'll tell you what I shall do, to get up my shooting again," said Mr. Winkle, who was eating bread and ham with a pocket-knife. "I'll put a stuffed partridge on the top of a post, and practise at it, beginning at a short distance, and lengthening it by degrees. I understand it's capital practice." "I know a gen'l'man, sir," said Mr. Weller, "as did that, and begun at two yards; but he never tried it on agin; for he blowed the bird right clean away at the first fire, and nobody ever seed a feather on him arterwards." "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "Sir?" replied Mr. Weller. "Have the goodness to reserve your anecdotes till they are called for." "Cert'nly, sir." Here Mr. Weller winked the eye which was not concealed by the beer-can he was raising to his lips with such exquisiteness, that the two boys went into spontaneous convulsions, and even the long man condescended to smile. "Well, that certainly is most capital cold punch," said Mr. Pickwick, looking earnestly at the stone bottle; "and the day is extremely warm, and--Tupman, my dear friend, a glass of punch?" "With the greatest delight," replied Mr. Tupman; and having drank that glass, Mr. Pickwick took another, just to see whether there was any orange peel in the punch, because orange peel always disagreed with him; and finding that there was not, Mr. Pickwick took another glass to the health of their absent friend, and then felt himself imperatively called upon to propose another in honour of the punch-compounder, unknown. This constant succession of glasses produced considerable effect upon Mr. Pickwick; his countenance beamed with the most sunny smiles, laughter played around his lips, and good-humoured merriment twinkled in his eye. Yielding by degrees to the influence of the exciting liquid, rendered more so by the heat, Mr. Pickwick expressed a strong desire to recollect a song which he had heard in his infancy, and the attempt proving abortive, sought to stimulate his memory with more glasses of punch, which appeared to have quite a contrary effect; for, from forgetting the words of the song, he began to forget how to articulate any words at all; and finally, after rising to his legs to address the company in an eloquent speech, he fell into the barrow, and fast asleep, simultaneously. The basket having been repacked, and it being found perfectly impossible to awaken Mr. Pickwick from his torpor, some discussion took place whether it would be better for Mr. Weller to wheel his master back again, or to leave him where he was until they should all be ready to return. The latter course was at length decided on; and as the further expedition was not to exceed an hour's duration, and as Mr. Weller begged very hard to be one of the party, it was determined to leave Mr. Pickwick asleep in the barrow, and to call for him on their return. So away they went, leaving Mr. Pickwick snoring most comfortably in the shade. That Mr. Pickwick would have continued to snore in the shade until his friends came back, or, in default thereof, until the shades of evening had fallen on the landscape, there appears no reasonable cause to doubt; always supposing that he had been suffered to remain there in peace. But he was not suffered to remain there in peace. And this was what prevented him. Captain Boldwig was a little fierce man in a stiff black neckerchief and blue surtout, who, when he did condescend to walk about his property, did it in company with a thick rattan stick with a brass ferule, and a gardener and sub-gardener, with meek faces, to whom (the gardeners, not the stick) Captain Boldwig gave his orders with all due grandeur and ferocity; for Captain Boldwig's wife's sister had married a Marquis, and the Captain's house was a villa, and his land "grounds," and it was all very high, and mighty, and great. Mr. Pickwick had not been asleep half an hour when little Boldwig, followed by the two gardeners, came striding along as fast as his size and importance would let him; and when he came near the oak tree, Captain Boldwig paused, and drew a long breath, and looked at the prospect as if he thought the prospect ought to be highly gratified at having him to take notice of it; and then he struck the ground emphatically with his stick, and summoned the head-gardener. "Hunt," said Captain Boldwig. "Yes, sir," said the gardener. "Roll this place to-morrow morning--do you hear, Hunt?" "Yes, sir." "And take care that you keep me this place in good order--do you hear, Hunt?" "Yes, sir." "And remind me to have a board done about trespassers, and spring guns, and all that sort of thing, to keep the common people out. Do you hear, Hunt; do you hear?" "I'll not forget it, sir." "I beg your pardon, sir," said the other man, advancing with his hand to his hat. "Well, Wilkins, what's the matter with _you_?" said Captain Boldwig. "I beg your pardon, sir--but I think there have been trespassers here to-day." "Ha!" said the Captain, scowling around him. "Yes, sir--they have been dining here, I think, sir." "Why, confound their audacity, so they have," said Captain Boldwig, as the crumbs and fragments that were strewn upon the grass met his eye. "They have actually been devouring their food here. I wish I had the vagabonds here!" said the Captain, clenching the thick stick. "I wish I had the vagabonds here," said the Captain, wrathfully. "Beg your pardon, sir," said Wilkins, "but----" "But what? Eh?" roared the Captain; and following the timid glance of Wilkins, his eyes encountered the wheelbarrow and Mr. Pickwick. [Illustration: "_Who are you, you rascal?_"] "Who are you, you rascal?" said the Captain, administering several pokes to Mr. Pickwick's body with the thick stick. "What's your name?" "Cold punch," murmured Mr. Pickwick, as he sunk to sleep again. "What?" demanded Captain Boldwig. No reply. "What did he say his name was?" asked the Captain. "Punch, I think, sir," replied Wilkins. "That's his impudence, that's his confounded impudence," said Captain Boldwig. "He's only feigning to be asleep now," said the Captain, in a high passion. "He's drunk; he's a drunken plebeian. Wheel him away, Wilkins, wheel him away directly." "Where shall I wheel him to, sir?" inquired Wilkins, with great timidity. "Wheel him to the Devil," replied Captain Boldwig. "Very well, sir," said Wilkins. "Stay," said the Captain. Wilkins stopped accordingly. "Wheel him," said the Captain, "wheel him to the Pound; and let us see whether he calls himself Punch when he comes to himself. He shall not bully me, he shall not bully me. Wheel him away." Away Mr. Pickwick was wheeled in compliance with this imperious mandate; and the great Captain Boldwig, swelling with indignation, proceeded on his walk. Inexpressible was the astonishment of the little party when they returned, to find that Mr. Pickwick had disappeared, and taken the wheelbarrow with him. It was the most mysterious and unaccountable thing that was ever heard of. For a lame man to have got upon his legs without any previous notice, and walked off, would have been most extraordinary; but when it came to his wheeling a heavy barrow before him, by way of amusement, it grew positively miraculous. They searched every nook and corner round, together and separately; they shouted, whistled, laughed, called--and all with the same result. Mr. Pickwick was not to be found. After some hours of fruitless search, they arrived at the unwelcome conclusion that they must go home without him. Meanwhile Mr. Pickwick had been wheeled to the Pound, and safely deposited therein, fast asleep in the wheelbarrow, to the immeasurable delight and satisfaction, not only of all the boys in the village, but three-fourths of the whole population, who had gathered round, in expectation of his waking. If their most intense gratification had been excited by seeing him wheeled in, how many hundredfold was their joy increased when, after a few indistinct cries of "Sam!" he sat up in the barrow, and gazed with indescribable astonishment on the faces before him. A general shout was of course the signal of his having woke up; and his involuntary inquiry of "What's the matter?" occasioned another, louder than the first, if possible. "Here's a game!" roared the populace. "Where am I?" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. "In the Pound," replied the mob. "How came I here? What was I doing? Where was I brought from?" "Boldwig! Captain Boldwig!" was the only reply. "Let me out!" cried Mr. Pickwick. "Where's my servant? Where are my friends?" "You an't got no friends. Hurrah!" Then there came a turnip, then a potato, and then an egg; with a few other little tokens of the playful disposition of the many-headed. How long this scene might have lasted, or how much Mr. Pickwick might have suffered, no one can tell, had not a carriage, which was driving swiftly by, suddenly pulled up, from whence there descended old Wardle and Sam Weller, the former of whom, in far less time than it takes to write it, if not to read it, had made his way to Mr. Pickwick's side, and placed him in the vehicle, just as the latter had concluded the third and last round of a single combat with the town-beadle. "Run to the Justice's!" cried a dozen voices. "Ah, run avay," said Mr. Weller, jumping upon the box. "Give my compliments--Mr. Veller's compliments--to the Justice, and tell him I've spiled his beadle, and that, if he'll swear in a new 'un, I'll come back agin to-morrow and spile him. Drive on, old feller." "I'll give directions for the commencement of an action for false imprisonment against this Captain Boldwig, directly I get to London," said Mr. Pickwick, as soon as the carriage turned out of the town. "We were trespassing, it seems," said Wardle. "I don't care," said Mr. Pickwick, "I'll bring the action." "No, you won't," said Wardle. "I will, by--" but as there was a humorous expression in Wardle's face, Mr. Pickwick checked himself, and said: "Why not?" "Because," said old Wardle, half-bursting with laughter, "because they might turn round on some of us, and say we had taken too much cold punch." Do what he would, a smile would come into Mr. Pickwick's face; the smile extended into a laugh; the laugh into a roar; the roar became general. So to keep up their good humour, they stopped at the first roadside tavern they came to, and ordered a glass of brandy and water all round, with a magnum of extra strength for Mr. Samuel Weller. CHAPTER XX [Illustration] _Showing how Dodson and Fogg were Men of Business, and their Clerks Men of Pleasure; and how an affecting Interview took place between Mr. Weller and his Long-lost Parent; showing also what Choice Spirits assembled at the Magpie and Stump, and what a Capital Chapter the Next One will be_ In the ground-floor front of a dingy house, at the very farthest end of Freeman's Court, Cornhill, sat the four clerks of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg, two of his Majesty's Attorneys of the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas at Westminster, and solicitors of the High Court of Chancery; the aforesaid clerks catching as favourable glimpses of Heaven's light and Heaven's sun, in the course of their daily labours, as a man might hope to do, were he placed at the bottom of a reasonably deep well; and without the opportunity of perceiving the stars in the day-time, which the latter secluded situation affords. The clerks' office of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg was a dark, mouldy, earthy-smelling room, with a high wainscoted partition to screen the clerks from the vulgar gaze: a couple of old wooden chairs: a very loud-ticking clock: an almanack, an umbrella-stand, a row of hat-pegs, and a few shelves, on which were deposited several ticketed bundles of dirty papers, some old deal boxes with paper labels, and sundry decayed stone ink bottles of various shapes and sizes. There was a glass door leading into the passage which formed the entrance to the court, and on the outer side of this glass door, Mr. Pickwick, closely followed by Sam Weller, presented himself on the Friday morning succeeding the occurrence, of which a faithful narration is given in the last chapter. "Come in, can't you!" cried a voice from behind the partition, in reply to Mr. Pickwick's gentle tap at the door. And Mr. Pickwick and Sam entered accordingly. "Mr. Dodson or Mr. Fogg at home, sir?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, gently, advancing, hat in hand, towards the partition. "Mr. Dodson ain't at home, and Mr. Fogg's particularly engaged," replied the voice; and at the same time the head to which the voice belonged, with a pen behind its ear, looked over the partition, and at Mr. Pickwick. It was a ragged head, the sandy hair of which, scrupulously parted on one side, and flattened down with pomatum, was twisted into little semi-circular tails round a flat face ornamented with a pair of small eyes, and garnished with a very dirty shirt collar and a rusty black stock. "Mr. Dodson ain't at home, and Mr. Fogg's particularly engaged," said the man to whom the head belonged. "When will Mr. Dodson be back, sir?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Can't say." "Will it be long before Mr. Fogg is disengaged, sir?" "Don't know." Here the man proceeded to mend his pen with great deliberation, while another clerk, who was mixing a Seidlitz powder, under cover of the lid of his desk, laughed approvingly. "I think I'll wait," said Mr. Pickwick. There was no reply; so Mr. Pickwick sat down unbidden, and listened to the loud ticking of the clock and the murmured conversation of the clerks. "That was a game, wasn't it?" said one of the gentlemen in a brown coat and brass buttons, inky drabs, and bluchers, at the conclusion of some inaudible relation of his previous evening's adventures. "Devilish good--devilish good," said the Seidlitz-powder man. "Tom Cummins was in the chair," said the man with the brown coat. "It was half-past four when I got to Somers Town, and then I was so uncommon lushy, that I couldn't find the place where the latch-key went in, and was obliged to knock up the old 'ooman. I say, I wonder what old Fogg 'ud say, if he knew it. I should get the sack, I s'pose--eh?" At this humorous notion, all the clerks laughed in concert. "There was such a game with Fogg here, this mornin'," said the man in the brown coat, "while Jack was up-stairs sorting the papers, and you two were gone to the stamp-office. Fogg was down here, opening the letters, when that chap as we issued the writ against at Camberwell, you know, came in--what's his name again?" "Ramsey," said the clerk who had spoken to Mr. Pickwick. "Ah, Ramsey--a precious seedy-looking customer. 'Well, sir,' says old Fogg, looking at him very fierce--you know his way--'well, sir, have you come to settle?' 'Yes, I have, sir,' said Ramsey, putting his hand in his pocket, and bringing out the money, 'the debt's two pound ten, and the costs three pound five, and here it is, sir;' and he sighed like bricks, as he lugged out the money, done up in a bit of blotting-paper. Old Fogg looked first at the money, and then at him, and then he coughed in his rum way, so that I knew something was coming. 'You don't know there's a declaration filed, which increases the costs materially, I suppose?' said Fogg. 'You don't say that, sir,' said Ramsey, starting back; 'the time was only out last night, sir.' 'I do say it, though,' said Fogg, 'my clerk's just gone to file it. Hasn't Mr. Jackson gone to file that declaration in Bullman and Ramsey, Mr. Wicks?' Of course I said yes, and then Fogg coughed again, and looked at Ramsey. 'My God!' said Ramsey; 'and here have I nearly driven myself mad, scraping this money together, and all to no purpose.' 'None at all,' said Fogg, coolly; 'so you had better go back and scrape some more together, and bring it here in time.' 'I can't get it, by God!' said Ramsey, striking the desk with his fist. 'Don't bully me, sir,' said Fogg, getting into a passion on purpose. 'I am not bullying you, sir,' said Ramsey. 'You are,' said Fogg; 'get out, sir; get out of this office, sir, and come back, sir, when you know how to behave yourself.' Well, Ramsey tried to speak, but Fogg wouldn't let him, so he put the money in his pocket, and sneaked out. The door was scarcely shut, when old Fogg turned round to me, with a sweet smile on his face, and drew the declaration out of his coat pocket. 'Here, Wicks,' says Fogg, 'take a cab, and go down to the Temple as quick as you can, and file that. The costs are quite safe, for he's a steady man with a large family, at a salary of five-and-twenty shillings a week, and if he gives us a warrant of attorney, as he must in the end, I know his employers will see it paid; so we may as well get all we can out of him, Mr. Wicks; it's a Christian act to do it, Mr. Wicks, for with his large family and small income, he'll be all the better for a good lesson against getting into debt,--won't he, Mr. Wicks, won't he?'--and he smiled so good-naturedly as he went away, that it was delightful to see him. He is a capital man of business," said Wicks, in a tone of the deepest admiration, "capital, isn't he?" The other three cordially subscribed to this opinion, and the anecdote afforded the most unlimited satisfaction. "Nice men these here, sir," whispered Mr. Weller to his master; "wery nice notion of fun they has, sir." Mr. Pickwick nodded assent, and coughed to attract the attention of the young gentlemen behind the partition, who, having now relaxed their minds by a little conversation among themselves, condescended to take some notice of the stranger. "I wonder whether Fogg's disengaged now?" said Jackson. "I'll see," said Wicks, dismounting leisurely from his stool. "What name shall I tell Mr. Fogg?" "Pickwick," replied the illustrious subject of these memoirs. Mr. Jackson departed up-stairs on his errand, and immediately returned with a message that Mr. Fogg would see Mr. Pickwick in five minutes; and having delivered it, returned again to his desk. "What did he say his name was?" whispered Wicks. "Pickwick," replied Jackson; "it's the defendant in Bardell and Pickwick." A sudden scraping of feet, mingled with the sound of suppressed laughter, was heard from behind the partition. "They're a twiggin' of you, sir," whispered Mr. Weller. "Twigging of me, Sam!" replied Mr. Pickwick; "what do you mean by twigging me?" Mr. Weller replied by pointing with his thumb over his shoulder, and Mr. Pickwick, on looking up, became sensible of the pleasing fact, that all the four clerks, with countenances expressive of the utmost amusement, and with their heads thrust over the wooden screen, were minutely inspecting the figure and general appearance of the supposed trifler with female hearts, and disturber of female happiness. On his looking up, the row of heads suddenly disappeared, and the sound of pens travelling at a furious rate over paper, immediately succeeded. A sudden ring at the bell which hung in the office, summoned Mr. Jackson to the apartment of Fogg, from whence he came back to say that he (Fogg) was ready to see Mr. Pickwick if he would step up-stairs. Up-stairs Mr. Pickwick did step accordingly, leaving Sam Weller below. The room door of the one-pair back, bore inscribed in legible characters the imposing words "Mr. Fogg;" and, having tapped thereat, and been desired to come in, Jackson ushered Mr. Pickwick into the presence. "Is Mr. Dodson in?" inquired Mr. Fogg. "Just come in, sir," replied Jackson. "Ask him to step here." "Yes, sir." Exit Jackson. "Take a seat, sir," said Fogg; "there is the paper, sir; my partner will be here directly, and we can converse about this matter, sir." Mr. Pickwick took a seat and the paper, but, instead of reading the latter, peeped over the top of it, and took a survey of the man of business, who was an elderly, pimply-faced, vegetable-diet sort of man, in a black coat, dark mixture trousers, and small black gaiters: a kind of being who seemed to be an essential part of the desk at which he was writing, and to have as much thought or sentiment. After a few minutes' silence, Mr. Dodson, a plump, portly, stern-looking man, with a loud voice, appeared; and the conversation commenced. "This is Mr. Pickwick," said Fogg. "Ah! You are the defendant, sir, in Bardell and Pickwick?" said Dodson. "I am, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Well, sir," said Dodson, "and what do you propose?" "Ah!" said Fogg, thrusting his hands into his trousers pockets and throwing himself back in his chair, "what do you propose, Mr. Pickwick?" "Hush, Fogg," said Dodson, "let me hear what Mr. Pickwick has to say." "I came, gentlemen," said Mr. Pickwick, gazing placidly on the two partners, "I came here, gentlemen, to express the surprise with which I received your letter of the other day, and to inquire what grounds of action you can have against me." "Grounds of--" Fogg had ejaculated thus much, when he was stopped by Dodson. "Mr. Fogg," said Dodson, "I am going to speak." "I beg your pardon, Mr. Dodson," said Fogg. "For the grounds of action, sir," continued Dodson, with moral elevation in his air, "you will consult your own conscience and your own feelings. We, sir, we, are guided entirely by the statement of our client. That statement, sir, may be true, or it may be false; it may be credible, or it may be incredible; but, if it be true, and if it be credible, I do not hesitate to say, sir, that our grounds of action, sir, are strong, and not to be shaken. You may be an unfortunate man, sir, or you may be a designing one; but if I were called upon, as a juryman upon my oath, sir, to express my opinion of your conduct, sir, I do not hesitate to assert that I should have but one opinion about it." Here Dodson drew himself up, with an air of offended virtue, and looked at Fogg, who thrust his hands further in his pockets, and, nodding his head sagely, said, in a tone of the fullest concurrence, "Most certainly." "Well, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, with considerable pain depicted in his countenance, "you will permit me to assure you, that I am a most unfortunate man, so far as this case is concerned." "I hope you are, sir," replied Dodson; "I trust you may be, sir. If you are really innocent of what is laid to your charge, you are more unfortunate than I had believed any man could possibly be. What do _you_ say, Mr. Fogg?" "I say precisely what you say," replied Fogg, with a smile of incredulity. "The writ, sir, which commences the action," continued Dodson, "was issued regularly. Mr. Fogg, where is the _præcipe_ book?" "Here it is," said Fogg, handing over a square book, with a parchment cover. "Here is the entry," resumed Dodson. "'Middlesex, Capias _Martha Bardell, widow, v. Samuel Pickwick_. Damages, £1500. Dodson and Fogg for the plaintiff, Aug. 28, 1830.' All regular, sir; perfectly." Dodson coughed and looked at Fogg, who said "Perfectly," also. And then they both looked at Mr. Pickwick. "I am to understand, then," said Mr. Pickwick, "that it really is your intention to proceed with this action?" "Understand, sir? That you certainly may," replied Dodson, with something as near a smile as his importance would allow. "And that the damages are actually laid at fifteen hundred pounds?" said Mr. Pickwick. "To which understanding you may add my assurance, that if we could have prevailed upon our client, they would have been laid at treble the amount, sir," replied Dodson. "I believe Mrs. Bardell specially said, however," observed Fogg, glancing at Dodson, "that she would not compromise for a farthing less." "Unquestionably," replied Dodson, sternly. "For the action was only just begun; and it wouldn't have done to let Mr. Pickwick compromise it then, even if he had been so disposed." "As you offer no terms, sir," said Dodson, displaying a slip of parchment in his right hand, and affectionately pressing a paper copy of it on Mr. Pickwick with his left, "I had better serve you with a copy of this writ, sir. Here is the original, sir." "Very well, gentlemen, very well," said Mr. Pickwick, rising in person and wrath at the same time; "you shall hear from my solicitor, gentlemen." "We shall be very happy to do so," said Fogg, rubbing his hands. "Very," said Dodson, opening the door. "And before I go, gentlemen," said the excited Mr. Pickwick, turning round on the landing, "permit me to say, that of all the disgraceful and rascally proceedings----" "Stay, sir, stay," interposed Dodson, with great politeness. "Mr. Jackson! Mr. Wicks!" "Sir," said the two clerks, appearing at the bottom of the stairs. "I merely want you to hear what this gentleman says," replied Dodson. "Pray go on, sir--disgraceful and rascally proceedings, I think you said?" "I did," said Mr. Pickwick, thoroughly roused. "I said, sir, that of all the disgraceful and rascally proceedings that ever were attempted, this is the most so. I repeat it, sir." "You hear that, Mr. Wicks?" said Dodson. "You won't forget these expressions, Mr. Jackson?" said Fogg. "Perhaps you would like to call us swindlers, sir," said Dodson. "Pray do, sir, if you feel disposed; now pray do, sir." "I do," said Mr. Pickwick. "You _are_ swindlers." "Very good," said Dodson. "You can hear down there, I hope, Mr. Wicks?" "Oh yes, sir," said Wicks. "You had better come up a step or two higher, if you can't," added Mr. Fogg. "Go on, sir; do go on. You had better call us thieves, sir; or perhaps you would like to assault one of us. Pray do it, sir, if you would; we will not make the smallest resistance. Pray do it, sir." As Fogg put himself very temptingly within the reach of Mr. Pickwick's clenched fist, there is little doubt that that gentleman would have complied with his earnest entreaty, but for the interposition of Sam, who, hearing the dispute, emerged from the office, mounted the stairs, and seized his master by the arm. "You just come avay," said Mr. Weller. "Battledore and shuttlecock's a wery good game, ven you an't the shuttlecock and two lawyers the battledores, in which case it gets too excitin' to be pleasant. Come away, sir. If you want to ease your mind by blowing up somebody, come out into the court and blow up me; but it's rayther too expensive work to be carried on here." And without the slightest ceremony, Mr. Weller hauled his master down the stairs, and down the court, and having safely deposited him in Cornhill, fell behind, prepared to follow whither-soever he should lead. Mr. Pickwick walked on abstractedly, crossed opposite the Mansion House, and bent his steps up Cheapside. Sam began to wonder where they were going, when his master turned round, and said: "Sam, I will go immediately to Mr. Perker's." "That's just exactly the wery place vere you ought to have gone last night, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "I think it is, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "I _know_ it is," said Mr. Weller. "Well, well, Sam," replied Mr. Pickwick, "we will go there at once, but first, as I have been rather ruffled, I should like a glass of brandy and water warm, Sam. Where can I have it, Sam?" Mr. Weller's knowledge of London was extensive and peculiar. He replied without the slightest consideration: "Second court on the right-hand side--last house but vun on the same side the vay--take the box as stands in the first fireplace, 'cos there an't no leg in the middle o' the table, wich all the others has, and its wery inconwenient." Mr. Pickwick observed his valet's directions implicitly, and bidding Sam follow him, entered the tavern he had pointed out, where the hot brandy and water was speedily placed before him; while Mr. Weller, seated at a respectful distance, though at the same table with his master, was accommodated with a pint of porter. The room was one of a very homely description, and was apparently under the especial patronage of stage coachmen: for several gentlemen, who had all the appearance of belonging to that learned profession, were drinking and smoking in the different boxes. Among the number was one stout, red-faced, elderly man in particular, seated in an opposite box, who attracted Mr. Pickwick's attention. The stout man was smoking with great vehemence, but between every half-dozen puffs, he took his pipe from his mouth, and looked first at Mr. Weller and then at Mr. Pickwick. Then, he would bury in a quart pot as much of his countenance as the dimensions of the quart pot admitted of its receiving, and take another look at Sam and Mr. Pickwick. Then he would take another half-dozen puffs with an air of profound meditation and look at them again. At last the stout man, putting up his legs on the seat, and leaning his back against the wall, began to puff at his pipe without leaving off at all, and to stare through the smoke at the new-comers, as if he had made up his mind to see the most he could of them. At first the evolutions of the stout man had escaped Mr. Weller's observation, but by degrees, as he saw Mr. Pickwick's eyes every now and then turning towards him, he began to gaze in the same direction, at the same time shading his eyes with his hand, as if he partially recognised the object before him, and wished to make quite sure of its identity. His doubts were speedily dispelled, however; for the stout man having blown a thick cloud from his pipe, a hoarse voice, like some strange effort of ventriloquism, emerged from beneath the capacious shawls which muffled his throat and chest, and slowly uttered these sounds--"Wy, Sammy!" "Who's that, Sam?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Why, I wouldn't ha' believed it, sir," replied Mr. Weller with astonished eyes. "It's the old 'un." "Old one," said Mr. Pickwick. "What old one?" "My father, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "How are you, my ancient?" With which beautiful ebullition of filial affection, Mr. Weller made room on the seat beside him, for the stout man, who advanced pipe in mouth and pot in hand, to greet him. "Wy, Sammy," said the father, "I ha'n't seen you, for two years and better." "Nor more you have, old codger," replied the son. "How's mother-in-law?" "Wy, I'll tell you what, Sammy," said Mr. Weller senior, with much solemnity in his manner; "there never was a nicer woman as a widder, than that 'ere second wentur o' mine--a sweet creetur she was, Sammy; all I can say on her now, is, that as she was such an uncommon pleasant widder, it's a great pity she ever changed her con-dition. She don't act as a vife, Sammy." "Don't she though?" inquired Mr. Weller junior. The elder Mr. Weller shook his head, as he replied with a sigh, "I've done it once too often, Sammy; I've done it once too often. Take example by your father, my boy, and be wery careful o' widders all your life, specially if they've kept a public-house, Sammy." Having delivered this parental advice with great pathos, Mr. Weller senior re-filled his pipe from a tin box he carried in his pocket, and, lighting his fresh pipe from the ashes of the old one, commenced smoking at a great rate. "Beg your pardon, sir," he said, renewing the subject, and addressing Mr. Pickwick, after a considerable pause, "nothin' personal, I hope, sir; I hope you ha'n't got a widder, sir." "Not I," replied Mr. Pickwick, laughing; and while Mr. Pickwick laughed, Sam Weller informed his parent in a whisper, of the relation in which he stood towards that gentleman. "Beg your pardon, sir," said Mr. Weller senior, taking off his hat, "I hope you've no fault to find vith Sammy, sir?" "None whatever," said Mr. Pickwick. "Wery glad to hear it, sir," replied the old man; "I took a good deal o' pains with his eddication, sir; let him run in the streets when he was wery young, and shift for his-self. It's the only way to make a boy sharp, sir." "Rather a dangerous process, I should imagine," said Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. "And not a very sure one, either," added Mr. Weller; "I got reg'larly done the other day." "No!" said his father. [Illustration: "_Take example of your father, my boy, and be wery careful o' widders all your life._"] "I did," said the son; and he proceeded to relate, in as few words as possible, how he had fallen a ready dupe to the stratagems of Job Trotter. Mr. Weller senior listened to the tale with the most profound attention, and at its termination said: "Worn't one of these chaps slim and tall, with long hair, and the gift o' the gab wery gallopin'?" Mr. Pickwick did not quite understand the last item of description, but, comprehending the first, said "Yes" at a venture. "T'other's a black-haired chap in mulberry livery, with a wery large head?" "Yes, yes, he is," said Mr. Pickwick and Sam, with great earnestness. "Then I know where they are, and that's all about it," said Mr. Weller; "they're at Ipswich, safe enough, them two." "No!" said Mr. Pickwick. "Fact," said Mr. Weller, "and I'll tell you how I know it. I work an Ipswich coach now and then for a friend o' mine. I worked down the wery day arter the night as you caught the rheumatiz, and at the Black Boy at Chelmsford--the very place they'd come to--I took 'em up, right through to Ipswich, where the man servant--him in the mulberries--told me they was a goin' to put up for a long time." "I'll follow him," said Mr. Pickwick; "we may as well see Ipswich as any other place. I'll follow him." "You're quite certain it was them, governor?" inquired Mr. Weller junior. "Quite, Sammy, quite," replied his father, "for their appearance is wery sing'ler; besides that 'ere, I wondered to see the gen'l'm'n so familiar with his servant; and, more than that, as they sat in front, right behind the box, I heerd 'em laughing, and saying how they'd done old Fireworks." "Old who?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Old Fireworks, sir; by which, I've no doubt, they meant you, sir." There is nothing positively vile or atrocious in the appellation of "old Fireworks," but still it is by no means a respectful or flattering designation. The recollection of all the wrongs he had sustained at Jingle's hands had crowded on Mr. Pickwick's mind, the moment Mr. Weller began to speak: it wanted but a feather to turn the scale, and "old Fireworks" did it. "I'll follow him," said Mr. Pickwick, with an emphatic blow on the table. "I shall work down to Ipswich the day arter to-morrow, sir," said Mr. Weller the elder, "from the Bull in Whitechapel; and if you really mean to go, you'd better go with me." "So we had," said Mr. Pickwick; "very true; I can write to Bury, and tell them to meet me at Ipswich. We will go with you. But don't hurry away, Mr. Weller; won't you take anything?" "You're wery good, sir," replied Mr. Weller, stopping short; "perhaps a small glass of brandy to drink your health, and success to Sammy, sir, wouldn't be amiss." "Certainly not," replied Mr. Pickwick. "A glass of brandy here!" The brandy was brought: and Mr. Weller, after pulling his hair to Mr. Pickwick, and nodding to Sam, jerked it down his capacious throat as if it had been a small thimbleful. "Well done, father!" said Sam; "take care, old fellow, or you'll have a touch of your old complaint, the gout." "I've found a sov'rin cure for that, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, setting down the glass. "A sovereign cure for the gout," said Mr. Pickwick, hastily producing his note-book--"what is it?" "The gout, sir," replied Mr. Weller, "the gout is a complaint as arises from too much ease and comfort. If ever you're attacked with the gout, sir, jist you marry a widder as has got a good loud woice, with a decent notion of usin' it, and you'll never have the gout again. It's a capital prescription, sir. I takes it reg'lar, and I can warrant it to drive away any illness as is caused by too much jollity." Having imparted this valuable secret, Mr. Weller drained his glass once more, produced a laboured wink, sighed deeply, and slowly retired. "Well, what do you think of what your father says, Sam?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. "Think, sir!" replied Mr. Weller; "why, I think he's the wictim o' connubiality, as Blue Beard's domestic chaplain said, with a tear of pity, ven he buried him." There was no replying to this very apposite conclusion, and, therefore, Mr. Pickwick, after settling the reckoning, resumed his walk to Gray's Inn. By the time he reached its secluded groves, however, eight o'clock had struck, and the unbroken stream of gentlemen in muddy high-lows, soiled white hats, and rusty apparel, who were pouring towards the different avenues of egress, warned him that the majority of the offices had closed for that day. After climbing two pairs of steep and dirty stairs, he found his anticipations were realised. Mr. Perker's "outer door" was closed; and the dead silence which followed Mr. Weller's repeated kicks thereat, announced that the officials had retired from business for the night. "This is pleasant, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick; "I shouldn't lose an hour in seeing him; I shall not be able to get one wink of sleep to-night, I know, unless I have the satisfaction of reflecting that I have confided this matter to a professional man." "Here's an old 'ooman comin' up-stairs, sir," replied Mr. Weller; "p'raps she knows where we can find somebody. Hallo, old lady, vere's Mr. Perker's people?" "Mr. Perker's people," said a thin, miserable-looking old woman, stopping to recover breath after the ascent of the staircase, "Mr. Perker's people's gone, and I'm a goin' to do the office out." "Are you Mr. Perker's servant?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "I am Mr. Perker's laundress," replied the old woman. "Ah," said Mr. Pickwick, half aside to Sam, "it's a curious circumstance, Sam, that they call the old women in these inns, laundresses. I wonder what that's for?" "'Cos they has a mortal awersion to washing anythin', I suppose, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "I shouldn't wonder," said Mr. Pickwick, looking at the old woman, whose appearance, as well as the condition of the office, which she had by this time opened, indicated a rooted antipathy to the application of soap and water; "do you know where I can find Mr. Perker, my good woman?" "No, I don't," replied the old woman, gruffly; "he's out o' town now." "That's unfortunate," said Mr. Pickwick; "where's his clerk? Do you know?" "Yes, I know where he is, but he won't thank me for telling you," replied the laundress. "I have very particular business with him," said Mr. Pickwick. "Won't it do in the morning?" said the woman. "Not so well," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Well," said the old woman, "if it was anything very particular, I was to say where he was, so I suppose there's no harm in telling. If you just go to the Magpie and Stump, and ask at the bar for Mr. Lowten, they'll show you in to him, and he's Mr. Perker's clerk." With this direction, and having been furthermore informed that the hostelry in question was situated in a court, happy in the double advantage of being in the vicinity of Clare Market, and closely approximating to the back of New Inn, Mr. Pickwick and Sam descended the rickety staircase in safety, and issued forth in quest of the Magpie and Stump. This favoured tavern, sacred to the evening orgies of Mr. Lowten and his companions, was what ordinary people would designate a public-house. That the landlord was a man of a money-making turn, was sufficiently testified by the fact of a small bulkhead beneath the tap-room window, in size and shape not unlike a sedan-chair, being underlet to a mender of shoes: and that he was a being of a philanthropic mind, was evident from the protection he afforded to a pie-man, who vended his delicacies without fear of interruption on the very door-step. In the lower windows, which were decorated with curtains of a saffron hue, dangled two or three printed cards, bearing reference to Devonshire cider and Dantzig spruce, while a large black board, announcing in white letters to an enlightened public that there were 500,000 barrels of double stout in the cellars of the establishment, left the mind in a state of not unpleasing doubt and uncertainty as to the precise direction in the bowels of the earth, in which this mighty cavern might be supposed to extend. When we add, that the weather-beaten signboard bore the half-obliterated semblance of a magpie intently eyeing a crooked streak of brown paint, which the neighbours had been taught from infancy to consider as the "stump," we have said all that need be said of the exterior of the edifice. On Mr. Pickwick's presenting himself at the bar, an elderly female emerged from behind a screen therein, and presented herself before him. "Is Mr. Lowten here, ma'am?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Yes, he is, sir," replied the landlady. "Here, Charley, show the gentleman in to Mr. Lowten." "The gen'lm'n can't go in just now," said a shambling pot-boy, with a red head, "'cos Mr. Lowten's a singin' a comic song, and he'll put him out. He'll be done d'rectly, sir." The red-headed pot-boy had scarcely finished speaking, when a most unanimous hammering of tables, and jingling of glasses announced that the song had that instant terminated; and Mr. Pickwick, after desiring Sam to solace himself in the tap, suffered himself to be conducted into the presence of Mr. Lowten. At the announcement of "gentleman to speak to you, sir," a puffy-faced young man, who filled the chair at the head of the table, looked with some surprise in the direction from whence the voice proceeded: and the surprise seemed to be by no means diminished, when his eyes rested on an individual whom he had never seen before. "I beg your pardon, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, "and I am very sorry to disturb the other gentlemen, too, but I come on very particular business; and if you will suffer me to detain you at this end of the room for five minutes, I shall be very much obliged to you." The puffy-faced young man rose, and drawing a chair close to Mr. Pickwick in an obscure corner of the room, listened attentively to his tale of woe. "Ah," he said, when Mr. Pickwick had concluded, "Dodson and Fogg--sharp practice theirs--capital men of business, Dodson and Fogg, sir." Mr. Pickwick admitted the sharp practice of Dodson and Fogg, and Lowten resumed. "Perker ain't in town, and he won't be, neither, before the end of next week; but if you want the action defended, and will leave the copy with me, I can do all that's needful till he comes back." "That's exactly what I came here for," said Mr. Pickwick, handing over the document. "If anything particular occurs, you can write to me at the post-office, Ipswich." "That's all right," replied Mr. Perker's clerk; and then seeing Mr. Pickwick's eye wandering curiously towards the table, he added, "Will you join us, for half an hour or so? We are capital company here to-night. There's Samkin and Green's managing-clerk, and Smithers and Price's chancery, and Pimkin and Thomas's out o' door--sings a capital song, he does--and Jack Bamber, and ever so many more. You're come out of the country, I suppose. Would you like to join us?" Mr. Pickwick could not resist so tempting an opportunity of studying human nature. He suffered himself to be led to the table, where, after having been introduced to the company in due form, he was accommodated with a seat near the chairman, and called for a glass of his favourite beverage. A profound silence, quite contrary to Mr. Pickwick's expectation, succeeded. "You don't find this sort of thing disagreeable, I hope, sir?" said his right-hand neighbour, a gentleman in a checked shirt, and Mosaic studs, with a cigar in his mouth. "Not in the least," replied Mr. Pickwick, "I like it very much, although I am no smoker myself." "I should be very sorry to say I wasn't," interposed another gentleman on the opposite side of the table. "It's board and lodging to me, is smoke." Mr. Pickwick glanced at the speaker, and thought that if it were washing too, it would be all the better. Here there was another pause. Mr. Pickwick was a stranger, and his coming had evidently cast a damp upon the party. "Mr. Grundy's going to oblige the company with a song," said the chairman. "No he ain't," said Mr. Grundy. "Why not?" said the chairman. "Because he can't," said Mr. Grundy. "You had better say he won't," replied the chairman. "Well, then, he won't," retorted Mr. Grundy. Mr. Grundy's positive refusal to gratify the company occasioned another silence. "Won't anybody enliven us?" said the chairman, despondingly. "Why don't you enliven us yourself, Mr. Chairman?" said a young man with a whisker, a squint, and an open shirt-collar (dirty), from the bottom of the table. "Hear! hear!" said the smoking gentleman in the Mosaic jewellery. "Because I only know one song, and I have sung it already, and it's a fine of 'glasses round' to sing the same song twice in a night," replied the chairman. This was an unanswerable reply, and silence prevailed again. "I have been to-night, gentlemen," said Mr. Pickwick, hoping to start a subject which all the company could take a part in discussing, "I have been to-night in a place which you all know very well, doubtless, but which I have not been in before for some years, and know very little of; I mean Gray's Inn, gentlemen. Curious little nooks in a great place, like London, these old Inns are." "By Jove," said the chairman, whispering across the table to Mr. Pickwick, "you have hit upon something that one of us, at least, would talk upon for ever. You'll draw old Jack Bamber out; he was never heard to talk about anything else but the Inns, and he has lived alone in them till he's half crazy." The individual to whom Lowten alluded was a little yellow high-shouldered man, whose countenance, from his habit of stooping forward when silent, Mr. Pickwick had not observed before. He wondered though, when the old man raised his shrivelled face, and bent his grey eye upon him, with a keen inquiring look, that such remarkable features could have escaped his attention for a moment. There was a fixed grim smile perpetually on his countenance; he leant his chin on a long skinny hand, with nails of extraordinary length; and as he inclined his head to one side, and looked keenly out from beneath his ragged grey eyebrows, there was a strange, wild slyness in his leer, quite repulsive to behold. This was the figure that now started forward, and burst into an animated torrent of words. As this chapter has been a long one, however, and as the old man was a remarkable personage, it will be more respectful to him, and more convenient to us, to let him speak for himself in a fresh one. CHAPTER XXI [Illustration] _In which the Old Man launches forth into his Favourite Theme, and relates a Story about a Queer Client_ "Aha!" said the old man, a brief description of whose manner and appearance concluded the last chapter, "Aha! who was talking about the Inns?" "I was, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick; "I was observing what singular old places they are." "_You!_" said the old man, contemptuously, "What do _you_ know of the time when young men shut themselves up in those lonely rooms, and read and read, hour after hour, and night after night, till their reason wandered beneath their midnight studies; till their mental powers were exhausted; till morning's light brought no freshness or health to them; and they sank beneath the unnatural devotion of their youthful energies to their dry old books? Coming down to a later time, and a very different day, what do _you_ know of the gradual sinking beneath consumption, or the quick wasting of fever--the grand results of 'life' and dissipation--which men have undergone in these same rooms? How many vain pleaders for mercy, do you think, have turned away heart-sick from the lawyer's office, to find a resting-place in the Thames, or a refuge in the gaol? They are no ordinary houses, those. There is not a panel in the old wainscoting, but what, if it were endowed with the powers of speech and memory, could start from the wall, and tell its tale of horror--the romance of life, sir, the romance of life! Commonplace as they may seem now, I tell you they are strange old places, and I would rather hear many a legend with a terrific sounding name, than the true history of one old set of chambers." There was something so odd in the old man's sudden energy, and the subject which had called it forth, that Mr. Pickwick was prepared with no observation in reply; and the old man, checking his impetuosity, and resuming the leer, which had disappeared during his previous excitement, said: "Look at them in another light: their most commonplace and least romantic. What fine places of slow torture they are! Think of the needy man who has spent his all, beggared himself, and pinched his friends, to enter the profession, which will never yield him a morsel of bread. The waiting--the hope--the disappointment--the fear--the misery--the poverty--the blight on his hopes, and end to his career--the suicide perhaps, or the shabby, slipshod drunkard. Am I not right about them?" And the old man rubbed his hands, and leered as if in delight at having found another point of view in which to place his favourite subject. Mr. Pickwick eyed the old man with great curiosity, and the remainder of the company smiled, and looked on in silence. "Talk of your German universities," said the little old man. "Pooh, pooh! there's romance enough at home without going half a mile for it; only people never think of it." "I never thought of the romance of this particular subject before, certainly," said Mr. Pickwick, laughing. "To be sure you didn't," said the little old man, "of course not. As a friend of mine used to say to me, 'What is there in chambers, in particular?' 'Queer old places,' said I. 'Not at all,' said he. 'Lonely,' said I. 'Not a bit of it,' said he. He died one morning of apoplexy, as he was going to open his outer door. Fell with his head in his own letter-box, and there he lay for eighteen months. Everybody thought he'd gone out of town." "And how was he found at last?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "The benchers determined to have his door broken open, as he hadn't paid any rent for two years. So they did. Forced the lock; and a very dusty skeleton in a blue coat, black knee-shorts, and silks, fell forward in the arms of the porter who opened the door. Queer, that. Rather, perhaps?" The little old man put his head more on one side, and rubbed his hands with unspeakable glee. "I know another case," said the little old man, when his chuckles had in some degree subsided. "It occurred in Clifford's Inn. Tenant of a top set--bad character--shut himself up in his bed-room closet, and took a dose of arsenic. The steward thought he had run away; opened the door, and put a bill up. Another man came, took the chambers, furnished them, and went to live there. Somehow or other he couldn't sleep--always restless and uncomfortable. 'Odd,' says he. 'I'll make the other room my bed-chamber, and this my sitting-room.' He made the change, and slept very well at night, but suddenly found that, somehow, he couldn't read in the evening: he got nervous and uncomfortable, and used to be always snuffing his candles and staring about him. 'I can't make this out,' said he, when he came home from the play one night, and was drinking a glass of cold grog, with his back to the wall, in order that he mightn't be able to fancy there was any one behind him--'I can't make it out,' said he; and just then his eyes rested on the little closet that had been always locked up, and a shudder ran through his whole frame from top to toe. 'I have felt this strange feeling before,' said he, 'I cannot help thinking there's something wrong about that closet.' He made a strong effort, plucked up his courage, shivered the lock with a blow or two of the poker, opened the door, and there, sure enough, standing bolt upright in the corner, was the last tenant, with a little bottle clasped firmly in his hand, and his face--well!" As the little old man concluded, he looked round on the attentive faces of his wondering auditory with a smile of grim delight. "What strange things these are you tell us of, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, minutely scanning the old man's countenance, by the aid of his glasses. "Strange!" said the little old man. "Nonsense; you think them strange, because you know nothing about it. They are funny, but not uncommon." "Funny!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, involuntarily. "Yes, funny, are they not?" replied the little old man, with a diabolical leer; and then, without pausing for an answer, he continued: "I knew another man--let me see--forty years ago now--who took an old, damp, rotten set of chambers, in one of the most ancient Inns, that had been shut up and empty for years and years before. There were lots of old women's stories about the place, and it certainly was very far from being a cheerful one; but he was poor and the rooms were cheap, and that would have been quite a sufficient reason for him, if they had been ten times worse than they really were. He was obliged to take some mouldering fixtures that were on the place, and, among the rest, was a great lumbering wooden press for papers, with large glass doors, and a green curtain inside; a pretty useless thing for him, for he had no papers to put in it; and as to his clothes, he carried them about with him, and that wasn't very hard work, either. Well, he had moved in all his furniture--it wasn't quite a truck-full--and had sprinkled it about the room, so as to make the four chairs look as much like a dozen as possible, and was sitting down before the fire at night drinking the first glass of two gallons of whisky he had ordered on credit, wondering whether it would ever be paid for, and if so, in how many years' time, when his eyes encountered the glass doors of the wooden press. 'Ah,' says he, 'if I hadn't been obliged to take that ugly article at the old broker's valuation, I might have got something comfortable for the money. I'll tell you what it is, old fellow,' he said, speaking aloud to the press, having nothing else to speak to: 'If it wouldn't cost more to break up your old carcase, than it would ever be worth afterwards, I'd have a fire out of you in less than no time.' He had hardly spoken the words, when a sound resembling a faint groan, appeared to issue from the interior of the case. It startled him at first, but thinking, on a moment's reflection, that it must be some young fellow in the next chamber, who had been dining out, he put his feet on the fender, and raised the poker to stir the fire. At that moment, the sound was repeated; and one of the glass doors slowly opening, disclosed a pale and emaciated figure in soiled and worn apparel, standing erect in the press. The figure was tall and thin, and the countenance expressive of care and anxiety; but there was something in the hue of the skin, and gaunt and unearthly appearance of the whole form, which no being of this world was ever seen to wear. 'Who are you?' said the new tenant, turning very pale: poising the poker in his hand, however, and taking a very decent aim at the countenance of the figure. 'Who are you?' 'Don't throw that poker at me,' replied the form; 'if you hurled it with ever so sure an aim, it would pass through me, without resistance, and expend its force on the wood behind. I am a spirit.' 'And, pray, what do you want here?' faltered the tenant. 'In this room,' replied the apparition, 'my worldly ruin was worked, and I and my children beggared. In this press, the papers in a long, long suit, which accumulated for years, were deposited. In this room, when I had died of grief and long deferred hope, two wily harpies divided the wealth for which I had contested during a wretched existence, and of which, at last, not one farthing was left for my unhappy descendants. I terrified them from the spot, and since that day have prowled by night--the only period at which I can revisit the earth--about the scenes of my long-protracted misery. This apartment is mine: leave it to me.' 'If you insist upon making your appearance here,' said the tenant, who had had time to collect his presence of mind during this prosy statement of the ghost's, 'I shall give up possession with the greatest pleasure; but I should like to ask you one question, if you will allow me.' 'Say on,' said the apparition, sternly. 'Well,' said the tenant, 'I don't apply the observation personally to you, because it is equally applicable to most of the ghosts I ever heard of; but it does appear to me somewhat inconsistent, that when you have an opportunity of visiting the fairest spots of earth--for I suppose space is nothing to you--you should always return exactly to the very places where you have been most miserable.' 'Egad, that's very true; I never thought of that before,' said the ghost. 'You see, sir,' pursued the tenant, 'this is a very uncomfortable room. From the appearance of that press, I should be disposed to say that it is not wholly free from bugs; and I really think you might find much more comfortable quarters: to say nothing of the climate of London, which is extremely disagreeable.' 'You are very right, sir,' said the ghost, politely, 'it never struck me till now; I'll try change of air directly.' In fact, he began to vanish as he spoke: his legs, indeed, had quite disappeared. 'And if, sir,' said the tenant, calling after him, 'if you _would_ have the goodness to suggest to the other ladies and gentlemen who are now engaged in haunting old empty houses, that they might be much more comfortable elsewhere, you will confer a very great benefit on society.' 'I will,' replied the ghost; 'we must be dull fellows, very dull fellows, indeed; I can't imagine how we can have been so stupid.' With these words, the spirit disappeared; and what is rather remarkable," added the old man, with a shrewd look round the table, "he never came back again." "That ain't bad, if it's true," said the man in the Mosaic studs, lighting a fresh cigar. "_If!_" exclaimed the old man, with a look of excessive contempt. "I suppose," he added, turning to Lowten, "he'll say next, that my story about the queer client we had, when I was in an attorney's office, is not true, either--I shouldn't wonder." "I shan't venture to say anything at all about it, seeing that I never heard the story," observed the owner of the Mosaic decorations. "I wish you would repeat it, sir," said Mr. Pickwick. "Ah, do," said Lowten; "nobody has heard it but me, and I have nearly forgotten it." The old man looked round the table, and leered more horribly than ever, as if in triumph, at the attention which was depicted in every face. Then rubbing his chin with his hand, and looking up to the ceiling as if to recall the circumstances to his memory, he began as follows: THE OLD MAN'S TALE ABOUT THE QUEER CLIENT "It matters little," said the old man, "where, or how, I picked up this brief history. If I were to relate it in the order in which it reached me, I should commence in the middle, and when I had arrived at the conclusion, go back for a beginning. It is enough for me to say that some of the circumstances passed before my own eyes. For the remainder I know them to have happened, and there are some persons yet living, who will remember them but too well. "In the Borough High Street, near St. George's Church, and on the same side of the way, stands, as most people know, the smallest of our debtors' prisons, the Marshalsea. Although in later times it has been a very different place from the sink of filth and dirt it once was, even its improved condition holds out but little temptation to the extravagant, or consolation to the improvident. The condemned felon has as good a yard for air and exercise in Newgate, as the insolvent debtor in the Marshalsea Prison.[4] [4] Better. But this is past, in a better age, and the prison exists no longer. "It may be my fancy, or it may be that I cannot separate the place from the old recollections associated with it, but this part of London I cannot bear. The street is broad, the shops are spacious, the noise of passing vehicles, the footsteps of a perpetual stream of people--all the busy sounds of traffic, resound in it from morn to midnight, but the streets around are mean and close; poverty and debauchery lie festering in the crowded alleys; want and misfortune are pent up in the narrow prison; an air of gloom and dreariness seems, in my eyes at least, to hang about the scene, and to impart to it a squalid and sickly hue. "Many eyes, that have long since been closed in the grave, have looked round upon that scene lightly enough, when entering the gate of the old Marshalsea Prison for the first time: for despair seldom comes with the first severe shock of misfortune. A man has confidence in untried friends, he remembers the many offers of service so freely made by his boon companions when he wanted them not; he has hope--the hope of happy inexperience--and however he may bend beneath the first shock, it springs up in his bosom, and flourishes there for a brief space, until it droops beneath the blight of disappointment and neglect. How soon have those same eyes, deeply sunken in the head, glared from faces wasted with famine, and sallow from confinement, in days when it was no figure of speech to say that debtors rotted in prison, with no hope of release, and no prospect of liberty! The atrocity in its full extent no longer exists, but there is enough of it left to give rise to occurrences that make the heart bleed. "Twenty years ago, that pavement was worn with the footsteps of a mother and child, who, day by day, so surely as the morning came, presented themselves at the prison gate; often after a night of restless misery and anxious thoughts, were they there, a full hour too soon, and then the young mother, turning meekly away, would lead the child to the old bridge, and raising him in her arms to show him the glistening water, tinted with the light of the morning's sun, and stirring with all the bustling preparations for business and pleasure that the river presented at that early hour, endeavour to interest his thoughts in the objects before him. But she would quickly set him down, and hiding her face in her shawl, give vent to the tears that blinded her; for no expression of interest or amusement lighted up his thin and sickly face. His recollections were few enough, but they were all of one kind: all connected with the poverty and misery of his parents. Hour after hour had he sat on his mother's knee, and with childish sympathy watched the tears that stole down her face, and then crept quietly away into some dark corner, and sobbed himself to sleep. The hard realities of the world, with many of its worst privations--hunger and thirst, and cold and want--had all come home to him, from the first dawnings of reason; and though the form of childhood was there, its light heart, its merry laugh, and sparkling eyes, were wanting. "The father and mother looked on upon this, and upon each other, with thoughts of agony they dared not breathe in words. The healthy, strong-made man, who could have borne almost any fatigue of active exertion, was wasting beneath the close confinement and unhealthy atmosphere of a crowded prison. The slight and delicate woman was sinking beneath the combined effects of bodily and mental illness. The child's young heart was breaking. "Winter came, and with it weeks of cold and heavy rain. The poor girl had removed to a wretched apartment close to the spot of her husband's imprisonment; and though the change had been rendered necessary by their increasing poverty, she was happier now, for she was nearer him. For two months, she and her little companion watched the opening of the gate as usual. One day she failed to come, for the first time. Another morning arrived, and she came alone. The child was dead. "They little know, who coldly talk of the poor man's bereavements, as a happy release from pain to the departed, and a merciful relief from expense to the survivor--they little know, I say, what the agony of those bereavements is. A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away--the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us--is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow. The child had sat at his parents' feet for hours together, with his little hands patiently folded in each other, and his thin wan face raised towards them. They had seen him pine away, from day to day; and though his brief existence had been a joyless one, and he was now removed to that peace and rest which, child as he was, he had never known in this world, they were his parents, and his loss sunk deep into their souls. "It was plain to those who looked upon the mother's altered face, that death must soon close the scene of her adversity and trial. Her husband's fellow-prisoners shrunk from obtruding on his grief and misery, and left to himself alone, the small room he had previously occupied in common with two companions. She shared it with him: and lingering on without pain, but without hope, her life ebbed slowly away. "She had fainted one evening in her husband's arms, and he had borne her to the open window, to revive her with the air, when the light of the moon falling full upon her face, showed him a change upon her features, which made him stagger beneath her weight, like a helpless infant. "'Set me down, George,' she said, faintly. He did so, and seating himself beside her, covered his face with his hands, and burst into tears. "'It is very hard to leave you, George,' she said, 'but it is God's will, and you must bear it for my sake. Oh! how I thank Him for having taken our boy! He is happy, and in Heaven now. What would he have done here, without his mother!' "'You shall not die, Mary, you shall not die!' said the husband, starting up. He paced hurriedly to and fro, striking his head with his clenched fists; then reseating himself beside her, and supporting her in his arms, added more calmly, 'Rouse yourself, my dear girl. Pray, pray do. You will revive yet.' "'Never again, George; never again,' said the dying woman. 'Let them lay me by my poor boy now, but promise me, that if ever you leave this dreadful place, and should grow rich, you will have us removed to some quiet country churchyard, a long, long way off--very far from here--where we can rest in peace. Dear George, promise me you will.' "'I do, I do,' said the man, throwing himself passionately on his knees before her. 'Speak to me, Mary, another word; one look--but one!' "He ceased to speak: for the arm that clasped his neck grew stiff and heavy. A deep sigh escaped from the wasted form before him; the lips moved and a smile played upon the face; but the lips were pallid, and the smile faded into a rigid and ghastly stare. He was alone in the world. "That night, in the silence and desolation of his miserable room, the wretched man knelt down by the dead body of his wife, and called on God to witness a terrible oath, that from that hour, he devoted himself to revenge her death and that of his child; that thenceforth, to the last moment of his life, his whole energies should be directed to this one object; that his revenge should be protracted and terrible; that his hatred should be undying and inextinguishable; and should hunt its object through the world. "The deepest despair, and passion scarcely human, had made such fierce ravages on his face and form, in that one night, that his companions in misfortune shrunk affrighted from him as he passed by. His eyes were bloodshot and heavy, his face a deadly white, and his body bent as if with age. He had bitten his under lip nearly through in the violence of his mental suffering, and the blood which had flowed from the wound had trickled down his chin, and stained his shirt and neckerchief. No tear or sound of complaint escaped him: but the unsettled look, and disordered haste with which he paced up and down the yard, denoted the fever which was burning within. "It was necessary that his wife's body should be removed from the prison, without delay. He received the communication with perfect calmness, and acquiesced in its propriety. Nearly all the inmates of the prison had assembled to witness its removal; they fell back on either side when the widower appeared; he walked hurriedly forward, and stationed himself, alone, in a little railed area close to the lodge gate, from whence the crowd, with an instinctive feeling of delicacy, had retired. The rude coffin was borne slowly forward on men's shoulders. A dead silence pervaded the throng, broken only by the audible lamentations of the women, and the shuffling steps of the bearers on the stone pavement. They reached the spot where the bereaved husband stood: and stopped. He laid his hand upon the coffin, and mechanically adjusting the pall with which it was covered, motioned them onward. The turnkeys in the prison lobby took off their hats as it passed through, and in another moment the heavy gate closed behind it. He looked vacantly upon the crowd, and fell heavily to the ground. "Although for many weeks after this, he was watched, night and day, in the wildest ravings of fever, neither the consciousness of his loss, nor the recollection of the vow he had made, ever left him for a moment. Scenes changed before his eyes, place succeeded place, and event followed event, in all the hurry of delirium; but they were all connected in some way with the great object of his mind. He was sailing over a boundless expanse of sea, with a blood-red sky above, and the angry waters, lashed into fury beneath, boiled and eddied up, on every side. There was another vessel before them, toiling and labouring in the howling storm: her canvas fluttering in ribbons from the mast, and her deck thronged with figures who were lashed to the sides, over which huge waves every instant burst, sweeping away some devoted creatures into the foaming sea. Onward they bore, amidst the roaring mass of water, with a speed and force which nothing could resist; and striking the stern of the foremost vessel, crushed her beneath their keel. From the huge whirlpool which the sinking wreck occasioned, arose a shriek so loud and shrill--the death-cry of a hundred drowning creatures, blended into one fierce yell--that it rung far above the war-cry of the elements, and echoed and re-echoed till it seemed to pierce air, sky and ocean. But what was that--that old grey-head that rose above the water's surface, and with looks of agony, and screams for aid, buffeted with the waves! One look, and he had sprung from the vessel's side, and with vigorous strokes was swimming towards it. He reached it; he was close upon it. They were _his_ features. The old man saw him coming, and vainly strove to elude his grasp. But he clasped him tight, and dragged him beneath the water. Down, down with him, fifty fathoms down; his struggles grew fainter and fainter, until they wholly ceased. He was dead; he had killed him, and had kept his oath. "He was traversing the scorching sands of a mighty desert, barefoot and alone. The sand choked and blinded him; its fine thin grains entered the very pores of his skin, and irritated him almost to madness. Gigantic masses of the same material, carried forward by the wind, and shone through by the burning sun, stalked in the distance like pillars of living fire. The bones of men, who had perished in the dreary waste, lay scattered at his feet; a fearful light fell on everything around; so far as the eye could reach, nothing but objects of dread and horror presented themselves. Vainly striving to utter a cry of terror, with his tongue cleaving to his mouth, he rushed madly forward. Armed with supernatural strength, he waded through the sand, until exhausted with fatigue and thirst, he fell senseless on the earth. What fragrant coolness revived him; what gushing sound was that? Water! It was indeed a well; and the clear fresh stream was running at his feet. He drank deeply of it, and throwing his aching limbs upon the bank, sunk into a delicious trance. The sound of approaching footsteps roused him. An old grey-headed man tottered forward to slake his burning thirst. It was _he_ again! He wound his arms round the old man's body and held him back. He struggled, and shrieked for water, for but one drop of water to save his life! But he held the old man firmly, and watched his agonies with greedy eyes; and when his lifeless head fell forward on his bosom, he rolled the corpse from him with his feet. "When the fever had left him, and consciousness returned, he awoke to find himself rich and free: to hear that the parent who would have let him die in gaol--_would!_ who _had_ let those who were far dearer to him than his own existence, die of want and sickness of heart that medicine cannot cure--had been found dead on his bed of down. He had had all the heart to leave his son a beggar, but proud even of his health and strength, had put off the act till it was too late, and now might gnash his teeth in the other world, at the thought of the wealth his remissness had left him. He awoke to this, and he awoke to more. To recollect the purpose for which he lived, and to remember that his enemy was his wife's own father--the man who had cast him into prison, and who, when his daughter and her child sued at his feet for mercy, had spurned them from his door. Oh, how he cursed the weakness that prevented him from being up, and active, in his scheme of vengeance! "He caused himself to be carried from the scene of his loss and misery, and conveyed to a quiet residence on the sea-coast; not in the hope of recovering his peace of mind or happiness, for both were fled for ever; but to restore his prostrate energies, and meditate on his darling object. And here, some evil spirit cast in his way the opportunity for his first most horrible revenge. "It was summer time; and wrapped in his gloomy thoughts, he would issue from his solitary lodgings early in the evening, and wandering along a narrow path beneath the cliffs, to a wild and lonely spot that had struck his fancy in his ramblings, seat himself on some fallen fragment of the rock, and burying his face in his hands, remain there for hours--sometimes until night had completely closed in, and the long shadows of the frowning cliffs above his head, cast a thick black darkness on every object near him. "He was seated here one calm evening, in his old position, now and then raising his head to watch the flight of a sea-gull, or carry his eye along the glorious crimson path, which, commencing in the middle of the ocean, seemed to lead to its very verge where the sun was setting, when the profound stillness of the spot was broken by a loud cry for help; he listened, doubtful of his having heard aright, when the cry was repeated with even greater vehemence than before, and starting to his feet, he hastened in the direction whence it proceeded. "The tale told itself at once: some scattered garments lay on the beach; a human head was just visible above the waves at a little distance from the shore; and an old man, wringing his hands in agony, was running to and fro, shrieking for assistance. The invalid, whose strength was now sufficiently restored, threw off his coat, and rushed towards the sea, with the intention of plunging in, and dragging the drowning man ashore. "'Hasten here, sir, in God's name! help, help, sir, for the love of Heaven! He is my son, sir, my only son!' said the old man, frantically, as he advanced to meet him. 'My only son, sir, and he is dying before his father's eyes!' "At the first word the old man uttered, the stranger checked himself in his career, and, folding his arms, stood perfectly motionless. "'Great God!' exclaimed the old man, recoiling. 'Heyling!' "The stranger smiled, and was silent. "'Heyling!' said the old man, wildly. 'My boy, Heyling, my dear boy, look, look!' gasping for breath, the miserable father pointed to the spot where the young man was struggling for life. "'Hark!' said the old man. 'He cries once more. He is alive yet. Heyling, save him, save him!' "The stranger smiled again, and remained immovable as a statue. "'I have wronged you,' shrieked the old man, falling on his knees, and clasping his hands together. 'Be revenged; take my all, my life; cast me into the water at your feet, and, if human nature can repress a struggle, I will die, without stirring hand or foot. Do it, Heyling, do it, but save my boy, he is so young, Heyling, so young to die!' "'Listen,' said the stranger, grasping the old man fiercely by the wrist: 'I will have life for life, and here is +ONE+. _My_ child died, before his father's eyes, a far more agonising and painful death than that young slanderer of his sister's worth is meeting while I speak. You laughed--laughed in your daughter's face, where death had already set his hand--at our sufferings, then. What think you of them now? See there, see there!' "As the stranger spoke he pointed to the sea. A faint cry died away upon its surface: the last powerful struggle of the dying man agitated the rippling waves for a few seconds: and the spot where he had gone down into his early grave, was undistinguishable from the surrounding water. * * * * * "Three years had elapsed, when a gentleman alighted from a private carriage at the door of a London attorney, then well known as a man of no great nicety in his professional dealings: and requested a private interview on business of importance. Although evidently not past the prime of life, his face was pale, haggard, and dejected; and it did not require the acute perception of the man of business, to discern at a glance, that disease or suffering had done more to work a change in his appearance, than the mere hand of time could have accomplished in twice the period of his whole life. "'I wish you to undertake some legal business for me,' said the stranger. "The attorney bowed obsequiously, and glanced at a large packet which the gentleman carried in his hand. His visitor observed the look, and proceeded. "'It is no common business,' said he; 'nor have these papers reached my hands without long trouble and great expense.' "The attorney cast a still more anxious look at the packet; and his visitor, untying the string that bound it, disclosed a quantity of promissory notes, with copies of deeds, and other documents. "'Upon these papers,' said the client, 'the man whose name they bear, has raised, as you will see, large sums of money, for some years past. There was a tacit understanding between him and the men into whose hands they originally went--and from whom I have by degrees purchased the whole, for treble and quadruple their nominal value--that these loans should be from time to time renewed, until a given period had elapsed. Such an understanding is nowhere expressed. He has sustained many losses of late; and these obligations accumulating upon him at once, would crush him to the earth.' "'The whole amount is many thousands of pounds,' said the attorney, looking over the papers. "'It is,' said the client. "'What are we to do?' inquired the man of business. "'Do!' replied the client, with sudden vehemence. 'Put every engine of the law in force, every trick that ingenuity can devise and rascality execute; fair means and foul; the open oppression of the law, aided by all the craft of its most ingenious practitioners. I would have him die a harassing and lingering death. Ruin him, seize and sell his lands and goods, drive him from house and home, and drag him forth a beggar in his old age, to die in a common gaol.' "'But the costs, my dear sir, the costs of all this,' reasoned the attorney, when he had recovered from his momentary surprise. 'If the defendant be a man of straw, who is to pay the costs, sir?' "'Name any sum,' said the stranger, his hand trembling so violently with excitement, that he could scarcely hold the pen he seized as he spoke; 'any sum, and it is yours. Don't be afraid to name it, man. I shall not think it dear, if you gain my object.' "The attorney named a large sum, at hazard, as the advance he should require to secure himself against the possibility of loss; but more with the view of ascertaining how far his client was really disposed to go, than with any idea that he would comply with the demand. The stranger wrote a cheque upon his banker, for the whole amount, and left him. "The draft was duly honoured, and the attorney, finding that his strange client might be safely relied upon, commenced his work in earnest. For more than two years afterwards, Mr. Heyling would sit whole days together, in the office, poring over the papers as they accumulated, and reading again and again, his eyes gleaming with joy, the letters of remonstrance, the prayers for a little delay, the representations of the certain ruin in which the opposite party must be involved, which poured in, as suit after suit, and process after process, was commenced. To all applications for a brief indulgence, there was but one reply--the money must be paid. Land, house, furniture, each in its turn, was taken under some one of the numerous executions which were issued; and the old man himself would have been immured in prison had he not escaped the vigilance of the officers, and fled. "The implacable animosity of Heyling, so far from being satiated by the success of his persecution, increased a hundredfold with the ruin he inflicted. On being informed of the old man's flight, his fury was unbounded. He gnashed his teeth with rage, tore the hair from his head, and assailed with horrid imprecations the men who had been entrusted with the writ. He was only restored to comparative calmness by repeated assurances of the certainty of discovering the fugitive. Agents were sent in quest of him, in all directions; every stratagem that could be invented was resorted to, for the purpose of discovering his place of retreat; but it was all in vain. Half a year had passed over, and he was still undiscovered. "At length, late one night, Heyling, of whom nothing had been seen for many weeks before, appeared at his attorney's private residence, and sent up word that a gentleman wished to see him instantly. Before the attorney, who had recognised his voice from above stairs, could order the servant to admit him, he had rushed up the staircase, and entered the drawing-room pale and breathless. Having closed the door, to prevent being overheard, he sunk into a chair, and said, in a low voice: "'Hush! I have found him at last.' "'No!' said the attorney. 'Well done, my dear sir; well done.' "'He lies concealed in a wretched lodging in Camden Town,' said Heyling. 'Perhaps it is as well we _did_ lose sight of him, for he has been living alone there, in the most abject misery, all the time, and he is poor--very poor.' "'Very good,' said the attorney. 'You will have the caption made to-morrow, of course?' "'Yes,' replied Heyling. 'Stay! No! The next day. You are surprised at my wishing to postpone it,' he added, with a ghastly smile; 'but I had forgotten. The next day is an anniversary in his life: let it be done then.' "'Very good,' said the attorney. 'Will you write down instructions for the officer?' "'No; let him meet me here, at eight in the evening, and I will accompany him, myself.' "They met on the appointed night, and, hiring a hackney coach, directed the driver to stop at that corner of the old Pancras Road, at which stands the parish workhouse. By the time they alighted there, it was quite dark; and, proceeding by the dead wall in front of the Veterinary Hospital, they entered a small by-street, which is, or was at that time, called Little College Street, and which, whatever it may be now, was in those days a desolate place enough, surrounded by little else than fields and ditches. "Having drawn the travelling cap he had on half over his face, and muffled himself in his cloak, Heyling stopped before the meanest-looking house in the street, and knocked gently at the door. It was opened at once by a woman, who dropped a curtsey of recognition, and Heyling, whispering the officer to remain below, crept gently up-stairs, and, opening the door of the front room, entered at once. "The object of his search and his unrelenting animosity, now a decrepid old man, was seated at a bare deal table, on which stood a miserable candle. He started on the entrance of the stranger, and rose feebly to his feet. "'What now, what now?' said the old man. 'What fresh misery is this? What do you want here?' "'A word with _you_,' replied Heyling. As he spoke, he seated himself at the other end of the table, and, throwing off his cloak and cap, disclosed his features. "The old man seemed instantly deprived of the power of speech. He fell backward in his chair, and, clasping his hands together, gazed on the apparition with a mingled look of abhorrence and fear. "'This day six years,' said Heyling, 'I claimed the life you owed me for my child's. Beside the lifeless form of your daughter, old man, I swore to live a life of revenge. I have never swerved from my purpose for a moment's space; but if I had, one thought of her uncomplaining, suffering look, as she drooped away, or of the starving face of our innocent child, would have nerved me to my task. My first act of requital you well remember: this is my last.' "The old man shivered, and his hands dropped powerless by his side. "'I leave England to-morrow,' said Heyling, after a moment's pause. 'To-night I consign you to the living death to which you devoted her--a hopeless prison----' "He raised his eyes to the old man's countenance, and paused. He lifted the light to his face, set it gently down, and left the apartment. "'You had better see to the old man,' he said to the woman, as he opened the door, and motioned the officer to follow him into the street. 'I think he is ill.' The woman closed the door, ran hastily upstairs, and found him lifeless. * * * * * "Beneath a plain grave-stone, in one of the most peaceful and secluded churchyards in Kent, where wild flowers mingle with the grass, and the soft landscape around forms the fairest spot in the garden of England, lie the bones of the young mother and her gentle child. But the ashes of the father do not mingle with theirs; nor, from that night forward, did the attorney ever gain the remotest clue to the subsequent history of his queer client." * * * * * As the old man concluded his tale, he advanced to a peg in one corner, and taking down his hat and coat, put them on with great deliberation; and, without saying another word, walked slowly away. As the gentleman with the Mosaic studs had fallen asleep, and the major part of the company were deeply occupied in the humorous process of dropping melted tallow-grease into his brandy and water, Mr. Pickwick departed unnoticed, and having settled his own score, and that of Mr. Weller, issued forth, in company with that gentleman, from beneath the portal of the Magpie and Stump. CHAPTER XXII [Illustration] _Mr. Pickwick Journeys to Ipswich, and meets with a Romantic Adventure with a Middle-aged Lady in Yellow Curl-papers_ "That 'ere your governor's luggage, Sammy?" inquired Mr. Weller of his affectionate son, as he entered the yard of the Bull Inn, Whitechapel, with a travelling bag and a small portmanteau. "You might ha' made a worser guess than that, old feller," replied Mr. Weller the younger, setting down his burden in the yard, and sitting himself down upon it afterwards. "The governor hisself 'll be down here presently." "He's a cabbin' it, I suppose?" said the father. "Yes, he's a havin' two mile o' danger at eightpence," responded the son. "How's mother-in-law this mornin'?" "Queer, Sammy, queer," replied the elder Mr. Weller, with impressive gravity. "She's been gettin' rayther in the Methodistical order lately, Sammy; and she is uncommon pious, to be sure. She's too good a creetur for me, Sammy. I feel I don't deserve her." "Ah," said Mr. Samuel, "that's wery self-denyin' o' you." "Wery," replied his parent, with a sigh. "She's got hold o' some inwention for grown-up people being born again, Sammy; the new birth, I thinks they calls it. I should wery much like to see that system in haction, Sammy. I should wery much like to see your mother-in-law born again. Wouldn't I put her out to nurse!" "What do you think them women does t'other day," continued Mr. Weller, after a short pause, during which he had significantly struck the side of his nose with his fore-finger some half-dozen times. "What do you think they does, t'other day, Sammy?" "Don't know," replied Sam; "what?" "Goes and gets up a grand tea-drinkin' for a feller they calls their shepherd," said Mr. Weller. "I was a standing starin' in at the pictur shop down at our place, when I sees a little bill about it; 'tickets half-a-crown. All applications to be made to the committee. Secretary, Mrs. Weller;' and when I got home there was the committee a sittin' in our back parlour. Fourteen women; I wish you could ha' heard 'em, Sammy. There they was, a passin' resolutions, and wotin' supplies, and all sorts o' games. Well, what with your mother-in-law a worrying me to go, and what with my looking for'ard to seein' some queer starts if I did, I put my name down for a ticket; at six o'clock on the Friday evenin' I dresses myself out wery smart, and off I goes with the old 'ooman, and up we walks into a fust floor where there was tea things for thirty, and a whole lot o' women as begins whisperin' to one another, and lookin' at me, as if they'd never seen a rayther stout gen'lm'n of eight-and-fifty afore. By-and-bye, there comes a great bustle down-stairs, and a lanky chap with a red nose and a white neckcloth rushes up, and sings out, 'Here's the shepherd a coming to wisit his faithful flock;' and in comes a fat chap in black, vith a great white face, a smilin' avay like clockwork. Such goin's on, Sammy! 'The kiss of peace,' says the shepherd; and then he kissed the women all round, and ven he'd done, the man vith the red nose began. I was just a thinkin' whether I hadn't better begin too--'specially as there was a wery nice lady a sittin' next me--ven in comes the tea, and your mother-in-law, as had been makin' the kettle bile down-stairs. At it they went, tooth and nail. Such a precious loud hymn, Sammy, while the tea was a brewing; such a grace, such eatin' and drinkin'! I wish you could ha' seen the shepherd walkin' into the ham and muffins. I never see such a chap to eat and drink; never. The red-nosed man warn't by no means the sort of person you'd like to grub by contract, but he was nothin' to the shepherd. Well; arter the tea was over, they sang another hymn, and then the shepherd began to preach: and wery well he did it, considerin' how heavy them muffins must have lied on his chest. Presently he pulls up, all of a sudden, and hollers out, 'Where is the sinner? where is the mis'rable sinner?' Upon which, all the women looked at me, and began to groan as if they was a dying. I thought it was rather sing'ler, but hows'ever, I says nothing. Presently he pulls up again, and lookin' wery hard at me, says, 'Where is the sinner? where is the mis'rable sinner?' and all the women groans again, ten times louder than afore. I got rather wild at this, so I takes a step or two for'ard and says, 'My friend,' says I, 'did you apply that 'ere obserwation to me?' 'Stead of begging my pardon as any gent'lm'n would ha' done, he got more abusive than ever: called me a wessel, Sammy--a wessel of wrath--and all sorts o' names. So my blood being reg'larly up, I first give him two or three for himself, and then two or three more to hand over to the man with the red nose, and walked off. I wish you could ha' heard how the women screamed, Sammy, ven they picked up the shepherd from under the table--Hallo! here's the governor, the size of life." As Mr. Weller spoke, Mr. Pickwick dismounted from a cab, and entered the yard. "Fine mornin', sir," said Mr. Weller senior. "Beautiful indeed," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Beautiful indeed," echoed a red-haired man with an inquisitive nose and blue spectacles, who had unpacked himself from a cab at the same moment as Mr. Pickwick. "Going to Ipswich, sir?" "I am," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Extraordinary coincidence. So am I." Mr. Pickwick bowed. "Going outside?" said the red-haired man. Mr. Pickwick bowed again. "Bless my soul, how remarkable--I am going outside, too," said the red-haired man: "we are positively going together." And the red-haired man, who was an important-looking, sharp-nosed, mysterious-spoken personage, with a bird-like habit of giving his head a jerk every time he said anything, smiled as if he had made one of the strangest discoveries that ever fell to the lot of human wisdom. "I am happy in the prospect of your company, sir," said Mr. Pickwick. "Ah," said the new-comer, "it's a good thing for both of us, isn't it? Company, you see--company is--is--it's a very different thing from solitude--ain't it?" "There's no denying that 'ere," said Mr. Weller, joining in the conversation, with an affable smile. "That's what I call a self-evident proposition, as the dog's-meat man said, when the housemaid told him he warn't a gentleman." "Ah," said the red-haired man, surveying Mr. Weller from head to foot with a supercilious look. "Friend of yours, sir?" "Not exactly a friend," replied Mr. Pickwick in a low tone. "The fact is, he is my servant, but I allow him to take a good many liberties; for, between ourselves, I flatter myself he is an original, and I am rather proud of him." "Ah," said the red-haired man, "that, you see, is a matter of taste. I am not fond of anything original; I don't like it; don't see the necessity for it. What's your name, sir?" "Here is my card, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick, much amused by the abruptness of the question, and the singular manner of the stranger. "Ah," said the red-haired man, placing the card in his pocket-book, "Pickwick; very good. I like to know a man's name, it saves so much trouble. That's my card, sir, Magnus, you will perceive, sir--Magnus is my name. It's rather a good name, I think, sir?" "A very good name, indeed," said Mr. Pickwick, wholly unable to repress a smile. "Yes, I think it is," resumed Mr. Magnus. "There's a good name before it, too, you will observe. Permit me, sir--if you hold the card a little slanting, this way, you catch the light upon the up-stroke. There--Peter Magnus--sounds well, I think, sir?" "Very," said Mr. Pickwick. "Curious circumstance about those initials, sir," said Mr. Magnus. "You will observe--P.M.--post meridian. In hasty notes to intimate acquaintance, I sometimes sign myself 'Afternoon.' It amuses my friends very much, Mr. Pickwick." "It is calculated to afford them the highest gratification, I should conceive," said Mr. Pickwick, rather envying the ease with which Mr. Magnus's friends were entertained. "Now, gen'lm'n," said the hostler, "coach is ready, if you please." "Is all my luggage in?" inquired Mr. Magnus. "All right, sir." "Is the red bag in?" "All right, sir." "And the striped bag?" "Fore boot, sir." "And the brown-paper parcel?" "Under the seat, sir." "And the leather hat-box?" "They're all in, sir." "Now, will you get up?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Excuse me," replied Magnus, standing on the wheel. "Excuse me, Mr. Pickwick. I cannot consent to get up, in this state of uncertainty. I am quite satisfied from that man's manner, that that leather hat-box is _not_ in." The solemn protestations of the hostler being wholly unavailing, the leather hat-box was obliged to be raked up from the lowest depth of the boot, to satisfy him that it had been safely packed; and after he had been assured on this head, he felt a solemn presentiment, first, that the red bag was mislaid, and next that the striped bag had been stolen, and then that the brown-paper parcel "had come untied." At length, when he had received ocular demonstration of the groundless nature of each and every of these suspicions, he consented to climb up to the roof of the coach, observing that now he had taken everything off his mind, he felt quite comfortable and happy. "You're given to nervousness, ain't you, sir?" inquired Mr. Weller senior, eyeing the stranger askance, as he mounted to his place. "Yes; I always am rather, about these little matters," said the stranger, "but I am all right now--quite right." "Well, that's a blessin'," said Mr. Weller. "Sammy, help your master up to the box: t'other leg, sir, that's it; give us your hand, sir. Up with you. You was a lighter weight when you was a boy, sir." "True enough, that, Mr. Weller," said the breathless Mr. Pickwick, good-humouredly, as he took his seat on the box beside him. "Jump up in front, Sammy," said Mr. Weller. "Now Villam, run 'em out. Take care o' the archvay, gen'lm'n. 'Heads,' as the pieman says. That'll do, Villam. Let 'em alone." And away went the coach up Whitechapel, to the admiration of the whole population of that pretty-densely populated quarter. "Not a wery nice neighbourhood this, sir," said Sam, with a touch of the hat, which always preceded his entering into conversation with his master. "It is not, indeed, Sam," replied Mr. Pickwick, surveying the crowded and filthy street through which they were passing. "It's a wery remarkable circumstance, sir," said Sam, "that poverty and oysters always seems to go together." "I don't understand you, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "What I mean, sir," said Sam, "is, that the poorer a place is, the greater call there seems to be for oysters. Look here, sir; here's a oyster stall to every half-dozen houses. The street's lined vith 'em. Blessed if I don't think that ven a man's wery poor, he rushes out of his lodgings, and eats oysters in reg'lar desperation." "To be sure he does," said Mr. Weller senior; "and it's just the same vith pickled salmon!" "Those are two very remarkable facts, which never occurred to me before," said Mr. Pickwick. "The very first place we stop at, I'll make a note of them." By this time they had reached the turnpike at Mile End; a profound silence prevailed until they had got two or three miles further on, when Mr. Weller senior, turning suddenly to Mr. Pickwick, said: "Wery queer life is a pike-keeper's, sir." "A what?" said Mr. Pickwick. "A pike-keeper." "What do you mean by a pike-keeper?" inquired Mr. Peter Magnus. "The old 'un means a turnpike keeper, gen'lm'n," observed Mr. Samuel Weller, in explanation. "Oh," said Mr. Pickwick, "I see. Yes; very curious life. Very uncomfortable." "They're all on 'em men as has met vith some disappointment in life," said Mr. Weller senior. "Ay, ay?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Yes. Consequence of vich, they retires from the world, and shuts themselves up in pikes; partly vith the view of being solitary, and partly to rewenge themselves on mankind, by takin' tolls." "Dear me," said Mr. Pickwick, "I never knew that before." "Fact, sir," said Mr. Weller; "if they was gen'lm'n you'd call 'em misanthropes, but as it is, they only takes to pike-keepin'." With such conversation, possessing the inestimable charm of blending amusement with instruction, did Mr. Weller beguile the tediousness of the journey, during the greater part of the day. Topics of conversation were never wanting, for even when any pause occurred in Mr. Weller's loquacity, it was abundantly supplied by the desire evinced by Mr. Magnus to make himself acquainted with the whole of the personal history of his fellow-travellers, and his loudly-expressed anxiety at every stage, respecting the safety and well-being of the two bags, the leather hat-box, and the brown-paper parcel. In the main street of Ipswich, on the left-hand side of the way, a short distance after you have passed through the open space fronting the Town Hall, stands an inn known far and wide by the appellation of the Great White Horse, rendered the more conspicuous by a stone statue of some rampacious animal with flowing mane and tail, distantly resembling an insane cart-horse, which is elevated above the principal door. The Great White Horse is famous in the neighbourhood, in the same degree as a prize ox, or county-paper-chronicled turnip, or unwieldy pig--for its enormous size. Never were such labyrinths of uncarpeted passages, such clusters of mouldy, ill-lighted rooms, such huge numbers of small dens for eating or sleeping in, beneath any one roof, as are collected together between the four walls of the Great White Horse at Ipswich. It was at the door of this overgrown tavern that the London coach stopped, at the same hour every evening; and it was from this same London coach, that Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller, and Mr. Peter Magnus dismounted, on the particular evening to which this chapter of our history bears reference. "Do you stop here, sir?" inquired Mr. Peter Magnus, when the striped bag, and the red bag, and the brown-paper parcel, and the leather hat-box, had all been deposited in the passage. "Do you stop here, sir?" "I do," said Mr. Pickwick. "Dear me," said Mr. Magnus, "I never knew anything like these extraordinary coincidences. Why, I stop here too. I hope we dine together?" "With pleasure," replied Mr. Pickwick. "I am not quite certain whether I have any friends here or not, though. Is there any gentleman of the name of Tupman here, waiter?" A corpulent man, with a fortnight's napkin under his arm, and coeval stockings on his legs, slowly desisted from his occupation of staring down the street, on this question being put to him by Mr. Pickwick; and, after minutely inspecting that gentleman's appearance, from the crown of his hat to the lowest button of his gaiters, replied emphatically: "No." "Nor any gentleman of the name of Snodgrass?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "No." "Nor Winkle?" "No." "My friends have not arrived to-day, sir," said Mr. Pickwick. "We will dine alone, then. Show us a private room, waiter." On this request being preferred, the corpulent man condescended to order the boots to bring in the gentlemen's luggage; and preceding them down a long dark passage, ushered them into a large, badly-furnished apartment, with a dirty grate, in which a small fire was making a wretched attempt to be cheerful, but was fast sinking beneath the dispiriting influence of the place. After the lapse of an hour, a bit of fish and a steak were served up to the travellers, and when the dinner was cleared away, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Peter Magnus drew their chairs up to the fire, and having ordered a bottle of the worst possible port wine, at the highest possible price, for the good of the house, drank brandy and water for their own. Mr. Peter Magnus was naturally of a very communicative disposition, and the brandy and water operated with wonderful effect in warming into life the deepest hidden secrets of his bosom. After sundry accounts of himself, his family, his connexions, his friends, his jokes, his business, and his brothers (most talkative men have a great deal to say about their brothers), Mr. Peter Magnus took a blue view of Mr. Pickwick through his coloured spectacles for several minutes, and then said, with an air of modesty: "And what do you think--what _do_ you think, Mr. Pickwick--I have come down here for?" "Upon my word," said Mr. Pickwick, "it is wholly impossible for me to guess; on business, perhaps?" "Partly right, sir," replied Mr. Peter Magnus, "but partly wrong, at the same time: try again, Mr. Pickwick." "Really," said Mr. Pickwick, "I must throw myself on your mercy, to tell me or not, as you may think best; for I should never guess, if I were to try all night." "Why, then, he--he--he!" said Mr. Peter Magnus, with a bashful titter, "what should you think, Mr. Pickwick, if I had come down here, to make a proposal, sir, eh? He--he--he!" "Think! That you are very likely to succeed," replied Mr. Pickwick, with one of his beaming smiles. "Ah!" said Mr. Magnus. "But do you really think so, Mr. Pickwick? Do you, though?" "Certainly," said Mr. Pickwick. "No; but you're joking, though?" "I am not, indeed." "Why, then," said Mr. Magnus, "to let you into a little secret, _I_ think so too. I don't mind telling you, Mr. Pickwick, although I'm dreadful jealous by nature--horrid--that the lady is in this house." Here Mr. Magnus took off his spectacles, on purpose to wink, and then put them on again. "That's what you were running out of the room for, before dinner, then, so often?" said Mr. Pickwick, archly. "Hush! Yes, you're right, that was it; not such a fool as to see her, though." "No!" "No; wouldn't do, you know, after having just come off a journey. Wait till to-morrow, sir; double the chance then. Mr. Pickwick, sir, there is a suit of clothes in that bag, and a hat in that box, which I expect, in the effect they will produce, will be invaluable to me, sir." "Indeed!" said Mr. Pickwick. "Yes; you must have observed my anxiety about them to-day. I do not believe that such another suit of clothes, and such a hat, could be bought for money, Mr. Pickwick." Mr. Pickwick congratulated the fortunate owner of the irresistible garments, on their acquisition; and Mr. Peter Magnus remained for a few moments apparently absorbed in contemplation. "She's a fine creature," said Mr. Magnus. "Is she?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Very," said Mr. Magnus, "very. She lives about twenty miles from here, Mr. Pickwick. I heard she would be here to-night and all to-morrow forenoon, and came down to seize the opportunity. I think an inn is a good sort of a place to propose to a single woman in, Mr. Pickwick. She is more likely to feel the loneliness of her situation in travelling, perhaps, than she would be at home. What do you think, Mr. Pickwick?" "I think it very probable," replied that gentleman. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Pickwick," said Mr. Peter Magnus, "but I am naturally rather curious; what may _you_ have come down here for?" "On a far less pleasant errand, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick, the colour mounting to his face at the recollection. "I have come down here, sir, to expose the treachery and falsehood of an individual, upon whose truth and honour I placed implicit reliance." "Dear me," said Mr. Peter Magnus, "that's very unpleasant. It is a lady, I presume? Eh? ah! Sly, Mr. Pickwick, sly. Well, Mr. Pickwick, sir, I wouldn't probe your feelings for the world. Painful subjects, these, sir, very painful. Don't mind me, Mr. Pickwick, if you wish to give vent to your feelings. I know what it is to be jilted, sir; I have endured that sort of thing three or four times." "I am much obliged to you, for your condolence on what you presume to be my melancholy case," said Mr. Pickwick, winding up his watch, and laying it on the table, "but----" "No, no," said Mr. Peter Magnus, "not a word more: it's a painful subject. I see, I see. What's the time, Mr. Pickwick?" "Past twelve." "Dear me, it's time to go to bed. It will never do, sitting here. I shall be pale to-morrow, Mr. Pickwick." At the bare notion of such a calamity, Mr. Peter Magnus rang the bell for the chamber-maid; and the striped bag, the red bag, the leathern hat-box, and the brown-paper parcel, having been conveyed to his bed-room, he retired in company with a japanned candlestick, to one side of the house, while Mr. Pickwick, and another japanned candlestick, were conducted, through a multitude of tortuous windings, to another. "This is your room, sir," said the chamber-maid. "Very well," replied Mr. Pickwick, looking round him. It was a tolerably large double-bedded room, with a fire; upon the whole, a more comfortable-looking apartment than Mr. Pickwick's short experience of the accommodations of the Great White Horse had led him to expect. "Nobody sleeps in the other bed, of course?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Oh no, sir." "Very good. Tell my servant to bring me up some hot water at half-past eight in the morning, and that I shall not want him any more to-night." "Yes, sir." And bidding Mr. Pickwick good-night, the chamber-maid retired, and left him alone. Mr. Pickwick sat himself down in a chair before the fire, and fell into a train of rambling meditations. First he thought of his friends, and wondered when they would join him; then his mind reverted to Mrs. Martha Bardell; and from that lady it wandered, by a natural process, to the dingy counting-house of Dodson and Fogg. From Dodson and Fogg's it flew off at a tangent, to the very centre of the history of the queer client; and then it came back to the Great White Horse at Ipswich, with sufficient clearness to convince Mr. Pickwick that he was falling asleep. So he roused himself, and began to undress, when he recollected he had left his watch on the table down-stairs. Now, this watch was a special favourite with Mr. Pickwick, having been carried about beneath the shadow of his waistcoat, for a greater number of years than we feel called upon to state at present. The possibility of going to sleep, unless it were ticking gently beneath his pillow, or in the watch-pocket over his head, had never entered Mr. Pickwick's brain. So as it was pretty late now, and he was unwilling to ring his bell at that hour of the night, he slipped on his coat, of which he had just divested himself, and taking the japanned candlestick in his hand, walked quietly down-stairs. The more stairs Mr. Pickwick went down, the more stairs there seemed to be to descend, and again and again, when Mr. Pickwick got into some narrow passage, and began to congratulate himself on having gained the ground-floor, did another flight of stairs appear before his astonished eyes. At last he reached a stone hall, which he remembered to have seen when he entered the house. Passage after passage did he explore; room after room did he peep into; at length, as he was on the point of giving up the search in despair, he opened the door of the identical room in which he had spent the evening, and beheld his missing property on the table. Mr. Pickwick seized the watch in triumph, and proceeded to retrace his steps to his bed-chamber. If his progress downward had been attended with difficulties and uncertainty, his journey back was infinitely more perplexing. Rows of doors, garnished with boots of every shape, make, and size, branched off in every possible direction. A dozen times did he softly turn the handle of some bed-room door which resembled his own, when a gruff cry from within of "Who the devil's that?" or "What do you want here?" caused him to steal away, on tiptoe, with a perfectly marvellous celerity. He was reduced to the verge of despair, when an open door attracted his attention. He peeped in. Right at last! There were the two beds, whose situation he perfectly remembered, and the fire still burning. His candle, not a long one when he first received it, had flickered away in the drafts of air through which he had passed, and sank into the socket as he closed the door after him. "No matter," said Mr. Pickwick, "I can undress myself just as well by the light of the fire." The bedsteads stood one on each side of the door; and on the inner side of each was a little path, terminating in a rush-bottomed chair, just wide enough to admit of a person's getting into or out of bed, on that side, if he or she thought proper. Having carefully drawn the curtains of his bed on the outside, Mr. Pickwick sat down on the rush-bottomed chair, and leisurely divested himself of his shoes and gaiters. He then took off and folded up his coat, waistcoat, and neckcloth, and slowly drawing on his tasselled night-cap, secured it firmly on his head, by tying beneath his chin the strings which he always had attached to that article of dress. It was at this moment that the absurdity of his recent bewilderment struck upon his mind. Throwing himself back in the rush-bottomed chair, Mr. Pickwick laughed to himself so heartily, that it would have been quite delightful to any man of well-constituted mind to have watched the smiles that expanded his amiable features as they shone forth from beneath the night-cap. "It is the best idea," said Mr. Pickwick to himself, smiling till he almost cracked the night-cap strings: "it is the best idea, my losing myself in this place, and wandering about those staircases, that I ever heard of. Droll, droll, very droll." Here Mr. Pickwick smiled again, a broader smile than before, and was about to continue the process of undressing, in the best possible humour, when he was suddenly stopped by a most unexpected interruption; to wit, the entrance into the room of some person with a candle, who, after locking the door, advanced to the dressing-table, and set down the light upon it. The smile that played on Mr. Pickwick's features was instantaneously lost in a look of the most unbounded and wonder-stricken surprise. The person, whoever it was, had come in so suddenly and with so little noise, that Mr. Pickwick had had no time to call out, or oppose their entrance. Who could it be? A robber? Some evil-minded person who had seen him come up-stairs with a handsome watch in his hand, perhaps. What was he to do? The only way in which Mr. Pickwick could catch a glimpse of his mysterious visitor with the least danger of being seen himself, was by creeping on to the bed, and peeping out from between the curtains on the opposite side. To this manoeuvre he accordingly resorted. Keeping the curtains carefully closed with his hand, so that nothing more of him could be seen than his face and night-cap, and putting on his spectacles, he mustered up courage, and looked out. Mr. Pickwick almost fainted with horror and dismay. Standing before a dressing-glass was a middle-aged lady, in yellow curl-papers, busily engaged in brushing what ladies call their "back-hair." However the unconscious middle-aged lady came into that room, it was quite clear that she contemplated remaining there for the night; for she had brought a rushlight and shade with her, which, with praiseworthy precaution against fire, she had stationed in a basin on the floor, where it was glimmering away, like a gigantic light-house in a particularly small piece of water. "Bless my soul," thought Mr. Pickwick, "what a dreadful thing!" "Hem!" said the lady; and in went Mr. Pickwick's head with automaton-like rapidity. "I never met with anything so awful as this," thought poor Mr. Pickwick, the cold perspiration starting in drops upon his night-cap. "Never. This is fearful." It was quite impossible to resist the urgent desire to see what was going forward. So out went Mr. Pickwick's head again. The prospect was worse than before. The middle-aged lady had finished arranging her hair; had carefully enveloped it in a muslin night-cap with a small plaited border; and was gazing pensively on the fire. "This matter is growing alarming," reasoned Mr. Pickwick with himself. "I can't allow things to go on in this way. By the self-possession of that lady it is clear to me that I must have come into the wrong room. If I call out she'll alarm the house; but if I remain here the consequences will be still more frightful." Mr. Pickwick, it is quite unnecessary to say, was one of the most modest and delicate-minded of mortals. The very idea of exhibiting his night-cap to a lady overpowered him, but he had tied those confounded strings in a knot, and, do what he would, he couldn't get it off. The disclosure must be made. There was only one other way of doing it. He shrunk behind the curtains, and called out very loudly: "Ha-hum!" That the lady started at this unexpected sound was evident, by her falling up against the rushlight shade; that she persuaded herself it must have been the effect of imagination was equally clear, for when Mr. Pickwick, under the impression that she had fainted away stone-dead from fright, ventured to peep out again, she was gazing pensively on the fire as before. "Most extraordinary female this," thought Mr. Pickwick, popping in again. "Ha--hum!" These last sounds, so like those in which, as legends inform us, the ferocious giant Blunderbore was in the habit of expressing his opinion that it was time to lay the cloth, were too distinctly audible to be again mistaken for the workings of fancy. "Gracious Heaven!" said the middle-aged lady, "what's that?" "It's--it's--only a gentleman, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, from behind the curtains. "A gentleman!" said the lady with a terrific scream. "It's all over!" thought Mr. Pickwick. "A strange man!" shrieked the lady. Another instant and the house would be alarmed. Her garments rustled as she rushed towards the door. "Ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, thrusting out his head, in the extremity of his desperation, "Ma'am!" Now, although Mr. Pickwick was not actuated by any definite object in putting out his head, it was instantaneously productive of a good effect. The lady, as we have already stated, was near the door. She must pass it, to reach the staircase, and she would most undoubtedly have done so by this time, had not the sudden apparition of Mr. Pickwick's night-cap driven her back into the remotest corner of the apartment, where she stood staring wildly at Mr. Pickwick, while Mr. Pickwick in his turn stared wildly at her. "Wretch!" said the lady, covering her eyes with her hands, "what do you want here?" "Nothing, ma'am; nothing whatever, ma'am;" said Mr. Pickwick, earnestly. "Nothing!" said the lady, looking up. "Nothing, ma'am, upon my honour," said Mr. Pickwick, nodding his head so energetically that the tassel of his night-cap danced again. "I am almost ready to sink, ma'am, beneath the confusion of addressing a lady in my night-cap" (here the lady hastily snatched off hers), "but I can't get it off, ma'am" (here Mr. Pickwick gave it a tremendous tug, in proof of the statement). "It is evident to me, ma'am, now, that I have mistaken this bed-room for my own. I had not been here five minutes, ma'am, when you suddenly entered it." "If this improbable story be really true, sir," said the lady, sobbing violently, "you will leave it instantly." "I will, ma'am, with the greatest pleasure," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Instantly, sir," said the lady. "Certainly, ma'am," interposed Mr. Pickwick very quickly. "Certainly, ma'am. I--I--am very sorry, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, making his appearance at the bottom of the bed, "to have been the innocent occasion of this alarm and emotion; deeply sorry, ma'am." The lady pointed to the door. One excellent quality of Mr. Pickwick's character was beautifully displayed at this moment, under the most trying circumstances. Although he had hastily put on his hat over his night-cap, after the manner of the old patrol; although he carried his shoes and gaiters in his hand, and his coat and waistcoat over his arm; nothing could subdue his native politeness. "I am exceedingly sorry, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, bowing very low. "If you are, sir, you will at once leave the room," said the lady. "Immediately, ma'am; this instant, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, opening the door, and dropping both his shoes with a crash in so doing. "I trust, ma'am," resumed Mr. Pickwick, gathering up his shoes, and turning round to bow again: "I trust, ma'am, that my unblemished character, and the devoted respect I entertain for your sex, will plead as some slight excuse for this"--But before Mr. Pickwick could conclude the sentence the lady had thrust him into the passage, and locked and bolted the door behind him. [Illustration: "_I trust, ma'am," resumed Mr. Pickwick, "that my unblemished character and the devoted respect I entertain for your sex----_"] Whatever grounds of self-congratulation Mr. Pickwick might have for having escaped so quietly from his late awkward situation, his present position was by no means enviable. He was alone, in an open passage, in a strange house, in the middle of the night, half dressed; it was not to be supposed that he could find his way in perfect darkness to a room which he had been wholly unable to discover with a light, and if he made the slightest noise in his fruitless attempts to do so, he stood every chance of being shot at, and perhaps killed, by some wakeful traveller. He had no resource but to remain where he was until daylight appeared. So after groping his way a few paces down the passage, and, to his infinite alarm, stumbling over several pairs of boots in so doing, Mr. Pickwick crouched into a little recess in the wall, to wait for morning as philosophically as he might. He was not destined, however, to undergo this additional trial of patience: for he had not long been ensconced in his present concealment when, to his unspeakable horror, a man, bearing a light, appeared at the end of the passage. His horror was suddenly converted into joy, however, when he recognised the form of his faithful attendant. It was indeed Mr. Samuel Weller, who, after sitting up thus late in conversation with the Boots, who was sitting up for the mail, was now about to retire to rest. "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, suddenly appearing before him, "where's my bedroom?" [Illustration: "_Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, "where's my bedroom?_"] Mr. Weller stared at his master with the most emphatic surprise; and it was not until the question had been repeated three several times, that he turned round and led the way to the long-sought apartment. "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, as he got into bed, "I have made one of the most extraordinary mistakes to-night, that ever were heard of." "Wery likely, sir," replied Mr. Weller, dryly. "But of this I am determined, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick; "that if I were to stop in this house for six months, I would never trust myself about it, alone, again." "That's the wery prudentest resolution as you could come to, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "You rayther want somebody to look arter you, sir, ven your judgment goes out a wisitin'." "What do you mean by that, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick. He raised himself in bed, and extended his hand, as if he were about to say something more; but suddenly checking himself, turned round, and bade his valet "Good night." "Good night, sir," replied Mr. Weller. He paused when he got outside the door--shook his head--walked on--stopped--snuffed the candle--shook his head again--and finally proceeded slowly to his chamber, apparently buried in the profoundest meditation. CHAPTER XXIII [Illustration] _In which Mr. Samuel Weller begins to devote his Energies to the Return Match between himself and Mr. Trotter_ In a small room in the vicinity of the stable-yard, betimes in the morning, which was ushered in by Mr. Pickwick's adventure with the middle-aged lady in the yellow curl-papers, sat Mr. Weller senior, preparing himself for his journey to London. He was sitting in an excellent attitude for having his portrait taken. It is very possible that at some earlier period of his career, Mr. Weller's profile might have presented a bold and determined outline. His face, however, had expanded under the influence of good living, and a disposition remarkable for resignation; and its bold, fleshy curves had so far extended beyond the limits originally assigned them, that unless you took a full view of his countenance in front, it was difficult to distinguish more than the extreme tip of a very rubicund nose. His chin, from the same cause, had acquired the grave and imposing form which is generally described by prefixing the word "double" to that expressive feature; and his complexion exhibited that peculiarly mottled combination of colours which is only to be seen in gentlemen of his profession, and in under-done roast beef. Round his neck he wore a crimson travelling shawl, which merged into his chin by such imperceptible gradations, that it was difficult to distinguish the folds of the one from the folds of the other. Over this, he mounted a long waistcoat of a broad pink-striped pattern, and over that again, a wide-skirted green coat, ornamented with large brass buttons, whereof the two which garnished the waist, were so far apart, that no man had ever beheld them both, at the same time. His hair, which was short, sleek, and black, was just visible beneath the capacious brim of a low-crowned brown hat. His legs were encased in knee-cord breeches and painted top-boots; and a copper watch-chain, terminating in one seal, and a key of the same material, dangled loosely from his capacious waistband. We have said that Mr. Weller was engaged in preparing for his journey to London--he was taking sustenance, in fact. On the table before him, stood a pot of ale, a cold round of beef, and a very respectable-looking loaf, to each of which he distributed his favours in turn, with the most rigid impartiality. He had just cut a mighty slice from the latter, when the footsteps of somebody entering the room, caused him to raise his head; and he beheld his son. "Mornin', Sammy!" said the father. The son walked up to the pot of ale, and nodding significantly to his parent, took a long draught by way of reply. "Wery good power o' suction, Sammy," said Mr. Weller the elder, looking into the pot, when his first-born had set it down half empty. "You'd ha' made an uncommon fine oyster, Sammy, if you'd been born in that station o' life." "Yes, I des-say I should ha' managed to pick up a respectable livin'," replied Sam, applying himself to the cold beef, with considerable vigour. "I'm wery sorry, Sammy," said the elder Mr. Weller, shaking up the ale, by describing small circles with the pot, preparatory to drinking. "I'm wery sorry, Sammy, to hear from your lips, as you let yourself be gammoned by that 'ere mulberry man. I always thought, up to three days ago, that the names of Veller and gammon could never come into contact, Sammy, never." "Always exceptin' the case of a widder, of course," said Sam. "Widders, Sammy," replied Mr. Weller, slightly changing colour, "widders are 'ceptions to ev'ry rule. I _have_ heerd how many ord'nary women one widder's equal to, in pint o' comin' over you. I think it's five-and-twenty, but I don't rightly know vether it ain't more." "Well; that's pretty well," said Sam. "Besides," continued Mr. Weller, not noticing the interruption, "that's a wery different thing. You know what the counsel said, Sammy, as defended the gen'l'm'n as beat his wife with the poker, venever he got jolly. 'And arter all, my Lord,' says he, 'it's a amiable weakness.' So I says respectin' widders, Sammy, and so you'll say, ven you gets as old as me." "I ought to ha' know'd better, I know," said Sam. "Ought to ha' know'd better!" repeated Mr. Weller, striking the table with his fist. "Ought to ha' know'd better! why, I know a young 'un as hasn't had half nor quarter your eddication--as hasn't slept about the markets, no, not six months--who'd ha' scorned to be let in, in such a vay; scorned it, Sammy." In the excitement of feeling produced by this agonising reflection, Mr. Weller rang the bell, and ordered an additional pint of ale. "Well, it's no use talking about it now," said Sam. "It's over, and can't be helped, and that's one consolation, as they always says in Turkey, ven they cuts the wrong man's head off. It's my innings now, gov'rnor, and as soon as I catches hold o' this 'ere Trotter, I'll have a good 'un." "I hope you will, Sammy. I hope you will," returned Mr. Weller. "Here's your health, Sammy, and may you speedily vipe off the disgrace as you've inflicted on the family name." In honour of this toast Mr. Weller imbibed at a draught, at least two-thirds of the newly-arrived pint, and handed it over to his son, to dispose of the remainder, which he instantaneously did. "And now, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, consulting the large double-faced silver watch that hung at the end of the copper chain. "Now it's time I was up at the office to get my vay-bill, and see the coach loaded; for coaches, Sammy, is like guns--they requires to be loaded with wery great care, afore they go off." At this parental and professional joke, Mr. Weller junior smiled a filial smile. His revered parent continued in a solemn tone: "I'm a goin' to leave you, Samivel, my boy, and there's no telling ven I shall see you again. Your mother-in-law may ha' been too much for me, or a thousand things may have happened by the time you next hears any news o' the celebrated Mr. Veller o' the Bell Savage. The family name depends wery much upon you, Samivel, and I hope you'll do wot's right by it. Upon all little pints o' breedin', I know I may trust you as vell as if it was my own self. So I've only this here one little bit of adwice to give you. If ever you gets to up'ards o' fifty, and feels disposed to go a marryin' anybody--no matter who--just you shut yourself up in your own room, if you've got one, and pison yourself off hand. Hangin's wulgar, so don't you have nothin' to say to that. Pison yourself, Samivel, my boy, pison yourself, and you'll be glad on it arterwards." With these affecting words, Mr. Weller looked steadfastly on his son, and turning slowly upon his heel, disappeared from his sight. In the contemplative mood which these words had awakened, Mr. Samuel Weller walked forth from the Great White Horse when his father had left him; and bending his steps towards St. Clement's Church, endeavoured to dissipate his melancholy by strolling among its ancient precincts. He had loitered about for some time, when he found himself in a retired spot--a kind of court-yard of venerable appearance--which he discovered had no other outlet than the turning by which he had entered. He was about retracing his steps, when he was suddenly transfixed to the spot by a sudden appearance; and the mode and manner of this appearance, we now proceed to relate. Mr. Samuel Weller had been staring up at the old brick houses now and then, in his deep abstraction, bestowing a wink upon some healthy-looking servant girl as she drew up a blind or threw open a bed-room window, when the green gate of a garden at the bottom of the yard opened, and a man having emerged therefrom, closed the green gate very carefully after him, and walked briskly towards the very spot where Mr. Weller was standing. Now, taking this, as an isolated fact, unaccompanied by any attendant circumstances, there was nothing very extraordinary in it; because in many parts of the world, men do come out of gardens, close green gates after them, and even walk briskly away, without attracting any particular share of public observation. It is clear, therefore, that there must have been something in the man, or in his manner, or both, to attract Mr. Weller's particular notice. Whether there was, or not, we must leave the reader to determine, when we have faithfully recorded the behaviour of the individual in question. When the man had shut the green gate after him, he walked, as we have said twice already, with a brisk pace up the court-yard; but he no sooner caught sight of Mr. Weller, than he faltered, and stopped, as if uncertain, for the moment, what course to adopt. As the green gate was closed behind him, and there was no other outlet but the one in front, however, he was not long in perceiving that he must pass Mr. Samuel Weller to get away. He therefore resumed his brisk pace, and advanced, staring straight before him. The most extraordinary thing about the man was, that he was contorting his face into the most fearful and astonishing grimaces that ever were beheld. Nature's handiwork never was disguised with such extraordinary artificial carving, as the man had overlaid his countenance with in one moment. "Well!" said Mr. Weller to himself, as the man approached. "This is wery odd. I could ha' swore it was him." Up came the man, and his face became more frightfully distorted than ever, as he drew nearer. "I could take my oath to that 'ere black hair and mulberry suit," said Mr. Weller; "only I never see such a face as that, afore." As Mr. Weller said this, the man's features assumed an unearthly twinge, perfectly hideous. He was obliged to pass very near Sam, however, and the scrutinising glance of that gentleman enabled him to detect, under all these appalling twists of feature, something too like the small eyes of Mr. Job Trotter, to be easily mistaken. "Hallo, you sir!" shouted Sam, fiercely. The stranger stopped. "Hallo!" repeated Sam, still more gruffly. The man with the horrible face looked with the greatest surprise, up the court, and down the court, and in at the windows of the houses--everywhere but at Sam Weller--and took another step forward, when he was brought to again, by another shout. "Hallo, you sir!" said Sam, for the third time. There was no pretending to mistake where the voice came from now, so the stranger, having no other resource, at last looked Sam Weller full in the face. "It won't do, Job Trotter," said Sam. "Come! none o' that 'ere nonsense. You ain't so wery 'andsome that you can afford to throw avay many o' your good looks. Bring them 'ere eyes o' your'n back into their proper places, or I'll knock 'em out of your head. D'ye hear?" As Mr. Weller appeared fully disposed to act up to the spirit of this address, Mr. Trotter gradually allowed his face to resume its natural expression; and then giving a start of joy, exclaimed, "What do I see? Mr. Walker!" "Ah," replied Sam. "You're wery glad to see me, ain't you?" "Glad!" exclaimed Job Trotter; "oh, Mr. Walker, if you had but known how I have looked forward to this meeting! It is too much, Mr. Walker; I cannot bear it, indeed I cannot." And with these words, Mr. Trotter burst into a regular inundation of tears, and, flinging his arms around those of Mr. Weller, embraced him closely, in an ecstasy of joy. "Get off!" cried Sam, indignant at this process, and vainly endeavouring to extricate himself from the grasp of his enthusiastic acquaintance. "Get off, I tell you. What are you crying over me for, you portable ingine?" "Because I am so glad to see you," replied Job Trotter, gradually releasing Mr. Weller, as the first symptoms of his pugnacity disappeared. "Oh, Mr. Walker, this is too much!" "Too much!" echoed Sam, "I think it is too much--rayther! Now what have you got to say to me, eh?" Mr. Trotter made no reply; for the little pink pocket-handkerchief was in full force. "What have you got to say to me, afore I knock your head off?" repeated Mr. Weller, in a threatening manner. "Eh!" said Mr. Trotter, with a look of virtuous surprise. "What have you got to say to me?" "I, Mr. Walker?" "Don't call me Valker; my name's Veller; you know that vell enough. What have you got to say to me?" "Bless you, Mr. Walker--Weller I mean--a great many things, if you will come away somewhere, where we can talk comfortably. If you knew how I have looked for you, Mr. Weller----" "Wery hard, indeed, I s'pose?" said Sam, dryly. "Very, very, sir," replied Mr. Trotter, without moving a muscle of his face. "But shake hands, Mr. Weller." Sam eyed his companion for a few seconds, and then, as if actuated by a sudden impulse, complied with his request. "How," said Job Trotter, as they walked away, "how is your dear, good master? Oh, he is a worthy gentleman, Mr. Weller! I hope he didn't catch cold, that dreadful night, sir?" There was a momentary look of deep slyness in Job Trotter's eye as he said this, which ran a thrill through Mr. Weller's clenched fist as he burnt with a desire to make a demonstration on his ribs. Sam constrained himself, however, and replied that his master was extremely well. "Oh, I am so glad," replied Mr. Trotter. "Is he here?" "Is your'n?" asked Sam, by way of reply. "Oh yes, he is here, and I grieve to say, Mr. Weller, he is going on worse than ever." "Ah, ah?" said Sam. "Oh, shocking--terrible!" "At a boarding-school?" said Sam. "No, not at a boarding-school," replied Job Trotter, with the same sly look which Sam had noticed before; "not at a boarding-school." "At the house with the green gate?" said Sam, eyeing his companion closely. "No, no--oh, not there," replied Job, with a quickness very unusual to him, "not there." "What was _you_ a doin' there?" asked Sam, with a sharp glance. "Got inside the gate by accident, perhaps?" "Why, Mr. Weller," replied Job, "I don't mind telling you my little secrets, because, you know, we took such a fancy for each other when we first met. You recollect how pleasant we were that morning?" "Oh yes," said Sam, impatiently, "I remember. Well?" "Well," replied Job, speaking with great precision, and in the low tone of a man who communicates an important secret, "in that house with the green gate, Mr. Weller, they keep a good many servants." "So I should think, from the look on it," interposed Sam. "Yes," continued Mr. Trotter, "and one of them is a cook, who has saved up a little money, Mr. Weller, and is desirous, if she can establish herself in life, to open a little shop in the chandlery way, you see." "Yes." "Yes, Mr. Weller. Well, sir, I met her at a chapel that I go to: a very neat little chapel in this town, Mr. Weller, where they sing the number four collection of hymns, which I generally carry about with me, in a little book, which you may perhaps have seen in my hand--and I got a little intimate with her, Mr. Weller, and from that, an acquaintance sprung up between us, and I may venture to say, Mr. Weller, that I am to be the chandler." "Ah, and a wery amiable chandler you'll make," replied Sam, eyeing Job with a side look of intense dislike. "The great advantage of this, Mr. Weller," continued Job, his eyes filling with tears as he spoke, "will be, that I shall be able to leave my present disgraceful service with that bad man, and to devote myself to a better and more virtuous life; more like the way in which I was brought up, Mr. Weller." "You must ha' been wery nicely brought up?" said Sam. "Oh, very, Mr. Weller, very," replied Job. At the recollection of the purity of his youthful days, Mr. Trotter pulled forth the pink handkerchief, and wept copiously. "You must ha' been an uncommon nice boy to go to school vith," said Sam. "I was, sir," replied Job, heaving a deep sigh. "I was the idol of the place." "Ah," said Sam, "I don't wonder at it. What a comfort you must ha' been to your blessed mother." At these words, Mr. Job Trotter inserted an end of the pink handkerchief into the corner of each eye, one after the other, and began to weep copiously. "Wot's the matter vith the man," said Sam, indignantly. "Chelsea water-works is nothin' to you. What are you melting vith now? The consciousness o' willany?" "I cannot keep my feelings down, Mr. Weller," said Job, after a short pause. "To think that my master should have suspected the conversation I had with yours, and so dragged me away in a post-chaise, and after persuading the sweet young lady to say she knew nothing of him, and bribing the school-mistress to do the same, deserted her for a better speculation! Oh! Mr. Weller, it makes me shudder." "Oh, that was the vay, was it?" said Mr. Weller. "To be sure it was," replied Job. "Vell," said Sam, as they had now arrived near the Hotel, "I vant to have a little bit o' talk with you, Job; so if you're not partickler engaged, I should like to see you at the Great White Horse to-night, somewheres about eight o'clock." "I shall be sure to come," said Job. "Yes, you'd better," replied Sam, with a very meaning look, "or else I shall perhaps be asking arter you, at the other side of the green gate, and then I might cut you out, you know." "I shall be sure to be with you, sir," said Mr. Trotter; and wringing Sam's hand with the utmost fervour, he walked away. "Take care, Job Trotter, take care," said Sam, looking after him, "or I shall be one too many for you this time. I shall indeed." Having uttered this soliloquy, and looked after Job till he was to be seen no more, Mr. Weller made the best of his way to his master's bed-room. "It's all in training, sir," said Sam. "What's in training, Sam?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "I've found 'em out, sir," said Sam. "Found out whom?" "That 'ere queer customer, and the melan-cholly chap with the black hair." "Impossible, Sam!" said Mr. Pickwick, with the greatest energy. "Where are they, Sam; where are they?" "Hush, hush!" replied Mr. Weller; and as he assisted Mr. Pickwick to dress, he detailed the plan of action on which he proposed to enter. "But when is this to be done, Sam?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "All in good time, sir," replied Sam. Whether it was done in good time, or not, will be seen hereafter. CHAPTER XXIV [Illustration] _Wherein Mr. Peter Magnus grows jealous, and the Middle-aged Lady apprehensive, which brings the Pickwickians within the Grasp of the Law_ When Mr. Pickwick descended to the room in which he and Mr. Peter Magnus had spent the preceding evening, he found that gentleman with the major part of the contents of the two bags, the leathern hat-box, and the brown-paper parcel, displayed to all possible advantage on his person, while he himself was pacing up and down the room in a state of the utmost excitement and agitation. "Good morning, sir," said Mr. Peter Magnus. "What do you think of this, sir?" "Very effective indeed," replied Mr. Pickwick, surveying the garments of Mr. Peter Magnus with a good-natured smile. "Yes, I think it'll do," said Mr. Magnus. "Mr. Pickwick, sir, I have sent up my card." "Have you?" said Mr. Pickwick. "And the waiter brought back word that she would see me at eleven--at eleven, sir; it only wants a quarter now." "Very near the time," said Mr. Pickwick. "Yes, it is rather near," replied Mr. Magnus, "rather too near to be pleasant--eh! Mr. Pickwick, sir?" "Confidence is a great thing in these cases," observed Mr. Pickwick. "I believe it is, sir," said Mr. Peter Magnus. "I am very confident, sir. Really, Mr. Pickwick, I do not see why a man should feel any fear in such a case as this, sir. What is it, sir? There's nothing to be ashamed of; it's a matter of mutual accommodation, nothing more. Husband on one side, wife on the other. That's my view of the matter, Mr. Pickwick." "It is a very philosophical one," replied Mr. Pickwick. "But breakfast is waiting, Mr. Magnus. Come." Down they sat to breakfast, but it was evident, notwithstanding the boasting of Mr. Peter Magnus, that he laboured under a very considerable degree of nervousness, of which loss of appetite, a propensity to upset the tea-things, a spectral attempt at drollery, and an irresistible inclination to look at the clock, every other second, were among the principal symptoms. "He--he--he," tittered Mr. Magnus, affecting cheerfulness, and gasping with agitation. "It only wants two minutes, Mr. Pickwick. Am I pale, sir?" "Not very," replied Mr. Pickwick. There was a brief pause. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Pickwick; but have you ever done this sort of thing in your time?" said Mr. Magnus. "You mean proposing?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Yes." "Never," said Mr. Pickwick, with great energy, "never." "You have no idea, then, how it's best to begin?" said Mr. Magnus. "Why," said Mr. Pickwick, "I may have formed some ideas upon the subject, but, as I have never submitted them to the test of experience, I should be sorry if you were induced to regulate your proceedings by them." "I should feel very much obliged to you for any advice, sir," said Mr. Magnus, taking another look at the clock: the hand of which was verging on the five minutes past. "Well, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, with the profound solemnity with which that great man could, when he pleased, render his remarks so deeply impressive: "I should commence, sir, with a tribute to the lady's beauty and excellent qualities; from them, sir, I should diverge to my own unworthiness." "Very good," said Mr. Magnus. "Unworthiness for _her_ only, mind, sir," resumed Mr. Pickwick; "for to show that I was not wholly unworthy, sir, I should take a brief review of my past life, and present condition. I should argue, by analogy, that to anybody else, I must be a very desirable object. I should then expatiate on the warmth of my love, and the depth of my devotion. Perhaps I might then be tempted to seize her hand." "Yes, I see," said Mr. Magnus; "that would be a very great point." "I should then, sir," continued Mr. Pickwick, growing warmer as the subject presented itself in more glowing colours before him: "I should then, sir, come to the plain and simple question, 'Will you have me?' I think I am justified in assuming, that upon this she would turn away her head." "You think that may be taken for granted?" said Mr. Magnus; "because if she did not do that at the right place, it would be embarrassing." "I think she would," said Mr. Pickwick. "Upon this, sir, I should squeeze her hand, and I think--I _think_, Mr. Magnus--that after I had done that, supposing there was no refusal, I should gently draw away the handkerchief, which my slight knowledge of human nature leads me to suppose the lady would be applying to her eyes at the moment, and steal a respectful kiss. I think I should kiss her, Mr. Magnus; and at this particular point, I am decidedly of opinion that if the lady were going to take me at all, she would murmur into my ears a bashful acceptance." Mr. Magnus started; gazed on Mr. Pickwick's intelligent face for a short time in silence; and then (the dial pointing to the ten minutes past) shook him warmly by the hand, and rushed desperately from the room. Mr. Pickwick had taken a few strides to and fro; and the small hand of the clock following the latter part of his example, had arrived at the figure which indicates the half-hour, when the door suddenly opened. He turned round to meet Mr. Peter Magnus, and encountered in his stead, the joyous face of Mr. Tupman, the serene countenance of Mr. Winkle, and the intellectual lineaments of Mr. Snodgrass. As Mr. Pickwick greeted them, Mr. Peter Magnus tripped into the room. "My friends, the gentleman I was speaking of--Mr. Magnus," said Mr. Pickwick. "Your servant, gentlemen," said Mr. Magnus, evidently in a high state of excitement; "Mr. Pickwick, allow me to speak to you one moment, sir." As he said this, Mr. Magnus harnessed his forefinger to Mr. Pickwick's button-hole, and, drawing him to a window recess, said: "Congratulate me, Mr. Pickwick; I followed your advice to the very letter." "And it was all correct, was it?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "It was, sir. Could not possibly have been better," replied Mr. Magnus. "Mr. Pickwick, she is mine." "I congratulate you with all my heart," replied Mr. Pickwick, warmly shaking his new friend by the hand. "You must see her, sir," said Mr. Magnus; "this way if you please. Excuse us for one instant, gentlemen." Hurrying on in this way, Mr. Peter Magnus drew Mr. Pickwick from the room. He paused at the next door in the passage, and tapped gently thereat. "Come in," said a female voice. And in they went. "Miss Witherfield," said Mr. Magnus, "allow me to introduce my very particular friend, Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Pickwick, I beg to make you known to Miss Witherfield." The lady was at the upper end of the room. As Mr. Pickwick bowed, he took his spectacles from his waistcoat pocket and put them on; a process which he had no sooner gone through, than, uttering an exclamation of surprise, Mr. Pickwick retreated several paces, and the lady, with a half-suppressed scream, hid her face in her hands, and dropped into a chair; whereupon Mr. Peter Magnus was stricken motionless on the spot, and gazed from one to the other, with a countenance expressive of the extremities of horror and surprise. This certainly was, to all appearance, very unaccountable behaviour; but the fact is, that Mr. Pickwick no sooner put on his spectacles, than he at once recognised in the future Mrs. Magnus the lady into whose room he had so unwarrantably intruded on the previous night; and the spectacles had no sooner crossed Mr. Pickwick's nose, than the lady at once identified the countenance which she had seen surrounded by all the horrors of a night-cap. So the lady screamed and Mr. Pickwick started. "Mr. Pickwick!" exclaimed Mr. Magnus, lost in astonishment, "what is the meaning of this, sir? What is the meaning of it, sir?" added Mr. Magnus, in a threatening and a louder tone. "Sir," said Mr. Pickwick, somewhat indignant at the very sudden manner in which Mr. Peter Magnus had conjugated himself into the imperative mood, "I decline answering that question." "You decline it, sir?" said Mr. Magnus. "I do, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick: "I object to saying anything which may compromise that lady, or awaken unpleasant recollections in her breast, without her consent and permission." "Miss Witherfield," said Mr. Peter Magnus, "do you know this person?" "Know him!" repeated the middle-aged lady, hesitating. "Yes, know him, ma'am. I said know him," replied Mr. Magnus, with ferocity. "I have seen him," replied the middle-aged lady. "Where," inquired Mr. Magnus, "where?" "That," said the middle-aged lady, rising from her seat, and averting her head, "that I would not reveal for worlds." "I understand you, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, "and respect your delicacy; it shall never be revealed by _me_, depend upon it." "Upon my word, ma'am," said Mr. Magnus, "considering the situation in which I am placed with regard to yourself, you carry this matter off with tolerable coolness--tolerable coolness, ma'am." "Cruel Mr. Magnus!" said the middle-aged lady; here she wept very copiously indeed. "Address your observations to me, sir," interposed Mr. Pickwick; "I alone am to blame, if anybody be." "Oh! you alone are to blame, are you, sir?" said Mr. Magnus. "I--I--see through this, sir. You repent of your determination now, do you?" "My determination!" said Mr. Pickwick. "Your determination, sir. Oh! don't stare at me, sir," said Mr. Magnus; "I recollect your words last night, sir. You came down here, sir, to expose the treachery and falsehood of an individual on whose truth and honour you had placed implicit reliance--eh?" Here Mr. Peter Magnus indulged in a prolonged sneer; and taking off his green spectacles--which he probably found superfluous in his fit of jealousy--rolled his little eyes about, in a manner frightful to behold. "Eh?" said Mr. Magnus; and then he repeated the sneer with increased effect. "But you shall answer it, sir." "Answer what?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Never mind, sir," replied Mr. Magnus, striding up and down the room. "Never mind." There must be something very comprehensive in this phrase of "Never mind," for we do not recollect to have ever witnessed a quarrel in the street, at a theatre, public room, or elsewhere, in which it has not been the standard reply to all belligerent inquiries. "Do you call yourself a gentleman, sir?"--"Never mind, sir." "Did I offer to say anything to the young woman, sir?"--"Never mind, sir."--"Do you want your head knocked up against that wall, sir?"--"Never mind, sir." It is observable, too, that there would appear to be some hidden taunt in this universal "Never mind," which rouses more indignation in the bosom of the individual addressed, than the most lavish abuse could possibly awaken. We do not mean to assert that the application of this brevity to himself, struck exactly that indignation to Mr. Pickwick's soul, which it would infallibly have roused in a vulgar breast. We merely record the fact that Mr. Pickwick opened the room door, and abruptly called out, "Tupman, come here!" Mr. Tupman immediately presented himself, with a look of very considerable surprise. "Tupman," said Mr. Pickwick, "a secret of some delicacy, in which that lady is concerned, is the cause of a difference which has just arisen between this gentleman and myself. When I assure him, in your presence, that it has no relation to himself, and is not in any way connected with his affairs, I need hardly beg you to take notice that if he continue to dispute it, he expresses a doubt of my veracity, which I shall consider extremely insulting." As Mr. Pickwick said this, he looked encyclopædias at Mr. Peter Magnus. Mr. Pickwick's upright and honourable bearing, coupled with that force and energy of speech which so eminently distinguished him, would have carried conviction to any reasonable mind; but unfortunately, at that particular moment, the mind of Mr. Peter Magnus was in anything but reasonable order. Consequently, instead of receiving Mr. Pickwick's explanation as he ought to have done, he forthwith proceeded to work himself into a red-hot, scorching, consuming passion, and to talk about what was due to his own feelings, and all that sort of thing: adding force to his declamation by striding to and fro, and pulling his hair--amusements which he would vary occasionally by shaking his fist in Mr. Pickwick's philanthropic countenance. Mr. Pickwick, in his turn, conscious of his own innocence and rectitude, and irritated by having unfortunately involved the middle-aged lady in such an unpleasant affair, was not so quietly disposed as was his wont. The consequence was, that words ran high, and voices higher; and at length Mr. Magnus told Mr. Pickwick he should hear from him; to which Mr. Pickwick replied, with laudable politeness, that the sooner he heard from him the better; whereupon the middle-aged lady rushed in terror from the room, out of which Mr. Tupman dragged Mr. Pickwick, leaving Mr. Peter Magnus to himself and meditation. If the middle-aged lady had mingled much with the busy world, or had profited at all by the manners and customs of those who make the laws and set the fashions, she would have known that this sort of ferocity is the most harmless thing in nature; but as she had lived for the most part in the country, and never read the parliamentary debates, she was little versed in these particular refinements of civilised life. Accordingly, when she had gained her bed-chamber, bolted herself in, and begun to meditate on the scene she had just witnessed, the most terrific pictures of slaughter and destruction presented themselves to her imagination; among which, a full-length portrait of Mr. Peter Magnus borne home by four men, with the embellishment of a whole barrel-full of bullets in his left side, was among the very least. The more the middle-aged lady meditated, the more terrified she became; and at length she determined to repair to the house of the principal magistrate of the town, and request him to secure the persons of Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman without delay. To this decision the middle-aged lady was impelled by a variety of considerations, the chief of which, was the incontestable proof it would afford of her devotion to Mr. Peter Magnus, and her anxiety for his safety. She was too well acquainted with his jealous temperament to venture the slightest allusion to the real cause of her agitation on beholding Mr. Pickwick; and she trusted to her own influence and power of persuasion with the little man, to quell his boisterous jealousy, supposing that Mr. Pickwick were removed, and no fresh quarrel could arise. Filled with these reflections, the middle-aged lady arrayed herself in her bonnet and shawl, and repaired to the Mayor's dwelling straightway. Now George Nupkins, Esquire, the principal magistrate aforesaid, was as grand a personage as the fastest walker would find out, between sunrise and sunset, on the twenty-first of June, which being, according to the almanacs, the longest day in the whole year, would naturally afford him the longest period for his search. On this particular morning, Mr. Nupkins was in a state of the utmost excitement and irritation, for there had been a rebellion in the town; all the day-scholars at the largest day-school had conspired to break the windows of an obnoxious apple-seller, and had hooted the beadle, and pelted the constabulary--an elderly gentleman in top-boots, who had been called out to repress the tumult, and who had been a peace-officer, man and boy, for half a century at least. And Mr. Nupkins was sitting in his easy chair, frowning with majesty, and boiling with rage, when a lady was announced on pressing, private, and particular business. Mr. Nupkins looked calmly terrible, and commanded that the lady should be shown in: which command, like all the mandates of emperors, and magistrates, and other great potentates of the earth, was forthwith obeyed; and Miss Witherfield, interestingly agitated, was ushered in accordingly. "Muzzle!" said the magistrate. Muzzle was an undersized footman, with a long body and short legs. "Muzzle!" "Yes, your worship." "Place a chair, and leave the room." "Yes, your worship." "Now, ma'am, will you state your business?" said the magistrate. "It is of a very painful kind, sir," said Miss Witherfield. "Very likely, ma'am," said the magistrate. "Compose your feelings, ma'am." Here Mr. Nupkins looked benignant. "And then tell me what legal business brings you here, ma'am." Here the magistrate triumphed over the man; and he looked stern again. "It is very distressing to me, sir, to give this information," said Miss Witherfield, "but I fear a duel is going to be fought here." "Here, ma'am?" said the magistrate. "Where, ma'am?" "In Ipswich." "In Ipswich, ma'am! A duel in Ipswich!" said the magistrate, perfectly aghast at the notion. "Impossible, ma'am; nothing of the kind can be contemplated in this town, I am persuaded. Bless my soul, ma'am, are you aware of the activity of our local magistracy? Do you happen to have heard, ma'am, that I rushed into a prize-ring on the fourth of May last, attended by only sixty special constables; and, at the hazard of falling a sacrifice to the angry passions of an infuriated multitude, prohibited a pugilistic contest between the Middlesex Dumpling and the Suffolk Bantam? A duel in Ipswich, ma'am! I don't think--I do _not_ think," said the magistrate, reasoning with himself, "that any two men can have had the hardihood to plan such a breach of the peace, in this town." "My information is unfortunately but too correct," said the middle-aged lady, "I was present at the quarrel." "It's a most extraordinary thing," said the astounded magistrate. "Muzzle!" "Yes, your worship." "Send Mr. Jinks here, directly! Instantly." "Yes, your worship." Muzzle retired; and a pale, sharp-nosed, half-fed, shabbily-clad clerk, of middle age, entered the room. "Mr. Jinks," said the magistrate. "Mr. Jinks." "Sir?" said Mr. Jinks. "This lady, Mr. Jinks, has come here, to give information of an intended duel in this town." Mr. Jinks, not knowing exactly what to do, smiled a dependent's smile. "What are you laughing at, Mr. Jinks?" said the magistrate. Mr. Jinks looked serious, instantly. "Mr. Jinks," said the magistrate, "you're a fool." Mr. Jinks looked humbly at the great man, and bit the top of his pen. "You may see something very comical in this information, sir; but I can tell you this, Mr. Jinks; that you have very little to laugh at," said the magistrate. The hungry-looking Jinks sighed, as if he were quite aware of the fact of his having very little indeed, to be merry about; and, being ordered to take the lady's information, shambled to a seat, and proceeded to write it down. "This man, Pickwick, is the principal, I understand?" said the magistrate, when the statement was finished. "He is," said the middle-aged lady. "And the other rioter--what's his name, Mr. Jinks?" "Tupman, sir." "Tupman is the second?" "Yes." "The other principal, you say, has absconded, ma'am?" "Yes," replied Miss Witherfield, with a short cough. "Very well," said the magistrate. "These are two cut-throats from London, who have come down here to destroy His Majesty's population; thinking that at this distance from the capital, the arm of the law is weak and paralysed. They shall be made an example of. Draw up the warrants, Mr. Jinks. Muzzle!" "Yes, your worship." "Is Grummer down-stairs?" "Yes, your worship." "Send him up." The obsequious Muzzle retired, and presently returned, introducing the elderly gentleman in the top-boots, who was chiefly remarkable for a bottle-nose, a hoarse voice, a snuff-coloured surtout, and a wandering eye. "Grummer," said the magistrate. "Your wash-up." "Is the town quiet now?" "Pretty well, your wash-up," replied Grummer. "Pop'lar feeling has in a measure subsided, consekens o' the boys having dispersed to cricket." "Nothing but vigorous measures will do in these times, Grummer," said the magistrate, in a determined manner. "If the authority of the King's officers is set at nought, we must have the Riot Act read. If the civil power cannot protect these windows, Grummer, the military must protect the civil power, and the windows too. I believe that is a maxim of the constitution, Mr. Jinks?" "Certainly, sir," said Jinks. "Very good," said the magistrate, signing the warrants. "Grummer, you will bring these persons before me, this afternoon. You will find them at the Great White Horse. You recollect the case of the Middlesex Dumpling and the Suffolk Bantam, Grummer?" Mr. Grummer intimated, by a retrospective shake of the head, that he should never forget it--as indeed it was not likely he would, so long as it continued to be cited daily. "This is even more unconstitutional," said the magistrate; "this is even a greater breach of the peace, and a grosser infringement of His Majesty's prerogative. I believe duelling is one of His Majesty's most undoubted prerogatives, Mr. Jinks?" "Expressly stipulated in Magna Charta, sir," said Mr. Jinks. "One of the brightest jewels in the British crown, wrung from His Majesty by the Barons, I believe, Mr. Jinks?" said the magistrate. "Just so, sir," replied Mr. Jinks. "Very well," said the magistrate, drawing himself up proudly, "it shall not be violated in this portion of his dominions. Grummer, procure assistance, and execute these warrants with as little delay as possible. Muzzle!" "Yes, your worship." "Show the lady out." Miss Witherfield retired, deeply impressed with the magistrates' learning and research; Mr. Nupkins retired to lunch; Mr. Jinks retired within himself--that being the only retirement he had, except the sofa-bedstead in the small parlour which was occupied by his landlady's family in the daytime--and Mr. Grummer retired, to wipe out, by his mode of discharging his present commission, the insult which had been fastened upon himself, and the other representative of His Majesty--the beadle--in the course of the morning. While these resolute and determined preparations for the conservation of the King's peace were pending, Mr. Pickwick and his friends, wholly unconscious of the mighty events in progress, had sat quietly down to dinner; and very talkative and companionable they all were. Mr. Pickwick was in the very act of relating his adventure of the preceding night, to the great amusement of his followers, Mr. Tupman especially, when the door opened and a somewhat forbidding countenance peeped into the room. The eyes in the forbidding countenance looked very earnestly at Mr. Pickwick, for several seconds, and were to all appearance satisfied with their investigation; for the body to which the forbidding countenance belonged, slowly brought itself into the apartment, and presented the form of an elderly individual in top-boots--not to keep the reader any longer in suspense, in short, the eyes were the wandering eyes of Mr. Grummer, and the body was the body of the same gentleman. Mr. Grummer's mode of proceeding was professional, but peculiar. His first act was to bolt the door on the inside; his second, to polish his head and countenance very carefully with a cotton handkerchief; his third, to place his hat, with the cotton handkerchief in it, on the nearest chair; and his fourth, to produce from the breast-pocket of his coat a short truncheon, surmounted by a brazen crown, with which he beckoned to Mr. Pickwick with a grave and ghost-like air. Mr. Snodgrass was the first to break the astonished silence. He looked steadily at Mr. Grummer for a brief space, and then said emphatically: "This is a private room, sir. A private room." Mr. Grummer shook his head, and replied, "No room's private to His Majesty when the street door's once passed. That's law. Some people maintains that an Englishman's house is his castle. That's gammon." The Pickwickians gazed on each other with wondering eyes. "Which is Mr. Tupman?" inquired Mr. Grummer. He had an intuitive perception of Mr. Pickwick; he knew _him_ at once. "My name's Tupman," said that gentleman. "My name's Law," said Mr. Grummer. "What?" said Mr. Tupman. "Law," replied Mr. Grummer, "law, civil power, and exekative; them's my titles; here's my authority. Blank Tupman, blank Pickvick--against the peace of our sufferin Lord the King--stattit in that case made and purwided--and all regular. I apprehend you Pickvick! Tupman--the aforesaid." "What do you mean by this insolence?" said Mr. Tupman, starting up. "Leave the room!" "Halloo," said Mr. Grummer, retreating very expeditiously to the door, and opening it an inch or two, "Dubbley." "Well," said a deep voice from the passage. "Come for'ard, Dubbley." At the word of command, a dirty-faced man, something over six feet high, and stout in proportion, squeezed himself through the half-open door (making his face very red in the process), and entered the room. "Is the other specials outside, Dubbley?" inquired Mr. Grummer. Mr. Dubbley, who was a man of few words, nodded assent. "Order in the diwision under your charge, Dubbley," said Mr. Grummer. Mr. Dubbley did as he was desired; and half a dozen men, each with a short truncheon and a brass crown, flocked into the room. Mr. Grummer pocketed his staff and looked at Mr. Dubbley; Mr. Dubbley pocketed _his_ staff and looked at the division; the division pocketed _their_ staffs and looked at Messrs. Tupman and Pickwick. Mr. Pickwick and his followers rose as one man. "What is the meaning of this atrocious intrusion upon my privacy?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Who dares apprehend me?" said Mr. Tupman. "What do you want here, scoundrels?" said Mr. Snodgrass. Mr. Winkle said nothing, but he fixed his eyes on Grummer, and bestowed a look upon him, which, if he had had any feeling, must have pierced his brain. As it was, however, it had no visible effect upon him whatever. When the executive perceived that Mr. Pickwick and his friends were disposed to resist the authority of the law, they very significantly turned up their coat sleeves, as if knocking them down in the first instance, and taking them up afterwards, were a mere professional act which had only to be thought of, to be done, as a matter of course. This demonstration was not lost upon Mr. Pickwick. He conferred a few moments with Mr. Tupman apart, and then signified his readiness to proceed to the Mayor's residence, merely begging the parties then and there assembled, to take notice, that it was his firm intention to resent this monstrous invasion of his privileges as an Englishman, the instant he was at liberty; whereat the parties then and there assembled laughed very heartily, with the single exception of Mr. Grummer, who seemed to consider that any slight cast upon the divine right of magistrates, was a species of blasphemy, not to be tolerated. But when Mr. Pickwick had signified his readiness to bow to the laws of his country; and just when the waiters and hostlers, and chamber-maids, and post-boys, who had anticipated a delightful commotion from his threatened obstinacy, began to turn away, disappointed and disgusted, a difficulty arose which had not been foreseen. With every sentiment of veneration for the constituted authorities, Mr. Pickwick resolutely protested against making his appearance in the public streets, surrounded and guarded by the officers of justice, like a common criminal. Mr. Grummer, in the then disturbed state of public feeling (for it was half-holiday, and the boys had not yet gone home), as resolutely protested against walking on the opposite side of the way, and taking Mr. Pickwick's parole that he would go straight to the magistrate's; and both Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman as strenuously objected to the expense of a post-coach, which was the only respectable conveyance that could be obtained. The dispute ran high, and the dilemma lasted long; and just as the executive were on the point of overcoming Mr. Pickwick's objection to walking to the magistrate's, by the trite expedient of carrying him thither, it was recollected that there stood in the inn-yard, an old sedan-chair, which having been originally built for a gouty gentleman with funded property, would hold Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman, at least as conveniently as a modern post-chaise. The chair was hired, and brought into the hall; Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman squeezed themselves inside, and pulled down the blinds; a couple of chairmen were speedily found; and the procession started in grand order. The specials surrounded the body of the vehicle; Mr. Grummer and Mr. Dubbley marched triumphantly in front; Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle walked arm in arm behind; and the unsoaped of Ipswich brought up the rear. The shopkeepers of the town, although they had a very indistinct notion of the nature of the offence, could not but be much edified and gratified by this spectacle. Here was the strong arm of the law, coming down with twenty gold-beater force, upon two offenders from the metropolis itself; the mighty engine was directed by their own magistrate, and worked by their own officers; and both the criminals, by their united efforts, were securely shut up in the narrow compass of one sedan-chair. Many were the expressions of approval and admiration which greeted Mr. Grummer, as he headed the cavalcade, staff in hand; loud and long were the shouts raised by the unsoaped; and amidst these united testimonials of public approbation, the procession moved slowly and majestically along. Mr. Weller, habited in his morning jacket with the black calico sleeves, was returning in a rather desponding state from an unsuccessful survey of the mysterious house with the green gate, when raising his eyes, he beheld a crowd pouring down the street, surrounding an object which had very much the appearance of a sedan-chair. Willing to divert his thoughts from the failure of his enterprise, he stepped aside to see the crowd pass; and finding that they were cheering away, very much to their own satisfaction, forthwith began (by way of raising his spirits) to cheer too, with all his might and main. Mr. Grummer passed, and Mr. Dubbley passed, and the sedan passed, and the body-guard of specials passed, and Sam was still responding to the enthusiastic cheers of the mob, and waving his hat about as if he were in the very last extreme of the wildest joy (though, of course, he had not the faintest idea of the matter in hand), when he was suddenly stopped by the unexpected appearance of Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass. "What's the row, gen'l'm'n?" cried Sam. "Who have they got in this here watch-box in mournin'?" Both gentlemen replied together, but their words were lost in the tumult. "Who?" cried Sam again. Once more was a joint reply returned; and, though the words were inaudible, Sam saw by the motion of the two pairs of lips that they had uttered the magic word "Pickwick." This was enough. In another minute Mr. Weller had made his way through the crowd, stopped the chairmen, and confronted the portly Grummer. "Hallo, old gen'l'm'n!" said Sam. "Who have you got in this here conwayance?" "Stand back," said Mr. Grummer, whose dignity, like the dignity of a great many other men, had been wondrously augmented by a little popularity. "Knock him down, if he don't," said Mr. Dubbley. "I'm wery much obliged to you, old gen'l'm'n!" replied Sam, "for consulting my conwenience, and I'm still more obliged to the other gen'l'm'n, who looks as if he'd just escaped from a giant's carrywan, for his wery 'ansome suggestion; but I should perfer your givin' me a answer to my question, if it's all the same to you.--How are you, sir?" This last observation was addressed with a patronising air to Mr. Pickwick, who was peeping through the front window. Mr. Grummer, perfectly speechless with indignation, dragged the truncheon with the brass crown from its particular pocket, and flourished it before Sam's eyes. "Ah," said Sam, "it's wery pretty, 'specially the crown, which is uncommon like the real one." "Stand back!" said the outraged Mr. Grummer. By way of adding force to the command, he thrust the brass emblem of royalty into Sam's neckcloth with one hand, and seized Sam's collar with the other: a compliment which Mr. Weller returned by knocking him down out of hand: having previously, with the utmost consideration, knocked down a chairman for him to lie upon. Whether Mr. Winkle was seized with a temporary attack of that species of insanity which originates in a sense of injury, or animated by this display of Mr. Weller's valour, is uncertain; but certain it is, that he no sooner saw Mr. Grummer fall than he made a terrific onslaught on a small boy who stood next to him; whereupon Mr. Snodgrass, in a truly Christian spirit, and in order that he might take no one unawares, announced in a very loud tone that he was going to begin, and proceeded to take off his coat with the utmost deliberation. He was immediately surrounded and secured; and it is but common justice both to him and Mr. Winkle to say, that they did not make the slightest attempt to rescue either themselves or Mr. Weller: who, after a most vigorous resistance, was overpowered by numbers and taken prisoner. The procession then re-formed; the chairmen resumed their stations; and the march was re-commenced. Mr. Pickwick's indignation during the whole of this proceeding was beyond all bounds. He could just see Sam upsetting the specials, and flying about in every direction; and that was all he could see, for the sedan doors wouldn't open, and the blinds wouldn't pull up. At length, with the assistance of Mr. Tupman, he managed to push open the roof; and mounting on the seat, and steadying himself as well as he could, by placing his hand on that gentleman's shoulder, Mr. Pickwick proceeded to address the multitude; to dwell upon the unjustifiable manner in which he had been treated; and to call upon them to take notice that his servant had been first assaulted. In this order they reached the magistrate's house; the chairmen trotting, the prisoners following, Mr. Pickwick oratorising, and the crowd shouting. CHAPTER XXV [Illustration] _Showing, among a variety of Pleasant Matters, how Majestic and Impartial Mr. Nupkins was, and how Mr. Weller returned Mr. Job Trotter's Shuttlecock as heavily as it came. With another Matter, which will be found in its Place_ Violent was Mr. Weller's indignation as he was borne along; numerous were the allusions to the personal appearance and demeanour of Mr. Grummer and his companion; and valorous were the defiances to any six of the gentlemen present; in which he vented his dissatisfaction. Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle listened with gloomy respect to the torrent of eloquence which their leader poured forth from the sedan-chair, and the rapid course of which not all Mr. Tupman's earnest entreaties to have the lid of the vehicle closed, were able to check for an instant. But Mr. Weller's anger quickly gave way to curiosity when the procession turned down the identical court-yard in which he had met with the runaway Job Trotter: and curiosity was exchanged for a feeling of the most gleeful astonishment, when the all-important Mr. Grummer, commanding the sedan-bearers to halt, advanced with dignified and portentous steps to the very green gate from which Job Trotter had emerged, and gave a mighty pull at the bell-handle which hung at the side thereof. The ring was answered by a very smart and pretty-faced servant-girl, who, after holding up her hands in astonishment at the rebellious appearance of the prisoners, and the impassioned language of Mr. Pickwick, summoned Mr. Muzzle. Mr. Muzzle opened one half of the carriage gate, to admit the sedan, the captured ones, and the specials; and immediately slammed it in the faces of the mob, who, indignant at being excluded, and anxious to see what followed, relieved their feelings by kicking at the gate and ringing the bell, for an hour or two afterwards. In this amusement they all took part by turns, except three or four fortunate individuals, who, having discovered a grating in the gate which commanded a view of nothing, stared through it with the indefatigable perseverance with which people will flatten their noses against the front windows of a chemist's shop, when a drunken man, who has been run over by a dog-cart in the street, is undergoing a surgical inspection in the back-parlour. At the foot of a flight of steps, leading to the house door, which was guarded on either side by an American aloe in a green tub, the sedan-chair stopped. Mr. Pickwick and his friends were conducted into the hall, whence, having been previously announced by Muzzle, and ordered in by Mr. Nupkins, they were ushered into the worshipful presence of that public-spirited officer. The scene was an impressive one, well calculated to strike terror to the hearts of culprits, and to impress them with an adequate idea of the stern majesty of the law. In front of a big book-case, in a big chair, behind a big table, and before a big volume, sat Mr. Nupkins, looking a full size larger than any one of them, big as they were. The table was adorned with piles of papers: and above the further end of it, appeared the head and shoulders of Mr. Jinks, who was busily engaged in looking as busy as possible. The party having all entered, Muzzle carefully closed the door, and placed himself behind his master's chair to await his orders. Mr. Nupkins threw himself back, with thrilling solemnity, and scrutinised the faces of his unwilling visitors. "Now, Grummer, who is that person?" said Mr. Nupkins, pointing to Mr. Pickwick, who, as the spokesman of his friends, stood hat in hand, bowing with the utmost politeness and respect. "This here's Pickvick, your wash-up," said Grummer. "Come, none o' that 'ere, old Strike-a-light," interposed Mr. Weller, elbowing himself into the front rank. "Beg your pardon, sir, but this here officer o' yourn in the gambooge tops, 'ull never earn a decent livin' as a master o' the ceremonies any vere. This here, sir," continued Mr. Weller, thrusting Grummer aside, and addressing the magistrate with pleasant familiarity, "this here is S. Pickvick, Esquire; this here's Mr. Tupman; that 'ere's Mr. Snodgrass; and furder on, next him on the t'other side, Mr. Winkle--all wery nice gen'l'm'n, sir, as you'll be wery happy to have the acquaintance on; so the sooner you commits these here officers o' yourn to the tread-mill for a month or two, the sooner we shall begin to be on a pleasant understanding. Business first, pleasure afterwards, as King Richard the Third said wen he stabbed the t'other king in the Tower, afore he smothered the babbies." At the conclusion of this address, Mr. Weller brushed his hat with his right elbow, and nodded benignly to Jinks, who had heard him throughout, with unspeakable awe. "Who is this man, Grummer?" said the magistrate. "Wery desp'rate ch'racter, your wash-up," replied Grummer. "He attempted to rescue the prisoners, and assaulted the officers; so we took him into custody, and brought him here." "You did quite right," replied the magistrate. "He is evidently a desperate ruffian." "He is my servant, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, angrily. "Oh! he is your servant, is he?" said Mr. Nupkins. "A conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice, and murder its officers. Pickwick's servant. Put that down, Mr. Jinks." Mr. Jinks did so. "What's your name, fellow?" thundered Mr. Nupkins. "Veller," replied Sam. "A very good name for the Newgate Calendar," said Mr. Nupkins. This was a joke; so Jinks, Grummer, Dubbley, all the specials, and Muzzle, went into fits of laughter of five minutes' duration. "Put down his name, Mr. Jinks," said the magistrate. "Two L's, old feller," said Sam. Here an unfortunate special laughed again, whereupon the magistrate threatened to commit him, instantly. It is a dangerous thing to laugh at the wrong man, in these cases. "Where do you live?" said the magistrate. "Vare-ever I can," replied Sam. "Put down that, Mr. Jinks," said the magistrate, who was fast rising into a rage. "Score it under," said Sam. "He is a vagabond, Mr. Jinks," said the magistrate. "He is a vagabond on his own statement; is he not, Mr. Jinks?" "Certainly, sir." "Then I'll commit him. I'll commit him as such," said Mr. Nupkins. "This is a wery impartial country for justice," said Sam. "There ain't a magistrate goin' as don't commit himself, twice as often as he commits other people." At this sally another special laughed, and then tried to look so supernaturally solemn, that the magistrate detected him immediately. "Grummer," said Mr. Nupkins, reddening with passion, "how dare you select such an inefficient and disreputable person for a special constable, as that man? How dare you do it, sir?" "I am very sorry, your wash-up," stammered Grummer. "Very sorry!" said the furious magistrate. "You shall repent of this neglect of duty, Mr. Grummer; you shall be made an example of. Take that fellow's staff away. He's drunk. You're drunk, fellow." "I am not drunk, your worship," said the man. "You _are_ drunk," returned the magistrate. "How dare you say you are not drunk, sir, when I say you are? Doesn't he smell of spirits, Grummer?" "Horrid, your wash-up," replied Grummer, who had a vague impression that there was a smell of rum somewhere. "I knew he did," said Mr. Nupkins. "I saw he was drunk when he first came into the room, by his excited eye. Did you observe his excited eye, Mr. Jinks?" "Certainly, sir." "I haven't touched a drop of spirits this morning," said the man, who was as sober a fellow as need be. "How dare you tell me a falsehood?" said Mr. Nupkins. "Isn't he drunk at this moment, Mr. Jinks?" "Certainly, sir," replied Jinks. "Mr. Jinks," said the magistrate, "I shall commit that man, for contempt. Make out his committal, Mr. Jinks." And committed the special would have been, only Jinks, who was the magistrate's adviser (having had a legal education of three years in a country attorney's office), whispered the magistrate that he thought it wouldn't do; so the magistrate made a speech, and said, that in consideration of the special's family, he would merely reprimand and discharge him. Accordingly, the special was abused vehemently, for a quarter of an hour, and sent about his business; and Grummer, Dubbley, Muzzle, and all the other specials murmured their admiration of the magnanimity of Mr. Nupkins. "Now, Mr. Jinks," said the magistrate, "swear Grummer." Grummer was sworn directly; but as Grummer wandered, and Mr. Nupkin's dinner was nearly ready, Mr. Nupkins cut the matter short, by putting leading questions to Grummer, which Grummer answered as nearly in the affirmative as he could. So the examination went off, all very smooth and comfortable, and two assaults were proved against Mr. Weller, and a threat against Mr. Winkle, and a push against Mr. Snodgrass. When all this was done to the magistrate's satisfaction, the magistrate and Mr. Jinks consulted in whispers. The consultation having lasted about ten minutes, Mr. Jinks retired to his end of the table; and the magistrate, with a preparatory cough, drew himself up in his chair, and was proceeding to commence his address, when Mr. Pickwick interposed. "I beg your pardon, sir, for interrupting you," said Mr. Pickwick, "but before you proceed to express, and act upon, any opinion you may have formed on the statements which have been made here, I must claim my right to be heard so far as I am personally concerned." "Hold your tongue, sir," said the magistrate, peremptorily. "I must submit to you, sir," said Mr. Pickwick. "Hold your tongue, sir," interposed the magistrate, "or I shall order an officer to remove you." "You may order your officers to do whatever you please, sir," said Mr. Pickwick; "and I have no doubt, from the specimen I have had of the subordination preserved amongst them, that whatever you order, they will execute, sir; but I shall take the liberty, sir, of claiming my right to be heard, until I am removed by force." "Pickvick and principle!" exclaimed Mr. Weller, in a very audible voice. "Sam, be quiet," said Mr. Pickwick. "Dumb as a drum with a hole in it, sir," replied Sam. Mr. Nupkins looked at Mr. Pickwick with a gaze of intense astonishment, at his displaying such unwonted temerity; and was apparently about to return a very angry reply, when Mr. Jinks pulled him by the sleeve, and whispered something in his ear. To this, the magistrate returned a half-audible answer, and then the whispering was renewed. Jinks was evidently remonstrating. At length the magistrate, gulping down, with a very bad grace, his disinclination to hear anything more, turned to Mr. Pickwick, and said sharply: "What do you want to say?" "First," said Mr. Pickwick, sending a look through his spectacles, under which even Nupkins quailed. "First, I wish to know what I and my friend have been brought here for?" "Must I tell him?" whispered the magistrate to Jinks. "I think you had better, sir," whispered Jinks to the magistrate. "An information has been sworn before me," said the magistrate, "that it is apprehended you are going to fight a duel, and that the other man, Tupman, is your aider and abettor in it. Therefore--eh, Mr. Jinks?" "Certainly, sir." "Therefore, I call upon you both, to--I think that's the course, Mr. Jinks?" "Certainly, sir." "To--to--what, Mr. Jinks?" said the magistrate, pettishly. "To find bail, sir." "Yes. Therefore, I call upon you both--as I was about to say, when I was interrupted by my clerk--to find bail." "Good bail," whispered Mr. Jinks. "I shall require good bail," said the magistrate. "Town's-people," whispered Jinks. "They must be town's-people," said the magistrate. "Fifty pounds each," whispered Jinks, "and householders, of course." "I shall require two sureties of fifty pounds each," said the magistrate aloud, with great dignity, "and they must be householders, of course." "But, bless my heart, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, who, together with Mr. Tupman, was all amazement and indignation; "we are perfect strangers in the town. I have as little knowledge of any householders here, as I have intention of fighting a duel with anybody." "I dare say," replied the magistrate, "I dare say--don't you, Mr. Jinks?" "Certainly, sir." "Have you anything more to say?" inquired the magistrate. Mr. Pickwick _had_ a great deal more to say, which he would no doubt have said, very little to his own advantage, or the magistrate's satisfaction, if he had not, the moment he ceased speaking, been pulled by the sleeve by Mr. Weller, with whom he was immediately engaged in so earnest a conversation, that he suffered the magistrate's inquiry to pass wholly unnoticed. Mr. Nupkins was not the man to ask a question of the kind twice over; and so, with another preparatory cough, he proceeded, amidst the reverential and admiring silence of the constables, to pronounce his decision. He should fine Weller two pounds for the first assault, and three pounds for the second. He should fine Winkle two pounds, and Snodgrass one pound, besides requiring them to enter into their own recognisances to keep the peace towards all his Majesty's subjects, and especially towards his liege servant, Daniel Grummer. Pickwick and Tupman he had already held to bail. Immediately on the magistrate ceasing to speak, Mr. Pickwick, with a smile mantling on his again good-humoured countenance, stepped forward, and said: "I beg the magistrate's pardon, but may I request a few minutes' private conversation with him, on a matter of deep importance to himself?" "What?" said the magistrate. Mr. Pickwick repeated his request. "This is a most extraordinary request," said the magistrate. "A private interview?" "A private interview," replied Mr. Pickwick, firmly; "only, as a part of the information which I wish to communicate is derived from my servant, I should wish him to be present." The magistrate looked at Mr. Jinks; Mr. Jinks looked at the magistrate; the officers looked at each other in amazement. Mr. Nupkins turned suddenly pale. Could the man Weller, in a moment of remorse, have divulged some secret conspiracy for his assassination? It was a dreadful thought. He was a public man: and he turned paler, as he thought of Julius Cæsar and Mr. Perceval. The magistrate looked at Mr. Pickwick again, and beckoned Mr. Jinks. "What do you think of this request, Mr. Jinks?" murmured Mr. Nupkins. Mr. Jinks, who didn't exactly know what to think of it, and was afraid he might offend, smiled feebly, after a dubious fashion, and, screwing up the corners of his mouth, shook his head slowly from side to side. "Mr. Jinks," said the magistrate, gravely, "you are an ass." At this little expression of opinion Mr. Jinks smiled again--rather more feebly than before--and edged himself, by degrees, back into his own corner. Mr. Nupkins debated the matter within himself for a few seconds, and then, rising from his chair, and requesting Mr. Pickwick and Sam to follow him, led the way into a small room which opened into the justice parlour. Desiring Mr. Pickwick to walk to the upper end of the little apartment, and holding his hand upon the half-closed door, that he might be able to effect an immediate escape in case there was the least tendency to a display of hostilities, Mr. Nupkins expressed his readiness to hear the communication, whatever it might be. "I will come to the point at once, sir," said Mr. Pickwick; "it affects yourself, and your credit, materially. I have every reason to believe, sir, that you are harbouring in your house a gross impostor!" "Two," interrupted Sam, "Mulberry agin all natur, for tears and willainy!" "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, "if I am to render myself intelligible to this gentleman, I must beg you to control your feelings." "Wery sorry, sir," replied Mr. Weller; "but when I think o' that 'ere Job, I can't help opening the walve a inch or two." "In one word, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, "is my servant right in suspecting that a certain Captain Fitz-Marshall is in the habit of visiting here? Because," added Mr. Pickwick, as he saw that Mr. Nupkins was about to offer a very indignant interruption, "because, if he be, I know that person to be a----" "Hush, hush!" said Mr. Nupkins, closing the door. "Know him to be what, sir?" "An unprincipled adventurer--a dishonourable character--a man who preys upon society, and makes easily-deceived people his dupes, sir; his absurd, his foolish, his wretched dupes, sir," said the excited Mr. Pickwick. "Dear me," said Mr. Nupkins, turning very red, and altering his whole manner directly. "Dear me, Mr. ----" "Pickvick," said Sam. "Pickwick," said the magistrate, "dear me, Mr. Pickwick--pray take a seat--you cannot mean this? Captain Fitz-Marshall?" "Don't call him a cap'en," said Sam, "nor Fitz-Marshall neither; he ain't neither one nor t'other. He's a strolling actor, he is, and his name's Jingle; and if ever there was a wolf in a mulberry suit, that ere Job Trotter's him." "It is very true, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, replying to the magistrate's look of amazement; "my only business in this town, is to expose the person of whom we now speak." Mr. Pickwick proceeded to pour into the horror-stricken ear of Mr. Nupkins, an abridged account of Mr. Jingle's atrocities. He related how he had first met him; how he had eloped with Miss Wardle; how he had cheerfully resigned the lady for a pecuniary consideration; how he had entrapped himself into a lady's boarding-school at midnight; and how he (Mr. Pickwick) now felt it his duty to expose his assumption of his present name and rank. As the narrative proceeded, all the warm blood in the body of Mr. Nupkins tingled up into the very tips of his ears. He had picked up the captain at a neighbouring race-course. Charmed with his long list of aristocratic acquaintance, his extensive travel, and his fashionable demeanour, Mrs. Nupkins and Miss Nupkins had exhibited Captain Fitz-Marshall, and quoted Captain Fitz-Marshall, and hurled Captain Fitz-Marshall at the devoted heads of their select circle of acquaintance, until their bosom friends, Mrs. Porkenham and the Miss Porkenhams, and Mr. Sidney Porkenham, were ready to burst with jealousy and despair. And now, to hear, after all, that he was a needy adventurer, a strolling player, and if not a swindler, something so very like it, that it was hard to tell the difference! Heavens! What would the Porkenhams say! What would be the triumph of Mr. Sidney Porkenham when he found that his addresses had been slighted for such a rival! How should he, Nupkins, meet the eye of old Porkenham at the next Quarter Sessions! And what a handle would it be for the opposition magisterial party, if the story got abroad! "But after all," said Mr. Nupkins, brightening for a moment, after a long pause; "after all, this is a mere statement. Captain Fitz-Marshall is a man of very engaging manners, and, I dare say, has many enemies. What proof have you of the truth of these representations?" "Confront me with him," said Mr. Pickwick, "that is all I ask, and all I require. Confront him with me and my friends here; you will want no further proof." "Why," said Mr. Nupkins, "that might be very easily done, for he will be here to-night, and then there would be no occasion to make the matter public, just--just--for the young man's own sake, you know. I--I--should like to consult Mrs. Nupkins on the propriety of the step, in the first instance, though. At all events, Mr. Pickwick, we must despatch this legal business before we can do anything else. Pray step back into the next room." Into the next room they went. "Grummer," said the magistrate, in an awful voice. "Your wash-up," replied Grummer, with the smile of a favourite. "Come, come, sir," said the magistrate, sternly, "don't let me see any of this levity here. It is very unbecoming, and I can assure you that you have very little to smile at. Was the account you gave me just now strictly true? Now be careful, sir!" "Your wash-up," stammered Grummer, "I----" "Oh, you are confused, are you?" said the magistrate. "Mr. Jinks, you observe this confusion?" "Certainly, sir," replied Jinks. "Now," said the magistrate, "repeat your statement, Grummer, and again I warn you to be careful. Mr. Jinks, take his words down." The unfortunate Grummer proceeded to re-state his complaint, but, what between Mr. Jinks taking down his words, and the magistrate's taking them up; his natural tendency to rambling, and his extreme confusion; he managed to get involved, in something under three minutes, in such a mass of entanglement and contradiction, that Mr. Nupkins at once declared he didn't believe him. So the fines were remitted, and Mr. Jinks found a couple of bail in no time. And all these solemn proceedings having been satisfactorily concluded, Mr. Grummer was ignominiously ordered out--an awful instance of the instability of human greatness, and the uncertain tenure of great men's favour. Mrs. Nupkins was a majestic female in a pink gauze turban and a light brown wig. Miss Nupkins possessed all her mamma's haughtiness without the turban, and all her ill-nature without the wig; and whenever the exercise of these two amiable qualities involved mother and daughter in some unpleasant dilemma, as they not unfrequently did, they both concurred in laying the blame on the shoulders of Mr. Nupkins. Accordingly, when Mr. Nupkins sought Mrs. Nupkins, and detailed the communication which had been made by Mr. Pickwick, Mrs. Nupkins suddenly recollected that she had always expected something of the kind; that she had always said it would be so; that her advice was never taken; that she really did not know what Mr. Nupkins supposed she was; and so forth. "The idea!" said Miss Nupkins, forcing a tear of very scanty proportions into the corner of each eye; "the idea of my being made such a fool of!" "Ah! you may thank your papa, my dear," said Mrs. Nupkins; "how have I implored and begged that man to inquire into the Captain's family connections; how have I urged and entreated him to take some decisive step! I am quite certain nobody would believe it--quite." "But, my dear," said Mr. Nupkins. "Don't talk to me, you aggravating thing, don't!" said Mrs. Nupkins. "My love," said Mr. Nupkins, "you professed yourself very fond of Captain Fitz-Marshall. You have constantly asked him here, my dear, and you have lost no opportunity of introducing him elsewhere." "Didn't I say so, Henrietta?" cried Mrs. Nupkins, appealing to her daughter, with the air of a much-injured female. "Didn't I say that your papa would turn round and lay all this at my door? Didn't I say so?" Here Mrs. Nupkins sobbed. "Oh pa!" remonstrated Miss Nupkins. And here she sobbed too. "Isn't it too much, when he has brought all this disgrace and ridicule upon us, to taunt _me_ with being the cause of it?" exclaimed Mrs. Nupkins. "How can we ever show ourselves in society!" said Miss Nupkins. "How can we face the Porkenhams!" cried Mrs. Nupkins. "Or the Griggs's!" cried Miss Nupkins. "Or the Slummintowkens!" cried Mrs. Nupkins. "But what does your papa care! What is it to _him_!" At this dreadful reflection, Mrs. Nupkins wept with mental anguish, and Miss Nupkins followed on the same side. Mrs. Nupkins's tears continued to gush forth, with great velocity, until she had gained a little time to think the matter over: when she decided, in her own mind, that the best thing to do would be to ask Mr. Pickwick and his friends to remain until the Captain's arrival, and then to give Mr. Pickwick the opportunity he sought. If it appeared that he had spoken truly, the Captain could be turned out of the house without noising the matter abroad, and they could easily account to the Porkenhams for his disappearance, by saying that he had been appointed, through the Court influence of his family, to the Governor-Generalship of Sierra Leone, or Saugur Point, or any other of those salubrious climates which enchant Europeans so much that when they once get there, they can hardly ever prevail upon themselves to come back again. When Mrs. Nupkins dried up her tears, Miss Nupkins dried up _hers_, and Mr. Nupkins was very glad to settle the matter as Mrs. Nupkins had proposed. So Mr. Pickwick and his friends, having washed off all marks of their late encounter, were introduced to the ladies, and soon afterwards to their dinner; and Mr. Weller, whom the magistrate with his peculiar sagacity had discovered in half an hour to be one of the finest fellows alive, was consigned to the care and guardianship of Mr. Muzzle, who was specially enjoined to take him below, and make much of him. "How de do, sir?" said Mr. Muzzle, as he conducted Mr. Weller down the kitchen stairs. "Why, no con-siderable change has taken place in the state of my system, since I see you cocked up behind your governor's chair in the parlour, a little vile ago," replied Sam. "You will excuse my not taking more notice of you then," said Mr. Muzzle. "You see, master hadn't introduced us, then. Lord, how fond he is of you, Mr. Weller, to be sure!" "Ah," said Sam, "what a pleasant chap he is!" "Ain't he?" replied Mr. Muzzle. "So much humour," said Sam. "And such a man to speak," said Mr. Muzzle. "How his ideas flow, don't they?" "Wonderful," replied Sam; "they comes a pouring out, knocking each other's heads so fast, that they seems to stun one another; you hardly know what he's arter, do you?" "That's the great merit of his style of speaking," rejoined Mr. Muzzle. "Take care of the last step, Mr. Weller. Would you like to wash your hands, sir, before we join the ladies? Here's a sink, with the water laid on, sir, and a clean jack-towel behind the door." "Ah! perhaps I may as well have a rinse," replied Mr. Weller, applying plenty of yellow soap to the towel, and rubbing away, till his face shone again. "How many ladies are there?" "Only two in our kitchen," said Mr. Muzzle, "cook and 'ousemaid. We keep a boy to do the dirty work, and a gal besides, but they dine in the washus." "Oh, they dines in the washus, do they?" said Mr. Weller. "Yes," replied Mr. Muzzle; "we tried 'em at our table when they first come, but we couldn't keep 'em. The gal's manners is dreadful vulgar; and the boy breathes so very hard while he's eating, that we found it impossible to sit at table with him." "Young grampus!" said Mr. Weller. "Oh, dreadful," rejoined Mr. Muzzle; "but that is the worst of country service, Mr. Weller; the juniors is always so very savage. This way, sir, if you please; this way." Preceding Mr. Weller, with the utmost politeness, Mr. Muzzle conducted him into the kitchen. "Mary," said Mr. Muzzle to the pretty servant-girl, "this is Mr. Weller: a gentleman as master has sent down, to be made as comfortable as possible." "And your master's a knowin' hand, and has just sent me to the right place," said Mr. Weller, with a glance of admiration at Mary. "If I wos master o' this here house, I should alvays find the materials for comfort vere Mary wos." "Lor, Mr. Weller!" said Mary, blushing. "Well, I never!" ejaculated the cook. "Bless me, cook, I forgot you," said Mr. Muzzle. "Mr. Weller, let me introduce you." "How are you, ma'am?" said Mr. Weller. "Wery glad to see you, indeed, and hope our acquaintance may be a long 'un, as the gen'lm'n said to the fi'-pun' note." When this ceremony of introduction had been gone through, the cook and Mary retired into the back kitchen to titter, for ten minutes; then returning, all giggles and blushes, they sat down to dinner. Mr. Weller's easy manners and conversational powers had such irresistible influence with his new friends, that before the dinner was half over they were on a footing of perfect intimacy and in possession of a full account of the delinquency of Job Trotter. "I never could a-bear that Job," said Mary. "No more you never ought to, my dear," replied Mr. Weller. "Why not?" inquired Mary. "Cos ugliness and svindlin' never ought to be formiliar vith elegance and wirtew," replied Mr. Weller. "Ought they, Mr. Muzzle?" "Not by no means," replied that gentleman. Here Mary laughed, and said the cook had made her; and the cook laughed, and said she hadn't. "I han't got a glass," said Mary. "Drink with me, my dear," said Mr. Weller. "Put your lips to this here tumbler, and then I can kiss you by deputy." "For shame, Mr. Weller!" said Mary. "What's a shame, my dear?" "Talkin' in that way." "Nonsense; it ain't no harm. It's natur; ain't it, cook?" "Don't ask me, imperence," replied the cook, in a high state of delight: and hereupon the cook and Mary laughed again, till what between the beer, and the cold meat, and the laughter combined, the latter young lady was brought to the verge of choking--an alarming crisis from which she was only recovered by sundry pats on the back, and other necessary attentions, most delicately administered by Mr. Samuel Weller. In the midst of all this jollity and conviviality, a loud ring was heard at the garden-gate: to which the young gentleman who took his meals in the wash-house immediately responded. Mr. Weller was in the height of his attentions to the pretty housemaid; Mr. Muzzle was busy doing the honours of the table; and the cook had just paused to laugh, in the very act of raising a huge morsel to her lips; when the kitchen-door opened, and in walked Mr. Job Trotter. We have said in walked Mr. Job Trotter, but the statement is not distinguished by our usual scrupulous adherence to facts. The door opened and Mr. Trotter appeared. He _would_ have walked in, and was in the very act of doing so, indeed, when catching sight of Mr. Weller, he involuntarily shrank back a pace or two, and stood gazing on the unexpected scene before him, perfectly motionless with amazement and terror. "Here he is!" said Sam, rising with great glee. "Why, we were that wery moment a speaking o' you. How are you? Where _have_ you been? Come in." Laying his hand on the mulberry collar of the unresisting Job, Mr. Weller dragged him into the kitchen; and locking the door, handed the key to Mr. Muzzle, who very coolly buttoned it up in a side-pocket. "Well, here's a game!" cried Sam. "Only think o' my master havin' the pleasure o' meeting your'n, up-stairs, and me havin' the joy o' meetin' you down here. How _are_ you gettin' on, and how _is_ the chandlery bis'ness likely to do? Well, I am so glad to see you. How happy you look. It's quite a treat to see you; ain't it, Mr. Muzzle?" "Quite," said Mr. Muzzle. "So cheerful he is!" said Sam. "In such good spirits!" said Muzzle. "And so glad to see _us_--that makes it so much more comfortable," said Sam. "Sit down; sit down." Mr. Trotter suffered himself to be forced into a chair by the fireside. He cast his small eyes, first on Mr. Weller, and then on Mr. Muzzle, but said nothing. "Well, now," said Sam, "afore these here ladies, I should jest like to ask you, as a sort of curiosity, wether you don't con-sider yourself as nice and well-behaved a young gen'l'm'n, as ever used a pink check pocket-handkerchief, and the number four collection?" "And as was ever a-going to be married to a cook," said that lady indignantly, "the willin!" "And leave off his evil ways, and set up in the chandlery line, arterwards," said the housemaid. "Now, I'll tell you what it is, young man," said Mr. Muzzle, solemnly, enraged at the last two allusions, "this here lady (pointing to the cook) keeps company with me; and when you presume, sir, to talk of keeping chandlers' shops with her, you injure me in one of the most delicatest points in which one man can injure another. Do you understand me, sir?" Here Mr. Muzzle, who had a great notion of his eloquence, in which he imitated his master, paused for a reply. But Mr. Trotter made no reply. So Mr. Muzzle proceeded in a solemn manner: "It's very probable, sir, that you won't be wanted up-stairs for several minutes, sir, because _my_ master is at this moment particularly engaged in settling the hash of _your_ master, sir; and therefore you'll have leisure, sir, for a little private talk with me, sir. Do you understand me, sir?" Mr. Muzzle again paused for a reply; and again Mr. Trotter disappointed him. "Well, then," said Mr. Muzzle, "I'm very sorry to have to explain myself before ladies, but the urgency of the case will be my excuse. The back kitchen's empty, sir. If you will step in there, sir, Mr. Weller will see fair, and we can have mutual satisfaction till the bell rings. Follow me, sir!" As Mr. Muzzle uttered these words, he took a step or two towards the door: and by way of saving time, began to pull off his coat as he walked along. Now, the cook no sooner heard the concluding words of this desperate challenge, and saw Mr. Muzzle about to put it into execution, than she uttered a loud and piercing shriek, and rushing on Mr. Job Trotter, who rose from his chair on the instant, tore and buffeted his large flat face, with an energy peculiar to excited females, and twining her hands in his long black hair, tore therefrom about enough to make five or six dozen of the very largest-sized mourning-rings. Having accomplished this feat with all the ardour which her devoted love for Mr. Muzzle inspired, she staggered back; and being a lady of very excitable and delicate feelings, she instantly fell under the dresser, and fainted away. At this moment, the bell rang. "That's for you, Job Trotter," said Sam; and before Mr. Trotter could offer remonstrance or reply--even before he had time to staunch the wounds inflicted by the insensible lady--Sam seized one arm and Mr. Muzzle the other; and one pulling before, and the other pushing behind, they conveyed him up-stairs, and into the parlour. It was an impressive tableau. Alfred Jingle, Esquire, _alias_ Captain Fitz-Marshall, was standing near the door with his hat in his hand, and a smile on his face, wholly unmoved by his very unpleasant situation. Confronting him, stood Mr. Pickwick, who had evidently been inculcating some high moral lesson; for his left hand was beneath his coat tail, and his right extended in air, as was his wont when delivering himself of an impressive address. At a little distance stood Mr. Tupman with indignant countenance, carefully held back by his two younger friends; at the further end of the room were Mr. Nupkins, Mrs. Nupkins, and Miss Nupkins, gloomily grand, and savagely vexed. "What prevents me," said Mr. Nupkins, with magisterial dignity, as Job was brought in: "what prevents me from detaining these men as rogues and impostors? It is a foolish mercy. What prevents me?" "Pride, old fellow, pride," replied Jingle, quite at his ease. "Wouldn't do--no go--caught a captain, eh?--ha! ha! very good--husband for daughter--biter bit--make it public--not for worlds--look stupid--very!" "Wretch," said Mrs. Nupkins, "we scorn your base insinuations." "I always hated him," added Henrietta. "Oh, of course," said Jingle. "Tall young man--old lover--Sidney Porkenham--rich--fine fellow--not so rich as captain, though?--turn him away--off with him--anything for captain--nothing like captain anywhere--all the girls--raving mad--eh, Job?" Here Mr. Jingle laughed very heartily; and Job, rubbing his hands with delight, uttered the first sound he had given vent to since he entered the house--a low noiseless chuckle, which seemed to intimate that he enjoyed his laugh too much, to let any of it escape in sound. "Mr. Nupkins," said the elder lady, "this is not a fit conversation for the servants to overhear. Let these wretches be removed." "Certainly, my dear," said Mr. Nupkins. "Muzzle!" "Your worship." "Open the front door." "Yes, your worship." "Leave the house!" said Mr. Nupkins, waving his hand emphatically. Jingle smiled, and moved towards the door. "Stay!" said Mr. Pickwick. Jingle stopped. "I might," said Mr. Pickwick, "have taken a much greater revenge for the treatment I have experienced at your hands, and that of your hypocritical friend there." Job Trotter bowed with great politeness, and laid his hand upon his heart. "I say," said Mr. Pickwick, growing gradually angry, "that I might have taken a greater revenge, but I content myself with exposing you, which I consider a duty I owe to society. This is a leniency, sir, which I hope you will remember." When Mr. Pickwick arrived at this point, Job Trotter, with facetious gravity, applied his hand to his ear, as if not desirous to lose a syllable he uttered. "And I have only to add, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, now thoroughly angry, "that I consider you a rascal, and a--a ruffian--and--and worse than any man I ever saw, or heard of, except that pious and sanctified vagabond in the mulberry livery." "Ha! ha!" said Jingle, "good fellow, Pickwick--fine heart--stout old boy--but must not be passionate--bad thing, very--bye-bye--see you again some day--keep up your spirits--now, Job--trot!" With these words, Mr. Jingle stuck on his hat in the old fashion, and strode out of the room. Job Trotter paused, looked round, smiled, and then with a bow of mock solemnity to Mr. Pickwick, and a wink to Mr. Weller, the audacious slyness of which baffles all description, followed the footsteps of his hopeful master. "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, as Mr. Weller was following. "Sir?" "Stay here." Mr. Weller seemed uncertain. "Stay here," repeated Mr. Pickwick. "Mayn't I polish that ere Job off, in the front garden?" said Mr. Weller. "Certainly not," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Mayn't I kick him out of the gate, sir?" said Mr. Weller. "Not on any account," replied his master. For the first time since his engagement, Mr. Weller looked, for a moment, discontented and unhappy. But his countenance immediately cleared up; for the wily Mr. Muzzle, by concealing himself behind the street door, and rushing violently out, at the right instant, contrived with great dexterity to overturn both Mr. Jingle and his attendant, down the flight of steps, into the American aloe tubs that stood beneath. "Having discharged my duty, sir," said Mr. Pickwick to Mr. Nupkins, "I will, with my friends, bid you farewell. While we thank you for such hospitality as we have received, permit me to assure you in our joint names, that we should not have accepted it, or have consented to extricate ourselves in this way, from our previous dilemma, had we not been impelled by a strong sense of duty. We return to London to-morrow. Your secret is safe with us." Having thus entered his protest against their treatment of the morning, Mr. Pickwick bowed low to the ladies, and notwithstanding the solicitations of the family, left the room with his friends. "Get your hat, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "It's below stairs, sir," said Sam, and he ran down after it. Now, there was nobody in the kitchen but the pretty housemaid; and as Sam's hat was mislaid, he had to look for it; and the pretty housemaid lighted him. They had to look all over the place for the hat. The pretty housemaid, in her anxiety to find it, went down on her knees, and turned over all the things that were heaped together in a little corner by the door. It was an awkward corner. You couldn't get at it without shutting the door first. "Here it is," said the pretty housemaid. "This is it, ain't it?" "Let me look," said Sam. [Illustration: "_You don't mean to say you did that on purpose?_"] The pretty housemaid had stood the candle on the floor; as it gave a very dim light, Sam was obliged to go down on _his_ knees before he could see whether it really was his own hat or not. It was a remarkably small corner, and so--it was nobody's fault but the man's who built the house--Sam and the pretty housemaid were necessarily very close together. "Yes, this is it," said Sam. "Good-bye!" "Good-bye!" said the pretty housemaid. "Good-bye!" said Sam; and as he said it, he dropped the hat that had cost so much trouble in looking for. "How awkward you are," said the pretty housemaid. "You'll lose it again, if you don't take care." So, just to prevent his losing it again, she put it on for him. Whether it was that the pretty housemaid's face looked prettier still, when it was raised towards Sam's, or whether it was the accidental consequence of their being so near to each other, is matter of uncertainty to this day; but Sam kissed her. "You don't mean to say you did that on purpose?" said the pretty housemaid, blushing. "No, I didn't then," said Sam; "but I will now." So he kissed her again. "Sam!" said Mr. Pickwick, calling over the banisters. "Coming, sir," replied Sam, running up stairs. "How long you have been!" said Mr. Pickwick. "There was something behind the door, sir, which perwented our getting it open, for ever so long, sir," replied Sam. And this was the first passage of Mr. Weller's first love. CHAPTER XXVI [Illustration] _Which contains a Brief Account of the Progress of the Action of Bardell against Pickwick_ Having accomplished the main end and object of his journey, the exposure of Jingle, Mr. Pickwick resolved on immediately returning to London, with a view of becoming acquainted with the proceedings which had been taken against him, in the meantime, by Messrs. Dodson and Fogg. Acting upon this resolution with all the energy and decision of his character, he mounted to the back seat of the first coach which left Ipswich on the morning after the memorable occurrences detailed at length in the two preceding chapters; and accompanied by his three friends, and Mr. Samuel Weller, arrived in the metropolis, in perfect health and safety, the same evening. Here, the friends, for a short time, separated. Messrs. Tupman, Winkle, and Snodgrass repaired to their several homes to make such preparations as might be requisite for their forthcoming visit to Dingley Dell; and Mr. Pickwick and Sam took up their present abode in very good, old-fashioned, and comfortable quarters: to wit, the George and Vulture Tavern and Hotel, George Yard, Lombard Street. Mr. Pickwick had dined, finished his second pint of particular port, pulled his silk handkerchief over his head, put his feet on the fender, and thrown himself back in an easy chair, when the entrance of Mr. Weller with his carpet bag aroused him from his tranquil meditations. "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "Sir?" said Mr. Weller. "I have just been thinking, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, "that having left a good many things at Mrs. Bardell's, in Goswell Street, I ought to arrange for taking them away, before I leave town again." "Wery good, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "I could send them to Tupman's, for the present, Sam," continued Mr. Pickwick, "but before we take them away, it is necessary that they should be looked up, and put together. I wish you would step up to Goswell Street, Sam, and arrange about it." "At once, sir?" inquired Mr. Weller. "At once," replied Mr. Pickwick. "And stay, Sam," added Mr. Pickwick, pulling out his purse, "there is some rent to pay. The quarter is not due till Christmas, but you may pay it, and have done with it. A month's notice terminates my tenancy. Here it is, written out. Give it, and tell Mrs. Bardell she may put a bill up, as soon as she likes." "Wery good, sir," replied Mr. Weller; "anythin' more, sir?" "Nothing more, Sam." Mr. Weller stepped slowly to the door, as if he expected something more; slowly opened it, slowly stepped out, and had slowly closed it within a couple of inches, when Mr. Pickwick called out-- "Sam." "Sir?" said Mr. Weller, stepping quickly back, and closing the door behind him. "I have no objection, Sam, to your endeavouring to ascertain how Mrs. Bardell herself seems disposed towards me, and whether it is really probable that this vile and groundless action is to be carried to extremity. I say I do not object to your doing this, if you wish it, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. Sam gave a short nod of intelligence, and left the room. Mr. Pickwick drew the silk handkerchief once more over his head, and composed himself to a nap. Mr. Weller promptly walked forth, to execute his commission. It was nearly nine o'clock when he reached Goswell Street. A couple of candles were burning in the little front parlour, and a couple of caps were reflected on the window-blind. Mrs. Bardell had got company. Mr. Weller knocked at the door, and after a pretty long interval--occupied by the party without, in whistling a tune, and by the party within, in persuading a refractory flat candle to allow itself to be lighted--a pair of small boots pattered over the floor-cloth, and Master Bardell presented himself. "Well, young townskip," said Sam, "how's mother?" "She's pretty well," replied Master Bardell, "so am I." "Well, that's a mercy," said Sam; "tell her I want to speak to her, will you, my hinfant fernomenon?" Master Bardell, thus adjured, placed the refractory flat candle on the bottom stair, and vanished into the front parlour with his message. The two caps, reflected on the window-blind, were the respective head-dresses of a couple of Mrs. Bardell's most particular acquaintance, who had just stepped in, to have a quiet cup of tea, and a little warm supper of a couple of sets of pettitoes and some toasted cheese. The cheese was simmering and browning away, most delightfully, in a little Dutch oven before the fire; the pettitoes were getting on deliciously in a little tin saucepan on the hob; and Mrs. Bardell and her two friends were getting on very well, also, in a little quiet conversation about and concerning all their particular friends and acquaintance; when Master Bardell came back from answering the door, and delivered the message entrusted to him by Mr. Samuel Weller. "Mr. Pickwick's servant!" said Mrs. Bardell, turning pale. "Bless my soul!" said Mrs. Cluppins. "Well, I raly would _not_ ha' believed it, unless I had ha' happened to ha' been here!" said Mrs. Sanders. Mrs. Cluppins was a little brisk, busy-looking woman; Mrs. Sanders was a big, fat, heavy-faced personage; and the two were the company. Mrs. Bardell felt it proper to be agitated; and as none of the three exactly knew whether, under existing circumstances, any communication, otherwise than through Dodson and Fogg, ought to be held with Mr. Pickwick's servant, they were all rather taken by surprise. In this state of indecision, obviously the first thing to be done was to thump the boy for finding Mr. Weller at the door. So his mother thumped him, and he cried melodiously. [Illustration: _Mrs. Bardell and her two friends were getting on very well_] "Hold your noise--do--you naughty creetur!" said Mrs. Bardell. "Yes; don't worrit your poor mother," said Mrs. Sanders. "She's quite enough to worrit her, as it is, without you, Tommy," said Mrs. Cluppins, with sympathising resignation. "Ah! worse luck, poor lamb!" said Mrs. Sanders. At all which moral reflections, Master Bardell howled the louder. "Now, what _shall_ I do?" said Mrs. Bardell to Mrs. Cluppins. "_I_ think you ought to see him," replied Mrs. Cluppins. "But on no account without a witness." "_I_ think two witnesses would be more lawful," said Mrs. Sanders, who, like the other friend, was bursting with curiosity. "Perhaps he'd better come in here?" said Mrs. Bardell. "To be sure," replied Mrs. Cluppins, eagerly catching at the idea. "Walk in, young man; and shut the street door first, please." Mr. Weller immediately took the hint; and presenting himself in the parlour, explained his business to Mrs. Bardell thus: "Wery sorry to 'casion any personal inconwenience, ma'am, as the housebreaker said to the old lady when he put her on the fire; but as me and my governor's jest come to town, and is jest going away again, it can't be helped, you see." "Of course the young man can't help the faults of his master," said Mrs. Cluppins, much struck by Mr. Weller's appearance and conversation. "Certainly not," chimed in Mrs. Sanders, who, from certain wistful glances at the little tin saucepan, seemed to be engaged in a mental calculation of the probable extent of the pettitoes, in the event of Sam's being asked to stop to supper. "So all I've come about, is jest this here," said Sam, disregarding the interruption: "First, to give my governor's notice--there it is. Secondly, to pay the rent--here it is. Thirdly, to say as all his things is to be put together, and give to anybody as we sends for 'em. Fourthly, that you may let the place as soon as you like--and that's all." "Whatever has happened," said Mrs. Bardell, "I always have said, and always will say, that in every respect but one, Mr. Pickwick has always behaved himself like a perfect gentleman. His money always was as good as the bank: always." As Mrs. Bardell said this, she applied her handkerchief to her eyes, and went out of the room to get the receipt. Sam well knew that he had only to remain quiet, and the women were sure to talk; so he looked alternately at the tin saucepan, the toasted cheese, the wall, and the ceiling, in profound silence. "Poor dear!" said Mrs. Cluppins. "Ah, poor thing!" replied Mrs. Sanders. Sam said nothing. He saw they were coming to the subject. "I raly cannot contain myself," said Mrs. Cluppins, "when I think of such perjury. I don't wish to say anything to make you uncomfortable, young man, but your master's an old brute, and I wish I had him here to tell him so." "I wish you had," said Sam. "To see how dreadful she takes on, going moping about, and taking no pleasure in nothing, except when her friends comes in, out of charity, to sit with her, and make her comfortable," resumed Mrs. Cluppins, glancing at the tin saucepan and the Dutch oven, "its shocking!" "Barbareous," said Mrs. Sanders. "And your master, young man! A gentleman with money, as could never feel the expense of a wife, no more than nothing," continued Mrs. Cluppins, with great volubility; "why there ain't the faintest shade of an excuse for his behaviour! Why don't he marry her?" "Ah," said Sam, "to be sure; that's the question." "Question, indeed," retorted Mrs. Cluppins; "she'd question him, if she'd my spirit. Hows'ever, there _is_ law for us women, mis'rable creeturs as they'd make us, if they could! and that your master will find out, young man, to his cost, afore he's six months older." At this consolatory reflection, Mrs. Cluppins bridled up, and smiled at Mrs. Sanders, who smiled back again. "The action's going on, and no mistake," thought Sam, as Mrs. Bardell re-entered with the receipt. "Here's the receipt, Mr. Weller," said Mrs. Bardell, "and here's the change, and I hope you'll take a little drop of something to keep the cold out, if it's only for old acquaintance' sake, Mr. Weller." Sam saw the advantage he should gain, and at once acquiesced; whereupon Mrs. Bardell produced, from a small closet, a black bottle and a wineglass; and so great was her abstraction, in her deep mental affliction, that, after filling Mr. Weller's glass, she brought out three more wineglasses, and filled them too. "Lauk, Mrs. Bardell," said Mrs. Cluppins, "see what you've been and done!" "Well, that is a good one!" ejaculated Mrs. Sanders. "Ah, my poor head!" said Mrs. Bardell, with a faint smile. Sam understood all this, of course, so he said at once, that he never could drink before supper, unless a lady drank with him. A great deal of laughing ensued, and Mrs. Sanders volunteered to humour him, so she took a slight sip out of her glass. Then, Sam said it must go all round, so they all took a slight sip. Then, little Mrs. Cluppins proposed a toast, "Success to Bardell agin Pickwick"; and then the ladies emptied their glasses in honour of the sentiment and got very talkative directly. "I suppose you've heard what's going forward, Mr. Weller?" said Mrs. Bardell. "I've heerd somethin' on it," replied Sam. "It's a terrible thing to be dragged before the public, in that way, Mr. Weller," said Mrs. Bardell; "but I see now, that it's the only thing I ought to do, and my lawyers, Mr. Dodson and Fogg, tell me, that with the evidence as we shall call, we must succeed. I don't know what I should do, Mr. Weller, if I didn't." The mere idea of Mrs. Bardell's failing in her action, affected Mrs. Sanders so deeply, that she was under the necessity of re-filling and re-emptying her glass immediately; feeling, as she said afterwards, that if she hadn't had the presence of mind to do so, she must have dropped. "Ven is it expected to come on?" inquired Sam. "Either in February or March," replied Mrs. Bardell. "What a number of witnesses there'll be, won't there?" said Mrs. Cluppins. "Ah, won't there!" replied Mrs. Sanders. "And won't Mr. Dodson and Fogg be wild if the plaintiff shouldn't get it?" added Mrs. Cluppins, "when they do it all on speculation!" "Ah! won't they!" said Mrs. Sanders. "But the plaintiff must get it," resumed Mrs. Cluppins. "I hope so," said Mrs. Bardell. "Oh, there can't be any doubt about it," rejoined Mrs. Sanders. "Vell," said Sam, rising and setting down his glass, "all I can say is, that I wish you _may_ get it." "Thank'ee, Mr. Weller," said Mrs. Bardell fervently. "And of them Dodson and Foggs, as does these sort o' things on spec," continued Mr. Weller, "as well as for the other kind and gen'rous people o' the same purfession, as sets people by the ears, free gratis for nothing, and sets their clerks to work to find out little disputes among their neighbours and acquaintances as vants settlin' by means o' law-suits--all I can say o' them is, that I vish they had the reward I'd give 'em." "Ah, I wish they had the reward that every kind and generous heart would be inclined to bestow upon them!" said the gratified Mrs. Bardell. "Amen to that," replied Sam, "and a fat and happy livin' they'd get out of it! Wish you good night, ladies." To the great relief of Mrs. Sanders, Sam was allowed to depart without any reference, on the part of the hostess, to the pettitoes and toasted cheese: to which the ladies, with such juvenile assistance as Master Bardell could afford, soon afterwards rendered the amplest justice--indeed they wholly vanished before their strenuous exertions. Mr. Weller went his way back to the George and Vulture, and faithfully recounted to his master, such indications of the sharp practice of Dodson and Fogg, as he had contrived to pick up in his visit to Mrs. Bardell's. An interview with Mr. Perker, next day, more than confirmed Mr. Weller's statement; and Mr. Pickwick was fain to prepare for his Christmas visit to Dingley Dell, with the pleasant anticipation that some two or three months afterwards, an action brought against him for damages sustained by reason of a breach of promise of marriage, would be publicly tried in the Court of Common Pleas: the plaintiff having all the advantages derivable, not only from the force of circumstances, but from the sharp practice of Dodson and Fogg to boot. CHAPTER XXVII [Illustration] _Samuel Weller makes a Pilgrimage to Dorking, and beholds his Mother-in-law_ There still remaining an interval of two days before the time agreed upon for the departure of the Pickwickians to Dingley Dell, Mr. Weller sat himself down in a back room at the George and Vulture, after eating an early dinner, to muse on the best way of disposing of his time. It was a remarkably fine day; and he had not turned the matter over in his mind ten minutes, when he was suddenly stricken filial and affectionate; and it occurred to him so strongly that he ought to go down and see his father, and pay his duty to his mother-in-law, that he was lost in astonishment at his own remissness in never thinking of this moral obligation before. Anxious to atone for his past neglect without another hour's delay, he straightway walked up the stairs to Mr. Pickwick, and requested leave of absence for this laudable purpose. "Certainly, Sam, certainly," said Mr. Pickwick, his eyes glistening with delight at this manifestation of filial feeling on the part of his attendant; "certainly, Sam." Mr. Weller made a grateful bow. "I am very glad to see that you have so high a sense of your duties as a son, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "I always had, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "That's a very gratifying reflection, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, approvingly. "Wery, sir," replied Mr. Weller; "if ever I wanted anythin' o' my father, I always asked for it in a very 'spectful and obligin' manner. If he didn't give it me, I took it, for fear I should be led to do anythin' wrong, through not havin' it. I saved him a world o' trouble in this vay, sir." "That's not precisely what I meant, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, shaking his head, with a slight smile. "All good feeling, sir--the wery best intentions, as the gen'lm'n said ven he run away from his wife 'cos she seemed unhappy with him," replied Mr. Weller. "You may go, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "Thank'ee, sir," replied Mr. Weller; and having made his best bow, and put on his best clothes, Sam planted himself on the top of the Arundel coach, and journeyed on to Dorking. The Marquis of Granby in Mrs. Weller's time was quite a model of a roadside public-house of the better class--just large enough to be convenient, and small enough to be snug. On the opposite side of the road was a large sign-board on a high post, representing the head and shoulders of a gentleman with an apoplectic countenance, in a red coat with deep blue facings, and a touch of the same blue over his three-cornered hat, for a sky. Over that again were a pair of flags; beneath the last button of his coat were a couple of cannon; and the whole formed an expressive and undoubted likeness of the Marquis of Granby of glorious memory. The bar window displayed a choice collection of geranium plants, and a well-dusted row of spirit phials. The open shutters bore a variety of golden inscriptions, eulogistic of good beds and neat wines; and the choice group of countrymen and hostlers lounging about the stable-door and horse-trough, afforded presumptive proof of the excellent quality of the ale and spirits which were sold within. Sam Weller paused, when he dismounted from the coach, to note all these little indications of a thriving business, with the eye of an experienced traveller; and having done so, stepped in at once, highly satisfied with everything he had observed. "Now, then!" said a shrill female voice the instant Sam thrust his head in at the door, "what do you want, young man?" Sam looked round in the direction whence the voice proceeded. It came from a rather stout lady of comfortable appearance, who was seated beside the fire-place, in the bar, blowing the fire to make the kettle boil for tea. She was not alone; for on the other side of the fire-place, sitting bolt upright in a high-backed chair, was a man in threadbare black clothes, with a back almost as long and stiff as that of the chair itself, who caught Sam's most particular and especial attention at once. He was a prim-faced, red-nosed man, with a long, thin countenance, and a semi-rattlesnake sort of eye--rather sharp, but decidedly bad. He wore very short trousers, and black cotton stockings, which, like the rest of his apparel, were particularly rusty. His looks were starched, but his white neckerchief was not, and its long limp ends straggled over his closely-buttoned waistcoat in a very uncouth and unpicturesque fashion. A pair of old, worn beaver gloves, a broad-brimmed hat, and a faded green umbrella, with plenty of whalebone sticking through the bottom, as if to counter-balance the want of a handle at the top, lay on a chair beside him, and, being disposed in a very tidy and careful manner, seemed to imply that the red-nosed man, whoever he was, had no intention of going away in a hurry. To do the red-nosed man justice, he would have been very far from wise if he had entertained any such intention; for, to judge from all appearances, he must have been possessed of a most desirable circle of acquaintance, if he could have reasonably expected to be more comfortable anywhere else. The fire was blazing brightly under the influence of the bellows, and the kettle was singing gaily under the influence of both. A small tray of tea-things was arranged on the table, a plate of hot buttered toast was gently simmering before the fire, and the red-nosed man himself was busily engaged in converting a large slice of bread into the same agreeable edible, through the instrumentality of a long brass toasting-fork. Beside him stood a glass of reeking hot pine-apple rum and water, with a slice of lemon in it; and every time the red-nosed man stopped to bring the round of toast to his eye, with the view of ascertaining how it got on, he imbibed a drop or two of the hot pine-apple rum and water, and smiled upon the rather stout lady, as she blew the fire. Sam was so lost in the contemplation of this comfortable scene, that he suffered the first inquiry of the rather stout lady to pass unheeded. It was not until it had been twice repeated, each time in a shriller tone, that he became conscious of the impropriety of his behaviour. "Governor in?" inquired Sam, in reply to the question. "No, he isn't," replied Mrs. Weller; for the rather stout lady was no other than the quondam relict and sole executrix of the dead-and-gone Mr. Clarke. "No, he isn't, and I don't expect him, either." "I suppose he's a drivin' up to-day?" said Sam. "He may be, or he may not," replied Mrs. Weller, buttering the round of toast which the red-nosed man had just finished. "I don't know, and, what's more, I don't care. Ask a blessin', Mr. Stiggins." The red-nosed man did as he was desired, and instantly commenced on the toast with fierce voracity. The appearance of the red-nosed man had induced Sam, at first sight, to more than half suspect that he was the deputy shepherd of whom his estimable parent had spoken. The moment he saw him eat, all doubt on the subject was removed, and he perceived at once, that if he purposed to take up his temporary quarters where he was, he must make his footing good without delay. He therefore commenced proceedings by putting his arm over the half-door of the bar, coolly unbolting it, and leisurely walking in. "Mother-in-law," said Sam, "how are you?" "Why, I do believe he is a Weller!" said Mrs. W., raising her eyes to Sam's face, with no very gratified expression of countenance. "I rayther think he is," said the imperturbable Sam; "and I hope this here reverend gen'lm'n 'll excuse me saying that I wish I was _the_ Weller as owns you, mother-in-law." [Illustration: "_Mother-in-law," said Sam, "how are you?_"] This was a double-barrelled compliment. It implied that Mrs. Weller was a most agreeable female, and also that Mr. Stiggins had a clerical appearance. It made a visible impression at once; and Sam followed up his advantage by kissing his mother-in-law. "Get along with you!" said Mrs. Weller, pushing him away. "For shame, young man!" said the gentleman with the red nose. "No offence, sir, no offence," replied Sam; "you're wery right, though; it ain't the right sort o' thing, when mothers-in-law is young and good-looking, is it, sir?" "It's all vanity," said Mr. Stiggins. "Ah, so it is," said Mrs. Weller, setting her cap to rights. Sam thought it was, too, but he held his peace. The deputy shepherd seemed by no means best pleased with Sam's arrival; and when the first effervescence of the compliment had subsided, even Mrs. Weller looked as if she could have spared him without the smallest inconvenience. However, there he was; and as he couldn't be decently turned out, they all three sat down to tea. "And how's father?" said Sam. At this inquiry Mrs. Weller raised her hands, and turned up her eyes, as if the subject were too painful to be alluded to. Mr. Stiggins groaned. "What's the matter with that 'ere gen'lm'n?" inquired Sam. "He's shocked at the way your father goes on in," replied Mrs. Weller. "Oh, he is, is he?" said Sam. "And with too good reason," added Mrs. Weller, gravely. Mr. Stiggins took up a fresh piece of toast, and groaned heavily. "He is a dreadful reprobate," said Mrs. Weller. "A man of wrath!" exclaimed Mr. Stiggins. He took a large semi-circular bite of the toast, and groaned aloud. Sam felt very strongly disposed to give the Reverend Mr. Stiggins something to groan for, but he repressed his inclination, and merely asked, "What's the old 'un up to, now?" "Up to, indeed!" said Mrs. Weller. "Oh, he has a hard heart. Night after night does this excellent man--don't frown, Mr. Stiggins: I _will_ say you are an excellent man--come and sit here, for hours together, and it has not the least effect upon him." "Well, that is odd," said Sam; "it 'ud have a wery considerable effect upon me, if I wos in his place; I know that." "The fact is, my young friend," said Mr. Stiggins, solemnly, "he has an obderrate bosom. Oh, my young friend, who else could have resisted the pleading of sixteen of our fairest sisters, and withstood their exhortations to subscribe to our noble society for providing the infant negroes in the West Indies with flannel waistcoats and moral pocket-handkerchiefs?" "What's a moral pocket ankercher?" said Sam; "I never see one o' them articles o' furniter." "Those which combine amusement with instruction, my young friend," replied Mr. Stiggins: "blending select tales with wood-cuts." "Oh, I know," said Sam; "them as hangs up in the linen-drapers' shops, with beggars' petitions and all that 'ere upon 'em?" Mr. Stiggins began a third round of toast, and nodded assent. "And he wouldn't be persuaded by the ladies, wouldn't he?" said Sam. "Sat and smoked his pipe, and said the infant negroes were--what did he say the infant negroes were?" said Mrs. Weller. "Little humbugs," replied Mr. Stiggins, deeply affected. "Said the infant negroes were little humbugs," repeated Mrs. Weller. And they both groaned at the atrocious conduct of the old gentleman. A great many more inquiries of a similar nature might have been disclosed, only the toast being all eaten, the tea having got very weak, and Sam holding out no indications of meaning to go, Mr. Stiggins suddenly recollected that he had a most pressing appointment with the shepherd, and took himself off accordingly. The tea-things had scarcely been put away, and the hearth swept up, when the London coach deposited Mr. Weller senior at the door; his legs deposited him in the bar; and his eyes showed him his son. "What, Sammy!" exclaimed the father. "What, old Nobs!" ejaculated the son. And they shook hands heartily. "Wery glad to see you, Sammy," said the elder Mr. Weller, "though how you've managed to get over your mother-in-law, is a mystery to me. I only vish you'd write me out the receipt, that's all." "Hush!" said Sam, "she's at home, old feller." "She ain't vithin hearin'," replied Mr. Weller; "she always goes and blows up, down-stairs, for a couple of hours arter tea; so we'll just give ourselves a damp, Sammy." Saying this, Mr. Weller mixed two glasses of spirits and water, and produced a couple of pipes. The father and son sitting down opposite each other: Sam on one side of the fire, in the high-backed chair, and Mr. Weller senior on the other, in an easy ditto: they proceeded to enjoy themselves with all due gravity. "Anybody been here, Sammy?" asked Mr. Weller senior, drily, after a long silence. Sam nodded an expressive assent. "Red-nosed chap?" inquired Mr. Weller. Sam nodded again. "Amiable man that 'ere, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, smoking violently. "Seems so," observed Sam. "Good hand at accounts," said Mr. Weller. "Is he?" said Sam. "Borrows eighteenpence on Monday, and comes on Tuesday for a shillin' to make it up half a crown; calls again on Vensday for another half crown to make it five shillin's; and goes on, doubling, till he gets it up to a five-pund note in no time, like them sums in the 'rithmetic book 'bout the nails in the horse's shoes, Sammy." Sam intimated by a nod that he recollected the problem alluded to by his parent. "So you vouldn't subscribe to the flannel veskits?" said Sam, after another interval of smoking. "Cert'nly not," replied Mr. Weller; "what's the good o' flannel veskits to the young niggers abroad? But I'll tell you what it is, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, lowering his voice, and bending across the fire-place; "I'd come down wery handsome towards strait veskits for some people at home." As Mr. Weller said this, he slowly recovered his former position, and winked at his first-born, in a profound manner. "It cert'nly seems a queer start to send out pocket ankerchers to people as don't know the use on 'em," observed Sam. "They're alvays a doin' some gammon of that sort, Sammy," replied his father. "T'other Sunday I wos walkin' up the road, ven who should I see, a standin' at a chapel-door, with a blue soup-plate in her hand, but your mother-in-law! I werily believe there was change for a couple o' suvrins in it, then, Sammy, all in ha'pence: and as the people came out, they rattled the pennies in it, till you'd ha' thought that no mortal plate as ever was baked could ha' stood the wear and tear. What d'ye think it was all for?" "For another tea-drinkin', perhaps," said Sam. "Not a bit on it," replied the father; "for the shepherd's water-rate, Sammy." "The shepherd's water-rate!" said Sam. "Ay," replied Mr. Weller, "there was three quarters owin' and the shepherd hadn't paid a farden, not he--perhaps it might be on account that the water warn't o' much use to him, for it's wery little o' that tap he drinks, Sammy, wery; he knows a trick worth a good half-dozen of that, he does. Hows'ever, it warn't paid, and so they cuts the water off. Down goes the shepherd to chapel, gives out as he's a persecuted saint, and says he hopes the heart of the turncock as cut the water off, 'll be softened, and turned in the right vay: but he rayther thinks he's booked for somethin' uncomfortable. Upon this, the women calls a meetin', sings a hymn, wotes your mother-in-law into the chair, wolunteers a collection next Sunday, and hands it all over to the shepherd. And if he ain't got enough out on 'em, Sammy, to make him free of the water company for life," said Mr. Weller, in conclusion, "I'm one Dutchman, and you're another, and that's all about it." Mr. Weller smoked for some minutes in silence, and then resumed: "The worst o' these here shepherds is, my boy, that they reg'larly turns the heads of all the young ladies, about here. Lord bless their little hearts, they thinks it's all right, and don't know no better: but they're the wictims o' gammon, Samivel, they're the wictims o' gammon." "I s'pose they are," said Sam. "Nothin' else," said Mr. Weller, shaking his head gravely; "and wot aggrawates me, Samivel, is to see 'em a wastin' all their time and labour in making clothes for copper-coloured people as don't want 'em, and taking no notice of flesh-coloured Christians as do. If I'd my vay, Samivel, I'd just stick some o' these here lazy shepherds behind a heavy wheelbarrow, and run 'em up and down a fourteen-inch-wide plank all day. That 'ud shake the nonsense out of 'em, if anything vould." Mr. Weller having delivered this gentle recipe with strong emphasis, eked out by a variety of nods and contortions of the eye, emptied his glass at a draught, and knocked the ashes out of his pipe, with native dignity. He was engaged in this operation, when a shrill voice was heard in the passage. "Here's your dear relation, Sammy," said Mr. Weller; and Mrs. W. hurried into the room. "Oh, you've come back, have you!" said Mrs. Weller. "Yes, my dear," replied Mr. Weller, filling a fresh pipe. "Has Mr. Stiggins been back?" said Mrs. Weller. "No, my dear, he hasn't," replied Mr. Weller, lighting the pipe by the ingenious process of holding to the bowl thereof, between the tongs, a red-hot coal from the adjacent fire; "and what's more, my dear, I shall manage to survive it, if he don't come back at all." "Ugh, you wretch!" said Mrs. Weller. "Thank'ee, my love," said Mr. Weller. "Come, come, father," said Sam, "none o' these little lovins afore strangers. Here's the reverend gen'lm'n a comin' in now." At this announcement, Mrs. Weller hastily wiped off the tears which she had just begun to force on; and Mr. W. drew his chair sullenly into the chimney corner. Mr. Stiggins was easily prevailed on to take another glass of the hot pine-apple rum and water, and a second, and a third, and then to refresh himself with a slight supper, previous to beginning again. He sat on the same side as Mr. Weller senior; and every time he could contrive to do so, unseen by his wife, that gentleman indicated to his son the hidden emotions of his bosom, by shaking his fist over the deputy shepherd's head: a process which afforded his son the most unmingled delight and satisfaction, and more especially as Mr. Stiggins went on quietly drinking the hot pine-apple rum and water, wholly unconscious of what was going on. The major part of the conversation was confined to Mrs. Weller and the Reverend Mr. Stiggins; and the topics principally descanted on, were the virtues of the shepherd, the worthiness of his flock, and the high crimes and misdemeanours of everybody beside; dissertations which the elder Mr. Weller occasionally interrupted by half-suppressed references to a gentleman of the name of Walker, and other running commentaries of the same kind. At length, Mr. Stiggins, with several most indubitable symptoms of having quite as much pine-apple rum and water about him, as he could comfortably accommodate, took his hat and his leave: and Sam was, immediately afterwards, shown to bed by his father. The respectable old gentleman wrung his hand fervently, and seemed disposed to address some observation to his son; but on Mrs. Weller advancing towards him, he appeared to relinquish that intention, and abruptly bade him good night. Sam was up betimes next day, and having partaken of a hasty breakfast, prepared to return to London. He had scarcely set foot without the house, when his father stood before him. "Goin', Sammy?" inquired Mr. Weller. "Off at once," replied Sam. "I vish you could muffle that 'ere Stiggins, and take him with you," said Mr. Weller. "I am ashamed on you!" said Sam, reproachfully; "what do you let him show his red nose in the Markis o' Granby at all, for?" Mr. Weller the elder fixed on his son an earnest look, and replied, "'Cause I'm a married man, Samivel, 'cause I'm a married man. When you're a married man, Samivel, you'll understand a good many things as you don't understand now; but vether it's worth while going through so much, to learn so little, as the charity boy said ven he got to the end of the alphabet, is a matter o' taste. _I_ rayther think it isn't." "Well," said Sam, "good-bye." "Tar tar, Sammy," replied his father. "I've only got to say this here," said Sam, stopping short, "that if _I_ was the properiator o' the Markis o' Granby, and that 'ere Stiggins came and made toast in _my_ bar, I'd----" "What?" interposed Mr. Weller, with great anxiety. "What?" "--Pison his rum and water," said Sam. "No!" said Mr. Weller, shaking his son eagerly by the hand; "would you raly, Sammy? would you though?" "I would," said Sam. "I wouldn't be too hard upon him at first. I'd drop him in the water-butt, and put the lid on; and if I found he was insensible to kindness, I'd try the other persvasion." The elder Mr. Weller bestowed a look of deep, unspeakable admiration on his son: and, having once more grasped his hand, walked slowly away, revolving in his mind the numerous reflections to which his advice had given rise. Sam looked after him, until he turned a corner of the road: and then set forward on his walk to London. He meditated, at first, on the probable consequences of his own advice, and the likelihood and unlikelihood of his father's adopting it. He dismissed the subject from his mind, however, with the consolatory reflection that time alone would show; and this is the reflection we would impress upon the reader. CHAPTER XXVIII [Illustration] _A Good-humoured Christmas Chapter, containing an Account of a Wedding, and some other Sports beside: which although in their Way even as Good Customs as Marriage itself, are not quite so religiously kept up, in these Degenerate Times_ As brisk as bees, if not altogether as light as fairies, did the four Pickwickians assemble on the morning of the twenty-second day of December, in the year of grace in which these, their faithfully-recorded adventures, were undertaken and accomplished. Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness; the old year was preparing, like an ancient philosopher, to call his friends around him, and amidst the sound of feasting and revelry to pass gently and calmly away. Gay and merry was as the time, and gay and merry were at least four of the numerous hearts that were gladdened by its coming. And numerous indeed are the hearts to which Christmas brings a brief season of happiness and enjoyment. How many families, whose members have been dispersed and scattered far and wide, in the restless struggles of life, are then re-united, and meet once again in that happy state of companionship and mutual good-will, which is a source of such pure and unalloyed delight, and one so incompatible with the cares and sorrows of the world, that the religious belief of the most civilised nations, and the rude traditions of the roughest savages, alike number it among the first joys of a future condition of existence, provided for the blest and happy! How many old recollections, and how many dormant sympathies, does Christmas time awaken! We write these words now, many miles distant from the spot at which, year after year, we met on that day, a merry and joyous circle. Many of the hearts that throbbed so gaily then, have ceased to beat; many of the looks that shone so brightly then, have ceased to glow; the hands we grasped, have grown cold; the eyes we sought, have hid their lustre in the grave; and yet the old house, the room, the merry voices and smiling faces, the jest, the laugh, the most minute and trivial circumstances connected with those happy meetings, crowd upon our minds at each recurrence of the season, as if the last assemblage had been but yesterday! Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fireside and his quiet home! But we are so taken up and occupied with the good qualities of this saint Christmas, that we are keeping Mr. Pickwick and his friends waiting in the cold on the outside of the Muggleton coach, which they have just attained, well wrapped up in great-coats, shawls, and comforters. The portmanteaus and carpet-bags have been stowed away, and Mr. Weller and the guard are endeavouring to insinuate into a fore-boot a huge cod-fish several sizes too large for it--which is snugly packed up, in a long brown basket, with a layer of straw over the top, and which has been left to the last, in order that he may repose safely on the half-dozen barrels of real native oysters, all the property of Mr. Pickwick, which have been arranged in regular order at the bottom of the receptacle. The interest displayed in Mr. Pickwick's countenance is most intense, as Mr. Weller and the guard try to squeeze the cod-fish into the boot, first head first, and then tail first, and then top upward, and then bottom upward, and then side-ways, and then long-ways, all of which artifices the implacable cod-fish sturdily resists, until the guard accidentally hits him in the very middle of the basket, whereupon he suddenly disappears into the boot, and with him, the head and shoulders of the guard himself, who, not calculating upon so sudden a cessation of the passive resistance of the cod-fish, experiences a very unexpected shock, to the unsmotherable delight of all the porters and bystanders. Upon this, Mr. Pickwick smiles with great good-humour, and drawing a shilling from his waistcoat pocket, begs the guard, as he picks himself out of the boot, to drink his health in a glass of hot brandy and water; at which the guard smiles too, and Messrs. Snodgrass, Winkle, and Tupman, all smile in company. The guard and Mr. Weller disappear for five minutes: most probably to get the hot brandy and water, for they smell very strongly of it, when they return; the coachman mounts the box, Mr. Weller jumps up behind, the Pickwickians pull their coats round their legs and their shawls over their noses, the helpers pull the horse-cloths off, the coachman shouts out a cheery "All right!" and away they go. They have rumbled through the streets, and jolted over the stones, and at length reach the wide and open country. The wheels skim over the hard and frosty ground; and the horses, bursting into a canter at a smart crack of the whip, step along the road as if the load behind them--coach, passengers, cod-fish, oyster barrels, and all--were but a feather at their heels. They have descended a gentle slope, and enter upon a level, as compact and dry as a solid block of marble, two miles long. Another crack of the whip, and on they speed, at a smart gallop: the horses tossing their heads and rattling the harness, as if in exhilaration at the rapidity of the motion: while the coachman, holding whip and reins in one hand, takes off his hat with the other, and resting it on his knees, pulls out his handkerchief, and wipes his forehead: partly because he has the habit of doing it, and partly because it's as well to show the passengers how cool he is, and what an easy thing it is to drive four-in-hand, when you have had as much practice as he has. Having done this very leisurely (otherwise the effect would be materially impaired), he replaces his handkerchief, pulls on his hat, adjusts his gloves, squares his elbows, cracks the whip again, and on they speed, more merrily than before. A few small houses, scattered on either side of the road, betoken the entrance to some town or village. The lively notes of the guard's key-bugle vibrate in the clear cold air, and wake up the old gentleman inside, who, carefully letting down the window-sash half-way, and standing sentry over the air, takes a short peep out, and then carefully pulling it up again, informs the other inside that they're going to change directly; on which the other inside wakes himself up, and determines to postpone his next nap until after the stoppage. Again the bugle sounds lustily forth, and rouses the cottager's wife and children, who peep out at the house-door, and watch the coach till it turns the corner, when they once more crouch round the blazing fire, and throw on another log of wood against father comes home; while father himself, a full mile off, has just exchanged a friendly nod with the coachman, and turned round to take a good long stare at the vehicle as it whirls away. And now the bugle plays a lively air as the coach rattles through the ill-paved streets of a country town; and the coachman, undoing the buckle which keeps his ribands together, prepares to throw them off the moment he stops. Mr. Pickwick emerges from his coat collar, and looks about him with great curiosity; perceiving which, the coachman informs Mr. Pickwick of the name of the town, and tells him it was market-day yesterday, both of which pieces of information Mr. Pickwick retails to his fellow-passengers; whereupon they emerge from their coat collars too, and look about them also. Mr. Winkle, who sits at the extreme edge, with one leg dangling in the air, is nearly precipitated into the street, as the coach twists round the sharp corner by the cheesemonger's shop, and turns into the market-place; and before Mr. Snodgrass, who sits next to him, has recovered from his alarm, they pull up at the inn-yard, where the fresh horses, with cloths on, are already waiting. The coachman throws down the reins and gets down himself, and the other outside passengers drop down also: except those who have no great confidence in their ability to get up again; and they remain where they are, and stamp their feet against the coach to warm them--looking, with longing eyes and red noses, at the bright fire in the inn bar, and the sprigs of holly with red berries which ornament the window. But the guard has delivered at the corn-dealer's shop the brown paper packet he took out of the little pouch which hangs over his shoulder by a leathern strap; and has seen the horses carefully put to; and has thrown on the pavement the saddle which was brought from London on the coach-roof; and has assisted in the conference between the coachman and the hostler about the grey mare that hurt her off-fore-leg last Tuesday; and he and Mr. Weller are all right behind, and the coachman is all right in front, and the old gentleman inside, who has kept the window down full two inches all this time, has pulled it up again, and the cloths are off, and they are all ready for starting, except the "two stout gentlemen," whom the coachman inquires after with some impatience. Hereupon the coachman, and the guard, and Sam Weller, and Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass, and all the hostlers, and every one of the idlers, who are more in number than all the others put together, shout for the missing gentlemen as loud as they can bawl. A distant response is heard from the yard, and Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman come running down it, quite out of breath, for they have been having a glass of ale apiece, and Mr. Pickwick's fingers are so cold that he has been full five minutes before he could find the sixpence to pay for it. The coachman shouts an admonitory "Now, then, gen'lm'n!" the guard re-echoes it; the old gentleman inside thinks it a very extraordinary thing that people _will_ get down when they know there isn't time for it; Mr. Pickwick struggles up on one side, Mr. Tupman on the other; Mr. Winkle cries "All right!" and off they start. Shawls are pulled up, coat-collars are re-adjusted, the pavement ceases, the houses disappear, and they are once again dashing along the open road, with the fresh clear air blowing in their faces, and gladdening their very hearts within them. [Illustration: _A distant response is heard from the yard, and Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman come running down it._] Such was the progress of Mr. Pickwick and his friends by the Muggleton Telegraph, on their way to Dingley Dell; and at three o'clock that afternoon they all stood, high and dry, safe and sound, hale and hearty, upon the steps of the Blue Lion, having taken on the road quite enough of ale and brandy to enable them to bid defiance to the frost that was binding up the earth in its iron fetters, and weaving its beautiful net-work upon the trees and hedges. Mr. Pickwick was busily engaged in counting the barrels of oysters, and superintending the disinterment of the cod-fish, when he felt himself gently pulled by the skirts of the coat. Looking round, he discovered that the individual who resorted to this mode of catching his attention was no other than Mr. Wardle's favourite page, better known to the readers of this unvarnished history, by the distinguished appellation of the fat boy. "Aha!" said Mr. Pickwick. "Aha!" said the fat boy. As he said it, he glanced from the cod-fish to the oyster-barrels, and chuckled joyously. He was fatter than ever. "Well, you look rosy enough, my young friend," said Mr. Pickwick. "I've been asleep, right in front of the tap-room fire," replied the fat boy, who had heated himself to the colour of a new chimney-pot, in the course of an hour's nap. "Master sent me over with the shay-cart to carry your luggage up to the house. He'd ha' sent some saddle-horses, but he thought you'd rather walk, being a cold day." "Yes, yes," said Mr. Pickwick, hastily, for he remembered how they had travelled over nearly the same ground on a previous occasion. "Yes, we would rather walk. Here, Sam!" "Sir?" said Mr. Weller. "Help Mr. Wardle's servant to put the packages into the cart, and then ride on with him. We will walk forward at once." Having given this direction, and settled with the coachman, Mr. Pickwick and his three friends struck into the footpath across the fields, and walked briskly away, leaving Mr. Weller and the fat boy confronted together for the first time. Sam looked at the fat boy with great astonishment, but without saying a word; and began to stow the luggage rapidly away in the cart, while the fat boy stood quietly by, and seemed to think it a very interesting sort of thing to see Mr. Weller working by himself. [Illustration: "_Aha!" said the fat boy_] "There," said Sam, throwing in the last carpet-bag. "There they are!" "Yes," said the fat boy, in a very satisfied tone, "there they are!" "Vell, young twenty stun," said Sam, "you're a nice specimen of a prize boy, you are!" "Thankee," said the fat boy. "You ain't got nothin' on your mind as makes you fret yourself, have you?" inquired Sam. "Not as I knows on," replied the fat boy. "I should rayther ha' thought, to look at you, that you was a labourin' under an unrequited attachment to some young 'ooman," said Sam. The fat boy shook his head. "Vell," said Sam, "I'm glad to hear it. Do you ever drink anythin'?" "I likes eating better," replied the boy. "Ah," said Sam, "I should ha' s'posed that; but what I mean is, should you like a drop of anythin' as 'd warm you? but I s'pose you never was cold, with all them elastic fixtures, was you?" "Sometimes," replied the boy; "and I likes a drop of something, when it's good." "Oh, you do, do you?" said Sam, "come this way, then!" The Blue Lion tap was soon gained, and the fat boy swallowed a glass of liquor without so much as winking; a feat which considerably advanced him in Mr. Weller's good opinion. Mr. Weller having transacted a similar piece of business on his own account, they got into the cart. "Can you drive?" said the fat boy. "I should rayther think so," replied Sam. "There, then," said the fat boy, putting the reins in his hand, and pointing up a lane, "it's as straight as you can go; you can't miss it." With these words, the fat boy laid himself affectionately down by the side of the cod-fish: and placing an oyster-barrel under his head for a pillow, fell asleep instantaneously. "Well," said Sam, "of all the cool boys ever I set my eyes on, this here young gen'lm'n is the coolest. Come, wake up, young dropsy!" But as young dropsy evinced no symptoms of returning animation, Sam Weller sat himself down in front of the cart, and starting the old horse with a jerk of the rein, jogged steadily on, towards Manor Farm. Meanwhile, Mr. Pickwick and his friends having walked their blood into active circulation, proceeded cheerfully on. The paths were hard; the grass was crisp and frosty; the air had a fine, dry, bracing coldness; and the rapid approach of the grey twilight (slate-coloured is a better term in frosty weather) made them look forward with pleasant anticipation to the comforts which awaited them at their hospitable entertainer's. It was the sort of afternoon that might induce a couple of elderly gentlemen, in a lonely field, to take off their great-coats and play at leap-frog in pure lightness of heart and gaiety; and we firmly believe that had Mr. Tupman at that moment proffered "a back," Mr. Pickwick would have accepted his offer with the utmost avidity. However, Mr. Tupman did not volunteer any such accommodation, and the friends walked on, conversing merrily. As they turned into a lane they had to cross, the sound of many voices burst upon their ears; and before they had even had time to form a guess to whom they belonged, they walked into the very centre of the party who were expecting their arrival--a fact which was first notified to the Pickwickians, by the loud "Hurrah!" which burst from old Wardle's lips, when they appeared in sight. First, here was Wardle himself, looking, if possible, more jolly than ever; then there were Bella and her faithful Trundle; and, lastly, there were Emily and some eight or ten young ladies, who had all come down to the wedding, which was to take place next day, and who were in as happy and important a state as young ladies usually are, on such momentous occasions; and they were, one and all, startling the fields and lanes, far and wide, with their frolic and laughter. The ceremony of introduction, under such circumstances, was very soon performed, or we should rather say that the introduction was soon over, without any ceremony at all. In two minutes thereafter, Mr. Pickwick was joking with the young ladies who wouldn't come over the stile while he looked--or who, having pretty feet and unexceptionable ankles, preferred standing on the top-rail for five minutes or so, declaring that they were too frightened to move--with as much ease and absence of reserve or constraint, as if he had known them for life. It is worthy of remark, too, that Mr. Snodgrass offered Emily far more assistance than the absolute terrors of the stile (although it was full three feet high, and had only a couple of stepping-stones) would seem to require; while one black-eyed young lady in a very nice little pair of boots, with fur round the top, was observed to scream very loudly, when Mr. Winkle offered to help her over. All this was very snug and pleasant. And when the difficulties of the stile were at last surmounted, and they once more entered on the open field, old Wardle informed Mr. Pickwick how they had all been down in a body to inspect the furniture and fittings-up of the house, which the young couple were to tenant, after the Christmas holidays; at which communication Bella and Trundle both coloured up, as red as the fat boy after the tap-room fire; and the young lady with the black eyes and the fur round the boots, whispered something in Emily's ear, and then glanced archly at Mr. Snodgrass; to which Emily responded that she was a foolish girl, but turned very red, notwithstanding; and Mr. Snodgrass, who was as modest as all great geniuses usually are, felt the crimson rising to the crown of his head, and devoutly wished in the inmost recesses of his own heart that the young lady aforesaid, with her black eyes, and her archness, and her boots with the fur round the top, were all comfortably deposited in the adjacent county. But if they were social and happy outside the house, what was the warmth and cordiality of their reception when they reached the farm! The very servants grinned with pleasure at sight of Mr. Pickwick; and Emma bestowed a half-demure, half-impudent, and all pretty, look of recognition on Mr. Tupman, which was enough to make the statue of Bonaparte in the passage unfold his arms, and clasp her within them. The old lady was seated in customary state in the front parlour, but she was rather cross, and, by consequence, most particularly deaf. She never went out herself, and like a great many other old ladies of the same stamp, she was apt to consider it an act of domestic treason if anybody else took the liberty of doing what she couldn't. So, bless her old soul, she sat as upright as she could, in her great armchair, and looked as fierce as might be--and that was benevolent after all. "Mother," said Wardle, "Mr. Pickwick. You recollect him?" "Never mind," replied the old lady with great dignity. "Don't trouble Mr. Pickwick about an old creetur like me. Nobody cares about me now, and it's very nat'ral they shouldn't." Here the old lady tossed her head, and smoothed down her lavender-coloured silk dress, with trembling hands. "Come, come, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, "I can't let you cut an old friend in this way. I have come down expressly to have a long talk, and another rubber with you; and we'll show these boys and girls how to dance a minuet, before they're eight-and-forty hours older." The old lady was rapidly giving way, but she did not like to do it all at once; so she only said, "Ah! I can't hear him!" "Nonsense, mother," said Wardle. "Come, come, don't be cross, there's a good soul. Recollect Bella; come, you must keep her spirits up, poor girl." The good lady heard this, for her lip quivered as her son said it. But age has its little infirmities of temper, and she was not quite brought round yet. So, she smoothed down the lavender-coloured dress again, and turning to Mr. Pickwick said, "Ah, Mr. Pickwick, young people was very different, when I was a girl." "No doubt of that, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, "and that's the reason why I would make much of the few that have any traces of the old stock,"--and saying this, Mr. Pickwick gently pulled Bella towards him, and bestowing a kiss upon her forehead, bade her sit down on the little stool at her grandmother's feet. Whether the expression of her countenance, as it was raised towards the old lady's face, called up a thought of old times, or whether the old lady was touched by Mr. Pickwick's affectionate good nature, or whatever was the cause, she was fairly melted; so she threw herself on her grand-daughter's neck, and all the little ill-humour evaporated in a gush of silent tears. A happy party they were, that night. Sedate and solemn were the score of rubbers in which Mr. Pickwick and the old lady played together; uproarious was the mirth of the round table. Long after the ladies had retired, did the hot elder-wine, well qualified with brandy and spice, go round, and round, and round again; and sound was the sleep and pleasant were the dreams that followed. It is a remarkable fact that those of Mr. Snodgrass bore constant reference to Emily Wardle; and that the principal figure in Mr. Winkle's visions was a young lady with black eyes, an arch smile, and a pair of remarkably nice boots with fur round the tops. Mr. Pickwick was awakened, early in the morning, by a hum of voices and a pattering of feet, sufficient to rouse even the fat boy from his heavy slumbers. He sat up in bed and listened. The female servants and female visitors were running constantly to and fro; and there were such multitudinous demands for hot water, such repeated outcries for needles and thread, and so many half-suppressed entreaties of "Oh, do come and tie me, there's a dear!" that Mr. Pickwick in his innocence began to imagine that something dreadful must have occurred: when he grew more awake, and remembered the wedding. The occasion being an important one he dressed himself with peculiar care, and descended to the breakfast room. There were all the female servants in a brand new uniform of pink muslin gowns with white bows in their caps, running about the house in a state of excitement and agitation which it would be impossible to describe. The old lady was dressed out in a brocaded gown which had not seen the light for twenty years, saving and excepting such truant rays as had stolen through the chinks in the box in which it had been laid by, during the whole time. Mr. Trundle was in high feather and spirits, but a little nervous withal. The hearty old landlord was trying to look very cheerful and unconcerned, but failing signally in the attempt. All the girls were in tears and white muslin, except a select two or three who were being honoured with a private view of the bride and bridesmaids, upstairs. All the Pickwickians were in a most blooming array; and there was a terrific roaring on the grass in front of the house, occasioned by all the men, boys, and hobbledehoys attached to the farm, each of whom had got a white bow in his button-hole, and all of whom were cheering with might and main: being incited thereunto, and stimulated therein, by the precept and example of Mr. Samuel Weller, who had managed to become mighty popular already, and was as much at home as if he had been born on the land. A wedding is a licensed subject to joke upon, but there really is no great joke in the matter after all;--we speak merely of the ceremony, and beg it to be distinctly understood that we indulge in no hidden sarcasm upon a married life. Mixed up with the pleasure and joy of the occasion, are the many regrets at quitting home, the tears of parting between parent and child, the consciousness of leaving the dearest and kindest friends of the happiest portion of human life, to encounter its cares and troubles with others still untried and little known: natural feelings which we would not render this chapter mournful by describing, and which we should be still more unwilling to be supposed to ridicule. Let us briefly say, then, that the ceremony was performed by the old clergyman, in the parish church of Dingley Dell, and that Mr. Pickwick's name is attached to the register, still preserved in the vestry thereof; that the young lady with the black eyes signed her name in a very unsteady and tremulous manner; that Emily's signature, as the other bridesmaid, is nearly illegible; that it all went off in very admirable style; that the young ladies generally thought it far less shocking than they had expected; and that although the owner of the black eyes and the arch smile informed Mr. Winkle that she was sure she could never submit to anything so dreadful, we have the very best reasons for thinking she was mistaken. To all this, we may add, that Mr. Pickwick was the first who saluted the bride, and that in so doing, he threw over her neck a rich gold watch and chain, which no mortal eyes but the jeweller's had ever beheld before. Then, the old church bell rang as gaily as it could, and they all returned to breakfast. "Vere does the mince pies go, young opium-eater?" said Mr. Weller to the fat boy, as he assisted in laying out such articles of consumption as had not been duly arranged on the previous night. The fat boy pointed to the destination of the pies. "Wery good," said Sam, "stick a bit o' Christmas in 'em. T'other dish opposite. There; now we look compact and comfortable, as the father said ven he cut his little boy's head off, to cure him of squintin'." As Mr. Weller made the comparison, he fell back a step or two, to give full effect to it, and surveyed the preparations with the utmost satisfaction. "Wardle," said Mr. Pickwick, almost as soon as they were all seated, "a glass of wine in honour of this happy occasion!" "I shall be delighted, my boy," said Wardle. "Joe--damn that boy, he's gone to sleep." "No, I ain't, sir," replied the fat boy, starting up from a remote corner, where, like the patron saint of fat boys--the immortal Horner--he had been devouring a Christmas pie: though not with the coolness and deliberation which characterised that young gentleman's proceedings. "Fill Mr. Pickwick's glass." "Yes, sir." The fat boy filled Mr. Pickwick's glass, and then retired behind his master's chair, from whence he watched the play of the knives and forks, and the progress of the choice morsels from the dishes to the mouths of the company, with a kind of dark and gloomy joy that was most impressive. "God bless you, old fellow!" said Mr. Pickwick. "Same to you, my boy," replied Wardle, and they pledged each other heartily. "Mrs. Wardle," said Mr. Pickwick, "we old folks must have a glass of wine together, in honour of this joyful event." The old lady was in a state of great grandeur just then, for she was sitting at the top of the table in the brocaded gown, with her newly-married granddaughter on one side and Mr. Pickwick on the other, to do the carving. Mr. Pickwick had not spoken in a very loud tone, but she understood him at once, and drank off a full glass of wine to his long life and happiness; after which the worthy old soul launched forth into a minute and particular account of her own wedding, with a dissertation on the fashion of wearing high-heeled shoes, and some particulars concerning the life and adventures of the beautiful Lady Tollimglower, deceased: at all of which the old lady herself laughed very heartily indeed, and so did the young ladies too, for they were wondering among themselves what on earth grandma was talking about. When they laughed, the old lady laughed ten times more heartily, and said that these always had been considered capital stories: which caused them all to laugh again, and put the old lady into the very best of humours. Then, the cake was cut, and passed through the ring; the young ladies saved pieces to put under their pillows to dream of their future husbands on; and a great deal of blushing and merriment was thereby occasioned. "Mr. Miller," said Mr. Pickwick to his old acquaintance the hard-headed gentleman, "a glass of wine?" "With great satisfaction, Mr. Pickwick," replied the hard-headed gentleman, solemnly. "You'll take me in?" said the benevolent old clergyman. "And me," interposed his wife. "And me, and me," said a couple of poor relations at the bottom of the table, who had eaten and drank very heartily, and laughed at everything. Mr. Pickwick expressed his heartfelt delight at every additional suggestion: and his eyes beamed with hilarity and cheerfulness. "Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Pickwick, suddenly rising. "Hear, hear! Hear, hear! Hear, hear!" cried Mr. Weller, in the excitement of his feelings. "Call in all the servants," cried old Wardle, interposing to prevent the public rebuke which Mr. Weller would otherwise most indubitably have received from his master. "Give them a glass of wine each, to drink the toast in. Now, Pickwick." Amidst the silence of the company, the whispering of the women servants, and the awkward embarrassment of the men, Mr. Pickwick proceeded. "Ladies and gentlemen--no, I won't say ladies and gentlemen, I'll call you my friends, my dear friends, if the ladies will allow me to take so great a liberty"---- Here Mr. Pickwick was interrupted by immense applause from the ladies, echoed by the gentlemen, during which the owner of the eyes was distinctly heard to state that she could kiss that dear Mr. Pickwick. Whereupon Mr. Winkle gallantly inquired if it couldn't be done by deputy: to which the young lady with the black eyes replied, "Go away"--and accompanied the request with a look which said as plainly as a look could do--"if you can." "My dear friends," resumed Mr. Pickwick, "I am going to propose the health of the bride and bridegroom--God bless 'em (cheers and tears). My young friend, Trundle, I believe to be a very excellent and manly fellow; and his wife I know to be a very amiable and lovely girl, well qualified to transfer to another sphere of action the happiness which for twenty years she has diffused around her, in her father's house. (Here, the fat boy burst forth into stentorian blubberings, and was led forth by the coat collar, by Mr. Weller.) I wish," added Mr. Pickwick, "I wish I was young enough to be her sister's husband (cheers), but, failing that, I am happy to be old enough to be her father; for, being so, I shall not be suspected of any latent designs when I say, that I admire, esteem, and love them both (cheers and sobs). The bride's father, our good friend there, is a noble person, and I am proud to know him (great uproar). He is a kind, excellent, independent-spirited, fine-hearted, hospitable, liberal man (enthusiastic shouts from the poor relations, at all the adjectives; and especially at the two last). That his daughter may enjoy all the happiness, even he can desire; and that he may derive from the contemplation of her felicity all the gratification of heart and peace of mind which he so well deserves, is, I am persuaded, our united wish. So, let us drink their healths, and wish them prolonged life, and every blessing!" Mr. Pickwick concluded amidst a whirlwind of applause; and once more were the lungs of the supernumeraries, under Mr. Weller's command, brought into active and efficient operation. Mr. Wardle proposed Mr. Pickwick; Mr. Pickwick proposed the old lady. Mr. Snodgrass proposed Mr. Wardle; Mr. Wardle proposed Mr. Snodgrass. One of the poor relations proposed Mr. Tupman, and the other poor relation proposed Mr. Winkle; all was happiness and festivity, until the mysterious disappearance of both the poor relations beneath the table warned the party that it was time to adjourn. At dinner they met again, after a five-and-twenty mile walk, undertaken by the males at Wardle's recommendation, to get rid of the effects of the wine at breakfast. The poor relations had kept in bed all day, with the view of attaining the same happy consummation, but, as they had been unsuccessful, they stopped there. Mr. Weller kept the domestics in a state of perpetual hilarity; and the fat boy divided his time into small alternate allotments of eating and sleeping. The dinner was as hearty an affair as the breakfast, and was quite as noisy, without the tears. Then came the dessert and some more toasts. Then came the tea and coffee; and then the ball. The best sitting-room at Manor Farm was a good, long, dark-panelled room, with a high chimney-piece, and a capacious chimney, up which you could have driven one of the new patent cabs, wheels and all. At the upper end of the room, seated in a shady bower of holly and evergreens, were the two best fiddlers, and the only harp, in all Muggleton. In all sorts of recesses, and on all kinds of brackets, stood massive old silver candlesticks with four branches each. The carpet was up, the candles burnt bright, the fire blazed and crackled on the hearth, and merry voices and light-hearted laughter rang through the room. If any of the old English yeomen had turned into fairies when they died, it was just the place in which they would have held their revels. If anything could have added to the interest of this agreeable scene, it would have been the remarkable fact of Mr. Pickwick's appearing without his gaiters, for the first time within the memory of his oldest friends. "You mean to dance?" said Wardle. "Of course I do," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Don't you see I am dressed for the purpose?" Mr. Pickwick called attention to his speckled stockings, and smartly tied pumps. "_You_ in silk stockings!" exclaimed Mr. Tupman, jocosely. "And why not, sir--why not?" said Mr. Pickwick, turning warmly upon him. "Oh, of course there is no reason why you shouldn't wear them," responded Mr. Tupman. "I imagine not, sir, I imagine not," said Mr. Pickwick in a very peremptory tone. Mr. Tupman had contemplated a laugh, but he found it was a serious matter; so he looked grave, and said they were a pretty pattern. "I hope they are," said Mr. Pickwick, fixing his eyes upon his friend. "You see nothing extraordinary in the stockings, _as_ stockings, I trust, sir?" "Certainly not. Oh certainly not," replied Mr. Tupman. He walked away; and Mr. Pickwick's countenance resumed its customary benign expression. "We are all ready, I believe," said Mr. Pickwick, who was stationed with the old lady at the top of the dance, and had already made four false starts, in his excessive anxiety to commence. "Then begin at once," said Wardle. "Now!" Up struck the two fiddles and the one harp, and off went Mr. Pickwick into hands across, when there was a general clapping of hands and a cry of "Stop, stop!" "What's the matter?" said Mr. Pickwick, who was only brought to by the fiddles and harp desisting, and could have been stopped by no other earthly power, if the house had been on fire. "Where's Arabella Allen?" cried a dozen voices. "And Winkle?" added Mr. Tupman. "Here we are!" exclaimed that gentleman, emerging with his pretty companion from the corner; as he did so, it would have been hard to tell which was the redder in the face, he or the young lady with the black eyes. "What an extraordinary thing it is, Winkle," said Mr. Pickwick, rather pettishly, "that you couldn't have taken your place before." "Not at all extraordinary," said Mr. Winkle. "Well," said Mr. Pickwick, with a very expressive smile, as his eyes rested on Arabella, "well, I don't know that it _was_ extraordinary either, after all." However, there was no time to think more about the matter, for the fiddles and harp began in real earnest. Away went Mr. Pickwick--hands across--down the middle to the very end of the room, and half-way up the chimney, back again to the door--poussette everywhere--loud stamp on the ground--ready for the next couple--off again--all the figure over once more--another stamp to beat out the time--next couple, and the next, and the next again--never was such going! At last, after they had reached the bottom of the dance, and full fourteen couple after the old lady had retired in an exhausted state, and the clergyman's wife had been substituted in her stead, did that gentleman, when there was no demand whatever on his exertions, keep perpetually dancing in his place, to keep time to the music; smiling on his partner all the while with a blandness of demeanour which baffles all description. Long before Mr. Pickwick was weary of dancing, the newly-married couple had retired from the scene. There was a glorious supper downstairs, notwithstanding, and a good long sitting after it; and when Mr. Pickwick awoke, late the next morning, he had a confused recollection of having, severally and confidentially, invited somewhere about five-and-forty people to dine with him at the George and Vulture, the very first time they came to London; which Mr. Pickwick rightly considered a pretty certain indication of his having taken something besides exercise, on the previous night. "And so your family has games in the kitchen to-night, my dear, has they?" inquired Sam of Emma. "Yes, Mr. Weller," replied Emma; "we always have on Christmas Eve. Master wouldn't neglect to keep it up on any account." "Your master's a wery pretty notion of keepin' anythin' up, my dear," said Mr. Weller; "I never see such a sensible sort of man as he is, or such a reg'lar gen'l'm'n." "Oh, that he is!" said the fat boy, joining in the conversation; "don't he breed nice pork!" The fat youth gave a semi-cannibalic leer at Mr. Weller, as he thought of the roast legs and gravy. "Oh, you've woke up, at last, have you?" said Sam. The fat boy nodded. "I'll tell you what it is, young boa-constructer," said Mr. Weller, impressively; "if you don't sleep a little less, and exercise a little more, ven you come to be a man you'll lay yourself open to the same sort of personal inconwenience as was inflicted on the old gen'l'm'n as wore the pigtail." "What did they do to him?" inquired the fat boy, in a faltering voice. "I'm a goin' to tell you," replied Mr. Weller; "he was one o' the largest patterns as was ever turned out--reg'lar fat man, as hadn't caught a glimpse of his own shoes for five-and-forty year." "Lor!" exclaimed Emma. "No, that he hadn't, my dear," said Mr. Weller; "and if you'd put an exact model of his own legs on the dinin' table afore him, he wouldn't ha' known 'em. Well, he always walks to his office with a wery handsome gold watch-chain hanging out, about a foot and a quarter, and a gold watch in his fob pocket as was worth--I'm afraid to say how much, but as much as a watch can be--a large, heavy, round manafacter, as stout for a watch, as he was for a man, and with a big face in proportion. 'You'd better not carry that 'ere watch,' says the old gen'l'm'n's friends, 'you'll be robbed on it,' says they. 'Shall I?' says he. 'Yes, you will,' says they. 'Vell,' says he, 'I should like to see the thief as could get this here watch out, for I'm blest if _I_ ever can, it's such a tight fit,' says he; 'and venever I wants to know what's o'clock, I'm obliged to stare into the bakers' shops,' he says. Well, then he laughs as hearty as if he was a-goin' to pieces, and out he walks agin, with his powdered head and pigtail, and rolls down the Strand vith the chain hangin' out furder than ever, and the great round watch almost bustin' through his grey kersey smalls. There warn't a pickpocket in all London as didn't take a pull at that chain, but the chain 'ud never break, and the watch 'ud never come out, so they soon got tired o' dragging such a heavy old gen'l'm'n along the pavement, and he'd go home and laugh till the pigtail wibrated like the perderlum of a Dutch clock. At last one day the old gen'l'm'n was a-rolling along and he sees a pickpocket as he know'd by sight, a-comin' up, arm in arm vith a little boy with a very large head. 'Here's a game,' says the old gen'l'm'n to himself, 'they're a-goin' to have another try, but it won't do!' So he begins a-chucklin' wery hearty, ven all of a sudden, the little boy leaves hold of the pickpocket's arm, and rushes head foremost straight into the old gen'l'm'n's stomach, and for a moment doubles him right up vith the pain. 'Murder!' says the old gen'l'm'n. 'All right, sir,' says the pickpocket, a-whisperin' in his ear. And when he come straight agin, the watch and chain was gone, and what's worse than that, the old gen'l'm'n's digestion was all wrong ever arterwards, to the wery last day of his life; so just you look about you, young feller, and take care you don't get too fat." As Mr. Weller concluded this moral tale, with which the fat boy appeared much affected, they all three repaired to the large kitchen, in which the family were by this time assembled, according to annual custom on Christmas Eve, observed by old Wardle's fore-fathers from time immemorial. From the centre of the ceiling of this kitchen, old Wardle had just suspended, with his own hands, a huge branch of mistletoe, and this same branch of mistletoe instantaneously gave rise to a scene of general and most delightful struggling and confusion; in the midst of which, Mr. Pickwick, with a gallantry that would have done honour to a descendant of Lady Tollimglower herself, took the old lady by the hand, led her beneath the mystic branch, and saluted her in all courtesy and decorum. The old lady submitted to this piece of practical politeness with all the dignity which befitted so important and serious a solemnity, but the younger ladies, not being so thoroughly imbued with a superstitious veneration for the custom: or imagining that the value of a salute is very much enhanced if it cost a little trouble to obtain it: screamed and struggled, and ran into corners, and threatened and remonstrated, and did everything but leave the room, until some of the less adventurous gentlemen were on the point of desisting, when they all at once found it useless to resist any longer, and submitted to be kissed with a good grace. Mr. Winkle kissed the young lady with the black eyes, and Mr. Snodgrass kissed Emily, and Mr. Weller, not being particular about the form of being under the mistletoe, kissed Emma and the other female servants, just as he caught them. As to the poor relations, they kissed everybody, not even excepting the plainer portions of the young-lady visitors, who, in their excessive confusion, ran right under the mistletoe, as soon as it was hung up, without knowing it! Wardle stood with his back to the fire, surveying the whole scene, with the utmost satisfaction; and the fat boy took the opportunity of appropriating to his own use, and summarily devouring, a particularly fine mince-pie, that had been carefully put by for somebody else. Now the screaming had subsided, and faces were in a glow, and curls in a tangle, and Mr. Pickwick, after kissing the old lady as before mentioned, was standing under the mistletoe, looking with a very pleased countenance on all that was passing around him, when the young lady with the black eyes, after a little whispering with the other young ladies, made a sudden dart forward, and, putting her arm round Mr. Pickwick's neck, saluted him affectionately on the left cheek; and before Mr. Pickwick distinctly knew what was the matter, he was surrounded by the whole body and kissed by every one of them. It was a pleasant thing to see Mr. Pickwick the centre of the group, now pulled this way, and then that, and first kissed on the chin, and then on the nose, and then on the spectacles: and to hear the peals of laughter which were raised on every side; but it was a still more pleasant thing to see Mr. Pickwick, blinded shortly afterwards with a silk handkerchief, falling up against the wall, and scrambling into corners, and going through all the mysteries of blindman's buff, with the utmost relish for the game, until at last he caught one of the poor relations, and then had to evade the blindman himself, which he did with a nimbleness and agility that elicited the admiration and applause of all beholders. The poor relations caught the people who they thought would like it, and, when the game flagged, got caught themselves. When they were all tired of blindman's buff, there was a great game at snap-dragon, and when fingers enough were burned with that, and all the raisins were gone, they sat down by the huge fire of blazing logs to a substantial supper, and a mighty bowl of wassail, something smaller than an ordinary wash-house copper, in which the hot apples were hissing and bubbling with a rich look, and a jolly sound, that were perfectly irresistible. "This," said Mr. Pickwick, looking round him, "this is, indeed, comfort." "Our invariable custom," replied Mr. Wardle. "Everybody sits down with us on Christmas Eve, as you see them now--servants and all; and here we wait, until the clock strikes twelve, to usher Christmas in, and beguile the time with forfeits and old stories. Trundle, my boy, rake up the fire." Up flew the bright sparks in myriads as the logs were stirred. The deep red blaze sent forth a rich glow, that penetrated into the furthest corner of the room, and cast its cheerful tint on every face. "Come," said Wardle, "a song--a Christmas song! I'll give you one, in default of a better." "Bravo!" said Mr. Pickwick. "Fill up!" cried Wardle. "It will be two hours, good, before you see the bottom of the bowl through the deep rich colour of the wassail; fill up all round, and now for a song." Thus saying, the merry old gentleman, in a good, round, sturdy voice, commenced without more ado: A CHRISTMAS CAROL I care not for Spring; on his fickle wing Let the blossoms and buds be borne: He woos them amain with his treacherous rain, And he scatters them ere the morn. An inconstant elf, he knows not himself, Nor his own changing mind an hour, He'll smile in your face, and, with wry grimace, He'll wither your youngest flower. Let the Summer sun to his bright home run, He shall never be sought by me; When he's dimmed by a cloud I can laugh aloud, And care not how sulky he be! For his darling child is the madness wild That sports in fierce fever's train; And when love is too strong it don't last long, As many have found to their pain. A mild harvest night, by the tranquil light Of the modest and gentle moon, Has a far sweeter sheen, for me, I ween, Than the broad and unblushing noon. But every leaf awakens my grief, As it lieth beneath the tree; So let Autumn air be never so fair, It by no means agrees with me. But my song I troll out, for +Christmas+ Stout, The hearty, the true and the bold; A bumper I drain, and with might and main Give three cheers for this Christmas old! We'll usher him in with a merry din That shall gladden his joyous heart, And we'll keep him up, while there's bite or sup, And in fellowship good, we'll part. In his fine honest pride, he scorns to hide One jot of his hard-weather scars; They're no disgrace, for there's much the same trace On the cheeks of our bravest tars. Then again I'll sing 'till the roof doth ring, And it echoes from wall to wall-- To the stout old wight, fair welcome to-night, As the King of the Seasons all! This song was tumultuously applauded--for friends and dependents make a capital audience--and the poor relations, especially, were in perfect ecstasies of rapture. Again was the fire replenished, and again went the wassail round. "How it snows!" said one of the men, in a low tone. "Snows, does it?" said Wardle. "Rough, cold night, sir," replied the man; "and there's a wind got up, that drifts it across the fields, in a thick white cloud." "What does Jem say?" inquired the old lady. "There ain't anything the matter, is there?" "No, no, mother," replied Wardle; "he says there's a snow-drift, and a wind that's piercing cold. I should know that, by the way it rumbles in the chimney." "Ah!" said the old lady, "there was just such a wind, and just such a fall of snow, a good many years back, I recollect--just five years before your poor father died. It was a Christmas Eve, too; and I remember that on that very night he told us the story about the goblins that carried away old Gabriel Grub." "The story about what?" said Mr. Pickwick. "Oh, nothing, nothing," replied Wardle. "About an old sexton, that the good people down here suppose to have been carried away by goblins." "Suppose!" ejaculated the old lady. "Is there anybody hardy enough to disbelieve it? Suppose! Haven't you heard ever since you were a child, that he _was_ carried away by the goblins, and don't you know he was?" "Very well, mother, he was, if you like," said Wardle, laughing. "He _was_ carried away by goblins, Pickwick; and there's an end to the matter." "No, no," said Mr. Pickwick, "not an end of it, I assure you; for I must hear how, and why, and all about it." Wardle smiled as every head was bent forward to hear; and filling out the wassail with no stinted hand, nodded a health to Mr. Pickwick, and began as follows: But bless our editorial heart, what a long chapter we have been betrayed into! We had quite forgotten all such petty restrictions as chapters, we solemnly declare. So here goes, to give the goblin a fair start in a new one! A clear stage and no favour for the goblins, ladies and gentlemen, if you please. END OF VOL. I Printed by +Ballantyne, Hanson, & Co.+ Edinburgh & London Transcriber's note Text in italics was surrounded with _underscores_, an antique font with *asterisks* and small capitals with +signs+. Small errors in punctuation were corrected without note, also the following changes were made, on page 14 "Snodrgass" changed to "Snodgrass" (said Mr. Snodgrass.) 32 "horizon" changed to "heroism" (but his heroism was invincible.) 70 "it" removed (replied Mr. Winkle.) 72 "nothwithstanding" changed to "notwithstanding" (notwithstanding all kinds of coaxing and wheedling) 78 "haraccters" changed to "characters" (and speculate upon the characters and pursuits) 204 "smkoe" changed to "smoke" (who continued to smoke with great vehemence.) 286 "su er" changed to "suffer" (caption: "I won't suffer this barrow to) 289 "tail" changed to "tall" (the very spot where the tall man's brain would have been) 320 "asid" changed to "said" ( said Mr. Pickwick, laughing.) 359 "aimable" changed to "amiable" (it's a amiable weakness) 428 "junps" changed to "jumps" (Mr. Weller jumps up behind) 441 "drive" changed to "derive" (that he may derive from the contemplation of her felicity) 446 "that" changed to "than" (and what's worse than that). Otherwise the original of this edition was preserved, including inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation etc.